2020-21 NBA Season Discussion

[Colbinii]

I don’t understand the kemba buyout. Wasn’t he owed like 74 mil or did I get that wrong?

Why would they buy him out, how much was it for and why did Jenna do it

If you look at what they did....

They traded ~55 Million in Horford for ~75 Million in Kemba plus a 1st.

[Dupp]

I don’t understand the kemba buyout. Wasn’t he owed like 74 mil or did I get that wrong?

Why would they buy him out, how much was it for and why did Jenna do it

If you look at what they did....

They traded ~55 Million in Horford for ~75 Million in Kemba plus a 1st.

How much was the buyout though, do we have a figure? I read he’s only getting paid like 8 per by the Knicks..?

[Colbinii]

I don’t understand the kemba buyout. Wasn’t he owed like 74 mil or did I get that wrong?

Why would they buy him out, how much was it for and why did Jenna do it

If you look at what they did....

They traded ~55 Million in Horford for ~75 Million in Kemba plus a 1st.

How much was the buyout though, do we have a figure? I read he’s only getting paid like 8 per by the Knicks..?

My post assumes full buyout. Anything less than full simply benefits the Thunder.

[Dupp]

So they paid him 70 mil not to play? That can’t be right. Also seems like an insane way to run a team.

[Fadeaway_J]

So they paid him 70 mil not to play? That can’t be right. Also seems like an insane way to run a team.

I figured it would be full salary minus whatever he's getting from the Knicks.

[Dr Positivity]

Read on Twitter

I guess he's still not made whole yet

[Fadeaway_J]

Read on Twitter

I guess he's still not made whole yet

Seriously. You'd think he was in line for a max contract way back when!

[Doctor MJ]

Read on Twitter

I guess he's still not made whole yet

Seriously. You'd think he was in line for a max contract way back when!

I think it's really interesting that the Heat are keeping Haslem as a player. Have to think they'll hire him as an assistant coach instead eventually, but they must think he brings value specifically by being a player leader, which ('d think) has to mean he at least is still good enough to be pretty competitive in practice.

[falcolombardi]

19th season ? does this mean he was drafted same year as wade?

i am impressed tbh, who would have guessed his career would be longer than wade?

[Doctor MJ]

19th season ? does this mean he was drafted same year as wade?

i am impressed tbh, who would have guessed his career would be longer than wade?

He was eligible but went undrafted in 2002, the year before Wade was draft, and yeah, I find guys like this extremely impressive.

I think we tend to get too caught up in the GOAT list sometimes and don't ask enough "Who managed to beat the odds and become beloved by their franchise and city?" If you look at this from a perspective of using a silly kid's game to set up your post-playing career, Haslem's done fantastic.

I'd contrast that to someone like Carlos Boozer (also from the 2002 draft) who was an all-star and was an excellent player for a solid run, but who is more known for short-sighted "take the money and run" thinking. Dude could have been LeBron's co-star, which would have made him a much bigger deal in the long run.

For me personally, I'd much rather have Haslem's career than Boozer's, and not because of the rings. I just think he's much better set up to be a living institution of basketball for the rest of his life, and he achieved this with a fraction of the talent Boozer had.

[HeartBreakKid]

I think you're getting things a bit mixed up with what a career is. More romanticized career hardly equals more better and by the time they are old men no one will care about either regardless.


Carlos Boozer has made at least more than double the amount of money Haslem has made and has not had to work nearly as hard as Haslem for for about 8 years now. He's done plenty well for himself.

The point of a career is to make money, which he has done more successfully than Haslem; not to win a popularity contest. Boozer also reached higher levels of his craft than Haslem did, if we want to go with the "there is more to life than money".

If you're arguing that Haslem is better set up for an executive job, then one would question why wouldn't he just become an executive already. Not to mention someone with Boozer's resume could easily go into upper management as well, it's likely not Boozer's priority or maybe even his personality prevents him from doing that - if he is even interested in such a thing.

