The Offseason 2017

NufcNavan

Durant is a smart guy who I'm sure has a good handle on league history. He knows that his title run will never get the respect of title runs by other great players. That obviously irks him, as is evidenced by this and him putting stats on his kicks.

Durant wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted the easy stress-free title, but he also wants it to have the same respect of the championship runs by other great players. Never going to happen since the objective evidence says it really wasn't much of a challenge at all.

Paully D

He hasn't slept or ate in two days he says. :pac:

On mobile, so sorry I'm just copying the links across and not pasting any text, but the below will show you the tweets in question, and also his terrible excuse. He'd have been better off going for the default "I was hacked" defense.

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/kevin-durant-apologizes-childish-idiotic-tweets/#qrd3ly7JlIQm5uMW.97

Eyes Down Field

2smiggy wrote: »

any chance the Nets are not going to be as bad as many people think ?

Are the Cavs a bit nervous

The Nets are still going to suck. Cleveland should hold on to it. After LeBron is gone next year they will be glad of a chance to sing a future star

ButtersSuki

Eyes Down Field wrote: »

The Nets are still going to suck. Cleveland should hold on to it. After LeBron is gone next year they will be glad of a chance to sing a future star

Highly unlikely they get 1 or 2 next year. The Nets will suck yes, but they'll be better than last year and it's unlikely they'll be the worst team.

ButtersSuki

Paully D wrote: »

He hasn't slept or ate in two days he says. :pac:

On mobile, so sorry I'm just copying the links across and not pasting any text, but the below will show you the tweets in question, and also his terrible excuse. He'd have been better off going for the default "I was hacked" defense.

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/kevin-durant-apologizes-childish-idiotic-tweets/#qrd3ly7JlIQm5uMW.97

Imagine the trash talk that'll be thrown his way next year after this? Bet he's glad Pierce and KG have retired......

ButtersSuki

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/20715128/nba-player-salaries-take-home-pay

NufcNavan

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Highly unlikely they get 1 or 2 next year. The Nets will suck yes, but they'll be better than last year and it's unlikely they'll be the worst team.

Screw the Cavs really. They have had so many lottery picks down the years and with the exception of Irving have made a hash of all of them.

I hope the Nets make the playoffs tbh.

ButtersSuki

Bogut to the Lakers for 1 year. Good pickup for them.

Melo to Houston by Monday is being reported, but we have a long way to go before that's a sealed deal.


Finally for now, I really hate the sponsor's logos on jerseys. I know I've said this for a while but seeing them really hammers it home.

rushfan

ButtersSuki wrote:

Finally for now, I really hate the sponsor's logos on jerseys. I know I've said this for a while but seeing them really hammers it home.

Agreed, it's the end of an era, and the beginning of another, I guess. As a C's fan, the sponsor's logo is relatively discreet. Once the various teams don't end up with uniforms like either rugby league or snooker which can resemble patchwork quilts.

Eyes Down Field

I thought this was a good take on the whole NY/Melo situation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh7QnTADIpk

ButtersSuki

Been overdosing on Luka Doncic videos and full games this last week whilst travelling. Hadn't fully analysed him in depth until now but wow, he has everything. As you'd expect from a top-tier European player his fundamentals are outstanding, but he's also got a bit of showmanship in him. I'm most impressed with his vision and passing; but for a 6'8" guy he handles the ball exceptionally well and looks as strong as an ox. I started playing National League at 17 and got bullied physically for a few years. He's doing the bullying - at 18, in the Spanish League and the Euroleague - crazy. I'd write a longer piece but I'm shattered.

Paully D

https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/911637746124558336

GoldFour4

I like the knicks getting Kanter. Melo hasn't shown anything in the last year to show he's worth much in trade value.

Still think he'll be a good fit in okc as the no. 3 guy after westbrook and Paul George

ButtersSuki

Well that's outta nowhere really, but fair play to OKC for rolling the dice.

Houston must be raging. It was a one horse race all summer then yesterday Melo extends to include Portland and OKC onto the list of teams he'll go to and bingo.

The West gets stronger and the East becomes an even bigger joke. Honestly there'll be guys making the East All Star Team this year that wouldn't start for most of the bad teams in the West.

D2D

Russ/PG13/Melo - OKC going be fun to watch anyways

I'm shocked okc was one of his options

Paully D

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Well that's outta nowhere really, but fair play to OKC for rolling the dice.

Houston must be raging. It was a one horse race all summer then yesterday Melo extends to include Portland and OKC onto the list of teams he'll go to and bingo.

