NBA 2022 off-season: the Durant Decision

[DMC]

54 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Banchero's ability to drive and get to the line is incredible for a guy his size. Even with our laughable current spacing he's getting to the line 9 times per game.

Five straight 20 point games and five straight competitive losses.  Also, Cole Anthony is now out "indefinitely" with an oblique injury.  Which means the point guards are down to...RJ Hampton and Kevon Harris.  The Wemby Watch is officially on!

Also, can I just say how annoying it is how little information the NBA gives on injured players.  Everyone's just out "indefinitely."  Grr.

[Tywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

Big oof

 

It looks like he's overthinking things while also not processing them. If he can't fix this he'll probably have to retire or accept that he's trending towards the vet minimum. 

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

So a full teardown and rebuild would be extremely limited in LA.  They could get some assets for Davis and Lebron I'm sure, although probably not as much as they'd like.  Lebron may not be worth his max contract (for the first time in his career), and with Davis' injury issues he might not be either. 

LeBron is worth the max. He's still one of the best offensive players in the league and if nothing else he still has a lot of value at the gate. His defense has fallen off a good amount, but now and then you still see him make an incredible play. For example, do you think Luka has passed him by that much right now?

That said, Idk how you trade for either player. LeBron still has great value and might for another year or two, but the cliff is coming soon. I'd trade for him if I could get him for a pair of firsts and some filler, but idk how much more than that a team could offer and I'm sure LA would want more than that. AD otoh, Idk if I'd even want to offer anything for him. He's so unreliable and it only took a couple games for him to look gimpy as hell with his bad back. It hurts just watching him move at times. 

[briantw]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

LA should just blow it up. Get what trade or player assets they can get for LeBron and AD, ride out the last year of RW's contract and rebuild. Maybe luck into the no 1 pick. There is no path to making use of LeBron so why persevere? 

LeBron can't be traded this year.  He's stuck in this hell that he created.

[Argonath Diver]

It's baffling how he can simultaneously have such great basketball acumen (I dislike the term BBIQ but same-ish meaning) and yet have such a tenuous grasp on what sort of player would actually help him win. Westbrook was truly one of the dumbest moves I can possibly have thought of, and like the entire world immediately agreed, excepting of course James and Westbrook.

I also think he's a petulant turd and am not surprised at all about a dumb tweet like that when his self-made roster is a trainwreck. 

[DMC]

One silver lining about Cole Anthony's injury I hope Mosely is considering is running with the jumbo lineup - Wagner, Ross, Banchero, Carter, and, of course, Bol Motherfucking Bol.  Since Suggs went down, Banchero has been running the "offense" (such as it is) at least as much as Anthony anyway.  And it will be good for Wagner's development to share that load too. 

But most importantly, it allows Bol to play more minutes, and those five are easily their best five players left.  Bol has a 26.2 PER in 17 minutes a game.  Give em a chance and let's see how much that drops off in 30-35 minutes.

[Tywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

Westbrook was truly one of the dumbest moves I can possibly have thought of, and like the entire world immediately agreed

It's strange. Literally everyone on this forum, everyone I talk about basketball with in real life and everyone I see/hear/read talk hoops in media said this move made zero sense. Even if the Lakers really thought it would be smart to get another primary ball handler to spell LeBron, why him? You could get someone who cost less and shoots better, leaving room to sign multiple shooters. It's just baffling. The Wolves Gobert trade likely wasn't smart if the goal is to win a championship, but at least I can justify why they did it with a straight face. I've got nothing for this one. 

[Maithanet]

I think that part of the reason LeBron and the Lakers ignored common sense was because people said the same thing about Wade +LeBron.  Wade was a great player, but not great without the ball and with so-so floor spacing.  The Heat defied that conventional wisdom and obviously it went ok.

But that wisdom wasn't entirely wrong, it was just the talent could overwhelm most teams anyway.  The Lakers can't do that because Westbrook is nowhere near the player Wade was in 2011 (and the fit is even worse), LeBron 2021 is not LeBron 2011, and even if Davis is roughly equivalent to Bosh, the rest of the Lakers absolutely suck compared to the 2011 heat.  There's no one like haslem or Battier or Chalmers to be effective role players.

