2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[lessthanjake]

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any story that purports to say who did or didn’t push for specific moves to be made or for people to be signed is a story that has been planted by someone in order to make them look better or less bad—particularly if it is already obvious that the relevant decision was bad or good. Like, okay, a post-Westbrook-disaster story saying “LeBron did push for Westbrook, but a source also said he had wanted to keep Caruso” is almost certainly citing a source that either is LeBron James himself or is someone close to LeBron who is telling a reporter that for PR purposes (and the reporter is happy to act as a stenographer in exchange for access). It doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true, but I think any story saying who did or didn’t push for something that we already know was bad or good should basically be regarded as having almost no probative value in terms of what the truth actually is. The reality is that the public rarely knows exactly who made decisions and how much influence different people had in those decisions.

[falcolombardi]

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any story that purports to say who did or didn’t push for specific moves to be made or for people to be signed is a story that has been planted by someone in order to make them look better or less bad—particularly if it is already obvious that the relevant decision was bad or good. Like, okay, a post-Westbrook-disaster story saying “LeBron did push for Westbrook, but a source also said he had wanted to keep Caruso” is almost certainly citing a source that either is LeBron James himself or is someone close to LeBron who is telling a reporter that for PR purposes (and the reporter is happy to act as a stenographer in exchange for access). It doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true, but I think any story saying who did or didn’t push for something that we already know was bad or good should basically be regarded as having almost no probative value in terms of what the truth actually is. The reality is that the public rarely knows exactly who made decisions and how much influence different people had in those decisions.

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any individual fan that purports to know who did or didnt push for specific moves to be made is biased by whether they like or dislike the player in question

[lessthanjake]

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any story that purports to say who did or didn’t push for specific moves to be made or for people to be signed is a story that has been planted by someone in order to make them look better or less bad—particularly if it is already obvious that the relevant decision was bad or good. Like, okay, a post-Westbrook-disaster story saying “LeBron did push for Westbrook, but a source also said he had wanted to keep Caruso” is almost certainly citing a source that either is LeBron James himself or is someone close to LeBron who is telling a reporter that for PR purposes (and the reporter is happy to act as a stenographer in exchange for access). It doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true, but I think any story saying who did or didn’t push for something that we already know was bad or good should basically be regarded as having almost no probative value in terms of what the truth actually is. The reality is that the public rarely knows exactly who made decisions and how much influence different people had in those decisions.

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any individual fan that purports to know who did or didnt push for specific moves to be made is biased by whether they like or dislike the player in question

Yes, I completely agree. That’s kind of my point. We don’t know much of anything. I’d *maybe* put some trust in stories that were written before it was clear if the move was good or bad. But not post-hoc stories, and definitely not random fan speculation.

[falcolombardi]

While we talk about the Lakers being cheap though, we do need to remember that when they let Caruso go, their payroll got more expensive and went up to having the 5th highest payroll in the league by adding a new player who made more money per year than any Laker had ever done previously.

So:
1. Lakers were wrong to not keep Caruso.
2. The Buss family was cheap compared to modern NBA owners as a rule because they were a lesser tier of wealth generally who became owners at a time when that tier was just fine for the NBA.
3. But this was also them making moves and spending more money to give LeBron what he thought he really needed in Russell Westbrook, which seems like a pretty reasonable thing for an owner to do. "Okay, we're going to make the big move and spend more money to get what you say you need, and we're not going to prioritize some of these minor players you don't seem concerned with."

This then to say, I'm not going to pretend the Busses did everything perfectly, but the reality is the big thing they were asked to do was pay what needed to be paid to bring Westbrook in, and as soon as Westbrook got there, title contention became completely impossible.

Now, by the 2023 playoffs, Westbrook was gone so there was hope again in theory, but it's not like the Lakers got off Westbrook and got a bunch of great role player assets that would give LeBron/AD just what they needed to contend. Realistically I don't think you can expect to contend with DLo as one of your Big 3 either.

As I say all of that, I am more of a fan of Austin Reaves, and while I'm not sure he was ready to a Big 3 guy at that moment, he was in the process of getting there and if you have that, Caruso, and other quality role players, that is something I think has a chance to compete.

