The NBA 2014 Offseason Thread

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by nol

This looks pretty fun from Wiggins: http://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/14/and...spin-move-dunk

I saw that in person. I was like "And *that*'s why he's the #1 pick! It was freaking awesome. Then this drunk ass stupid bearded Bucks fan in a fedora kept screaming to show the replay of it. After about 3 minutes it's like "Dude... just catch it online." But he kept shouting for like another 10 minutes.

And the follow up block was sweet, live, too.

And you guys can see me at 0:00. I'm the aqua/turquoise blob with the dark blue hat 4 rows up.

[Groundhog]

Picturing Kyrie/LeBron PnR's with Wiggins in the corner looking to flash to the basket...

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Yeah, McDermott had a slow game 1, but he was on fire in game 2, and Snell has been locked in as well. Butler/McDermott/Snell could be a very solid trio for the Bulls next season - IMO they lucked out re: Melo.

Plus they signed Mirotic to a very reasonable deal as well as Pau. Should be a highly improved team offensively.

[BishopMVP]

You can really start to see the difference between proactive front offices and those who don't have a clear plan now. Monroe, Bledsoe and Stevenson should have been moved on by now.

Also, re: Parsons, we all know he has Dwight Howard's agent, but I didn't realize he hired him last offseason a week before Howard signed in Houston. Do you still fault Morey if letting him test the market and get paid a year early was part of the Dwight Howard deal?

[nol]

Yeah, the agent played more of a role in that than you, I, or anyone else would like to think that agents determine the moves NBA front offices make.

For the Bledsoe/Monroe group, there's always the tendency to wait and see where the biggest names are going first before moving on to the next tier (this is something FBPB captures pretty well, I need to start playing that again ). The reason Hayward and Parsons have been signed and those guys haven't is because the scarcity of wing players made teams more comfortable to go after them with a max offer sheet (Stevenson's craziness makes him a clear exception here).

Teams are definitely talking with Bledsoe and Monroe, but they're more gun-shy about offering a max while also aware that an offer sheet in the neighborhood of 4 years, $52 million would promptly be matched.

[stevew]

Charlotte could use Monroe or Bledsoe probably. I suspect they will make a move soon

[Matthean]

Wade back with the Heat.

[nol]

Boozer officially got amnestied. At this rate, all the teams will have used up their amnesty just in time for the next round of CBA negotiations so they can complain about how the players get paid too much and then ask for another amnesty.

edit: with that, there are only 7 remaining players eligible to be amnestied (I believe this just means that they signed their current deals before the latest CBA): Durant, Tony Parker, Mike Conley, Al Horford, Rondo, Nick Collison, and Kendrick Perkins.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Also, re: Parsons, we all know he has Dwight Howard's agent, but I didn't realize he hired him last offseason a week before Howard signed in Houston. Do you still fault Morey if letting him test the market and get paid a year early was part of the Dwight Howard deal?

But if that was the case would Parsons be making noise about how disrespected he was by Houston / Morey?

(Unless, of course, you're suggesting that the agent knew but Parsons himself didn't)

[nol]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

But if that was the case would Parsons be making noise about how disrespected he was by Houston / Morey?

(Unless, of course, you're suggesting that the agent knew but Parsons himself didn't)

I think if the agent's primary goal is to get the most money for his players (and therefore himself), that can occasionally be at odds with the player's looking for. In most cases, it's not, and the agent's worth the commission or whatever for doing the negotiating so the player can focus on other stuff.

With that disconnect between what the agent communicates with the team and what the player communicates with the team re: contracts, the agent derives power from both sides by being able to control what the player and team hear from one another.

There's also a story out today about how Ricky Rubio is looking for a 5 year max extension from Minnesota. That's much more likely to be something his agent's telling him to say at this point to maximize leverage than some deeply held personal belief that he himself wants to play somewhere that offers him the most money.

In a case like Parsons' he probably did very much want to stay in Houston at first, but when his agent saw that deal from Dallas he was probably like, "This is just way too good to pass up." From there, it was likely a pretty standard sales job where the agent just had emphasize the whole "Look at how Houston's disrespected you: Morey openly talks about how he wants a third star without appreciating all the things you do," angle.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

But if that was the case would Parsons be making noise about how disrespected he was by Houston / Morey?

