NBA Games Discussion Thread

[hands11]

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400464175


Klay Thompson 11-18 and 7-8 from 3 in the HALF

Damn son.

[Liverbird]

Golden State are a good defensive center from being a really dangerous team. In 2 years (when Bogut, Jefferson, and Biedrin's contracts expire) everyone will be in their primes, 2014 /15 cap space, and a couple playoff years will make them an attractive destination. Getting rid of Montana Ellis was the single best thing they've done.

[Higga]

I wrote off the Warriors after they blew Game 1. Glad I was wrong. I'm adopting them as my playoff team now. Love the way they play, though it pains me watching Thompson and Curry knowing they could easily be doing it for us.

[nuposse04]

I can't root for the Warriors either, their bench is so damn annoying. They've had two back to back career level games from key players. I simply can't believe they can keep that up. Something about Bazemore's cheek structure also rubs me the wrong way. Annoying ass smile.

[dobrojim]

Jimmy Butler for Bulls seemed to do OK with that

Jimmy Butler was not the primary focus of an elite defense.

FWIW, he may not have been the primary focus but he was part
of a team going up against an elite defense. And when he was
playing defense himself, he spent time guarding Bron.

I didn't continue to watch last night what with the Caps, Os and Nats
all on at the same time. Seems like CHI threw in the towel early
all happy with themselves for having gotten a split on the road.

I kinda think GS will win their series against SAN. They didn't get
the memo that the playoffs are all slow down half court defensive
struggles. GSW could get all the way to the Finals. Jarret Jack, local guy,
playing out of his mind. Lots of contributors on GS right now.

[Illuminaire]

Dobro, not trying to be argumentative or pointed here. I don't know if my short responses are coming across that way, I just thought the answer to your initial question really was that simple.

Curry has a huge role in the offense. Even when he is off the ball, he has to move around, come off screens, and find ways to open things up for everyone else. When he doesn't do that, GS tends to fall quickly into isolation driven stupid ball. On defense, they're trying to keep him from guarding Parker, but that means he's having to check much bigger shooters, and with the way San Antonio keeps their offense moving that is not an easy task.

Jimmy Butler's usage rate in the playoffs this year is 14.5%. Curry's is 26.8%. Butler is averaging an incredibly 38.7 minutes.... Curry is averaging an insane 42.5.

Agreed on your other points. Chicago did not match their intensity from the first game. GS is playing way above their heads, and while the Spurs can totally win this series, so could the Warriors.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Filomena Tobias, the angry Heat fan who shot the bird about a foot from Joakim Noah's face, seems to be a very shady character--possibly a murderer.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball- ... 42849.html

[FAH1223]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wiz ... ing-noise/

Curry’s desires to join the Wizards as the fifth pick in the 2009 are well known by now, just as the names Mike Miller and Randy Foye continue to haunt the franchise. The Wizards dealt the No. 5 pick to Minnesota the day before the NBA draft, balking on the chance to take either Curry or Ricky Rubio, the Timberwolves’ eventual choice.

The Wizards didn’t trade the sixth pick in 2011 but have received minimal, at best, production from Jan Vesely, who went five spots ahead of Thompson. At the time, the Wizards weren’t looking for a shooting guard because the team was still developing Jordan Crawford and Nick Young was about to become a restricted free agent. Crawford and Young are both already gone.

[GhostsOfGil]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wizards-insider/wp/2013/05/09/golden-states-couldve-been-wizards-making-noise/

Curry’s desires to join the Wizards as the fifth pick in the 2009 are well known by now, just as the names Mike Miller and Randy Foye continue to haunt the franchise. The Wizards dealt the No. 5 pick to Minnesota the day before the NBA draft, balking on the chance to take either Curry or Ricky Rubio, the Timberwolves’ eventual choice.

The Wizards didn’t trade the sixth pick in 2011 but have received minimal, at best, production from Jan Vesely, who went five spots ahead of Thompson. At the time, the Wizards weren’t looking for a shooting guard because the team was still developing Jordan Crawford and Nick Young was about to become a restricted free agent. Crawford and Young are both already gone.

[jivelikenice]

Reading the article, its a combination of two errors. 1. Abe having marching orders to save money; which is evidenced by us also selling the 2nd round pick that year); and 2. Ernie finding a deal he undeniably liked that allowed him to save salary.