The report we have isn't that LeBron wasn't concerned with Caruso fwiw.

From Stein:

LeBron James was a strong advocate for the trade that brought Westbrook to Hollywood and thus has to wear his considerable slice of culpability for how poorly things are working out. Yet one source did point out at least one counter on James’ behalf, noting that he was also one of the organization’s staunchest Alex Caruso fans and badly wanted the Lakers to re-sign the defensive-minded guard. The Lakers, despite all of their considerable revenue streams, refused to offer a contract on par with the four-year, $37 million deal Caruso landed from Chicago because of the luxury-tax implications.

And we already know that the Lakers don't just do everything that LeBron wants, right? He tried to push for Lue, he tried to push for Caruso being re-signed, Haynes reported in 2022 that LeBron wanted DeMar before Westbrook but the FO didn't want to give him a 3 year deal, Dudley himself said LeBron/AD pushed for him being re-signed but the FO didn't want him, and that's just off the top of my head

So the holistic image we have, to me, points to a franchise that has pretty clearly not just gone along with whatever LeBron wants. I don't actually see any reason to believe that LeBron is disproportionately responsible for the Westbrook trade and that Pelinka/the FO did not approve of it themselves, because the track record we see actually points to the opposite. Seems like a situation where they just happened to be aligned on a bad decision

Good stuff to bring up, and yeah, I'm not saying Laker management didn't screw up with Caruso, but note the whole "despite all of their considerable revenue streams" about a family who has since sold the team. People have always tended to talk about the Lakers as if they are swimming in money...but the Buss really wasn't. Oh sure, if you own a thing worth billions then you're technically a billionaire, but that's not the same as having billions in liquid assets, and the precariousness of being an NBA owner who has the bulk of his/their wealth tied up in the NBA itself is getting dicier and dicier each season.

Perfectly reasonable for people to have doubted that was actually their situation previously...but now that they are selling the majority of the team (while still keeping governor control for now apparently), I think the debate is over.

Also, in theory one might think it was reasonable for LeBron to be able to expect that whatever team was lucky enough to have him should be spending as much as the NBA lets them...but the Buss family were there before LeBron was. The tea leaves were there to be read by LeBron ahead of time, he just chose to ignore them.

And again, if what we were talking about was the Lakers actually chopping salary from one year to the next I'd feel differently, but that's not what happened. The Lakers spent more money on basketball after that off-season giving up assets to get the extremely expensive superstar LeBron coveted, and we're supposed to feel like the problem was they didn't do enough because of Caruso? Doesn't seem reasonable to me even before we remember that acquiring Westbrook meant contention was impossible.

This would be a stronger argument if the lakers also didnt prefer signing talen horton tucker over caruso, they could have made space for caruso over a much worse player

The westbrook trade, bad as it was and whoever we chose to blame more for, is a unrelated manner to caruso

I dont get why you link both as if they were part of the same trade package

[OhayoKD]

The report we have isn't that LeBron wasn't concerned with Caruso fwiw.

From Stein:



And we already know that the Lakers don't just do everything that LeBron wants, right? He tried to push for Lue, he tried to push for Caruso being re-signed, Haynes reported in 2022 that LeBron wanted DeMar before Westbrook but the FO didn't want to give him a 3 year deal, Dudley himself said LeBron/AD pushed for him being re-signed but the FO didn't want him, and that's just off the top of my head

So the holistic image we have, to me, points to a franchise that has pretty clearly not just gone along with whatever LeBron wants. I don't actually see any reason to believe that LeBron is disproportionately responsible for the Westbrook trade and that Pelinka/the FO did not approve of it themselves, because the track record we see actually points to the opposite. Seems like a situation where they just happened to be aligned on a bad decision

Good stuff to bring up, and yeah, I'm not saying Laker management didn't screw up with Caruso, but note the whole "despite all of their considerable revenue streams" about a family who has since sold the team. People have always tended to talk about the Lakers as if they are swimming in money...but the Buss really wasn't. Oh sure, if you own a thing worth billions then you're technically a billionaire, but that's not the same as having billions in liquid assets, and the precariousness of being an NBA owner who has the bulk of his/their wealth tied up in the NBA itself is getting dicier and dicier each season.