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I think that part of the reason LeBron and the Lakers ignored common sense was because people said the same thing about Wade +LeBron.  Wade was a great player, but not great without the ball and with so-so floor spacing.  The Heat defied that conventional wisdom and obviously it went ok.

I don't get that at all and frankly I don't really remember many people saying so at the time (although I was 25 so I don't really remember much as is).  Saying Wade and LeBron couldn't work is like saying Jordan and Pippen couldn't work.

[Maithanet]

Not that it couldn't work, just that it was a sub optimal pairing, which might limit them in big game situations.  Which is kind of what happened in the 2011 finals.

[Tywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't get that at all and frankly I don't really remember many people saying so at the time (although I was 25 so I don't really remember much as is).  Saying Wade and LeBron couldn't work is like saying Jordan and Pippen couldn't work.

There were people arguing that they didn't fit, or more specifically you'd be getting a lesser version of Wade alongside LeBron, but I always thought they were just being haters.

If Maith is right though and the Lakers were using Miami as a templet, fire everyone who agreed with that. Wade was a top 5ish player in the league on a team friendly deal and Bosh, while not as good as AD, was more reliable and a better fit, plus as mentioned the supporting cast was way better. The Lakers really should have just run back the team that won a championship and chalk up the year after as being derailed by injuries. 

[Tywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Not that it couldn't work, just that it was a sub optimal pairing, which might limit them in big game situations.  Which is kind of what happened in the 2011 finals.

No, LeBron shrank while Dirk established himself as one of the 25 best players of all time. That's what happened. If they both played to their averages Miami wins that series. Instead LeBron was afraid to post up JJ Barea. 

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If Maith is right though and the Lakers were using Miami as a templet, fire everyone who agreed with that. Wade was a top 5ish player in the league on a team friendly deal

Even at Westbrook's peak, Wade was a much better fit with LeBron.

[Tywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Even at Westbrook's peak, Wade was a much better fit with LeBron.

And just a better player on both ends. Wade is a top 25 player in my book and probably the third best SG ever, with his peak actually being greater than Kobe's, who most people would rank second. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

And just a better player on both ends.

Well yeah that too.  (Although we should be fair to Westbrook, he was pretty amazing for awhile there.  Shooting isn't everything.)  But I just mean in terms of the type of player each is.

[briantw]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well yeah that too.  (Although we should be fair to Westbrook, he was pretty amazing for awhile there.  Shooting isn't everything.)  But I just mean in terms of the type of player each is.

Westbrook was an amazing player.

He was no longer an amazing player when the Lakers traded for him and it was painfully obvious.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, briantw said:

He was no longer an amazing player when the Lakers traded for him and it was painfully obvious.

Sure I wasn't arguing that.  

[Tywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well yeah that too.  (Although we should be fair to Westbrook, he was pretty amazing for awhile there.  Shooting isn't everything.)  But I just mean in terms of the type of player each is.

I do think some of the revisionist history with Russ that's been going is gross. He was a top 5 player for a few years with Durant and more impressively, he achieved something most thought could never be done again. And then did it three more times. 

Looking back, that Thunder core has to be the single most disappointing results wise across any sport in modern history.

[briantw]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Looking back, that Thunder core has to be the single most disappointing results wise across any sport in modern history.

The what if we'd kept Harden question will haunt that franchise forever.

[Tywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, briantw said:

The what if we'd kept Harden question will haunt that franchise forever.

I just read this as a quick refresher.

Holy shit. I knew they did it to avoid the luxury tax, but their actual penalty wouldn't have been that bad and it wouldn't have been an issue if they paid the right people. And then the cap jumped by over $20M just a few years later, meaning the LT wouldn't have even mattered. Terrible shortsightedness. 

[briantw]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I just read this as a quick refresher.

Holy shit. I knew they did it to avoid the luxury tax, but their actual penalty wouldn't have been that bad and it wouldn't have been an issue if they paid the right people. And then the cap jumped by over $20M just a few years later, meaning the LT wouldn't have even mattered. Terrible shortsightedness. 

It was particularly egregious because that team had just made the Finals.  Sure, they lost, but you have to keep that young core together and let them run it back.  They were only going to get better given their respective ages.  Durant was the only guy who was arguably at his peak of the three, and obviously he was still incredible for years to come too.