Maybe I am more competitive, or maybe I have more ideas to do with larger sums of money - but I'd much rather be an NBA all-star than a guy riding the bench into his 40s as a bootleg coach. Boozer is an easy target because he is not seen a prestigious player and he also spray painted his hair, but he is objectively a very accomplished person and most people would not say that he was anything less to his face.

[Doctor MJ]

I think you're getting things a bit mixed up with what a career is. More romanticized career hardly equals more better and by the time they are old men no one will care about either regardless.


Carlos Boozer has made at least more than double the amount of money Haslem has made and has not had to work nearly as hard as Haslem for for about 8 years now. He's done plenty well for himself.

The point of a career is to make money, which he has done more successfully than Haslem; not to win a popularity contest. Boozer also reached higher levels of his craft than Haslem did, if we want to go with the "there is more to life than money".

If you're arguing that Haslem is better set up for an executive job, then one would question why wouldn't he just become an executive already. Not to mention someone with Boozer's resume could easily go into upper management as well, it's likely not Boozer's priority or maybe even his personality prevents him from doing that - if he is even interested in such a thing.

Maybe I am more competitive, or maybe I have more ideas to do with larger sums of money - but I'd much rather be an NBA all-star than a guy riding the bench into his 40s as a bootleg coach. Boozer is an easy target because he is not seen a prestigious player and he also spray painted his hair, but he is objectively a very accomplished person and most people would not say that he was anything less to his face.

On the first part, you and I just have very different perspectives. I'm a teacher. In everything I'm doing, I'm trying to have an impact on something I hope will be bigger than myself, and last longer than I will. The next school year will start and I'll be surrounded by people I expect I will die before, and that's what I've chosen. And if I had the opportunity for community impact that a beloved former athlete of a city does, I could do more. So that's how I see things.

Re: Boozer hasn't had to work...for 8 years now. I mean, he didn't leave basketball when he left the NBA. First he went to China, then he went to BIG3 where he was still playing up through 2019. I'm not saying he did that because he "had to work", but clearly he's not someone who has been sipping margaritas on the proverbial beach since 2015. Hard not to imagine that, at least up through 2019, he'd have rather have been in Haslem's position - as a revered veteran leader in an organization that values him - than in the position he was in.

Re: "maybe I have more ideas to do with larger sums of money". Given that Haslem has made more than $60 mill in his career in a state with no income tax, I find myself questioning how much money is enough before anything else matters beyond money from this perspective. If that kind of money isn't enough, what kind of a threshold are you looking for?

Re: "reached higher levels of his craft", "rather be an NBA all-star". So, I do get this perspective in general.

Steve Kerr was once asked if he'd trade his career - with the rings - for a career like Steve Nash, and his response was something, "Are you kidding? To be able to do those things on the court! Of course I would!" It always struck me because the question was a classic suck-up softball question set up for Kerr to take about "the joy of winning", where Kerr seemed to respond in terms of the physical experience of doing the thing. A guy like Nash gets to play with a kind of creative freedom that a role player like Kerr wasn't allowed to do. Kerr - an exceptional mind full of creative energy - largely earned his keep by being something of a robot out there. Sure that's understating what he brought to the table in that role, but role players constrain themselves to fit into something less than their full capacity, and you miss out on something when you do that.

So I can see preferring a star's career over a role player's career in general.

My issue with Boozer's career on this front - again, just my personal preferences - is that to me he didn't really do obvious stuff that I've be looking to want to do were I the "star". Were I the star, I'd want to be able to be creative and improvise like crazy...but Boozer always felt pretty robotic out there to me, so I wouldn't actually say it ever looked like that much fun to go play like Boozer to me. And then there's the matter that I'd be wanting to use my stature to develop my leadership and community, in the locker room and out, and Boozer repeatedly showed signs he didn't understand the value of this much at all.

I don't want to be super-negative about Boozer's career here. We're talking about a guy picked 35th overall in the draft who unquestionably outperformed the vast majority of player chosen ahead of him. It's a very nice career. But I think Haslem's is quite nice as well, despite being not as good at his best as Boozer was.

