The 2012 NBA Draft: 6th & 11th picks, and some random 2nds.

Norm2953 · Post #141 » by **Norm2953** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:06 am

Golden state wins!!!

We're now only two games behind them for ninth place in the lottery. Tomorrow
night's game with the Warriors is shaping up to be a big game for lottery
position.

Post #142 » by **DaVoiceMaster** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:52 pm

Portland and Golden State are even in the loss column. That's what counts most. Is this the 3rd or 4th game between the two teams this season? Just wondering about tie-breakers. Minnesota is falling fast, too so that might hurt us. Maybe Golden State and even Sacramento win a few more games. I'd be okay with that!!!

Post #143 » by **DeBlazerRiddem** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:43 am

Tonight was a "must-lose" in terms of tanking.

Norm2953 · Post #144 » by **Norm2953** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:50 am

A big question would be what if NJ finishes third and loses Deron Williams to
the Mavs in the off season. Presumably the Nets would be forced to S/T
Williams so that they would get something out of it but that something
almost certainly would insure NJ being lottery bound in 2013.

Post #145 » by **DaVoiceMaster** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:54 pm

I don't think Dallas has a whole lot to offer. They might only have Nowitzki, Marion, Hayward, Beaubois and Jones on the roster. Everyone else has either a guaranteed contract (Odom, Carter, Wright & Williams) or is a free agent (Kidd, Terry, Mahinmi, Cardinal, West, Rautins & Randall. Is there anyone the Nets would want? Dirk's going nowhere. Dallas might wanna get rid of Marion or maybe even Hayward, but I can't imagine the Nets would be interested. Dallas may have around $15 million available so perhaps that's the starting price. Portland could probably beat that by a bit, but would they want to? I would think Portland could have a good idea whether Williams is interested or not prior to July 1st with Aldridge and Matthews chatting with Williams. That could help decide who to offer the first contract to (Williams, Dragic, Nash, etc). Perhaps they could know prior to the draft so they don't waste a draft pick on a PG if Williams is open to coming here. If nothing else, try and bring Nash in and have him mentor Nolan or any rookie PG we "might" draft. I think there are some options this summer, but we'll see what happens.

Wizenheimer · Post #146 » by **Wizenheimer** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:02 pm

DaVoiceMaster wrote:I don't think Dallas has a whole lot to offer. They might only have Nowitzki, Marion, Hayward, Beaubois and Jones on the roster..

Dirk Nowitzki 20,907,128
Lamar Odom 2,400,000 (guaranteed portion)
Shawn Marion 8,692,881
Brendan Haywood 8,349,000
Vince Carter 3,090,000
Rodrigue Beaubois 2,227,333
Dominique Jones 1,276,560
5 roster charges 2,500.000

49.4 million in total salary

assuming a 58 million salary cap, that would leave Dallas about 9 million shy of being able to offer a max contract to Deron

they will either have to find a miracle trade before July that clears lots of salary...or they will have to use the amnesty of Marion or Haywood, and even then, they will be pushing the difference between their space and the max salary, Either way, that will leave the Mavs with a nearly vacant roster. And keep in mind, in order to clear that cap-space, Dallas will have to renounce bird rights to Jason Terry & Jason Kidd.

Deron will have to really want to play in Dallas as well as really trust that Mark Cuban will manage to rebuild on the fly while keeping Dirk around

Norm2953 · Post #147 » by **Norm2953** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:07 pm

Deron if he really wants to play in Dallas faces the same factors that Dwight Howard
faces in leaving to play elsewhere which is he would have to take a hair cut financially.

Very few guys (and their agents) would be willing to take a lot less which increases the
likelihood of a S/T with the Nets for didn't Cleveland end up S/T Lebron? Portland does
have more to offer in a S/T which are those lottery picks. Portland could offer NJ
back their pick in a S/T for Deron.

Wizenheimer · Post #148 » by **Wizenheimer** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:42 pm

Norm2953 wrote:Deron if he really wants to play in Dallas faces the same factors that Dwight Howard
faces in leaving to play elsewhere which is he would have to take a hair cut financially.

Very few guys (and their agents) would be willing to take a lot less which increases the
likelihood of a S/T with the Nets for didn't Cleveland end up S/T Lebron? Portland does
have more to offer in a S/T which are those lottery picks. Portland could offer NJ
back their pick in a S/T for Deron.

no chance

that's not how S&T's for free agents work. What the team losing the player almost always gets is a giant TPE and a 2nd round pick. Maybe a real late 1st. That's about it. They can't expect any more then that and the only reason a team would give that much is to get the player signed for 5 years instead of 4 and to 7.5% raises instead of 4.5%

if Deron is actually willing to sign in Portland, neither he, nor the Blazers will want to gift NJ a valuable asset like a top-7 pick. That would be nuts

as a matter of fact, a primary reason that Deron might sign in Portland (and yes, it's a real long-shot) is because of that NJ pick/player

JasonStern · Post #149 » by **JasonStern** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:44 pm

slightly off-topic, but what if the reason the blazers aren't tanking is to give canales a look as the permanent head coach? given the roster he has and the 5 game deficit he had when he took over, I'm not seeing how the blazers couldn't offer him the position if we somehow miraculously get the 8th seed.