I hate to speak about Abe since he has now passed, but he had a history of short sighted decisions based on money that really set the franchise back (i.e. Juwan's rookie negotiations). But focusing on Ernie, his mistake was 1. thinking the offer was too good to pass up & wouldn't be there on draft day; 2. Assuming he knew how the lotttery would play out (there's no chance he thought Rubio would slide to 5); and 3. not waiting until they were on the clock to execute the deal. You had the Minnesota deal in your pocket; the Knicks would have started a bidding war once Rubio slipped. We could have gotten a better deal in terms of players and salary relief.

Just a fail all around, but I don't put the blame on Ernie solely. His blame lies in the execution of his marching orders.

[Nivek]

Reading the article, its a combination of two errors. 1. Abe having marching orders to save money; which is evidenced by us also selling the 2nd round pick that year); and 2. Ernie finding a deal he undeniably liked that allowed him to save salary.

I hate to speak about Abe since he has now passed, but he had a history of short sighted decisions based on money that really set the franchise back (i.e. Juwan's rookie negotiations). But focusing on Ernie, his mistake was 1. thinking the offer was too good to pass up & wouldn't be there on draft day; 2. Assuming he knew how the lotttery would play out (there's no chance he thought Rubio would slide to 5); and 3. not waiting until they were on the clock to execute the deal. You had the Minnesota deal in your pocket; the Knicks would have started a bidding war once Rubio slipped. We could have gotten a better deal in terms of players and salary relief.

Just a fail all around, but I don't put the blame on Ernie solely. His blame lies in the execution of his marching orders.

I don't want to impugn Michael Lee. I believe a "league source" told him that Abe gave orders to Ernie to use the pick to rid the team of long-term contracts. That said, I think Lee has been fed a line of bull manure.

At the time that trade went down, I was talking regularly with one of the team's basketball execs via phone. In sum, we probably spent an hour discussing the trade -- why they did it, what they were thinking, how they envisioned the team fitting together, what the coaches were thinking. The subject of Abe Pollin insisting the team rid itself of long-term contracts never came up. I talked to this exec all the time -- probably weekly for a 6-month period, and monthly for another couple years (now maybe quarterly, if that much). We talked about a lot of stuff, and never -- not one time -- did I get even a hint that Pollin was trying to cut costs.

The closest thing was this exec saying a couple times that the front office had to work within an operating budget just like any other business. However, it was abundantly clear that he was talking about stuff like office overhead, consultants, software, NOT player salaries. Like many businesses, office overhead was one part of the budget while worker (player) salaries were another.

I don't know who Lee's source is on this, but this smacks of something a "friend of Grunfeld" would put out there. Whoever gave this story to Lee was lying.

[jivelikenice]

I don't doubt your source and I do think Ernie probably wanted the deal when it presented itself, but I don't doubt that Abe wanted to cut costs. I mean this team did sell their 2nd round pick in '08 & '09. If Ernie was making the call wouldn't he have just taken a Eurostash with those picks? My GUESS is that Ernie was asked to cut costs; Ernie was still hung up on what this team could have been with a healthy Agent Zero, and Abe wanted immediate help to make one last run. Theoretically the pick was a means to make a run with immediate help while cutting costs....Makes too much sense not to think there's something to what Michael Lee's sources are saying.

[nate33]

The trade DIDN'T cut any costs. It was salary neutral other than the fact that we gave away our pick so we didn't have to pay the relatively modest salary of the #5 draft pick. Furthermore, Minnesota was able to flip Etan Thomas THAT SAME SUMMER for two smaller contracts, one of which was not guaranteed. Minny turned Etan's $7.3M obligation into a $4M obligation.

[Nivek]

I don't doubt your source and I do think Ernie probably wanted the deal when it presented itself, but I don't doubt that Abe wanted to cut costs. I mean this team did sell their 2nd round pick in '08 & '09. If Ernie was making the call wouldn't he have just taken a Eurostash with those picks? My GUESS is that Ernie was asked to cut costs; Ernie was still hung up on what this team could have been with a healthy Agent Zero, and Abe wanted immediate help to make one last run. Theoretically the pick was a means to make a run with immediate help while cutting costs....Makes too much sense not to think there's something to what Michael Lee's sources are saying.

The only player salary constraint the team was under was the luxury tax. And, from what I was told, Abe was willing to exceed the luxury tax if he could be persuaded it would make them a championship contender.