The West gets stronger and the East becomes an even bigger joke. Honestly there'll be guys making the East All Star Team this year that wouldn't start for most of the bad teams in the West.

This is why I think LeBron might actually stay.

He's all but guaranteed a Finals spot for as long as he stays in the East.

He's on 7 in a row now so could easily hit 12+ Finals appearances in a row.

LuckyLloyd

Houston's insistence on including Ryan Anderson in the deal ****ed them

NufcNavan

Melo will have no choice to play the 4 and will ball stop like hell.

PG says for the 3rd season in a row that he's going for the MVP and he will play well until about the new year or so and then pout like a child.

Russ will do his thing but there is only one basketball on the court. OKC will be better but they are a semi finalist with this team at best.

NufcNavan

So Melo's New York tenure has to be the most failed tenure in league history given what he had accomplished in his Denver career, the fact he was in the beginning of his prime years when arriving in New York, and in light of the overall expectations of reviving that franchise.

Just a complete and utter disaster in every way imaginable. One second round appearance in the mostly cesspool East. Not all his fault obviously, but that's the place he decided to demand a move to.

LuckyLloyd

I'd say little enough of it was his fault. He played consistently well during his tenure in New York, and they consistently put flawed rosters around him. Last season was the first season where he was legitimately disappointing, but the context around that offers an obvious explanation for why.

You can't have one star in the NBA and expect to win. You need second and third options that can carry things on any given night, you need a well constructed roster that contains essentials like wing defense and reliable spot shooting; and you need cohesiveness in the organisation from the coach through to the GM. The 2012 / 13 team was their best effort, but Stoudemire went down and that essentially scuppered their chances. Melo was brilliant that year and they lost in the semis to Boston in 6 - it was close (and in of itself challenges your assertion of his time being a 'complete and utter disaster').

LuckyLloyd

Going forward, OKC are going to be good this year. It is tempting to focus on the fit and the negatives, but their opponent now has three legitimate options to worry about at all times. They can put some nice combinations on the floor and there is a mix of star and role players there that might work. Bottom line is that they needed to do something to take their shot and I commend them for rolling the dice. They have turned Oladipo, Sabonis, Kanter and McD into PG13 and Melo. I really like that on a simple level.

New York can now make Porzingis the center piece, and restart around him. Anything should be better than last year's lumbering monster of the past.

Paully D

Can't help but always wonder "what might have been" if Melo had chosen to go to Chicago in 2014.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/15050123/carmelo-anthony-almost-left-new-york-knicks-chicago-bulls

It's early July 2014, and Carmelo Anthony has made up his mind. He's going to sign with the Chicago Bulls and turn down the New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks.

Why Chicago?

The Bulls, he thinks, are a "perfect fit" for a few reasons. Among them: Chicago seems to be one scorer away from contending for a title, and Anthony believes he can fill that void. He also likes the team's culture and its no-nonsense approach to winning, spearheaded by head coach Tom Thibodeau


he idea of what might have been is hard to shake almost two years later.

Carmelo Anthony steps off a bus in front of the United Center as the 2014 summer free-agency period begins to heat up. He's flanked by his agent and members of his inner circle, along with another member of the traveling party: Tom Thibodeau.

The now-former Bulls coach walks with Anthony past Michael Jordan's statue and into the building that Jordan made famous. Images bearing Anthony's name adorn the large building as the recruitment of one of basketball's most popular free agents kicks into high gear.

At the time, Thibodeau, along with many members of the Bulls' front office, believed they had a legitimate chance to land Anthony. They thought the All-Star forward could be the missing piece to pair with Derrick Rose and push the Bulls past LeBron James in the East playoffs. A meeting hours later at a swanky downtown hotel only raised hopes. The Bulls felt they had done everything they could to land Anthony. But they also understood that they could not offer him the five-year, max-money guarantee his team, the New York Knicks, could.

In the end, Anthony chose the guaranteed dollars, albeit a few million less than the full max, and the comfort he and his family felt in New York. But as the Bulls take on Anthony on Wednesday at the United Center, it's interesting to think about what might have been.

First and foremost, if the Bulls had found a way to land Anthony, it's at least a safe bet that Thibodeau would still be in Chicago. The former coach was a huge fan of Anthony's, and the two seemed to share a genuine mutual respect. With Anthony in the fold, the Bulls would have found a different, dynamic scoring option to use when Rose wasn't in a rhythm or was out with injury.

