NBA 23/24:season

Warriors must be planning a bigish move for today as they pushed CP3's guarantee from yesterday to tomorrow. Supposedly they are eyeing up PG13...

The Hawks pull the plug on the Young/Murray experiment by sending Murray to the Pelicans for Nance, Daniels and next years Lakers 1st.

Drummond, Eric Gordon, PG13 are all Sixers now.

Kevin Porter Jr. is back in the NBA courtesy of the Clippers (who replaced PG13 by nicking Derrick Jones Jr. from the Mavs)

Valanciunas has joined Wizards for some reason, no idea what timeline they are eyeing up.

KCP has joined the Magic.

Wemby's second year will be even scarier as he now will have CP3 at the point.

Thunder are done with tanking. They've won the Hartenstein race. That moves Holmgren (5 -> 4) and Williams (4 -> 3) up a slot meaning Dort/Caruso will be 6th man + today they've resigned Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins. Serious depth now.

And they still have a comical fùck tonne of draft assets. Sam Presti is a wizard.

Bulls have replaced Drummond with Jalen Smith as back up to Vucevic.

Still questions over DeRozan (his playoff MVP daughter) and Klay.

Tobias Harris gets 26m for 2 years from Detroit.

Klay will eventually be a Mav (earning 16m for 3 years), Josh Green will be a Hornet, its being held up while the Hornets explore any potential trade for Bertans.

Kris Dunn will be a Clipper, they just want to move Westbrook first. Clippers added Batum and Bamba aswell so are nearly finished with their roster already.

LeBron had supposedly told Pelinka he'd have took a somewhat reduced deal to allow for one of Harden/Valanciunas/Klay to become Lakers but now all 3 are off the table.

Still nothing solid on DeRozan with not much money left around the league now.

Donovan Mitchell signs an extension with Cleveland.

The Warriors big acquisitions are looking like Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield.

The Lakers have whiffed on all targets so far, remaining options are guys like Zach Lavine, Jerami Grant, and DeMar DeRozan.

Can Gabe Vincent be healthier, can Vandy be healthy, can Reddick put out more logical rotations, etc

They can tell themselves a story, but I expect they are ~.500 at the deadline and looking to make a major move again.

Even with all that, law of averages says that LeBron or AD are gonna go down at some stage.

AD is a great player but I remember the talk/hope being how after year 2 or 3 in LA he would continue to get better which would compensate Bron getting older. He never really made it his team in the end (granted it's not his fault he's not LeBron James). Starting to seem like by the time LeBron retires AD will be one of the league's old men.

Ultimately they did win a championship together so it's all worth it.

LeBron has signed a 1 + 1 for the max so that’s that. No DeRozan or anything else.

They could still make a trade right? I'm somewhat invested in Jerami Grant to LA.

Supposedly Harden (never going to happen) and oddly enough Valanciunas were the other two. Valanciunas was gettable for MLE but the Wizards moved quicker it seems, so the Lakers just completely bottled it.

In theory, Vincent and Vandy are effective replacements for each relative to the team they were down the stretch last season.

Look it's not good, but hard to win with AD and LeBron on those contracts. The miracle to date has been LeBron's contract not proving awful. The next injury could be effectively career-ending, and hugely unlikely AD plays 70+ games. So not much to say really. They had a narrow path to being better, but honestly, I don't think Klay would help them, he seems cooked to me. Valanciunas makes little sense given AD has lost his jumper and they do very similar things as the roll man, etc.

So DeRozan…sure, as a proxy for LeBron missing games. But he probably didn't want a bench role.

The real story here is the Lakers were running back the WCF core group for effectively two years last offseason. That seems a poor bet in retrospect, but there is a small question over it given the lack of health from Vincent / Vandy and the awful coaching from Ham. We'll know a lot by Christmas.

One thing I will say about where the Lakers are is it sets up well for the post-LeBron future. I expect this to be a huge area of media speculation and pressure in January if they are near .500, but as is they have $33.6m in expiring contracts:

D'Lo: 18,692,307

Wood: 5,745,889

Reddish: 4,628,946

Hayes: 4,628,946

With another $30m expiring between Rui and Vincent in 2025. And they own all their picks from 2026 on.

Knecht, Christie, Vandy and Reaves should retain a certain amount of value plus have improvement within their range of outcomes.

So:

• Pelinka has some wiggle room with $33m expiring and picks to do a trade at the deadline if they are contending
• If one or both of LeBron / AD are banged up and it becomes a lost season then they move into a very decent position from 2025 on

It's quite obvious when you take a look at their situation, that the interests of the Lakers and LeBron may start to diverge if his play drops off. IF (and it's a big IF) his play maintains as a 40-year-old, then expect a lot of passive-aggressive pressure to raid the cupboard in February. And I know everyone here loves that! :)

Didn't see anyone mention it, but surely serious questions should be asked about Denver? Not opening the pocket book to make sure on KCP creates a big hole in their lineup, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it other than ownership cheapness. I feel like it's fair to ask if they have done enough to supplement Jokic's peak.

They should be a playoff team, assuming Wemby’s health and some progression.

I know the money is always going up and this is just what good rookie contract players get now….but a contract like this for someone who has won 32 total NBA games in his career just makes my head spin

https://x.com/wojespn/status/1811867780884627697?s=46&t=oJEBWzdtp7tPw9gBG2Q_oQ

Absolutely outrageous move here, what in the actual ****

I can't imagine the players association is too happy about that one

Yeah I dont get the controversy at all.

Frustrating to see Scoot Henderson sitting out of Summer League, a year 2 player who had a bad rookie season and loves to push a "works harder than anybody else" image. Unless they're injured and/or playing internationally I think pretty much every sophomore should be playing SL.

Isaac’s contract was available for this sort of renegotiation and extend type deal because he had missed so many games his 2022 - 2025 salaries had become partial or non guaranteed. His contract also met some other stipulations that Brunson’s doesn’t (it is 4 or more years of original guaranteed length and was past the third anniversary of signing; Brunson’s is a 3 + 1).

So no, New York will not be able to restructure his deal and pay him the $113m even if they wanted to.

Now that we are all educated here, can we agree this is **** madness?

It's obviously Summer League and means very little but Alex Sarr is an interesting case. He was projected #1 for a long time and fell to #2 because (rumours) he wants to play PF and have a big role on offence, rather than being a rim runner in Atlanta.

Well he just went 0-15 last night chucking from all over the court, for a total of 8-41 across 3 games, 2-17 from 3. Again it's the earliest of days and this is only at all noteworthy because there's nothing else to talk about right now but it'll be interesting to see how he pans out as part of a Washington team with no real veterans or leaders.