NBA Finals - The Problem with Steph Curry

[Calibandar]

But if they have to let Ayton as well as Bridges go in that trade...thats also quite a big hit for them. Crowder also seems to be on the move. I would still do it though if I was Phoenix. Their picks cannot possibly excite the Nets though as the ones they do still have will all be in the late 20's in the next few years.

[briantw]

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

So if we're talking about the two worst trades of the past 10 years, the Nets may have made BOTH of them?  The 2021 Harden trade isn't worse than the Pierce/Garnett one, but it still feels worse than any other trade I can think of.  Maybe OKC trading Harden in the 2012 offseason was worse, but we'll see where those picks end up. 

The Nets went all in twice and lost horribly both times.  Houston owns their draft for the next five years and the Nets have basically been forced into a rebuild.  Real bad news for them, although obviously they’ll recoup a lot of assets by trading Durant and Irving. 

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, briantw said:

The Nets went all in twice and lost horribly both times.  Houston owns their draft for the next five years and the Nets have basically been forced into a rebuild.  Real bad news for them, although obviously they’ll recoup a lot of assets by trading Durant and Irving. 

The fact that they don't have any draft picks in the next 5 years means that Brooklyn needs to prioritize getting a decent team in return for Durant and Irving.  Getting good young players is better than getting draft picks, because draft picks are not going to help you win any in the short term.  And imagine the embarrassment if the Nets were to win the lottery next year...

All the more reason to think that Ayton + Bridges is a very good start on a package for Durant.  The problem is that the trade market for Irving is going to be
 

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[briantw]

In related news, this could potentially lead to LeBron forcing his way out of the Lakers a year early, which would be fun. I think I speak for everyone when I say fuck the Lakers. 

[briantw]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

The fact that they don't have any draft picks in the next 5 years means that Brooklyn needs to prioritize getting a decent team in return for Durant and Irving.  Getting good young players is better than getting draft picks, because draft picks are not going to help you win any in the short term.  And imagine the embarrassment if the Nets were to win the lottery next year...

All the more reason to think that Ayton + Bridges is a very good start on a package for Durant.  The problem is that the trade market for Irving is going to be
 

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As a totally unrelated aside, I’ve been reading The Second Apocalypse for the past three months (about a quarter of the way through the final book) and so I finally know where your user name is from.  

[Rhom]

1 minute ago, briantw said:

As a totally unrelated aside, I’ve been reading The Second Apocalypse for the past three months (about a quarter of the way through the final book) and so I finally know where your user name is from.  

You've been on THE SLOG OF SLOGS!!!!!!!

To the coffers boys!!!!!

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

As a totally unrelated aside, I’ve been reading The Second Apocalypse for the past three months (about a quarter of the way through the final book) and so I finally know where your user name is from.  

Maithanet was a badass.  He didn't deserve to go out like that. 

[briantw]

Just now, Maithanet said:

Maithanet was a badass.  He didn't deserve to go out like that. 

Was a nice bait and switch after he quickly forgave Esmenet, though.  

[WarGalley]

31 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

There's a lot wrong with the NBA these days, but damn do I love all the off-season drama and trade speculation stuff like this. 

I thought this was finally going to be a boring offseason after the last few years. Nope. I'm giggling in my chair that Kevin Durant left Steph Curry for this bullshit. And God, is there any actual fanbase that would actually want Irving on their team? I wouldn't take him if I were a Kings fan. 

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

And God, is there any actual fanbase that would actually want Irving on their team? I wouldn't take him if I were a Kings fan. 

I certainly don't think he's worth his contract.  So the question would be what is Brooklyn willing to part with in order to take Irving off their hands (or what toxic asset will they take in exchange).  I'm sure the Lakers would trade Westbrook for him, but something tells me that's not the direction the Nets are looking to go. 

[briantw]

[Calibandar]

I'm kind of surprised that this trade request has come but even more that the Nets are co-operating. We've seen Philly hold Simmons off for so long and other teams to it to a lesser degree, for the Nets to just say right away lets go, there must have been some presentiment that this was coming and internal discussions already had.

[Maithanet]

23 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

I'm kind of surprised that this trade request has come but even more that the Nets are co-operating. We've seen Philly hold Simmons off for so long and other teams to it to a lesser degree, for the Nets to just say right away lets go, there must have been some presentiment that this was coming and internal discussions already had.

I think that they looked at what happened with Philly and decided that approach was flawed.  They did, after all, get a terrible return for Simmons. 

It is pretty surprising that the Nets couldn't make nice with Durant and say "lets play this year out with Irving and then if you want a trade, we'll trade you next offseason, no questions asked."  After all, he wanted to play in Brooklyn with Irving, and this is kinda sorta the first year that would actually happen (injuries + COVID sabotaging the last 3 seasons).  

But Durant has never been a guy to sit and wait in a good but not great situation.  He left the 3rd most talented team in the league in 2016 because it wasn't talented enough.  He left the Warriors because they were too talented and he wasn't getting enough credit.  Now that he's in Brooklyn with 2 gifted but unreliable stars with him, he's decided he wants some more stability.  

I'm not saying that Durant isn't worth it (he could very realistically win you a championship), but every team getting him needs to understand there's a good possibility he destroys your franchise.

[briantw]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

But Durant has never been a guy to sit and wait in a good but not great situation.  He left the 3rd most talented team in the league in 2016 because it wasn't talented enough. 

He left that team because he choked in the playoffs and then joined the team that beat him.  Let's not pretend that Thunder team wasn't good enough to beat the Warriors.  They were.  Durant just turned into a pumpkin when it mattered. 

