Season Speculation, Trade Ideas & Discussion Pt. 1

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

Mods: Can we un-sticky this and get some sort of general season discussion thread stickied instead? The season's basically here, fellas!

+1! And while we're at it - how about doing sg with all the fantasy threads? Or am I the only one who finds them a bit too exessive?

You are not. Your motion is seconded, sir.

[King4Day]

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#1 PICK

That's cool to read that Bennett is showing positive results. Hopefully we use him a in the D-League enough to get a feel for if he's worth retaining. Maybe a midseason callup.

[ShawnBronald]

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[Villalobos]

That means there's no requirement of equal number of West and East players right? If so, that's great and how it should be done. It'll be absurd if a bunch of amazing players in the West get snubbed for All-Star because they're not in the **** East.

edit: Guess not. All-star selection is still gonna be a joke.

[Damkac]

Conferences should be removed. Keep divisions just for scheduling. 16 best teams in the playoffs. Let's hope this is the first step.

[oddity]

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Ugh what a joke. The NBA is just using this change as a way of hiding the fact that the east and west are as lopsided as they are - which is always most obvious when you see just how easily the west crushes the east every single asg

[Kerrsed]

Ok, so they change the all-star game to fix the fact that the conference system is old, outdated, and very lopsided......yet THEY DONT FIX THE ACTUAL LEAGUE THE SAME WAY AS THEY SHOULD!?!?!?!?

[kennydorglas]

Wow. GREAT WORK, guys.
Should be fun seeing all the east guys getting picked last tho.

[Kerrsed]

Wow. GREAT WORK, guys.
Should be fun seeing all the east guys getting picked last tho.

They wont. Theres still some strong all-stars out east, just not enough to field a full team of them. You have Lebron/Antetokounmpo/Irving/Wall/Love?/Hayward, but long gone are the days that guys like Walker/DeRozen/Wade/Drummond/Milsap make it over better players just because they play in the East. Now they just need to get rid of the conferences during league play, so its the teams with the best records, and not having 2-4 teams in it with inferior records just because of where they are located.

[bwgood77]

It will be interesting to see which west guys get left off now with so many guys coming west. Melo was a replacement for Love last year so no way he makes it. Butler and George almost certainly will so I don't know who that pushes out.

And hopefully someone like Ball doesn't get voted in my LA fans. Seems impossible with Westbrook Curry and Harden though.

I look forward to watching the playground pick style. That might be the most interesting part.

[thamadkant]

NBA is basically using band aids to contain laceration wounds.


The league is a business.. We all know that. But it's also sports. Where the best and the winners are objectively determined in most cases.... Journalist voting is a bit grey.


The West has most of the top players. East has been half as deep as the West for the last decade. LeBron walks into a finals almost every year because there is maybe 1 legit competitor out East every year and Cavs are a tier above them.


Players and agents wanting big market teams, good players and stars teaming up with other top tier players after colluding off court which is illegal but the dirt is brushed under the carpet by the league.


Competitive sports is being manipulated to cater more for business needs as well as players forming super teams to try to monopolize the contendership.



Had the league become more spread out in regards to success... More fans will be brought in and integrity improves.


But it won't happen... Too many connections and off court agendas to keep it as is.

[SideSwipe]

NBA is basically using band aids to contain laceration wounds.


The league is a business.. We all know that. But it's also sports. Where the best and the winners are objectively determined in most cases.... Journalist voting is a bit grey.


The West has most of the top players. East has been half as deep as the West for the last decade. LeBron walks into a finals almost every year because there is maybe 1 legit competitor out East every year and Cavs are a tier above them.


Players and agents wanting big market teams, good players and stars teaming up with other top tier players after colluding off court which is illegal but the dirt is brushed under the carpet by the league.


Competitive sports is being manipulated to cater more for business needs as well as players forming super teams to try to monopolize the contendership.



Had the league become more spread out in regards to success... More fans will be brought in and integrity improves.


But it won't happen... Too many connections and off court agendas to keep it as is.

Captains??? What is this, playground kickball? All it's missing is the big, red, bouncy ball.

I agree. This should be all execs/ownership (25%), all coaches (25%), all players (25%), public (25%), all equally weighted picking the top East and West. I understand that there is imbalance, but you don't fix it on the back of the All-Star game. This is like changing the band-aid out from a 'My Little Pony' one to a 'Transformers' one. It looks a little cooler, but doesn't really affect any change. There should be a large money pool for winning the ASG as well. Lets watch the top guys compete for real.

This is all symptomatic of the false market that the NBA has become. I think if there is a hard cap teams should have all the flexibility in the world underneath it to sign people all the way up to the cap. If you want a min salary fine, but no max except the cap. Also, explore letting all eligible players be FA's instead of drafting. The draft with its artificially low salaries for stars and artificially high salaries for non-contributors is a bit of a farce. Make only half of every contract be guaranteed, with the rest going into a winners pool for games, playoff and league championship wins. That magically puts more money in the hands of winning teams no matter how small the market, encourages competition, discourages tanking, discourages super-teams in some ways, rewards winning, and allows stars more of their due. Until they take care of those root problems (whether by my solution or some other) it will all be band-aids, and weird setups that don't make any sense.

[lilfishi22]

I don't get the hate this change is getting. It doesn't fix everything in one fell swoop but it's a step in the right direction. I, for one, haven't watched a full ASG for years now because of the lack of competitiveness and I think this brings back some of that old school playground mentality.

[grumpysaddle]

Do we know who is taking over for Steve Albert yet? Hopefully it doesn't mean more DRYsdale.

[NTB]

Do we know who is taking over for Steve Albert yet? Hopefully it doesn't mean more DRYsdale.

Kevin Ray.

[grumpysaddle]

Do we know who is taking over for Steve Albert yet? Hopefully it doesn't mean more DRYsdale.

Kevin Ray.

Ugh. Can't wait for all the weird banter about working out that they always seemed to do whenever he was on. Can't be worse than DRYsdale though

[Mulhollanddrive]

Turns out Morris Brothers only fight teammates.

[matt131]

Listening to the Over/Under podcast with Bill Simmons and he just said "50 million is A LOT of money for TJ Warren." Lol I hate that guy sometimes. He is a good writer and his company puts out a TON of content, but damn if the Celtics gave Rozier a contract extension of 4/150, he'd say it's a steal. I hate when national guys make comments about players they never watch. Kevin O'Connor chimed in though saying that it was a good deal (he watches more basketball than just the Celtics).

[Hesh]

So one person (the captain) makes the decision as to whether or not you will be an all-star?

[Mulhollanddrive]

$50m is probably overpay based on rookie contract numbers but our GM is forecasting 3 years to 2020 where he could be top 10 for position.