Perfectly reasonable for people to have doubted that was actually their situation previously...but now that they are selling the majority of the team (while still keeping governor control for now apparently), I think the debate is over.

Also, in theory one might think it was reasonable for LeBron to be able to expect that whatever team was lucky enough to have him should be spending as much as the NBA lets them...but the Buss family were there before LeBron was. The tea leaves were there to be read by LeBron ahead of time, he just chose to ignore them.

And again, if what we were talking about was the Lakers actually chopping salary from one year to the next I'd feel differently, but that's not what happened. The Lakers spent more money on basketball after that off-season giving up assets to get the extremely expensive superstar LeBron coveted, and we're supposed to feel like the problem was they didn't do enough because of Caruso? Doesn't seem reasonable to me even before we remember that acquiring Westbrook meant contention was impossible.

This would be a stronger argument if the lakers also didnt prefer signing talen horton tucker over caruso, they could have made space for caruso over a much worse player

The westbrook trade, bad as it was and whoever we chose to blame more for, is a unrelated manner to caruso

I dont get why you link both as if they were part of the same trade package

I'm guessing because Doc has an urgent need to frame things which should be positive for LeGm as negatives so he can keep the door open to put inferior players ahead via "off-court impact". Caruso is clearly a positive point in Legm's favor and a negative one in the Laker's favor.

It's a shame I had to pause Kaguya-sama: Love is War to chip in, but this take was just that bad and it seems we're doubling down.

[jalengreen]

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any story that purports to say who did or didn’t push for specific moves to be made or for people to be signed is a story that has been planted by someone in order to make them look better or less bad—particularly if it is already obvious that the relevant decision was bad or good. Like, okay, a post-Westbrook-disaster story saying “LeBron did push for Westbrook, but a source also said he had wanted to keep Caruso” is almost certainly citing a source that either is LeBron James himself or is someone close to LeBron who is telling a reporter that for PR purposes (and the reporter is happy to act as a stenographer in exchange for access). It doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true, but I think any story saying who did or didn’t push for something that we already know was bad or good should basically be regarded as having almost no probative value in terms of what the truth actually is. The reality is that the public rarely knows exactly who made decisions and how much influence different people had in those decisions.

I don’t really agree at all tbh. “almost no probative value” is too much of a stretch for me. It’s obviously nowhere near a certainty but I definitely think it has probative value, and I think such claims are generally unlikely to be completely fabricated.

Of course, I think the credibility of each claim should be handled individually on a case to case basis. So here, we consider this person who is either LeBron himself or close to LeBron in this post-Westbrook-disaster situation purporting that “yes, LeBron pushed for Westbrook but he wanted Caruso.” .. how much does that really take away from the Westbrook disaster at all lol. I don’t think it’s a particularly effective deflection, and I think the more effective one would be to deny or downplay the push for the Westbrook trade in the first place.

The report also didn’t come out after, say, Caruso began to light it up in Oklahoma City. It was during his first season in Chicago when he was injured for half of the year.

Also, pushing a team to re-sign a player is just incredibly low stakes from a player’s perspective. So it also makes total sense for a player to say “uhh just pay the luxury tax please?” because they don’t care about the owner’s wallet. Versus a trade scenario where they’re directly losing something. In other words, hard to imagine why he wouldn’t have wanted to keep Caruso? So the claim that he did just.. makes sense to me. LeBron wants to keep the key role player he won a title with as opposed to.. well, not keeping him.

Will add that this is just a methodological difference for me, I think. I say this because it was pointed out that maybe such takes come from a player’s bias for or against certain players. But in the other direction I feel the same way - far too much smoke for me to not think that LeBron wanted the team to trade for Westbrook.

[Dr Positivity]

Reaves role may be non existent on 23 Lakers if Caruso’s there. Plus they got swept. I don’t think it’s enough, and LeBron and Davis not being healthy a lot is part of the deal. I still think 21 is their 2nd best chance with Vogel, Caruso and KCP and injured conference.

[GSP]

Reaves role may be non existent on 23 Lakers if Caruso’s there. Plus they got swept. I don’t think it’s enough, and LeBron and Davis not being healthy a lot is part of the deal. I still think 21 is their 2nd best chance with Vogel, Caruso and KCP and injured conference.

