NBA Regular Season 2012/13

Nuri Sahin

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Saw highlights this morning. Houston were 50 points up at one stage in handing the Jazz their biggest ever loss. MONSTER dunk from Harden worth checking out too.

Nasty dunk alright

GoldFour4

Poor Rudy Gay facing a possible trade to Toronto!

ButtersSuki

malistheman wrote: »

Poor Rudy Gay facing a possible trade to Toronto!

Wow, that sucks! Can't see the attraction for Memphis - giving up arguably your best player (in a very even team) for what exactly? An older and aging Jose Calderon (jose is 31 - Gay is 26) plus AN Other? And the Grizzlies are playing very well....this makes very little sense to me. Unless his megabucks contract is the issue? But hey, you play to win now, and they have a shot.

Just read of a tree team trade involving Gay to the Lakers, Paul Pierce to to the Grizzlies and Pau Gasol to Boston.

Trade talk this year will be even more crazy than usual with so many teams looking to find that one extra piece with so many injuries and free agents contracts up!

kmart6

That Boston/LA/Memphis trade was shot down yesterday!

Nuri Sahin

Gay seemingly on his way to the Raptors in a 3 team deal.

GoldFour4

It's a done deal. Apparently Davis took it a lot worse then Calderon.

kmart6

Bit random ESPN having Herm Edwards on the NBA broadcast!

kmart6

Ah wait, didn't realise they were at the Superdome for the Super Bowl!

Nuri Sahin

Beyond pathetic stuff from the Nets in the second half.

ButtersSuki

Nuri Sahin wrote: »

Gay seemingly on his way to the Raptors in a 3 team deal.

Makes no sense to me from a playing/team perspective.....:

The Memphis Grizzlies completed a long-rumored roster and salary purge Wednesday by agreeing to trade Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors along with Hamed Haddadi for forward Ed Davis and veteran guard Jose Calderon. The Grizzlies will flip Calderon to the Detroit Pistons to acquire veteran forward Tayshaun Prince, along with forward Austin Daye.

The 26-year-old Gay has been on the trading block for several weeks, as the Grizzlies' new ownership group feared being close to the luxury tax threshold after this season, when the tax penalties begin increasing at an exponential rate. Memphis got under the tax for this season a week ago by sending forward Marreese Speights, guards Josh Selby and Wayne Ellington and a 2015 first -round pick to Cleveland for forward Jon Leuer, saving them more than $4 million.

Gay has become a solid small forward, averaging 17.2 points per game this season, though he is only shooting 40 percent from the floor this season and has yet to make an All-Star game. But the Grizzlies gave him a max deal in the summer of 2010 for $82 million, that has two years and $37 million remaining on it after this season.

Prince will likely replace Gay in the starting lineup for the Grizzlies. The 32-year-old was a key part of the Pistons' 2004 championship team, showing he was one of the league's top defensive players, guarding Kobe Bryant successfully throughout the 2004 Finals. He is a four-time NBA second-team All Defensive team selection. To the surprise of many, Prince stayed with the Pistons in 2011 when he became a free agent, rejecting overtures from the Clippers and Spurs to re-sign with the rebuilding Pistons. Calderon has been a solid guard for the Raptors, averaging 7.4 assists per game this season, and is thought of as one of the better assist men in the league. But he's been on the block for the last year or so as Toronto looked to upgrade itself at the position. The Raptors nearly signed free agent Steve Nash last summer, but Nash decided to agree to a sign-and-trade deal with the Lakers. The Raptors then acquired guard Kyle Lowry from Houston for a future first-round pick.

Calderon's main value is his expiring contract, which pays him $10.5 million this season. The Pistons are hoping to be players in free agency this summer, when the contracts of Corey Maggette ($10.9 million), Jason Maxiell ($5 million) and Will Bynum ($3.5 million) come off the books. Detroit had already acquired Maggette's expiring deal from Charlotte for guard Ben Gordon last summer. By dealing Prince, who had two years and almost $15 million remaining on his contract after this season, the Pistons could clear more than $26 million off their cap if they don't re-sign Calderon. (Detroit also won't have to extend a qualifying offer to Daye, saving another $4 million.)

