The NBENFANT Thread (NBA): 2023-2024 Edition!

[tester551]

I don't hate the GSW and like the way they play but totally dislike the Houston Rockets. Imagine the
dislike for the Rockets if Lebron ends in Houston...

I keep seeing people say Lebron to Houston....

James Harden $30,421,854
Chris Paul $35,350,000 (cap-hold)
Ryan Anderson $20,421,546
Eric Gordon $13,500,375
P.J. Tucker $7,969,537
Nene $3,651,480
Clint Capela $7,003,585
Troy Williams (stretched) $122,741
Chinanu Onuaku $1,544,951
Roster Charges (five) $4,100,000

that's 124M and the salary cap will be around 101M. AS is the Rockets will start out over the tax threshold counting cap-holds (and that's after letting Trevor Ariza, Tariq Black, and Gerald Green walk in free agency

even if Houston renounced both Paul & Capela they'd only have about 16M in cap-space and sice Lebron is scheduled to make 36M next season you have to expect he'd want at least 30M

the only chance is a S&T and if the Cavs are going for something like that it's just about guaranteed that other teams can beat what the Rockets can offer

Woj and Bobby Marks were talking about the S&T and how executives around the league have discussed it as a way that teams are going to be a lot more aggressive in pursuing that vs just straight up FA this summer. Specifically they sited the Chris Paul to Houston deal as an example of how that is going to be a new model for players going to the teams they want to goto regardless if the team in question has cap space.

Using that same CP3 trade as an example, if the rest of the league knew Paul was on the market, there would have been numerous teams willing to put up MUCH better offers than the one the Clippers accepted from Houston. The idea that "it's just about guaranteed other teams can beat what X-Team can offer" simply isn't an end all be all excuse for why a player may end up somewhere that we logically don't think they should.

Nice thought in theory.... but the challenge is that you have to get 3 different parties (both teams & the player) all to agree to it.

If Lebron tries to strong arm Cleveland to trade him to Houston, the only option Houston would have is to send out Ryan Anderson & probably Eric Gordon.

If I'm Cleveland, I'd rather let Lebron walk than take back Anderson - so that means no deal. Only way Lebron would get to go to Houston is on a below-market deal.

[JasonStern]

Doris Burke has forgotten more about basketball than I will ever know

https://projects.nj.com/investigations/doris-burke/

[DusterBuster]

This guys Blazers insights may be worthless, but this sure is on point...

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VS

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[JasonStern]

https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/former-nba-player-charged-with-armed-robbery-coweta-county/RKsjSFosvDioSvzq2AkqzO/

Looks like Hickson is off the table.

[PDXKnight]

https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/former-nba-player-charged-with-armed-robbery-coweta-county/RKsjSFosvDioSvzq2AkqzO/

Looks like Hickson is off the table.

Yeah I saw that. I'm baffled how players can make millions and feel the need to break into houses..

[The Sebastian Express]

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[zzaj]

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This is the worst trade I've seen in a LONG time. I see no angle in which this is a good deal for Charlotte. MAYBE Mozgov's contract will be a useful asset?

Absolutely horrendous for Charlotte. I feel sorry for their fans.

[The Sebastian Express]

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This is the worst trade I've seen in a LONG time. I see no angle in which this is a good deal for Charlotte. MAYBE Mozgov's contract will be a useful asset?

Absolutely horrendous for Charlotte. I feel sorry for their fans.

Like I said elsewhere.. if they were insistent on doing this to tank, maybe to save money, why didn't they try to do a package for Parsons and the 4 and then unload a smaller contract off somewhere with some future seconds? Like damn. This is so terrible.

[Wizenheimer]

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This is the worst trade I've seen in a LONG time. I see no angle in which this is a good deal for Charlotte. MAYBE Mozgov's contract will be a useful asset?

Absolutely horrendous for Charlotte. I feel sorry for their fans.

