2020-21 Offseason "No time to rest." - darkwolf80's Blog

darkwolf80's Blog

2020-21 Offseason "No time to rest."

Posted on February 27, 2014 at 06:19 PM.

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After recovering from the week long partying it was time to get back to work. Cuban had already kept his word and signed me to an extension for 2 more years for winning the title. So I was now signed through 2023 and felt like I found somewhere that respected my work. Cuban had also followed up on his promise to let me blow up an original pair of Air Jordans at the AA plaza. We made it a part of our parade celebration and thank you to the fans. It finally helped me put to rest the animosity and feelings about how I had been treated by Jordan. Now it was time to move onto building a team that could start a dynasty run!!

Our first order of business was to also extend Brad Stevens by 4 years. He had come into the league very young and inexperienced at the NBA level, and had some issues with Boston in his first go around. But I had hired him the year before looking to give him a chance, and he delivered. I wanted him to stick around for quite a while.

We then moved onto taking care of our players.
I picked up the options:
Lawson 4.80M
Novoselec 2.04M
Eze 800K

I then made restricted FA offers to Sampay for 1yr/1.32M. This was to make sure we had some front court depth.

All these moves had us over the cap by 1.32M. Therefore, I was going to look at ways to shed some salary if possible. Parker, Lawson, and Ray Ray were untouchable, but with the advancement in play that Novoselec and Augustin had made, Randle was becoming the one that would probably be moved. He had two years left on the max contract that we had inked him to, and I hated to move him, but we needed some salary flexibility to keep the team pointed in the right direction. Things were going to get tight real soon with Ray Ray just being extended and Lawson not being too far behind.

As draft night approached I had the 7th (from the Lakers) and our 30th in the first round. My main objective was to upgrade at PG and there were two studs coming out in this draft in Blackshear and Ayo. There were some discussions in possibly moving up to #1 or #2 to ensure I got one of them, but the price was just a little too high and was going to create too many holes in the roster. So instead I shopped Randle around and we were able to find a deal that actually upgraded our PG and gave us a starter at PF that was defensively an upgrade. The Raptors agreed to trade Donovan Robinson, Virgil Anderson, and their #21 1st rd pick for Randle, A. Len, S. Larkin, and our #30 1st Rd. We had three top tier offensive options and needed some perimeter and post defense to back that up. This addressed both. It did take us out of the running of moving up in the draft to try and get either Blackshear or Ayo, but I thought it was our best move.

The draft started and took a weird turn as both Blackshear and Ayo kept falling with each pick. It was getting tempting to try and trade up to get either, but I decided to sit pat and see what happened. The Cavs finally jumped up to #5 with a trade involving the Suns and took Blackshear. When our pick was called I couldn't believe it but Ayo had actually fallen to us at #7. This opened up lots of opportunities. I took Ayo and then immediately started to shop Lavasai. I was able to make a deal with the Bucks to get Vitaly Andropov for Lavasai, Eze, and my #21 1st rd. This gave me a rough and tumble center for the bench behind Ray Ray. In the workouts I had also fallen in love with Frederic Neville from France. He had the size and shooting touch to fill a spot of our bench for SG/PG, so after the Knicks took him with the 11th pick, we traded B. Fitness and our 2021 2nd Rd for Neville. This ended our draft night. There a few other trades by teams looking to move up. The complete draft summary is at the bottom.

All these moves had gotten us back under the cap by 10M. Robinson and Anderson were already both signed to long term deals that were fairly team friendly. This was important, and a factor in accepting the trade, since as I said before Lawson was due for an extension in about a year. We were going to be wading into luxury tax space at that time. I had warned Cuban and he gave the go ahead knowing that we had a team that could contend for the next 4-5 years easily. We did make some minor signings during free agency to fill out the bench: Sampay took his RFA offer of 1yr/1.32; we signed T. Thompkins back for 1yr/2.30M; Lamar Rollins 1yr/670K; and Wayne Ellington 1yr/900K.

Other major moves in the NBA:
B. Jennings - Heat 5/71M
K. Walker - Knicks 4/53M
R. Rubio - Magic 4/63M
K. Leonard - Spurs 5/73M

As the offseason drew to an end I felt very confident we were heading into 2020-21 with a well rounded and possibly even better team that the last year. Of course health would play a major part as it does every year. But our repeat chances looked good.

2020 NBA Draft - Round 1 Recap
Pick	Team	Player	Pos	Ht	Wt
1	Denver Nuggets	Christian McLain	SF
2	Detroit Pistons	Martavius Elliott	SF
3	Miami Heat	DeAndre White	C
4	Golden State Warriors	Thiago Souza	C
5	Cleveland Cavaliers (from Suns)	Whakil Blackshear	PG
6	Sacramento Kings	Kambrell Hampton	SF
7	Dallas Mavericks	Ayo Wilson	PG
8	Chicago Bulls	Larmarcus Miller	SF
9	Atlanta Hawks	Tyree McCullough	PG
10	New York Knicks (from Pacers)	Evan Robinson	PG
11	New York Knicks (rights to Dallas)	Frederic Neville	PG
12	Brooklyn Nets	Gavin Williamson	PF
13	Philadelphia 76ers	Cameron Ramsey	SF
14	New Orleans Pelicans	Malik Snyder	PF
15	Los Angeles Clippers	Semso Kamesivic	C
16	Utah Jazz	Deebo Evans	PF
17	Milkwaukee Bucks	Jabri Wilson	SG
18	Washington Wizards	Jett Delgado	SG
19	Cleveland Cavaliers	Chris Griffin	SG
20	Detroit Pistons (from Blazers)	Omari Hill	PG
21	Milkwaukee Bucks (from Mavs)	Domingo Garcia	PF
22	Minnesota Timberwolves	Gerard Baptiste	SG
23	Orlando Magic	Damani Monroe	PF
24	Detroit Pistons	Devon Elliot	PG
25	Boston Celtics	Jason Hargrove	SG
26	Charlotte Bobcats	David Ramsey	SF
27	Houston Rockets	RJ Sullivan	PF
28	San Antonio Spurs	Joe Spearman	C
29	Oklahoma City Thunder	Sean Hoop	SG
30	Toronto Raptors	Jamie Bol	SG

Comments

# 1 BlindSideNZ @ Mar 5

Whaaaaat! I've never seen those guys drop so low! How much do you love Ayo? Dayumn man. I'm looking forward to getting back into a new association. What are the odds and a Charlotte Dallas final again

# 2 darkwolf80 @ Mar 8

I was pretty surprised myself. This was the first draft with DC6 I had done. But have done others just playing around and Blackshear always go 1 or 2, but I have seen Ayo drop sometimes. There are just so many good PGs in the league. Most teams already have good ones. I'm just waiting on DC7 to go forward. I will be surprised if Charlotte makes it back as they just keep losing the guys I had signed or drafted for them. lol