ButtersSuki

From si.com, Van Gundy's comments sum it up best:


NEW YORK — Say what you want about Michael Heisley, and ask around enough and you will find people willing to say plenty. The ex-Grizzlies owner orchestrated the team’s move from Vancouver, beating a path out of town less than a season after swearing up and down he would do whatever it took to keep the team there. He was behind the ridiculous decision to bring in Allen Iverson and occasionally said bizarre things in casual conversations with the Memphis media, a group that often treated him like a quirky old uncle.
But say this about Heisley, too: He was willing to spend money. Year after year the Grizzlies nosedived into the red, occasionally breaking even, with a total attendance that never cracked 700,000 in a season, never ranking higher than 19th in the NBA. When minority owners complained about the losses, Heisley bought them out. After Rudy Gay won a gold medal in the 2010 World Championships, Heisley presented him with a $35,000 Rolex. He took criticism in 2008, sure, when a Grizz team flush with cap space post-Pau Gasol barely spent a nickel. But after G.M. Chris Wallace built a title contender, Heisley ponied up the cash to keep it together, handing out $258 million in guaranteed money to his starting five.
“I never got the sense that Michael wouldn’t spend to win a championship,” said Shane Battier, a former Grizzly.
GOLLIVER: Grading the three-team deal
Today Heisley is gone, replaced by a new owner, Robert Pera, who through new CEO Jason Levien is in the process of tearing it all apart. Last week the Grizzlies dumped Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington and Josh Selby, along with a protected No. 1 pick, to Cleveland for D-Leaguer Jon Leuer. And on Wednesday, Memphis completed a three-team trade with Toronto and Detroit that sent Gay to the Raptors in exchange for Tayshaun Prince, Ed Davis and Austin Daye.
Gone goes Gay, gone goes Speights and Ellington, gone goes Memphis’s chance to win a championship. “Financial flexibility is very important when you are building your team,” former Magic coach Stan Van Gundy told NBC Sports Radio recently. “But what surprises me is when a team doesn’t realize that this is what you have been building for. You can’t do that all the time in a market like Memphis. This team had a chance. They are the best defensive team in the league. They play through two very good post guys. The way Memphis plays can be very consistent. It can be duplicated night in and night out because they are not relying as much on a perimeter as virtually any of the other contenders. I think it [was] a team built for the playoffs.”
Heisley is gone, and Pera now wears the black hat of an owner who prioritized profits over winning, a scarlet letter players won’t soon forget. It’s his money and Memphis, which lost $12.5 million last year, according to Forbes, and was over the tax line headed into this summer, wasn’t in position to make him any. It’s difficult for any market to support three players making $50 million, let alone one of the NBA’s smallest. But stock prices for Pera’s Ubiquiti Networks plummeted last spring, leaving some front office executives to wonder if the Grizzlies are paying the price for Pera’s private-sector failures.
The counter argument will focus on Gay, who admittedly is having a sub-par season. His 17.2 points per game are a career-low, as is his shooting percentage (40.8 percent). His ability to mix with Zach Randolph has been constantly questioned, as has his maddening tendency to stop moving the ball. The Grizzlies believe Prince’s ball handling, his experience, his three-point shooting (43.4 percent this season) will help this season, and beyond. They believe Davis is a better fit than Speights, whose plus/minus was killing them. They ran the numbers internally and determined that this group had less than a 10 percent chance of winning a title.
MAHONEY: Raptors continue haphazard roster construction
But Gay is still a legitimate one-on-one scorer, a versatile forward who can create his own shot against any defender — and who isn’t afraid to take it. Gay scored 26 points in his last game against Philadelphia, the last two, an eight-footer off an offensive rebound, the game winner.
“These trades are absolutely terrible,” says a Western Conference scout. “Gay is a young star. He has been used as Memphis’s third option this season. They hardly ran any plays for him. Prince has been finished for two years. Speights complimented Gasol and Randolph, which Davis doesn’t. And Daye can’t play dead.”
Across the NBA, league execs expressed surprise at the at the timing of the deals, too. Memphis could have waited to trade Gay and Speights until the offseason, unloaded them before the punitive luxury tax penalties kicked in. The Cavaliers were always going to be there, always going to be willing to absorb some salary if Memphis shipped a first round pick to sweeten the pot. Yet the Grizzlies were determined to hold a fire sale, hell bent, to break up the roster right away, which is why Gay and Speights are gone, why $12 million has been shaved off this season’s payroll and $37 million in future obligations is gone, too.
“They were telling everyone they wanted a young three on a rookie deal,” said an Eastern Conference executive. “They didn’t get that. I’m shocked they didn’t demand Terrence Ross.”
The Grizzlies possessed the promise of a championship team last month, and now we will never know if they could have delivered. We will never know if Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph could have led a team to a title, won’t know if the vastly improved Mike Conley could outperform some of the west’s heavyweight playmakers, won’t know if a revamped bench featuring Speights, Ellington, Jerryd Bayless and a returning Darrell Arthur were up the task.
The pressure is on Pera and Levien to build a winner, because many believe they already had one. Levien is a savvy former agent, a former executive in Sacramento, a former part of the ownership group in Philadelphia. He’s longed to run his own team, and now he has one. It’s his turn to build a winner, soon after taking one apart.

