Around the League: 2020 Offseason

[Arsenal]

Kennard just got 4/$56M (up to $64M w/bonuses) extension from Clips.

Based on that, how much will it cost us to resign Furkan next summer? $12M/yr?

[Kobblehead]

Watch on YouTube

Bulls are coming, man.

White, Hutchinson, Williams. Good lord they have young talent.

[Negrodamus]

I talked about it before, but what if they have a contending team and put up an offer for Harden. I could see them leaving a lot of meat on the bone for a playoff contender while allowing him to continue to be the entire offense.

[Kobblehead]

Utah drafts well? Other than robbing the Nuggets on draft night and trading for the rights to Donovan Mitchell, they've been a draft night trainwreck for basically a decade straight. They just took Azubuike!

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/draft.html

A team that lowkey drafted well? The lakers.

Ingram, Randle, Ball and DLo with their lottery. Then Clarkson and Kuzma with their late first or second round.

They may not be special but the thought process shows you they know talent. They prioritized multi positional play, shooting and offense.

Drafting straight ballers like this allows you the freedom to put together trade packages to land superstars.

Say the Lakers were some smallmarket team that just extended their young guys instead of luring James/Davis, I honestly think they'd be a perennial playoff team with their stud young core of these three.

[Kobblehead]

BTW, remember this gem from Utah?

Read on Twitter

[Iverson Armband]

BTW, remember this gem from Utah?

Read on Twitter

What an awful trade by the Jazz. Even value wise it’s horrendous.

[HardenToSixers]

Utah drafts well? Other than robbing the Nuggets on draft night and trading for the rights to Donovan Mitchell, they've been a draft night trainwreck for basically a decade straight. They just took Azubuike!

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/draft.html

A team that lowkey drafted well? The lakers.

Ingram, Randle, Ball and DLo with their lottery. Then Clarkson and Kuzma with their late first or second round.

They may not be special but the thought process shows you they know talent. They prioritized multi positional play, shooting and offense.

Drafting straight ballers like this allows you the freedom to put together trade packages to land superstars.

Say the Lakers were some smallmarket team that just extended their young guys instead of luring James/Davis, I honestly think they'd be a perennial playoff team with their stud young core of these three.

Clarkson sucks, D Lo was likely only going to be good after changing teams given his immaturity issues, and Ingram was a solid draft pick albeit being a late bloomer.

Better than average but still not some kind of stellar draft record especially considering D Lo and Ingram were pretty consensus picks. D Lo over Okafor is a move that should be commended obviously but not some kind of groundbreaking drafting effort.

[HardenToSixers]

Nuggets, OKC, Spurs, Heat to name a few are much better much better examples of what good drafting looks like. Not a team like the Lakers that has superstars fall in their laps and then look good in hindsight.

[Monix]

Utah drafts well? Other than robbing the Nuggets on draft night and trading for the rights to Donovan Mitchell, they've been a draft night trainwreck for basically a decade straight. They just took Azubuike!

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/draft.html

A team that lowkey drafted well? The lakers.

Ingram, Randle, Ball and DLo with their lottery. Then Clarkson and Kuzma with their late first or second round.

plus Zubac in the 2nd, Hart in the late 1st...

[76ciology]

Utah drafts well? Other than robbing the Nuggets on draft night and trading for the rights to Donovan Mitchell, they've been a draft night trainwreck for basically a decade straight. They just took Azubuike!

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/draft.html

A team that lowkey drafted well? The lakers.

Ingram, Randle, Ball and DLo with their lottery. Then Clarkson and Kuzma with their late first or second round.

They may not be special but the thought process shows you they know talent. They prioritized multi positional play, shooting and offense.

Drafting straight ballers like this allows you the freedom to put together trade packages to land superstars.

Say the Lakers were some smallmarket team that just extended their young guys instead of luring James/Davis, I honestly think they'd be a perennial playoff team with their stud young core of these three.

Every teams needs scorers so they’d also be projected as valuable assets when accumulated into one package.

I read in Lakersground that Lakers has this tradition of getting a wing or a guard first. They see it as a foundational piece. They’d only go after a big, once they have that guard or wing. Which is true, even Bron was acquired before AD. I think that should be the preferred route.

Sure draft has a lot of luck involved but there’s also a skill element to it. And if you have that skill, most times you won’t be wrong.

[Kobblehead]

In many ways, Tyrese Maxey was step 1 for this organization under the Morey reset. We secured a young creation core scoring option.

If only Fultz panned out for us and/or we had been drafting scorers all along, we might not even need to trade for Harden.

I wonder what this team would look like with Ingram, a panned out Fultz, and Alexander. Would we honestly even be in the market for Harden?

We might be signing Hollis-Jefferson to a minimum to round out the defense and be ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the conference.

[Iverson Armband]

In many ways, Tyrese Maxey was step 1 for this organization under the Morey reset. We secured a young creation core scoring option.

If only Fultz panned out for us and/or we had been drafting scorers all along, we might not even need to trade for Harden.

I wonder what this team would look like with Ingram, a panned out Fultz, and Alexander. Would we honestly even be in the market for Harden?

