Around The League News And Rumors (Non-Hawks)

[macd-gm]

I think they are feeling dumb for not upgrading their roster and i think they thought Indy was going to gift them PG. It's hard not to look at the Cavs offseason as a clusterflup and for Gilbert to come out and criticize another team's deal, especially one that he has sour grapes over, is just pathetic.

[kg01]

The Cavs are feeling pretty dumb now and Gilbert trying to cover his ass by saying the Pacers could have done better. Glad to see folks in the league not taking the Cavs sorry offers.

You read that and see the Cavs as feeling dumb?!?

I think CLE would have been foolish to trade their best trade asset for only a 1 year rental. That would have been a move of pure desperation.

I read it as sour grapes from CLE for unnecessarily putting that 'IND coulda done better' nugget out there. Gilbert made it seem like IND dropped the ball but, in actuality, there were barriers to the deal that weren't in the Pacers' control.

[MaceCase]

The Indiana Pacers had Kyrie Irving as their No. 1 target when working on a Paul George trade in June.

The Pacers were willing to trade George for Irving straight-up, but the Cavaliers declined the offer several times.

Cleveland instead worked with the Pacers on a three-way trade involving Kevin Love going to the Denver Nuggets with Indiana getting a package centered around Gary Harris.

The deal fell apart when Cleveland refused to trade a future first round pick without any pick protections. The Cavaliers insisted on a lottery protection for the pick.

The Pacers pivoted to a deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder in which they acquired Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis.

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/247055/Cavs-Paul-George-Trade-Fell-Apart-On-Pick-Protections

The Cavs are feeling pretty dumb now and Gilbert trying to cover his ass by saying the Pacers could have done better. Glad to see folks in the league not taking the Cavs sorry offers.

The after the fact 'could have gotten a better deal' or all the 'rumors' - but when you get 'facts/closer to the truth reveals' - the offers are usually worse than what the rumor was. Same thing with the C's offer - pure spin after the fact.
Cleveland may have options but teams know that Kyrie wants out. LAC was successful in getting decent value for CP3 because no one saw it coming. Kyrie made his request behind closed doors with the Cavs and for whatever reason LBJ decided to spill the beans.

Heh, we know exactly why LeBron's crew would leak that, KyMe is 'fitting out' instead of 'fitting in'.

Chris Paul shouldn't be used as a comp for anything, it was an extremely rare situation. It was basically "I'm a free agent but...I'll opt in only if you trade me directly to the team I want." A very rare case where the Clippers lucked out because Paul was walking regardless but wanted to keep all his money to a specific team. Closest comparison to that would be the Denver-Melo situation but he had a year left.

[HMFFL]

I must agree with Jamaliver. Paul is indeed a one year rental and it doesn't make sense to trade the world for him unless a guarantee (even if silent) has been established. Only assuming, but nothing I have read has indicated that Paul wanted to be a Cavalier for the rest of his career or even the short/long-term.

[HMFFL]

Potential Irving trades are intriguing but they don't have my full interest.
Trade the man and let's move on. The media has nothing to discuss related to the NBA so they continue to drag the same news out. Still having headlines at the bottom of the tv that say "Kyrie Irving request a trade out of Cleveland" when the headlines should have more substance. As I get older, the made up trades the the media feeds us get old, and I honestly have no time to waste on them. So, ESPN gaining my tv ratings has been lacking.

[Jamaaliver]

Oh, Marco...

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Kudos to the Bellinelli kid.

[Jamaaliver]

Tweet of the day:

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[Jamaaliver]

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What a world we live in that Kent Bazemore made more last season than 2-time MVP and World Champion Steph Curry...

[macd-gm]

He's still got endorsements. Of course Baze is getting under armour money too. I wonder how much.

[Jamaaliver]

lol

true.

The Curry family is not exactly going hungry these days.

[kg01]

Dang. Ian Clark signs a 1 year deal for $1.6mil. SMH The players should sue the pantz off Michelle Roberts. The only guys who've benefited were whoever was a free agent last year. What? About 28-30 guys at most? Every other player got screwed. I think it's gonna be even worse next year (to our benefit as a team with capspace).

[Jamaaliver]

^She'll definitely have guys questioning her expertise/decision-making.

Chris Paul and other player leadership will (should) also be given the boot for failing to recognize the flaws in a raising the cap that amount in a single off-season.

[macd-gm]

Seems like Ian Clark would have been good for the Hawks as a possible building block.

[kg01]

^She'll definitely have guys questioning her expertise/decision-making.

Chris Paul and other player leadership will (should) also be given the boot for failing to recognize the flaws in a raising the cap that amount in a single off-season.

Every CBA, the star guys come in and mandate changes that really only benefit them. On top of that, they clearly are in over their heads at the negotiating table despite thinking they're all business geniuses.

[Spud2nique]

Seems like Ian Clark would have been good for the Hawks as a possible building block.

Ya but he's already 26. Plus he played in the Warriors system, granted much like our system..(they copied us AFTER we copied Spurs) ..I'm sorry I have to remind people that the Hawks were moving the ball fluidly before the warriors, unfortunately they just had the personnel for the system.