kmart6

Blown game by the Lakers, and Howard re-injuring his shoulder, safe to say this road trip could see their season ending!

ButtersSuki

kmart6 wrote: »

Blown game by the Lakers, and Howard re-injuring his shoulder, safe to say this road trip could see their season ending!

But they were starting their run to the Conf. finals after the 2 game win streak just a few days ago......LOL!!!!

BQQ

I think the Rudy Gay deal will work out well for Memphis.

Gay looked like a guy trying (and failing) to live up to his max contract.
Too often forcing bad shots instead of keeping the ball moving.

A lot of commentators are saying Prince is washed up.
I think they'll be eating their words.
It's natural to get a bit demotivated on a team that's losing most of the time.
Now he's on a contender, I expect him to up his game and Memphis will be as good as before the trade or even better.
And they've saved a shedload of cash.

ButtersSuki

BQQ wrote: »

I think the Rudy Gay deal will work out well for Memphis.

Gay looked like a guy trying (and failing) to live up to his max contract.
Too often forcing bad shots instead of keeping the ball moving.

A lot of commentators are saying Prince is washed up.
I think they'll be eating their words.
It's natural to get a bit demotivated on a team that's losing most of the time.
Now he's on a contender, I expect him to up his game and Memphis will be as good as before the trade or even better.
And they've saved a shedload of cash.

Can't agree for all of the reasons in previous posts. You get a small window as a contender and they just broke the window. They're 4th in the ultra-competitive West and have a very strong first 4/5. Not a chance Memphis will be as good. Not a chance.

Easily the worst trade since the Kendrick Perkins to OKC Trade (from Boston's perspective).

The cash is the issue here. If they use it to re-build the team, great for them - but this looks purely like a save the cash move.

limerickfc

Great month for Andre Drummond, He averaging 8 rebounds, 8 and a half points and 2 blocks a game while shooting 66%, and he's still only 19. He has to have a great future ahead of him in the NBA.

Nuri Sahin

As I've said before, I've a bit of a soft spot for the Thunder for a few different reasons, so I tend to watch the majority of their games. I'd love to see them win a few championships down the road, especially KD. As much entertaining as I find them, lot of a frustration watching them and a lot of that boils down to Westbrook and his antics.

How he acted last night summed up a lot of that frustration. I get that he's all or nothing guy, and that's something I appreciate about him to be honest, but the way he flipped out was wrong and further questions whether they'll ever win anything with him.

Incase people don't know what I'm yapping on about, I'll just post the vid of said incident, reaction to being benched and post-game interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl9bc5t54l0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goa3xnL567E

Seems he was pissed off at both 5 second violation call, something that's becoming a tad more frequent in recent games with him and Sefolosha not offering a clear option. Wasn't part of the team huddle during the 3Q and was subsequently benched and threw a strop. The post-game interview is just bizarre.

padraig_f

I don't watch as much Thunder as you, but from what I can see, Westbrook gets too much criticism and, going back to what I was saying about the head-coach, Scott Brooks gets too little. When a guy acts outside the offense/defense occasionally then it's on the player. When the same guy continually takes bad, low-percentage shots night after night, then it's more on the coach.

Except in the media it isn't, because Westbrook always gets the blame for shooting them out of games, but when it keeps on happening, no-one criticises Brooks for letting it happen. I think this is partly because you have a lot of ex-coaches in the commentary booth and they're reluctant to criticise one of their peers. I like listening to the ex-coaches like Hubie Brown and Jeff van Gundy, but while you often hear them praise the coaches during games, you rarely hear any criticism of them.

Westbrook has famously never missed a college or NBA game going back 5 years now, and when you watch him, he's a guy who always gives excellent effort on the court. So I don't see a guy with a bad attitude, but rather one that's been poorly coached.

