NBA 2018: Fear the Deer

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

Would be nice to get another number one pick, but I worry we may have used up all our luck last time LeBron left.

You’re still being punished for taking Anthony Bennett first overall.

[The Last Storm]

3 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

And I would actually like to see the Hornets with a competitive team so that we are not an afterthought in the NBA thread. :p

Is MJ still picking the players?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 hours ago, Calibandar said:

On the Butler trade, to me that seems a very good deal for both parties.

Sixers get an upgrade in their starting line-up. Butler has a lot to prove now.

T-Wolves get Saric and Covington, two nice pieces. I'm really not sure that there would have been a better offer, I think Butler is in the last year of his deal.

From a long term perspective, there were several better offers. But for right now, the deal is better than I first indicated. Covington is an elite 3 and D role player at the wing, and he’s got a very favorable long term deal on the books. Saric is having a bad year, but he’s also a three and D role player, but at PF. What the deal does is give the Wolves shooting and spacing, and that allows Wiggins and Towns to attack the rim. And Thibs is finally playing the two rookies, who are also three and D wings. The team looked really good last night, and this 12 man rotation might actually turn out to be really good if Thibs can get his head out of his ***. We now have an insane amount of versatility.

[briantw]

7 hours ago, Rhom said:

You’re still being punished for taking Anthony Bennett first overall.

That Love for Wiggins/Bennett trade really turned into some highway robbery for the Cavs, though, so at least there's that.  Bennett ate himself out of the league and Wiggins is the owner of the NBA's absolute worst contract, possibly ever.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, briantw said:

That Love for Wiggins/Bennett trade really turned into some highway robbery for the Cavs, though, so at least there's that.  Bennett ate himself out of the league and Wiggins is the owner of the NBA's absolute worst contract, possibly ever.

You know this is just silly and driven more by hate than anything else. There are several worse contracts in the league right now. And through three seasons he was making a lot of strides on one end of the floor. I called his regression last year because it was obvious he would be made redundant with Butler there. And guess what, he's looked really solid with Butler out of the picture. He had 23 points, 6 boards, 4 assists and 3 steals, but more importantly, he was the key player late in the game that secured the win. I expect him to look a lot better this year now that the team has some shooting and spacing.  

[briantw]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You know this is just silly and driven more by hate than anything else. There are several worse contracts in the league right now. And through three seasons he was making a lot of strides on one end of the floor. I called his regression last year because it was obvious he would be made redundant with Butler there. And guess what, he's looked really solid with Butler out of the picture. He had 23 points, 6 boards, 4 assists and 3 steals, but more importantly, he was the key player late in the game that secured the win. I expect him to look a lot better this year now that the team has some shooting and spacing.  

His advanced stats are still pretty much the same as they always have been.  He's a good offensive player, but his shit defense ultimately counters anything he provides on the other end.  At the end of the day, he's a volume scorer who is a turnstile on defense getting paid like he's Kevin Durant.

And who has a worse contract than Wiggins, who will be making 33.3 million in 2023?  Other guys might have worse short-term deals, but I don't think there's a contract as bad as Wiggins' that stretches over the next half-decade.

I also don't know why you think I hate Wiggins.  I don't.  I just think he has a horrendous contract and isn't a particularly good NBA player.  He can score, but that's about it and he's not terribly efficient about it either.

[BigFatCoward]

Someone has to explain to me the Butler trade. He doesn't get the team past the warriors (he probably doesn't even get them to the finals), they had to give up decent pieces to do it, there is no guarantee he stays, and if he does it will cost a fortune, he is generally perceived to be an arsehole, and he just about scrapes into the top 5 players available next off season, and because of his age the last few years of his contract are likely to be massively overpaid. How does this make sense for Philly?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, briantw said:

His advanced stats are still pretty much the same as they always have been.  He's a good offensive player, but his shit defense ultimately counters anything he provides on the other end.  At the end of the day, he's a volume scorer who is a turnstile on defense getting paid like he's Kevin Durant.

And who has a worse contract than Wiggins, who will be making 33.3 million in 2023?  Other guys might have worse short-term deals, but I don't think there's a contract as bad as Wiggins' that stretches over the next half-decade.

I also don't know why you think I hate Wiggins.  I don't.  I just think he has a horrendous contract and isn't a particularly good NBA player.  He can score, but that's about it and he's not terribly efficient about it either.

Because for years you’ve had to hear that it was a terrible trade for the Cavs. You know I like and respect you, but you can’t deny you do traffic in sports hate, so it’s easy to assume that’s why you’re so harsh on Wiggins. Yes, that deal will be bad in 2023, if nothing changes in the next five years. But we don’t know what the salary cap will be then nor do we know what Wiggins will be as a player. By all accounts Wiggins was the player that really got Butler’s message this offseason. It seems he took it to heart that he’s been lazy, and you see it. He’s been giving a lot more effort this year.