This whole "Abe wanted to save money" thing is a nasty piece of work by whoever gave it to Lee. It taps directly into the image Abe earned when he (and Wes Unseld) believed they could build a winner without spending on things other teams were spending on. That whole "Abe is a cheapskate" thing had ended well before Grunfeld got to town. And, it doesn't match up at all with Abe's quest to see the team win another title before he died.

As for selling 2nd round picks -- Grunfeld believed the team had "enough" talent and didn't want to bring a marginal player into the locker room. He still hasn't learned that lesson very well considering the Satoransky draft-and-stash move last year.

I'll say it one more time: Whoever gave this story to Lee was lying.

[jivelikenice]

What Minnesota did with their pick to flip it is inconsequential to if the Wizards saved by making this deal. I read somewhere the deal netted us about $6MM in total savings. Not sure if that's true but that's what I read. That's before you take into account the $ made on selling the pick and like you said, the money saved by not paying the 5th pick. If orders were not to save money, why haven't we sold a pick since Ted took over?

[jivelikenice]

Nivek, your Satoranksy analogy is not equivalent at all to selling the pick for $. The only way it compares is in both situations they did not think a 2nd rounder could contribute, but there's a difference between stashing a player and selling a pick. Why didn't he just sell it this past year then?

[Nivek]

Nivek, your Satoranksy analogy is not equivalent at all to selling the pick for $. The only way it compares is in both situations they did not think a 2nd rounder could contribute, but there's a difference between stashing a player and selling a pick. Why didn't he just sell it this past year then?

Don't know.

I do know, however, that they didn't sell the picks because Abe had told the front office to cut costs or because the team needed an infusion of money.

[nate33]

What Minnesota did with their pick to flip it is inconsequential to if the Wizards saved by making this deal. I read somewhere the deal netted us about $6MM in total savings. Not sure if that's true but that's what I read. That's before you take into account the $ made on selling the pick and like you said, the money saved by not paying the 5th pick. If orders were not to save money, why haven't we sold a pick since Ted took over?

This came up in another thread about a week ago. Here is what I wrote:

We traded Etan, Songaila, Pecherov and the #5 pick for Mike Miller and Randy Foye

Etan was owed $7.35M and expired after that
Songaila was owed $4.5M that year and $4.8M the following year
Pecherov was owed $1.55M
That's $13.4M in Year 1 and $4.8M in Year 2

Foye was owed $3.58M for 1 year and expired after that
Miller was owed $9.75M for 1 year and expired after that
That's $13.33M in Year 1 and nothing in Year 2, though presumably the intent was to resign both guys.

The only cap savings was the fact that we didn't have to pay a draft pick. To add insult to injury, Minnesota was able to flip Etan that same summer for 2 smaller contracts, one of which wasn't guaranteed, effectively turning his $7.3M salary obligation into a $4M salary obligation.

If we simply made the Etan trade ourselves, it would have paid the cost of the #5 pick and the whole thing would have been completely revenue neutral. Indeed, it would have saved us a ton of money in the long run because 4 years of Stephen Curry would have cost far less than the cost to resign Miller and/or Foye.

There is no sugar coating this trade. It was one of the worst of the decade and it was clearly recognizable as a bad trade the moment it was made. At least I was able to recognize it, as well as a few others. The only justification was that Pollin was ailing and perhaps that accelerated the team's win-now strategy. Basically, EG thought a couple more years of 45-win basketball was better than really trying to rebuild from the ground up.

[jivelikenice]

Nivek, your Satoranksy analogy is not equivalent at all to selling the pick for $. The only way it compares is in both situations they did not think a 2nd rounder could contribute, but there's a difference between stashing a player and selling a pick. Why didn't he just sell it this past year then?

Don't know.

I do know, however, that they didn't sell the picks because Abe had told the front office to cut costs or because the team needed an infusion of money.

What other reason would there be to sell a pick accept to make some money or cut costs? Especially considering they did it two years in a row....

[jivelikenice]

Nate, I'm not sure why you think anyone is sugarcoating this trade. I just don't think it was 100% Ernie and might have been more like 66%Ernie/33%Abe. A terrible deal nonetheless so you're getting caught up on an irrelavant point. Also according to your salary breakdown, they did save Songaila's salary in yr 2 and the cost of a draft pick, right? I'm sure there were other ways they could have gotten to the same bottom line w/o sacrificing the pick or through getting a better deal (Ernie's fault), but they still made a deal that on the surface did save them some cash, right? That's $4.8 for Songaila in year 2; the draft pick's salary in year 2; and add to that the money made by selling the pick.