Charlotte is scheduled to only be about 1.5M below the scheduled tax threshold and their 11th pick would put them over the line. This trade gives them 6-7M in room below that line and keeps them out of the apron

in 2019-20, they only have about 75M in guaranteed salary so Mozgov's salary then won't hurt them much since, like Portland, they aren't a free agent destination

finally, last season, on a 36 win team Dwight Howard had a winshare/48 of .133 and was 'responsible' for 7 wins. Meanwhie, Mozgov had a winshare/48 of .055 and was responsible for 0.4 wins. This trade helps next season's tank and likely elevates their 2019 draft pick; and they pick up a couple of 2nd's as well

on the other hand, they may have been able to do all that without taking on Mozgov. For instance, I'd imagine they could get a pretty good draft pick and salary relief by simply trading Kemba Walker for a TPE. But DH doesn't seem to endear himself to any front office and Walker has been a great player and model citizen for Charlotte, so maybe they were just anxious to see DH in their rear view mirror

[cucad8]

Charlotte is scheduled to only be about 1.5M below the scheduled tax threshold and their 11th pick would put them over the line. This trade gives them 6-7M in room below that line and keeps them out of the apron

in 2019-20, they only have about 75M in guaranteed salary so Mozgov's salary then won't hurt them much since, like Portland, they aren't a free agent destination

finally, last season, on a 36 win team Dwight Howard had a winshare/48 of .133 and was 'responsible' for 7 wins. Meanwhie, Mozgov had a winshare/48 of .055 and was responsible for 0.4 wins. This trade helps next season's tank and likely elevates their 2019 draft pick; and they pick up a couple of 2nd's as well

on the other hand, they may have been able to do all that without taking on Mozgov. For instance, I'd imagine they could get a pretty good draft pick and salary relief by simply trading Kemba Walker for a TPE. But DH doesn't seem to endear himself to any front office and Walker has been a great player and model citizen for Charlotte, so maybe they were just anxious to see DH in their rear view mirror

I know they wanted to get under the tax line for this season, but that extra year of Mozgov? Yuck. If they waive and stretch Dwight, they drop 15 million this season. They'd still save money next year, on the 8 million owed Dwight, vs. 16 for Mozgov. Then there's the 3rd season of 8 in 20/21. And all of that assumes Dwight doesn't sign anywhere. Would someone give him tax payer MLE? More? If he got that, then you look at the offset they get from his new contract...Just an awful move by them, IMO.

[Wizenheimer]

Charlotte is scheduled to only be about 1.5M below the scheduled tax threshold and their 11th pick would put them over the line. This trade gives them 6-7M in room below that line and keeps them out of the apron

in 2019-20, they only have about 75M in guaranteed salary so Mozgov's salary then won't hurt them much since, like Portland, they aren't a free agent destination

finally, last season, on a 36 win team Dwight Howard had a winshare/48 of .133 and was 'responsible' for 7 wins. Meanwhie, Mozgov had a winshare/48 of .055 and was responsible for 0.4 wins. This trade helps next season's tank and likely elevates their 2019 draft pick; and they pick up a couple of 2nd's as well

on the other hand, they may have been able to do all that without taking on Mozgov. For instance, I'd imagine they could get a pretty good draft pick and salary relief by simply trading Kemba Walker for a TPE. But DH doesn't seem to endear himself to any front office and Walker has been a great player and model citizen for Charlotte, so maybe they were just anxious to see DH in their rear view mirror

I know they wanted to get under the tax line for this season, but that extra year of Mozgov? Yuck. If they waive and stretch Dwight, they drop 15 million this season. They'd still save money next year, on the 8 million owed Dwight, vs. 16 for Mozgov. Then there's the 3rd season of 8 in 20/21. And all of that assumes Dwight doesn't sign anywhere. Would someone give him tax payer MLE? More? If he got that, then you look at the offset they get from his new contract...Just an awful move by them, IMO.

good point. And, the tax won't be locked till mid-April 2019 so the Hornets had plenty of time to make moves to avoid tax; they also have the expiring contracts of Kemba (12M) and Lamb (7.5M) to work with

personally, I'm kind of surprised that teams don't use the stretch more then they do, especially for expiring contracts. But maybe most front offices feel that 1 year of major pain is better then 3 years of less major pain

[Norm2953]

I like the NBA regular season but the post season and now the off season is difficult to stomach.
How many of us are wondering if we'll see more of these stupid deals?