As far as worse contracts go, there a number of them, but check out John Wall’s. In 2023, the year you cited, he’ll be making close to $50m at age 33, and his game is one that will absolutely not age well.

[DMC]

15 hours ago, briantw said:

And who has a worse contract than Wiggins, who will be making 33.3 million in 2023?  Other guys might have worse short-term deals, but I don't think there's a contract as bad as Wiggins' that stretches over the next half-decade.

I don't know if he has the worst current contract, but perhaps the worst ever?  C'mon.

11 hours ago, Triskele said:

Is this the worst #1 overall pick in modern sports history? 

JaMarcus Russell.  Greg Oden would also give Bennett a run for his money in the NBA, although that was due to injuries.  And on that note, Ki-Jana Carter.  I'm also sure there are worst MLB #1 overall picks over the years, but that's not really a fair comparison considering the different ways the sports develop draftees.  Have no idea about hockey.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't know if he has the worst current contract, but perhaps the worst ever?  C'mon.

JaMarcus Russell.  Greg Oden would also give Bennett a run for his money in the NBA, although that was due to injuries.  And on that note, Ki-Jana Carter.  I'm also sure there are worst MLB #1 overall picks over the years, but that's not really a fair comparison considering the different ways the sports develop draftees.  Have no idea about hockey.

This opens up the chance to talk about what truly qualifies one as the worst bust ever. Bennett is the worst number one pick I’ve ever seen, but on the other hand no one on this planet, including Bennett himself, thought he should have been the top pick, and most scouts had him just making the top 10 in that draft. Or someone like Oden, who was a legit top two talent and it just came down to do you want him or Durant more, and then injuries destroyed him early. If Len Bias had got one spot higher, would he be the worst ever because he danced with dat white lady and died two days after the draft? Should we crush someone because they were bad to average and an all-time great was taken right after them?

My gut says the worst number one pick ever has to be a QB due to the exaggerated value of the position compared to all other sports, but that’s also a rather new phenomenon.

Worst is also open to interpretation, and the worst person to ever got first overall was OJ, so I’ll just pick him.  

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Jamarcus Russell is easily the worst #1 overall pick, due to the staggering combination of wasted potential + wasted money on a lazy, entitled asshole of a human being. 

[Maithanet]

Tywin is right that "worst" pick really can be defined at least three ways:

1.  The player is terrible, they obviously lack the skills to be a star (or even a decent) player  (Jamarcus Russell).

There were some people who objected to picking Russell #1 overall, but that's true almost every year.  The truth is there were a ton of scouts who LOVED him.  I don't remember who it was...(McShay, maybe?) who said that Russell was by their metric the #1 rated quarterback they'd ever scouted.  So this is the case of the conventional wisdom just being wrong wrong wrong and favoring a guy who sucks. 

2.  The player's career was terrible, much worse that other players chosen after them (Greg Oden)

Greg Oden hasn't been good at all, but he was undeniably an excellent prospect.  He had red flags for health, and those developed into essentially the worst case scenario for him, but nobody could have known that at the time.  The only way you could call Oden the worst pick ever if with the benefit of hindsight, even though the difference between Oden and Durant is vastly bigger than the difference between Bennett and Victor Oladipo or Otto Porter. 

3.  The player is terrible and had no business being drafted #1 overall (Anthony Bennett)

In comparison, even in a weak draft, Bennett was a bad choice.  He was at the time considered a high floor, low ceiling player, (which is not really what you want in a #1 pick), and that evaluation proved to be wrong, since he wasn't even good enough to be an effective rotation player.  Maybe if he'd been drafted #9 overall and never expected to be a star he could have become at least a decent role player, but as the #1 overall, he was ruined. 

[Jaime L]

8 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Someone has to explain to me the Butler trade. He doesn't get the team past the warriors (he probably doesn't even get them to the finals), they had to give up decent pieces to do it, there is no guarantee he stays, and if he does it will cost a fortune, he is generally perceived to be an arsehole, and he just about scrapes into the top 5 players available next off season, and because of his age the last few years of his contract are likely to be massively overpaid. How does this make sense for Philly?

It's the NBA where the team with the most high level star players in their prime has won virtually every title since inception. With Butler, Philly now has 3 of the 20 best players in the game so I get the motivation. Saric and RoCo are nice players but they're not going to be difference makers to winning a title if you don't already have the requisite star power and with just Embiid/Simmons Philly did not. Philly needed a 3rd star and all the other guys at or above Butler's level (Lebron, Kawhi, George) ended up in other places. They probably know they can't get Kawhi or KD next year so this looks to be the last high level star that will be available potentially for a long time. At least this puts them in a contender conversation from a pure talent perspective. 