Fitz303 · Post #150 » by **Fitz303** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:26 pm

JasonStern wrote:slightly off-topic, but what if the reason the blazers aren't tanking is to give canales a look as the permanent head coach? given the roster he has and the 5 game deficit he had when he took over, I'm not seeing how the blazers couldn't offer him the position if we somehow miraculously get the 8th seed.

I'm already unhappy with how Canales is handling the rotation. Playing Batum and the 4 so that Crawford can play the 2 and push Matthews to the 3 is just stupid. He's been doing it for the last 2 games in the 4th quarter. Put Crawford back on the bench, slide Batum and Matthews to their normal positions, and bring in either Hickson or Przybilla

Post #151 » by **DaVoiceMaster** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:36 pm

I hear ya Fitz, but I think that's changing a bit now that they have JJ Hickson. We'll see though.

DusterBuster · Post #152 » by **DusterBuster** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:47 am

Pistons won a nail biter in Washington tonight. They were down a decent amount going into the 4th but were able to tie it late in the 4th and must have hit a game winning shot with only 5 seconds left since they are shown coming away with the win. They are starting to put some nice distance from the 4 and 5 spots in the lottery. Pistons are now 17-32.

Raptors lost again. They're currently tied with the Nets at 16-34, but that won't last long as the Nets are getting blown out against the Jazz. The Nets game just ended seconds ago and are now 16-35.

Post #153 » by **Moonbeam** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 2:00 am

Milwaukee is losing to the Knicks without Lin and Amare.

DusterBuster · Post #154 » by **DusterBuster** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 2:12 am

Make that, Milwaukee lost to the Knicks without Lin and Amare.

Houston and the Kings are in a battle that looks like it will go down to the final seconds.

Norm2953 · Post #155 » by **Norm2953** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:15 am

The chase for lottery position is going to get interesting for while the
Bobcats, Wizards and Hornets have the top 3 sewn up, 5 teams (Tor, NJ,
Cleveland, Detroit and Sac) have 16 or 17 wins and can finish 4-8 while
Milwaukee, Portland, Minnesota are going to vie for 10-12. Phoenix and
Denver look to be 13-14.

My guess is that Milwaukee playing in the East with more crappy teams, is
going to finish 12, leaving Portland and Minnesota to vie for 10,11. GS with
a three game cushion is going to finish at 9. That win over GS last night
might have cost us heavily on draft night for I understand the odds at
winning the lottery at 9 are 1.7% while at 10 are 1.1%.

The Nets who are playing some really dreadful ball, might not win more than
4 games left on their 15 remaining games. It begs to wonder how they will
be much better even if they win the lottery, even if they keep Deron for
Anthony Davis is more of a project than most first picks in the draft.

fishnc · Post #156 » by **fishnc** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:07 pm

I really hope we are able to finish below Minnesota(New Orleans) and Sacramento somehow.

DusterBuster · Post #157 » by **DusterBuster** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:14 am

Looks like we're headed for a loss tonight, that means we should be 23-27 by the end of the night. The Bucks won tonight, so they will also be 23-27. TWolves lost, so they're at 24-27.

Here's our final schedule fwiw.....

vs NOH
@ LAC (2nd night of B2B)
vs MIN
vs UTA
vs NJN
@ DAL
@ MIL (2nd night of B2B)
vs HOU
vs GS
vs DAL
@ SAC
@ PHO (2nd night of B2B)
vs UTA
@ MEM
@ SAS
@ UTA

8 at home, 8 away. No real heavy hitters in terms of quality anymore, but not a ton of treadmill teams either.

I think the Blazers go 2-6 on the road. The only wins will be at Sac and at the Spurs (Pop will likely rest his whole roster for the playoffs at that point). At home, I got them going 4-4. That would put the Blazers with a final season record of 29-36.

Norm2953 · Post #158 » by **Norm2953** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:22 am

It will be interesting to see when Portland goes into player development mode and
begins to sit Felton, Crawford and perhaps Kurt Thomas in favor of playing Flynn,
Smith and Thrabeet. If Portland was really serious about wanting to evaluate
their bench, LA might get rested down the stretch for the team might want an
extended look at Hickson.

deanwoof · Post #159 » by **deanwoof** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:47 am

we should never play thabeet. he has lost all confidence.

hickson meanwhile...

GEE · Post #160 » by **GEE** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:51 am

Tanking, while not appearing to be tanking will be difficult with the remaining schedule. I say this because David Stern, I mean the lottery balls, don't seem to like teams that tank. IIRC, we only had a 8.9% chance at landing Oden and Seattle had about the same when landing KD, while the teams that obviously were tanking dropped spots.

Just keep starting Pryzbilla and playing Crawford heavy minutes and we should come out fine.