(Unless, of course, you're suggesting that the agent knew but Parsons himself didn't)

Parsons has been begging for a raise for 2 years. Houston actually gave him the only chance they could to do that, and now he seems offended that Houston didn't consider him "a star" or worth $15m/y (which he isn't.) As great as it looked on paper, maybe Bosh did make the right choice to avoid a Howard/Harden/Bosh/Parsons core. I think Parsons got overrated the past couple years because of his super-cheap contract - I'd honestly take Trevor Ariza over him before even considering the price. Defense is half the game - Damian Lillard's series-winning buzzer-beater vs Houston!! (Game 6, NBA Playoffs 2014) - YouTube

[Danny]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Parsons has been begging for a raise for 2 years. Houston actually gave him the only chance they could to do that, and now he seems offended that Houston didn't consider him "a star" or worth $15m/y (which he isn't.) As great as it looked on paper, maybe Bosh did make the right choice to avoid a Howard/Harden/Bosh/Parsons core. I think Parsons got overrated the past couple years because of his super-cheap contract - I'd honestly take Trevor Ariza over him before even considering the price. Defense is half the game - Damian Lillard's series-winning buzzer-beater vs Houston!! (Game 6, NBA Playoffs 2014) - YouTube

Admittedly I don't know how good a defender parsons is, but why is he at 6'9 SF being asked to guard a hot shot young point guard like Lilliard?

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Danny

Admittedly I don't know how good a defender parsons is, but why is he at 6'9 SF being asked to guard a hot shot young point guard like Lilliard?

I guess they figured the guy with long arms is a better choice in a situation where it's catch and shoot with no chance to even dribble once. Oh, and your other options are Jeremy Lin or James Harden (Beverley's just too short for that situation.)

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by nol

Boozer officially got amnestied. At this rate, all the teams will have used up their amnesty just in time for the next round of CBA negotiations so they can complain about how the players get paid too much and then ask for another amnesty.

Boozer would be a pretty good pickup for a lot of teams IMO, even at this stage of his career.

Meanwhile, Mike Miller signs for $5.5mil/2. Good pickup if he can stay healthy. Waiters made some noise on twitter about not wanting a bench role, but sounds like it's been blown out of proportion. TBH I wouldn't be shocked if we rolled with a Varejao-LBJ-Wiggins-Waiters-Irving lineup at times, anyway.

[nol]

Originally Posted by Danny

Admittedly I don't know how good a defender parsons is, but why is he at 6'9 SF being asked to guard a hot shot young point guard like Lilliard?

He's not that great, but when there's less than a second left you normally switch on every screen because you don't have to worry about a quicker player driving past a taller one. That was more on Harden for failing to react to Lillard coming off his man's screen. Even if the instructions in the huddle were for him to stay on Matthews, he at least had to let his teammates know a screen was coming.

[Groundhog]

Excited to see so many Aussies in the summer league this year. Got Delly in Cleveland doing well, Goulding doing OK in Dallas, Exum has looked steady for Utah but Brock Motum has looked waaay better than I expected based on what I've seen of him on our national team - gave him no shot, but he might be an outside chance now - and Bairstow in Chicago has looked pretty good too, although the Bulls roster is looking a little crowded in the frontcourt even post-Boozer.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Boozer would be a pretty good pickup for a lot of teams IMO, even at this stage of his career.

Meanwhile, Mike Miller signs for $5.5mil/2. Good pickup if he can stay healthy. Waiters made some noise on twitter about not wanting a bench role, but sounds like it's been blown out of proportion. TBH I wouldn't be shocked if we rolled with a Varejao-LBJ-Wiggins-Waiters-Irving lineup at times, anyway.

With the Cavs, right?

[Arles]

Originally Posted by nol

there are only 7 remaining players eligible to be amnestied (I believe this just means that they signed their current deals before the latest CBA): Durant, Tony Parker, Mike Conley, Al Horford, Rondo, Nick Collison, and Kendrick Perkins.

I still can't believe Perk was never amnestied...

[stevew]

I'll fully admit to being on suicide watch when we drafted Waiters but he's really fun to experience live. His ceiling as a player is likely to be the best 3rd guard on a good team. I could easily see him going somewhere like Atlanta and putting up a study performance in a first round 7 game loss before his career ends.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

With the Cavs, right?

I wouldn't be shocked, but I also wouldn't be shocked if teams in the West went after some frontcourt scoring too.

[stevew]

Someone with cap space should claim Boozer. Charlotte would be an obvious choice. He's still solid in moments.