[Doctor MJ]

If you're arguing that Haslem is better set up for an executive job, then one would question why wouldn't he just become an executive already. Not to mention someone with Boozer's resume could easily go into upper management as well, it's likely not Boozer's priority or maybe even his personality prevents him from doing that - if he is even interested in such a thing.

So I forgot to respond to this before.

In terms of Haslem why wouldn't Haslem just become an executive already, I mean, first let's be clear, if we're talking about becoming a "basketball executive", unless you're talking about Haslem going straight in and being a GM - which is currently Pat Riley's job on the Heat - he's going to be making considerably less money as an exec than he does right now as a player. So I think on one level, that's all the answer we need. If Haslem likes what he's doing and he makes more money doing it than any other job he can expect to walk into right now, it makes sense for him to stay in his job as long as he can.

To be clear, I'd be more inclined to see Haslem as a guy who becomes an assistant coach and then (possibly) a head coach. The Heat are paying him right now for the impact he can have on other NBA players. While that's a nice trait in a GM, I'd have to know a lot more before I said I thought he could be successful in the front office.

Re: "someone with Boozer's resume could easily go into upper management". I'm honestly not sure what you mean here. Again, I'll assume you mean a basketball executive given that that's the only "resume" I'd expect you'd expect me to know about, but if I'm wrong, please do enlighten me.

But the phrase "upper management" used in basketball context weirds me out a bit, as well as the way you mention "maybe even his personality prevents him". It's as if you're saying "Given the fact Boozer was an all-star, we should expect that he could get hired as an assistant GM or GM if he simply has an average personality", which to me is something is just not right.

It may seem like every yahoo who was an all-star can get these jobs, but tell that to Kareem who has always been extremely smart and professional in addition to being arguably the GOAT player, and yet has expressed frustration at the lack of opportunity for post-playing careers on NBA teams.

I'm not going to tell you that Boozer can't possibly get a cushy job as a highly paid exec for an NBA team, but I will say that it will take something more than his resume to get him the job. He's going to have to show talent for working with people in a white collar space. Maybe he can do that, maybe he can't, but I'll tell you, that mercenary reputation from his playing career is likely to linger around his name forever, and it won't help his cause.

[Colbinii]

Did Luka have a top-40 peak this past year?

[falcolombardi]

Did Luka have a top-40 peak this past year?

well, this is the Forum top 40 peaks list

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64
15) Stephen Curry 2015-16
16) Dwyane Wade 2008-09
17) Jerry West 1965-66
18) David Robinson 1994-95
19) Dirk Nowitzki 2010-11
20) Kobe Bryant 2007-08
21) Tracy McGrady 2002-03
22) Moses Malone 1982-83
23) Patrick Ewing 1989-90
24) Kevin Durant 2013-14
25) Russell Westbrook 2016-17
26) Charles Barkley 1992-93
27) Kawhi Leonard 2018-19
28) Chris Paul 2007-08
29) George Mikan 1948-49
30) Steve Nash 2004-05
31) Giannis Antetokounmpo 2018-19
32) Karl Malone 1996-97
33) Dwight Howard 2010-11
34) Artis Gilmore 1974-75
35) James Harden 2018-19
36) Willis Reed 1968-69
37) Rick Barry 1974-75
38) Bob McAdoo 1974-75
39) Bob Pettit 1958-59
40) Walt Frazier 1972-73

luka has to be seen as better than at least one of those guys

also better than Nikola jokic 2021 who may make the list too

[Dr Positivity]

19th season ? does this mean he was drafted same year as wade?

i am impressed tbh, who would have guessed his career would be longer than wade?

I mean his playing career has been over for 5 seasons in reality, if it's not about him having taken less during the Lebron years, this is probably just a unique "Heat culture" thing by using one of their roster spots on an assistant coach who has a different relationship with the players by being one of them.