[JasonStern]

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seems like a missed opportunity for Portland to cut salary in 2019-20 at the expense of 2018-19.

[DusterBuster]

It's amazing seeing Dwight Howards value around the league. Teams can't wait to get rid of him, and this was after what was thought to be a good season.

[jeffhardyfan52]

Some report said said that the hornets locker really did not like having Dwight around

[Norm2953]

I often time wonder if the 6-8 teams that have the capabilities of building a super team would
go off and form their own league leaving everyone else to form a lesser league that can compete
for their own championship.

[DusterBuster]

This post may age poorly, but I can't believe the Kings are going to pass on Doncic tomorrow. This feels like yet another year the Kings piss away a lottery pick.

[Norm2953]

They are the Kings. There is a reason why they have been in the lottery since Chris Webber left

[DusterBuster]

They are the Kings. There is a reason why they have been in the lottery since Chris Webber left

That's not technically true. They did make it to the playoffs the season after Webber was traded, in fact, a lot of ex-Blazers were featured on that squad; Bonzi, Shareef, and Monia. That was the last time they had a record above .500. They won 44 games and lost in the first round. In the 12 years since, they highest win total for a season the Kings have had is 38....

There's a reason I'm not excited to just blindly go into a blow-it-all-up rebuild, the Kings are Exhibit A for that.

The Suns would be Exhibit B. They're on their 8th season of no playoffs since blowing it up. They've had a better go of it, they had a 48 win season and missed the playoffs in one of those crazy western conference years where you need 50 W's for an 8th seed. Granted they're on a much better path to being a playoff team than the Kings are, but do they make the playoffs before hitting their a double digit drought? Unlikely.

I just think "The Process" is one of the biggest fools gold things to happen to the NBA in awhile. To me it's a "get rich quick" scheme and now every fan who see their team as stuck in that 50ish win range has a bad case of FOMO (fear of missing out). They saw the "The Process" in Philly where they were able to turn that franchise around in just 5 years, so everyone thinks 'If they can do it, so can we!'.

The problem being two-fold, one, more teams are willing to do that process means more competition at the bottom end and less chance of constantly being one of the Top 4 worst teams. The second problem is you have to also get lucky in the lottery, players have to pan out, stay healthy and the balls have to fall your way even when you're one of the 4 worst. Not to mention that the league is also changing how the lottery works starting next year to try and curb teams from attempting "The Process".

In most cases, you don't end up with the luck the Sixers had and you end up closer to 10 years for a complete tear-down rebuild than you do 5 years - which is "short" in NBA terms. For my money, if you have a 50 win caliber team, you keep it together and try to make moves to improve. It takes so much work and takes so long just to get that far, that I don't believe you just throw that away because a playoff series didn't go like you'd hoped or one FA summer went poorly. I think you only bottom out when it's necessary and it's out of your control to go any other way. If you have a star or two, you ride it out and try to build around as best as possible. If you lose one or both of those stars to FA or trade demands, than you bottom out. Just blowing it up cause your frustrated just feels very short-sighted imo.

But to each their own. That's just my view on how a team should be run.

[Norm2953]

Technically the made the playoffs in the 05/6 season with 44 wins but were clearly headed
downward after finishing as the 2 seed in the 03 season, 4 seed in 04, 6 seed in 05. 44 wins
usually gets a team in the lottery.

It's easy to see how the Kings went bad for after drafting Crash Wallace in 03, they had no
rookies which made any difference until Tyreke Evans in 09 and pissed away Cousins
and let Hassan Whiteside escape for nothing. Drafting T-Rob in 12 leads to more bad teams.

Teams can recover from years of bad draft with 1-2 years of good drafts but 15 years of
bad drafts is inexcuseable.