[Young Drachma]

Boozer's surely not going back to Cleveland lest we remember his old situation with Gund a few years back. New owner, but I can't see them bringing him in.

Gund: Trust with Boozer 'was broken' - NBA - ESPN

Miller to Cleveland as expected. I suppose Jesus Shuttlesworth will be next. Wonder if the Love deal will get done. Warriors trying to get back in it, probably trying to sell Klay Thompson as better as what Cleveland will try to send sans Wiggins, but not seeing it.

[stevew]

That Boozer move cost us like 1 title I think. Such dumb GM'ing.

I take solace that his wife probably got half of his shit.

[korme]

I'm pretty sure Oakland still isn't offering up Klay.

[JonInMiddleGA]

LOL, 'cause now it sounds like Parsons agent sat down & explained the situation to him

Chandler Parsons on Houston Rockets -- No disrespect intended - ESPN Dallas

[Thomkal]

well who will win the East now that LBJ has left Miami and now Stephenson is out of Indiana? Big pickup for Charlotte though.

Lance Stephenson to Charlotte Hornets for 3-year, $27 million deal - ESPN

[Groundhog]

Completely understand Pacers not wanting to throw big coin at Lance, but man... Do they bring back Evan Turner? Yikes. Paul George is going to have to morph into Kevin Durant.

I have a bad, bad feeling about Lance in Charlotte, too. Don't see that working out at all. I guess MKG is on the market?

Going to be a crazy, unpredictable year in the East.

[korme]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Completely understand Pacers not wanting to throw big coin at Lance, but man... Do they bring back Evan Turner? Yikes. Paul George is going to have to morph into Kevin Durant.

I have a bad, bad feeling about Lance in Charlotte, too. Don't see that working out at all. I guess MKG is on the market?

Going to be a crazy, unpredictable year in the East.

Gerald Henderson is the one probably losing his job.

[korme]

That Hornets team is looking nice, however I cannot imagine they expect Vonleh to step in and start right away - who is playing PF for this team?

[korme]

This is so great. Patty Mills And Aron Baynes Invade Live Shot, Get Shoved Away

And then you have to read the reporter's followup, just to be amazed at the slang he uses in an article. No Cookies | Herald Sun

[stevew]

Hornets will probably win the bid for Boozer I'd think.

[sterlingice]

3/$27M for Stevenson seems good for his talent and didn't the Pacers offer him more in season?

SI

[nol]

Originally Posted by korme

That Hornets team is looking nice, however I cannot imagine they expect Vonleh to step in and start right away - who is playing PF for this team?

Cody Zeller, they hope.

[Kodos]

Go Cody!

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

3/$27M for Stevenson seems good for his talent and didn't the Pacers offer him more in season?

SI

Roughly same per year but more years. The hope for Lance is he continues to improve to where he can get a bigger contact after this one expires.

[nol]

Zach Lowe alert, hot off the presses: Lottery Reform is Coming

Looks like the odds will just be smoothed out a bit so the worst team doesn't have a 25% chance at the top pick while not giving all non-playoff teams an equal chance.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by nol

Zach Lowe alert, hot off the presses: Lottery Reform is Coming

Looks like the odds will just be smoothed out a bit so the worst team doesn't have a 25% chance at the top pick while not giving all non-playoff teams an equal chance.

I like the idea of expanding the lottery more than completely evening the odds. Why not take it all the way to its natural conclusion and have a lottery for all the picks? You can restrict it only to the next 14 teams, so even the worst playoff team can't get higher than 2nd, and the NBA champ can't move higher than 16th.

[molson]

So you'd still have a 5-times better chance of winning the lottery if you finish with the worst record, than you would if you finish with the best record of non-playoff teams. I don't see how that takes away any incentive to lose games. You're still going to try to get as many lottery combinations as you can.

[gstelmack]

What if the best non-playoff team from the conference that won the all-star game got the #1 pick?

[nol]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

What if the best non-playoff team from the conference that won the all-star game got the #1 pick?

It'd be really stupid.

edit: Main reasons: 1) we need to drop the charade that the All-Star game in any sport needs to be this intense affair that carries broader league implications. Jeremy Lin and Kobe could very well be voted All-Star starters in the West this season, and if that would actually determine which team gets the first pick.. oh God.