The two videos above I don't have a problem with. He's had a bad day at the office and got frustrated, and then had a microphone stuck in his face about it.

I mentioned recently about Noah's spat with Thibs, Noah comes out the next day and says: "I have the ultimate respect for my head coach. It was my fault. I shouldn't have said the things I said. We moved on and we got a big win tonight and I'm happy about that." (Joakim Noah: Benching my fault)

And he backs it up on the court. Why does this happen? Because of strong leadership from the head-coach. The roles are clear and consistent, so when the red-mist clears, it's possible for Noah to see he's in the wrong, and for him and the team to quickly move on.

But, what happens if the leadership is weak? (which I suspect it is with the Thunder) The roles aren't clear, Westbrook believes he's in the right, and resentment festers. And there does seem to be an issue festering there for a while.

Anyone can get frustrated, but it will be interesting to see what his reaction is, in the short term, and for the rest of the season. If it's not dealt with, it will bubble up again. But like when Westbrook shoots them out of games, when it happens once, you can blame the player, when it happens repeatedly, you have to turn your attention to the head-coach.

BQQ

padraig_f wrote: »

The two videos above I don't have a problem with. He's had a bad day at the office and got frustrated, and then had a microphone stuck in his face about it.

He was actually having a pretty good day at the office and they were about 20 pts up at the time.
That's what makes it so worrying. If that's how he reacts in a zero-pressure situation....

Agree re: the contrast between Thibodeau and Brooks.

ButtersSuki

Just reading some stats (yes, I know!) and found 2 interesting things I didn't realise before today.

The Lakers went 0-7 on the road in Jan. - this is the first time in Lakers history they've failed to win a road game in a month! It gets funnier and funnier.....

Also spotted the Heat are the worst rebounding team in the entire league. Shows how much the game has changed that the worst rebounding team in the NBA can be a legit contender and favourite in the East.

buyer95

Jeez, weird interview there by Westbrook after the game... He says " I controlled it like a man ." So picking a fight on court with his teamate, throwing a strop and leaving the court is considered by him controlling it like a man? " If thats what you say bruh " is just comical!

Nuri Sahin

BQQ wrote: »

He was actually having a pretty good day at the office and they were about 20 pts up at the time.
That's what makes it so worrying. If that's how he reacts in a zero-pressure situation....

Agree re: the contrast between Thibodeau and Brooks.

Exactly, his numbers were grand. If they weren't and OKC were trailing or something like that, to a small extent I'd understand his behavior.

Anyway, moving along, the Heat are getting walloped in Indiana at present.

Nuri Sahin

.. and Rudy Gay's Raptors are tearing apart the Clippers, a lot of it self-inflicted by their pathetic shooting tonight.

padraig_f

Bulls, without Rose, down 3 starters on top of that (Noah, Boozer, Hinrich), second night of a back-to-back, on the road against a playoff team (Hawks). Win by 17.

Nuri Sahin

Kyrie's fourth quarter show, dismantled OKC and the Cavs won by 5. Cavs scored 39 points in the final quarter.

killwill

Irving is some player. Playing like that at 20? Wow.

buyer95

I think Irving may be the second best point guard in the NBA. CP3 is my no.1 for me but Irving has been out of this world this year. Obviously D.Rose will get back into the conversation when he comes back but atm I think its : CP3, Irving, Parker, Westbrook and Curry.

Nuri Sahin

Coming from a massive Irving fan, he still needs to improve defensively to be considered in the top 3 PG's in the NBA. If he does that, could well be the best a few years time.

Watching Clippers @ Celtics atm, got to give credit to the Celtics. Some serious hussling from them since Rondo went down.

Heat @ Raptors is on Sky Sports 4 incase anyone didn't know btw.

Dublin Red Devil

I love the Gay trade to Toronto. Terrible for Memphis though, I understood why they did it but they have basically ended their season

ButtersSuki

They'll have to give up a lot more than Caron Butler and Eric Bledsoe but it would be a great deal for the Clippers if they pull this off and keep the first 5 intact. KG has a no-trade clause so it's really up to him if he wants a shot at another ring or not. As a Celtics fan I don't want to see him go, but wish him well if he does.

Link not posting....
http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2013-02-03/clippers-are-after-celtics-kevin-garnett-sources-tell-sporting-news?eadid=EL/SICOM&sct=uk_t2_a5