They got swept in 23 but margins were close in 3 of 4 games. Game 1 was a 3pt game w/ 2 mins left. Game 2 was a 2pt game w/ 1 min left and game 3 was tied w/ a minute left La had chance at a game winner.

Las biggest problem was defense and obviously getting Caruso helps alot there. Denver couldnt guard them at all. Dlo was the worst player of the series by far and was logging 23.5 Mpg thats alot of minutes for a literal liability all series on both ends. Him and Lonnie would barely see minutes w/ Caruso there. Vando too they needed defense bad but he was such a liability on offense they couldnt play him. Would that be enough for La to win the series? Hard to say but got a real shot

[Statlanta]

I feel the gap between Jokic and the next best player is the reason the advanced analytics community are overrating him and putting him in GOAT conversations. The gap being huge makes it appear like his impact is huge when his objective goodness on the basketball court could be like a normal MVP value in a standard MVP year. Especially when most of his MVP contender peers are injury prone.

[The-Power]

Too early to answer this question definitely but which teams are shaping out to be the teams you're most excited to follow next season?

For me it's the Spurs, Grizzlies, Thunder and Magic.

The Spurs with Victor are an obvious choice for me. I want to see his entire career unfold (hopefully without health issues), and I just love teams that are on the verge of takin the next step towards contention with a young core. Plus I am a draft nerd and I loved the additions of Harper and Bryant, and want to see how Castle develops. It will also be interesting to see if the Spurs are already going to take additional measures to ensure playoff contention-

The Grizzlies also shape up to be an interesting team to follow. They took steps towards contention over the last years but felt like they hit a ceiling with the core. So they decided to move on from Bane for a great haul and re-tool around Jackson Jr. and Morant. I'm a big fan of JJJ (not so much of Morant) and want to see his evolution, plus I am intrigued to see how the Grizzlies are using Edey and Coward (I'm rooting for both) going forward. I'm hoping for a competitive season that sees the Grizzlies regain their status as an up-and-coming team.

The Thunder are another team in the WCF that I will follow very closely. I love witnessing greatness and this team has a chance to be the next great dynasty. They have a young core with a superstar early in his prime and lots of players I really like (which seems to be a rather unusual sentiment these days), so it makes me root for them continuing their dominance and further push the boundaries (especially on defense) in this modern era of basketball.

The Magic are a new addition for me. They have built an intriguing roster with the additions of Bane and Jase Richardson (yes, adding a Rookie I really enjoy watching also helps them). While their trajectory is different from that of the Spurs or Grizzlies, the Magic are also among the teams that could be on the verge taking the next step, and I would like to witness that. Moreover, I appreciate teams that are willing to use meaningful assets to add players (especially non-superstars) to improve their roster which makes me root for them. Plus I like good defense and the Magic can play defense with the best of them when healthy.

With my team being the Warriors (I'm looking forward to their season but it's certainly not the most excited I've been either), I once again notice that the Western Conference just interests me a lot more. Considering that I'm from Europe and tend to watch games only the next day anyway, that really doesn't have to be the case, though, and I hope the East sees some teams rise on my list.

[Doctor MJ]

The report we have isn't that LeBron wasn't concerned with Caruso fwiw.

From Stein:



And we already know that the Lakers don't just do everything that LeBron wants, right? He tried to push for Lue, he tried to push for Caruso being re-signed, Haynes reported in 2022 that LeBron wanted DeMar before Westbrook but the FO didn't want to give him a 3 year deal, Dudley himself said LeBron/AD pushed for him being re-signed but the FO didn't want him, and that's just off the top of my head

So the holistic image we have, to me, points to a franchise that has pretty clearly not just gone along with whatever LeBron wants. I don't actually see any reason to believe that LeBron is disproportionately responsible for the Westbrook trade and that Pelinka/the FO did not approve of it themselves, because the track record we see actually points to the opposite. Seems like a situation where they just happened to be aligned on a bad decision

Good stuff to bring up, and yeah, I'm not saying Laker management didn't screw up with Caruso, but note the whole "despite all of their considerable revenue streams" about a family who has since sold the team. People have always tended to talk about the Lakers as if they are swimming in money...but the Buss really wasn't. Oh sure, if you own a thing worth billions then you're technically a billionaire, but that's not the same as having billions in liquid assets, and the precariousness of being an NBA owner who has the bulk of his/their wealth tied up in the NBA itself is getting dicier and dicier each season.