2) The low playoff teams would be dropping like flies at the end of the season to get the first pick rather than a beatdown from the 1 seed. I'm not even gonna get into hypotheticals - that's exactly what would happen. For how crappy the East was with Atlanta making the playoffs by default, the Hawks would have been trying 100 percent harder to fall out of the race if it netted a high draft choice. No matter the system, there will be some team/group of teams not trying as hard as possible, and it's a much smaller loss to have the worst teams doing it than the average ones.

I sat through a couple Lakers games this season, and believe me when I say that as bad as they were, there was a significant talent gap between them and a team like the Bucks, and it wasn't "the Lakers tried so much harder because they have too much pride to tank." Once you cross a certain threshold of suckiness, nobody should really care if trying to see which young players can actually be useful going forward nets your team 19 as opposed to 23 wins.

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

I like the idea of expanding the lottery more than completely evening the odds. Why not take it all the way to its natural conclusion and have a lottery for all the picks? You can restrict it only to the next 14 teams, so even the worst playoff team can't get higher than 2nd, and the NBA champ can't move higher than 16th.

Eh, that's OK but people will find something to whine about no matter what. God forbid if Miami had gotten the #2 pick after losing in the Finals. But then again I didn't get too worked up about how it was and I don't care too much about how it would be different with this minor change.

If the league had been continually changing the lottery odds in a black box for the past 20+ years, nobody would be any the wiser from looking at the results. The worst team hasn't won the lottery for a long time, and even winning the lottery doesn't guarantee anything. New Orleans won the rights to the player who, for the foreseeable future, will be the best player to come through the league since Durant, but it still has an uphill fight to reach the playoffs. Some team's gonna get a really really good player, other teams are gonna be mad. That much is constant and the rest is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

Can't remember if I said it in this thread or elsewhere, but it could be cool if they looked into cutting the playoffs down to 8 teams in conjunction with expanding the lottery to the remaining 22. For all I know, cutting the total amount of playoff games in half would be too much to give up in terms of TV and gate revenues, but it could be balanced out if a shorter, more intense playoff season draws more interest.

I think if the league offered significant bonuses to teams for making the playoffs and really pushed the "just making the playoffs is an extraordinary accomplishment; any of these 8 teams could bring home the title" angle, the regular season would become more highly-contested as well since the 9th-10th best teams would be such longshots for a top-three pick.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by nol

It'd be really stupid.

I actually like it, outside of the All Star Game part. We have enough of that in baseball.

But the playoff cherry would need to be a significant improvement for 8 seeds to not try to tank to fall down to the best non-playoff team, since a year with a good draft would give them the better option normally than staying in the playoffs to lose in four or five games to the top seed.

[Neon_Chaos]

They could structure the profit-sharing to be only for playoff teams.

If you want a piece of the pie, make the playoffs. Imagine the tight race gor the #8 seeds because the owner wants the moolah.

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

They could structure the profit-sharing to be only for playoff teams.

If you want a piece of the pie, make the playoffs. Imagine the tight race gor the #8 seeds because the owner wants the moolah.

Yeah. But those teams that are at the bottom would still be intentionally losing to try and score the next superstar that could carry them.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by nol

It'd be really stupid.

Not any more stupid than the lottery.

Really the fundamental problem is with the sport - if you are lucky, there will be one franchise-changing player in a draft, so the #1 pick is so incredibly valuable compared to every other pick in the draft. That makes it worth anything to get, including tanking an entire season.

I think the real fix is what was suggested above - get rid of the draft, everyone is a free agent, teams can sign with whoever they want. Give the one cap exemption so every team has a shot to sign one superstar, and make it harder to put 3 or even just 2 on one team (or those guys will have to decide it really is worth leaving a lot of money behind to form those groups). Plus teams will have a reason to win - put butts in the seats so they can afford to pay those players.

As long as there is a draft, teams will be gaming to get that #1 pick, even a the expense of being competitive during the season.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by nol

1) we need to drop the charade that the All-Star game in any sport needs to be this intense affair that carries broader league implications. Jeremy Lin and Kobe could very well be voted All-Star starters in the West this season, and if that would actually determine which team gets the first pick.. oh God.

I'd love for the All-Star game to be intense, but I agree tying it to larger league implications is idiotic (in any sport). There is one way to make it matter - get 2 ultra-competitive people (say, Kobe and LeBron, or LeBron and KD), make them captains and have them pick teams once players are chosen. Heck, throw in a rule where the winning captain is automatically an All-Star and one of the two captains next season.

Eh, that's OK but people will find something to whine about no matter what. God forbid if Miami had gotten the #2 pick after losing in the Finals.