That said the fit doesn't look ideal. He fits their rugged, athletic, defensive mentality but offensively spacing is now even more of an issue. And it's another heavy usage guy. Just not sure if their talent sets compliment one another. Paul George would've been a lot cleaner of a fit. And yes it's possible Jimmy is just an asshole.

This could all blow up horrifically, but I respect they took their shot. And they still have some quality assets that give them hope they haven't reached their ceiling yet. I don't have a dog in the fight but I'm just glad the East is finally interesting. 

[briantw]

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

As far as worse contracts go, there a number of them, but check out John Wall’s. In 2023, the year you cited, he’ll be making close to $50m at age 33, and his game is one that will absolutely not age well.

Wasn't aware of Wall's deal.  Okay, I'll grant you that that one is worse than Wiggins.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

Wasn't aware of Wall's deal.  Okay, I'll grant you that that one is worse than Wiggins.

You also have to consider the deals for guys who simply don't play. I know the Wiggins contract gives you sticker shock, but there are a ton of contracts in the $15m-$20m a year range that are truly awful. 

[SkynJay]

I went looking for the Mozgov contract to contribute to the thread and found a Bleacher Report article with their thoughts.

I am sure there are worse, but damn, I forgot all the free money that was being passed around when the CBA skyrocketed.

[KingintheNorth4]

Kyrie Irving was unguardable tonight.

[Calibandar]

A big concern for Philly is the fact that Markelle Fultz might be the next Anthony Bennett.

His shooting so far has still been bad after they thought they made improvements throughout summer. Butler's arrival has pushed him to the bench, which analysts seem to think is better for him anyway.

But this guy has to be good, he is their no.1 pick, they passed on Tatum to get him so at the least he has to be a good rotation player. I hope for him and the Sixers that he finds his footing.

I am likewise on and off about Lonzo Ball. He has decent nights and off nights, hard to decide what I think of him. 

On 11/16/2018 at 11:44 AM, BigFatCoward said:

Someone has to explain to me the Butler trade. He doesn't get the team past the warriors (he probably doesn't even get them to the finals), they had to give up decent pieces to do it, there is no guarantee he stays, and if he does it will cost a fortune, he is generally perceived to be an arsehole, and he just about scrapes into the top 5 players available next off season, and because of his age the last few years of his contract are likely to be massively overpaid. How does this make sense for Philly?

Totally see where you're coming from. Jaime's given the reasons though.

His character would be my biggest concern. Now, does he get them past the Warriors? Maybe not this year, but who knows what happens in the years to come ( as an aside I do not think the Sixers are on the verge of beating the Warriors anyway and their goal is probably to first see if they can come out of the East, which I deem very questionable this season)

Also, signing him now means he could be more likely to re-sign. Better players are possily not available and as you see with the Rockets, star power is what matters, and getting that third star is considered very important. On paper they do have a very good line-up now. Furthermore, I liked both Saric and Covington ( and thus say the T-Wolves got a good deal, T-Wolves 3 straight wins now by the way) but the Sixers can replace players of their calibre. And if in the unlikely scenario that Leonard suddenly develops an appetite for coming to the Sixers next summer, then they sign him and don't re-sign Butler.

[Maithanet]

On 11/16/2018 at 11:29 PM, Triskele said:

I respect that criteria on ways to evaluate a #1 pick.  I suppose that is up to debate.

I think the reason that gravitated I to Bennett was for the reasons stated by @Maithanet.  

With a Russell or an Oden you can see why they were chosen #1.  And both of them at least had games where they looked good.  Did Bennett have a good NBA game ever?  

I mean, he never had a "#1 pick overall" kinda good game, but he did have a few good games.  

19 points on 9 shots off the bench for Cleveland vs Kings

20 points on 14 shots off the bench for Minnesota vs Spurs

15 points on 10 shots, plus 8 rebounds for Cleveland vs Pelicans

But yeah, those are very much "valuable role player" kinda games, which is pretty embarrassing since those are his best ever games. 

 

However, I would like to note that Jamarcus Russell had zero good games in either 2007 or 2009, and maybe two in 2008.  I mean, he's not the worst NFL quarterback this century, that's Nathan Peterman, followed by Jimmy Clausen.  But he's still far worse than a replacement level backup quarterback, let alone a starter.  

[Calibandar]

It is a bit funny that Klay Thompson said the whole row with Draymond and KD would just blow over with some good wins in the next few games and they've since taken loss after loss. Doncic did them in last night.