But there are a lot of factors to consider for the Bulls -- pros and cons that could tip the scale in either direction. With Anthony in the lineup, Jimmy Butler likely doesn't get the opportunity to take the dramatic leap from a defensive-minded swingman to an All-Star and max-contract player. Are the Bulls better with Butler, at 26 years old, as a core piece or with Anthony, at 31, leading the way alongside Rose and his star-crossed knees?

While you ponder that question, this is a good time to remember that Anthony has his own knee problems. His 2014-15 campaign was cut short after persistent knee issues forced him to have surgery. Would he have been able to play through the pain for a Bulls team that went without Rose and Butler for long stretches?

Now that you're thinking about that question, consider that after missing out on Anthony, the Bulls made a hard push to sign Pau Gasol. The 35-year-old has revitalized his career in Chicago while giving the Bulls a solid offensive presence to lean on night after night. Although the Bulls could have found a creative way to do it all -- and rest assured, they thought they could make the Anthony-Gasol free-agency double work -- is it a sure thing that Gasol would have signed on the dotted line if Anthony and his hefty salary were also on the books?

Of course, the biggest what if of all is whether Anthony's presence would have made the Bulls good enough to get over the massive LeBron hump that has tripped this team up in postseason after postseason. Anthony would have made the Bulls better, but we'll never know how much better. Would he have created enough success to fix the tension between Thibodeau and Bulls executives Gar Forman and John Paxson?

All these questions will never get an answer. But here's what we do know almost two years later: Both the Bulls and Anthony will always wonder what might have been because neither party has found success since their basketball flirting began.

.

NufcNavan

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I'd say little enough of it was his fault. He played consistently well during his tenure in New York, and they consistently put flawed rosters around him. Last season was the first season where he was legitimately disappointing, but the context around that offers an obvious explanation for why.

You can't have one star in the NBA and expect to win. You need second and third options that can carry things on any given night, you need a well constructed roster that contains essentials like wing defense and reliable spot shooting; and you need cohesiveness in the organisation from the coach through to the GM. The 2012 / 13 team was their best effort, but Stoudemire went down and that essentially scuppered their chances. Melo was brilliant that year and they lost in the semis to Boston in 6 - it was close (and in of itself challenges your assertion of his time being a 'complete and utter disaster').

They lost to the Pacers, not the Celtics.

One semi final appearance in a weak conference combined with some awful seasons for a huge franchise is a disaster.

brady23

NufcNavan wrote: »

They lost to the Pacers, not the Celtics.

One semi final appearance in a weak conference combined with some awful seasons for a huge franchise is a disaster.

I see both sides tbf. I don't think much was Melos fault in terms of effort on the court and doing what he thought was best for the team in the way he played like Westbrook last year.

That said I don't think his style of play and the drama surrounding New York was alluring to anyone looking to join Melo after Amare. He didn't evolve in a way that would entice players to join him imo.

I think he over stayed and should have went to the Bulls when he had the chance. I would tend to give players the benefit of the doubt when there is a question over whether they're picking money over winning but I do think Melos decision was financial.

NufcNavan

NufcNavan wrote: »

They lost to the Pacers, not the Celtics.

One semi final appearance in a weak conference combined with some awful seasons for a huge franchise is a disaster.

Huge franchise marketing wise sure but they have been a mess for a long time nelo or no melo it's been the most successful run they've had in years

For Forks Sake

This accurately sums up my thoughts on that trade.

brady23

Wade gets a buyout with the Bulls.

I assume Cavs are the favourite, OKC in the mix now, Rockets for another banana boater and perhaps the Heat or Spurs to work under pop as potential outsiders.

LuckyLloyd

Wade has an additional option on the Cavs could be a nice fit. You would think LeBron might get the best out of him too.

For Forks Sake

brady23 wrote: »

Wade gets a buyout with the Bulls.

I assume Cavs are the favourite, OKC in the mix now, Rockets for another banana boater and perhaps the Heat or Spurs to work under pop as potential outsiders.

Going to be a bloody long season to be a Bulls fan, tanking I can understand (and looking at that roster, we're perfectly set up for it), but even with a lottery pick to show for it,there's no guarantee the pair of clowns that are passed off as a front office will use it wisely.

PG:
Kris Dunn
Jerian Grant
Cameron Payne

SG:
Justin Holiday
Denzel Valentine
David Nwaba

SF:
Zach LaVine
Paul Zipser
Quincy Pondexter

PF:
Nikola Mirotic
Bobby Portis
Lauri Markkanen

C:
Robin Lopez
Cristiano Felicio