Well, they wouldn't under my proposal. The highest Miami (or any team) could move up is 13 spots. As long as the odds escalate gradually (and heck, keep it at a .5% chance for #14), it eliminates almost any break-even point, so there's no draft order incentive to tank.

Can't remember if I said it in this thread or elsewhere, but it could be cool if they looked into cutting the playoffs down to 8 teams in conjunction with expanding the lottery to the remaining 22. For all I know, cutting the total amount of playoff games in half would be too much to give up in terms of TV and gate revenues, but it could be balanced out if a shorter, more intense playoff season draws more interest.

I think if the league offered significant bonuses to teams for making the playoffs and really pushed the "just making the playoffs is an extraordinary accomplishment; any of these 8 teams could bring home the title" angle, the regular season would become more highly-contested as well since the 9th-10th best teams would be such longshots for a top-three pick.

Cutting the playoffs in half has a 0% chance of ever happening - if anything the regular season should be shortened and that will never happen either. (I also strongly oppose cutting the number of playoff teams - how many great 1st round series have we seen in the last few years?)

Now, tying in revenue sharing, or at least having a larger percentage of the TV revenue going to playoff teams I could get behind, as long as it's not too drastic as to create a system of haves and have nots like European football and teams that qualify for Europe. Even a sum like $5-7 million per team would be enough to change the calculus to "make the playoffs" for at least a couple "rebuilding" teams, while not being enough to really create a permanent underclass or having a team go bust if it unexpectedly misses the playoffs for a year.

[nol]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Cutting the playoffs in half has a 0% chance of ever happening - if anything the regular season should be shortened and that will never happen either. (I also strongly oppose cutting the number of playoff teams - how many great 1st round series have we seen in the last few years?)

I was thinking more in terms of the playoffs dragging on too long for casual fans' taste. This season had likely the best first-round slate of games in NBA history, and that still doesn't keep the interest from gradually waning until the Finals. Even in this thread you see that quite a few conference finals games were played without any discussion of them taking place during or afterwards. With 8 teams, the first round would still be exciting (by definition, they normally should be because the gap in quality shrinks with each round), and it'd maybe feel like more of a sprint to the finish.

The competitiveness of this year's first round was definitely abnormal. The West's first-round series were competitive because 8 of the top 9 teams were playing one another thanks to the imbalance between conferences. The East almost had an 8-1 upset because the Pacers were in the midst of an historic collapse. The Spurs took a little time to round themselves into form after not playing much over the last month of the regular season. If the two 1-8 series featured the top seeds taking care of business in 4/5 games as usual (which normally isn't a stretch to assume when such a series can pit the strongest team in the league against one that's not even in the top half), the first round would've seemed much more ordinary. And there's definitely some recency bias at work; the only first-round series the year before that went 7 was Bulls-Nets, and that was ugly as hell with everyone on the Bulls injured. Of the best three teams in the league (OKC, MIA, SAS), the Heat and Spurs swept the first-round series, and the Thunder went up 3-0 on Houston despite losing Westbrook in the 2nd game.

Now, I love me some first-round playoff quadrupleheaders, but I'm just saying that if the league found that cutting down the playoffs and distributing the lottery odds among 22 rather than 14 non-playoff teams would decrease the expected value of finishing towards the bottom enough to make the regular season more competitive, I'd be fine with it (but like gstelmack's saying, any kind of draft will have some inherent suckiness).

The main thing is that the playoffs are formulated the way they are not for maximum competitiveness/entertainment, but so more than half the owners get the revenue that comes with an extra couple of big-ticket home games. It's kind of the worst of two worlds where like college football, the postseason isn't as big of a deal because more than half the teams qualify, but unlike football, every team but one ends its season on a sour note.

[sterlingice]

That's almost certainly not going to happen because of money. However, is there a chance they compress it? Again, the whole 1st round series that go Monday-Friday-Tuesday-Saturday with huge gaps between them just kills the playoff momentum.

SI

[stevew]

I prefer the system where you get 3 #1 overall picks and then sign LeBron

[nol]

The Lakers signed Ed Davis for 2 years, $2M and a player option next year. I guess he sees that frontcourt minutes are available and thinks he can play his way to a better deal next season, but that is still ridiculously cheap for him.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by stevew

I prefer the system where you get 3 #1 overall picks and then sign LeBron

Don't forget Cleveland drafted him #1 overall too!