[Relic]

42 minutes ago, briantw said:

He left that team because he choked in the playoffs and then joined the team that beat him.  Let's not pretend that Thunder team wasn't good enough to beat the Warriors.  They were.  Durant just turned into a pumpkin when it mattered. 

thats not true. at all. Russ was pretty responsible for them losing. He had one job, and that was to set up KD, instead he jacked up like 25 shots and hit about  7 of them. KD played a solid to great game 7 in that series. 

 

Also, that team had no bench. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

38 minutes ago, Relic said:

thats not true. at all. Russ was pretty responsible for them losing. He had one job, and that was to set up KD, instead he jacked up like 25 shots and hit about  7 of them. KD played a solid to great game 7 in that series. 

 

Also, that team had no bench. 

Yup. Not that long ago both were considered top 5ish guys. I think it's clear with the benefit of hindsight that only KD was a winning superstar. 

 

3 hours ago, WarGalley said:

And God, is there any actual fanbase that would actually want Irving on their team? I wouldn't take him if I were a Kings fan. 

Same. I don't know why anyone would want him. First off people massively overstate how good he is. Blows my mind people refer to him as a top 5-10 player and I forget who it was, but one talking head called him a top 20 player of all-time. Insanity in both cases. He's a top 20 player who you can't depend on. 

That said, would you take Kyrie if it was the only way to get KD? I keep seeing rumors that they might be a package deal, and if that's the case the only team that can trade for them is the Lakers. Getting AD and Westbrook on an expiring contract wouldn't be the worst deal they could make if it simply gets this headache off their balance sheets.

[Calibandar]

16 hours ago, Maithanet said:

 

But Durant has never been a guy to sit and wait in a good but not great situation.  He left the 3rd most talented team in the league in 2016 because it wasn't talented enough.  He left the Warriors because they were too talented and he wasn't getting enough credit.  Now that he's in Brooklyn with 2 gifted but unreliable stars with him, he's decided he wants some more stability.  

I'm not saying that Durant isn't worth it (he could very realistically win you a championship), but every team getting him needs to understand there's a good possibility he destroys your franchise.

I think thats a rather harsh take on KD

He certainly didnt destroy OKC, or Golden State. Whats happened to the Nets is really sad though, first the Boston trades and now they seemed to recover with Durant and Kyrie coming and they get betrayed like this.

But from KD's perpective, it makes sense. I dont think he believes the Nets are going to amount to much this year. Perhaps thats premature. Perhaps he is exhausted with Kyrie's antics. Perhaps he has no faith in Ben Simmons who is hogging up a lot of cap space. Its easy to see why he has no faith in these guys and thinks to himself...turning 34 later this year, its now or never.

I'd really like to see him in Dallas with Luka. But that doesnt seem to be mentioned as an option.

[Maithanet]

1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

I think thats a rather harsh take on KD

He certainly didnt destroy OKC, or Golden State. Whats happened to the Nets is really sad though, first the Boston trades and now they seemed to recover with Durant and Kyrie coming and they get betrayed like this.

But from KD's perpective, it makes sense. I dont think he believes the Nets are going to amount to much this year. Perhaps thats premature. Perhaps he is exhausted with Kyrie's antics. Perhaps he has no faith in Ben Simmons who is hogging up a lot of cap space. Its easy to see why he has no faith in these guys and thinks to himself...turning 34 later this year, its now or never.

I'd really like to see him in Dallas with Luka. But that doesnt seem to be mentioned as an option.

I think that KD deserves a harsh interpretation of his career. 

He didn't destroy OKC, but he definitely screwed them over.  They were very close to winning the 2016 WCF and then boom, he's gone in free agency for free.  If he wanted to be a "team player" he could have done a sign-and-trade so OKC wasn't left emptyhanded, but he didn't want that because he only wanted to go to the Warriors and he didn't want the Warriors to have to trade away anything in order to get him. 

He didn't destroy the Warriors, but they would have resigned him and continued to be a championship contender in 2021-onward if that had been Durant's preference.  Instead he wanted to play with Kyrie instead of Steph (BTW haha what a downgrade) so the Warriors looked elsewhere and won another championship without him. 

He did destroy the Nets.  I mean, he wanted them to sign an over the hill Deandre Jordan, so they did.  He wanted them to mortgage the future for Harden, so they did.  Harden and Durant didn't get along so Harden got shipped out.  He had a lot of leverage over the Nets and he used it.  And now, even though he's signed for 4 more years, he expects them not just to trade him, but to trade him to a preferred contender.  Does he have a no-trade clause?  Because if not, I would seriously be shopping him to any team willing to make an offer.  If the Kings offer 5 1sts, ship him over, those things are gonna be gold in the years Durant gets hurt (and after he demands a trade again). 

EDIT:  I checked, he does not have a no-trade clause.  Give Sacramento a call!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If the Kings offer 5 1sts, ship him over, those things are gonna be gold in the years Durant gets hurt (and after he demands a trade again). 

EDIT:  I checked, he does not have a no-trade clause.  Give Sacramento a call!

That won’t work because his agent will just tell them he’s not showing up. The better strategy is for the Nets to tell KD flat out they’re not trading him to the Suns because they won’t include Booker and they’re not trading him to the Heat because Bam can’t be trade to the Nets, so pick some other teams. The Nets could deal him to Denver or Memphis for example, that would net them the assets they want while pairing KD up with another superstar.

Either way, I think this is coming to really come around and bite the players at the next CBA negotiation. The owners are completely fed up with what the players are doing.

[Proudfeet]

I think the Nets getting DeAndre Jordan was stupid but still just barely defensible considering that Jordan managed to con the Lakers and the Sixers into doing the same after being played out of the rotation at each of his previous stops.