I though somebody was gonna pay Clark like $8 million a year or something crazy. I don't believe he's a great player. We shall find out in the big easy.

[jayu70]

Dang. Ian Clark signs a 1 year deal for $1.6mil. SMH The players should sue the pantz off Michelle Roberts. The only guys who've benefited were whoever was a free agent last year. What? About 28-30 guys at most? Every other player got screwed. I think it's gonna be even worse next year (to our benefit as a team with capspace).

NBA wanted to smooth the cap over several years instead of a $20 mil immediate cap jump. The agents and players were against it.
The players lost $3mil off the cap from the super teams forming that had less playoff games. Before playoffs started the cap was $102, after the playoffs $99 - players lost revenue from so few games.
Next year it's gonna be tougher. Especially with so many team in LT already.
A guy like Horford who signed a 3+1 deal will be less likely to opt out in 2 years with the delicate cap situation, unless it changes.

[kg01]

Dang. Ian Clark signs a 1 year deal for $1.6mil. SMH The players should sue the pantz off Michelle Roberts. The only guys who've benefited were whoever was a free agent last year. What? About 28-30 guys at most? Every other player got screwed. I think it's gonna be even worse next year (to our benefit as a team with capspace).

NBA wanted to smooth the cap over several years instead of a $20 mil immediate cap jump. The agents and players were against it.
The players lost $3mil off the cap from the super teams forming that had less playoff games. Before playoffs started the cap was $102, after the playoffs $99 - players lost revenue from so few games.
Next year it's gonna be tougher. Especially with so many team in LT already.
A guy like Horford who signed a 3+1 deal will be less likely to opt out in 2 years with the delicate cap situation, unless it changes.

Yup. At the time she was shouting that the league was trying to keep the players' money from them. Well, with some foresight, they should've recognized that smoothing was good for both sides. As it is, not smoothing really only benefited whoever was a free agent last season.

Deals will be relatively smaller again next year. Hopefully we can take advantage.

That playoff thing you mention should scare the players. It shows that teaming up can indeed hurt them financially. That's literally tangible evidence that it's not as great as it seems.

[Jamaaliver]

Yup. At the time she was shouting that the league was trying to keep the players' money from them. Well, with some foresight, they should've recognized that smoothing was good for both sides. As it is, not smoothing really only benefited whoever was a free agent last season.

Deals will be relatively smaller again next year. Hopefully we can take advantage.

That playoff thing you mention should scare the players. It shows that teaming up can indeed hurt them financially. That's literally tangible evidence that it's not as great as it seems.

To be fair, I don't think the intentions of the owners when it came to 'smoothing' was completely noble. Clearly they would benefit financially from tamping down players' salaries for a few more years.

And the biggest issue is that teams overpaid last season for so many players on longer term deals.

The cap is still massively higher today than 2-3 years ago. It was lack of foresight on the team/execs part to blow all their cap space in the first summer of 'mega free agency'.

Like, seriously, Kent Bazemore makes $16+ million per year and is a fringe starter. That salary wasn't even the biggest offer he received according to some outlets. That's poor decision making on the part of any front office making offers in free agency.

If the Player's Union should be held to blame for their short-sightedness...so should the execs spending money like dope fiends on vacation.

Spoiler:

No one made MEM spend that much money on Conley. No one made Houston spend that much on Ryan Anderson.

[kg01]

Yup. At the time she was shouting that the league was trying to keep the players' money from them. Well, with some foresight, they should've recognized that smoothing was good for both sides. As it is, not smoothing really only benefited whoever was a free agent last season.

Deals will be relatively smaller again next year. Hopefully we can take advantage.

That playoff thing you mention should scare the players. It shows that teaming up can indeed hurt them financially. That's literally tangible evidence that it's not as great as it seems.

To be fair, I don't think the intentions of the owners when it came to 'smoothing' was completely noble. Clearly they would benefit financially from tamping down players' salaries for a few more years.

And the biggest issue is that teams overpaid last season for so many players on longer term deals.

The cap is still massively higher today than 2-3 years ago. It was lack of foresight on the team/execs part to blow all their cap space in the first summer of 'mega free agency'.

Like, seriously, Kent Bazemore makes $16+ million per year and is a fringe starter. That salary wasn't even the biggest offer he received according to some outlets. That's poor decision making on the part of any front office making offers in free agency.

If the Player's Union should be held to blame for their short-sightedness...so should the execs spending money like dope fiends on vacation.

Spoiler:

No one made MEM spend that much money on Conley. No one made Houston spend that much on Ryan Anderson.

Hey, I don't have to be fair.

I agree to a degree. I did not intend to suggest that the owners were being all altruistic in trying to smooth things out.

But it doesn't have to be one or the other. Teams spent, shall we say, unwisely. That's one thing that gets lost in all this. Folks keep wondering why the West stays better than the East. Well, a forgotten element to that is awful GM'ing in the East. People keep screaming we should go to a 1-16 format for the playoffs. Well, that doesn't fix the fact that (for example) ORL, NYK, IND, ATL (until now) and others all have poor management.

[Jamaaliver]

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