We might be signing Hollis-Jefferson to a minimum to round out the defense and be ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the conference.

We theoretically could have had a lineup of:

Fultz
SGA
Thybulle
Ingram
Embiid

6th man: Milton

That’s a ridiculously long team that could score with anyone, and no I wouldn’t trade for Harden under that scenario.

[Iverson Armband]

Gotta hand it to Lonzo Ball. His shot was fuglier than Ben’s and he put in the work and improved dramatically and now he’s firing . Kudos to that kid.

[76ciology]

In many ways, Tyrese Maxey was step 1 for this organization under the Morey reset. We secured a young creation core scoring option.

If only Fultz panned out for us and/or we had been drafting scorers all along, we might not even need to trade for Harden.

I wonder what this team would look like with Ingram, a panned out Fultz, and Alexander. Would we honestly even be in the market for Harden?

We might be signing Hollis-Jefferson to a minimum to round out the defense and be ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the conference.

You’d still be in the market for Harden because you can’t have too much scoring.

This is why teams like the Celts surrounded themselves with four 20ppg scorers. Why the Lakers added more offense with Schroeder and Harell and gave up their rim protection of D12 and McGee. Why the Nets still wants Harden even with Kyrie and KD.

Love it or hate it, that is what the NBA is right now.

How can you defend a PnR, much more an unswitchable 1-5 pick and roll without collapsing your defense? I look at doncic and don’t really see something special with the kid relative to his league position (MVP? The next heir to the throne?) except knowing how to abuse this fact.

Fultz-Ingram-Biid would be on top of my list. Fultz and Biid can run the 1-5 PnR. You wont be able to switch that while you should be better equipped to defend the size and mobility of Biid and Fultz. Then you have Ingram, Fultz and Biid who mismatches on like 99% of match-ups while have the length to rotate for close-outs and chase down blocks at the rim. All 3 also can shoot. Now if you add SGA, that would be icing to the cake.

[phillynative]

A team that lowkey drafted well? The lakers.

Ingram, Randle, Ball and DLo with their lottery. Then Clarkson and Kuzma with their late first or second round.

They may not be special but the thought process shows you they know talent. They prioritized multi positional play, shooting and offense.

Drafting straight ballers like this allows you the freedom to put together trade packages to land superstars.

Say the Lakers were some smallmarket team that just extended their young guys instead of luring James/Davis, I honestly think they'd be a perennial playoff team with their stud young core of these three.

Every teams needs scorers so they’d also be projected as valuable assets when accumulated into one package.

I read in Lakersground that Lakers has this tradition of getting a wing or a guard first. They see it as a foundational piece. They’d only go after a big, once they have that guard or wing. Which is true, even Bron was acquired before AD. I think that should be the preferred route.

Sure draft has a lot of luck involved but there’s also a skill element to it. And if you have that skill, most times you won’t be wrong.

The sixers would have to the complete opposite on this theory with drafting 4 bigs in the lottery in a row lol

[Sixerscan]

I mean the Lakers would just be a worse version of the Pelicans with AD had they made that trade had Lebron not just decided he wanted to play for them.

Mock the Sixers but they actually won 50+ games and a playoff round built around 2 all stars they drafted while the Lakers couldn’t get out of the lottery until they got Lebron and then traded all those guys for Davis. Like think how good the Sixers would be if they signed Lebron and traded Embiid and Simmons for the best possible package on top of already having enough to trade for Butler and Harris and so on.

Also that pretend strategy isn’t even really true historically they had Kareem before Magic and Shaq before Kobe.

[Kobblehead]

The sixers would have to the complete opposite on this theory with drafting 4 bigs in the lottery in a row lol

I was just thinking that. Hinkie basically had the opposite strategy, unfortunately. His philosophy was essentially backwards from that Lakers strategy. Acquire all the ancillary frontcourt pieces first and ignore creation core talent. I still wonder who Sam wanted in 2016. I heard he preferred Ingram back in the day, but I can't remember who that came from.

[Kobblehead]

You’d still be in the market for Harden because you can’t have too much scoring.

I would probably pass, tbh.

Embiid + a creation core of Ingram/Alexander/non-bust iteration of Fultz would leave me plenty satisfied on the scoring front.

[76ciology]

You’d still be in the market for Harden because you can’t have too much scoring.

I would probably pass, tbh.

Embiid + a creation core of Ingram/Alexander/non-bust iteration of Fultz would leave me plenty satisfied on the scoring front.

Having Harden in that scenario allows you to improve your chance to win in the short term while still maintaining a good future.

Either way, its a good problem to have.

[76ciology]

The sixers would have to the complete opposite on this theory with drafting 4 bigs in the lottery in a row lol

I was just thinking that. Hinkie basically had the opposite strategy, unfortunately. His philosophy was essentially backwards from that Lakers strategy. Acquire all the ancillary frontcourt pieces first and ignore creation core talent. I still wonder who Sam wanted in 2016. I heard he preferred Ingram back in the day, but I can't remember who that came from.

Yup there were reports he wanted Ingram. It’s one question I’d like someone to ask him on some podcast. It would be a very interesting story coming from his side.

Personally, I think he’d go for Ben.