Perfectly reasonable for people to have doubted that was actually their situation previously...but now that they are selling the majority of the team (while still keeping governor control for now apparently), I think the debate is over.

Also, in theory one might think it was reasonable for LeBron to be able to expect that whatever team was lucky enough to have him should be spending as much as the NBA lets them...but the Buss family were there before LeBron was. The tea leaves were there to be read by LeBron ahead of time, he just chose to ignore them.

And again, if what we were talking about was the Lakers actually chopping salary from one year to the next I'd feel differently, but that's not what happened. The Lakers spent more money on basketball after that off-season giving up assets to get the extremely expensive superstar LeBron coveted, and we're supposed to feel like the problem was they didn't do enough because of Caruso? Doesn't seem reasonable to me even before we remember that acquiring Westbrook meant contention was impossible.

This would be a stronger argument if the lakers also didnt prefer signing talen horton tucker over caruso, they could have made space for caruso over a much worse player

The westbrook trade, bad as it was and whoever we chose to blame more for, is a unrelated manner to caruso

I dont get why you link both as if they were part of the same trade package

I mean, it's not like LeBron wasn't raving about THT. If they'd chosen Caruso over THT, all the same arguments about them being cheap would have been basically the same thing unless keeping Caruso meant they an absolutely elite team in '21-22...but as much as I love Caruso, I just don't see you winning a title with Westbrook playing like he was, and there's really no reason to think Westbrook would have changed his approach because of Caruso.

Re: why try link with same trade package? Well, I'm sorry, and clearly I need to be more careful what I say.

So what's going on here is that while I know they weren't part of the same trade, I tend to see off-season moves as basically one swing of the bat by a team. Sure the individual moves may turn out good or bad independent of each other once the season starts, but a GM acts on his vision to start the off-season, and so if we see him take on way more player salary over the course of an off-season, it's clearly oversimplistic to label his actions "cheap".

In the process of working to trade for the superstar teammate the franchise player pushed for, and take on the massive financial burden that a superstar's contract inevitably demands, the Lakers (maybe Pelinka, maybe Buss) decided not to re-sign every role player on the roster.

Pelinka (presumably) then made the wrong call about which role player to prioritize.

And to be clear, we can, and should, knock ownership & front office for their respective parts in this off-season regardless of how we think of the players involved.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm guessing because Doc has an urgent need to frame things which should be positive for LeGm as negatives so he can keep the door open to put inferior players ahead via "off-court impact". Caruso is clearly a positive point in Legm's favor and a negative one in the Laker's favor.

It's a shame I had to pause Kaguya-sama: Love is War to chip in, but this take was just that bad and it seems we're doubling down.

Dude, I think you're so turned around with this way of thinking where you assume that first comes homer/hater bias, and then comes reasoning.

I've been on here since 2005, and I believe you can still find all-posts back to some time in 2008. So if we cared enough, we could actually check when I started with this putative "so can put inferior players above LeBron on his GOAT list" dominant mindset begin do you think?

Like, would you expect I had this back in 2008? If so, what do you think drove me to be a hater before then?

If not, well, when do you think my attitude changed?, and What events took place to make my attitude change?

Now, here's the tricky part of answering this though:

If I started rating LeBron the Baller (LeBaller?) lower than you think he should after he started having "LeGM" events, then wouldn't that mean I didn't have a problem with LeBron until I had a problem with actions LeBron took? And if my problem is with the very action I'm explicitly criticizing, why wouldn't that be the root cause of my deviation from your expectation?

From my perspective, you're walking right passed really straight forward explanations in favor of dismissing me as irrationally biased, and you're doing that because that's the habit you've gotten into with some category of things in your life. And you're far from alone - it's basically taken over our society at this point - so I really don't mean this as any kind of insult singling you out, but it's not helpful for productive discourse.

Perfectly fine that you think I underrate LeBron's career, but you seem certain you know why, and I'm telling you, it really doesn't seem like you do, given the picture you paint of me.