[Colbinii]

Did Luka have a top-40 peak this past year?

well, this is the Forum top 40 peaks list

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64
15) Stephen Curry 2015-16
16) Dwyane Wade 2008-09
17) Jerry West 1965-66
18) David Robinson 1994-95
19) Dirk Nowitzki 2010-11
20) Kobe Bryant 2007-08
21) Tracy McGrady 2002-03
22) Moses Malone 1982-83
23) Patrick Ewing 1989-90
24) Kevin Durant 2013-14
25) Russell Westbrook 2016-17
26) Charles Barkley 1992-93
27) Kawhi Leonard 2018-19
28) Chris Paul 2007-08
29) George Mikan 1948-49
30) Steve Nash 2004-05
31) Giannis Antetokounmpo 2018-19
32) Karl Malone 1996-97
33) Dwight Howard 2010-11
34) Artis Gilmore 1974-75
35) James Harden 2018-19
36) Willis Reed 1968-69
37) Rick Barry 1974-75
38) Bob McAdoo 1974-75
39) Bob Pettit 1958-59
40) Walt Frazier 1972-73

luka has to be seen as better than at least one of those guys

also better than Nikola jokic 2021 who may make the list too

He definitely has arguments over a handful of guys here.

[Texas Chuck]

19th season ? does this mean he was drafted same year as wade?

i am impressed tbh, who would have guessed his career would be longer than wade?

I mean his playing career has been over for 5 seasons in reality, if it's not about him having taken less during the Lebron years, this is probably just a unique "Heat culture" thing by using one of their roster spots on an assistant coach who has a different relationship with the players by being one of them.

It's widely known that Miami is still making up money to him for taking less back when he was relevant. Miami has a long history with this kind of cap manipulation. It's just nobody has an issue with this specific one because it comes with real cost for the Heat wasting a roster spot.

But this isn't about culture despite what they are selling.

[penbeast0]

Did Luka have a top-40 peak this past year?

well, this is the Forum top 40 peaks list

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64
15) Stephen Curry 2015-16
16) Dwyane Wade 2008-09
17) Jerry West 1965-66
18) David Robinson 1994-95
19) Dirk Nowitzki 2010-11
20) Kobe Bryant 2007-08
21) Tracy McGrady 2002-03
22) Moses Malone 1982-83
23) Patrick Ewing 1989-90
24) Kevin Durant 2013-14
25) Russell Westbrook 2016-17
26) Charles Barkley 1992-93
27) Kawhi Leonard 2018-19
28) Chris Paul 2007-08
29) George Mikan 1948-49
30) Steve Nash 2004-05
31) Giannis Antetokounmpo 2018-19
32) Karl Malone 1996-97
33) Dwight Howard 2010-11
34) Artis Gilmore 1974-75
35) James Harden 2018-19
36) Willis Reed 1968-69
37) Rick Barry 1974-75
38) Bob McAdoo 1974-75
39) Bob Pettit 1958-59
40) Walt Frazier 1972-73

luka has to be seen as better than at least one of those guys

also better than Nikola jokic 2021 who may make the list too

He definitely has arguments over a handful of guys here.

Then pick one and make the argument.

[falcolombardi]

well, this is the Forum top 40 peaks list

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64
15) Stephen Curry 2015-16
16) Dwyane Wade 2008-09
17) Jerry West 1965-66
18) David Robinson 1994-95
19) Dirk Nowitzki 2010-11
20) Kobe Bryant 2007-08
21) Tracy McGrady 2002-03
22) Moses Malone 1982-83
23) Patrick Ewing 1989-90
24) Kevin Durant 2013-14
25) Russell Westbrook 2016-17
26) Charles Barkley 1992-93
27) Kawhi Leonard 2018-19
28) Chris Paul 2007-08
29) George Mikan 1948-49
30) Steve Nash 2004-05
31) Giannis Antetokounmpo 2018-19
32) Karl Malone 1996-97
33) Dwight Howard 2010-11
34) Artis Gilmore 1974-75
35) James Harden 2018-19
36) Willis Reed 1968-69
37) Rick Barry 1974-75
38) Bob McAdoo 1974-75
39) Bob Pettit 1958-59
40) Walt Frazier 1972-73

luka has to be seen as better than at least one of those guys

also better than Nikola jokic 2021 who may make the list too

He definitely has arguments over a handful of guys here.

Then pick one and make the argument.

also has to be argued over embiid/jokic who has comparable seasons too so technically a pick 3