[eminence]

.

I believe you're correct on SGAs single season +/- lead being a huge outlier.

The only other examples I know of with more than a +200 lead on the field are '00 Shaq and '17 Curry. So SGA approaching 500 is just nuts.

'21 Gobert may have got to +200 with a full length regular season, though simulating his current number out leaves him just short.

Joins '15-'17 Curry/Dray as the only confirmed +1000 players ('96 MJ/Pippen unofficial members - MJ +980 in the '96 RS, Pippen +899).

3rd highest on record, 4th with Djokers '96 MJ PO data + Pollack data

1. '17 Curry +1260
2. '16 Dray +1210
(3. '96 MJ 1186)
3. '25 SGA +1084
4. '15 Curry +1083
5. '16 Curry +1070
6. '17 Dray +1047
7. '15 Dray +1031

'96 Pippen ???

[parsnips33]

.

I believe you're correct on SGAs single season +/- lead being a huge outlier.

The only other examples I know of with more than a +200 lead on the field are '00 Shaq and '17 Curry. So SGA approaching 500 is just nuts.

'21 Gobert may have got to +200 with a full length regular season, though simulating his current number out leaves him just short.

Joins '15-'17 Curry/Dray as the only confirmed +1000 players ('96 MJ/Pippen unofficial members - MJ +980 in the '96 RS, Pippen +899).

3rd highest on record, 4th with Djokers '96 MJ PO data + Pollack data

1. '17 Curry +1260
2. '16 Dray +1210
(3. '96 MJ 1186)
3. '25 SGA +1084
4. '15 Curry +1083
5. '16 Curry +1070
6. '17 Dray +1047
7. '15 Dray +1031

'96 Pippen ???

Man I love this list lol

[GSP]

Houston zagging while everyones zigging. Going all in on size and offensive rebounding. They lapped the league in offensive rebounding last season when Adams played. Sengun,Adams,Capela is one of the biggest center rotations i can remember. Now theyve replaced Brooks w/ a bigger, better rebounder in Dorian and a better defender too. No more little Jalen now they have 6'11 Kd......

[Dr Positivity]

Jerome sub 10 million average seems outrageous when if he just matches his per minute stats in starter role he’s all star level. Also isn’t his D pretty decent.

[Peregrine01]

Wow. Denver might be back.

[Clyde Frazier]

Read on Twitter

Nuggets have officially won the off season.

[homecourtloss]

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any story that purports to say who did or didn’t push for specific moves to be made or for people to be signed is a story that has been planted by someone in order to make them look better or less bad—particularly if it is already obvious that the relevant decision was bad or good. Like, okay, a post-Westbrook-disaster story saying “LeBron did push for Westbrook, but a source also said he had wanted to keep Caruso” is almost certainly citing a source that either is LeBron James himself or is someone close to LeBron who is telling a reporter that for PR purposes (and the reporter is happy to act as a stenographer in exchange for access). It doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true, but I think any story saying who did or didn’t push for something that we already know was bad or good should basically be regarded as having almost no probative value in terms of what the truth actually is. The reality is that the public rarely knows exactly who made decisions and how much influence different people had in those decisions.

I think we should probably recognize that virtually any individual fan that purports to know who did or didnt push for specific moves to be made is biased by whether they like or dislike the player in question

True.

[lessthanjake]

I’m not quite as optimistic on Denver’s moves as others are. I think they are smart moves, but they’re not slam dunks.

Bruce Brown has played pretty badly after leaving Denver, and may just be washed now. Cam Johnson has a lot of injuries. And Jonas Valanciunas just was on the Wizards and will be 33 years old, so could well be washed next year. Or maybe Bruce Brown will get back to form when playing on the Nuggets again, and Cam Johnson will be healthy, and Valanciunas will not be washed and will be a great backup center.

On balance, I still think they’ve very likely improved a good bit, but it seems plausible to me that Bruce Brown and Valanciunas will end up being just as unplayable as the rest of the Nuggets bench and that Cam Johnson will end up injured. Hopefully not though. And even if Valanciunas is pretty washed, he’ll still very likely to be better than DeAndre Jordan, so that one almost can’t help but be an improvement.