They had one on a very manageable long term contract in Finney-Smith and included him in the package for Kyrie. DFS is not perfect but as a complimentary piece next to Luka he’s just about perfect.
The Nets are an example of why it's difficult to get them. They mainly got those 3 and D players by trading away bonafide superstars. Generally those type of players come from the draft and are difficult to get in trades.
Josh Green could be one. Anunoby is going to be available in the Summer and he’d be perfect but they do not have the assets to get it done, unless they hit a high lottery pick through lottery and trade it but it would need to be a top 4 pick to not convey to the Knicks and then you are probably reluctant to trade it for OG who is a player of certain limits. Grant will be available in the Summer but they won’t be able to make it work cap wise.
On paper do you think that a Doncic-Green-Anunoby-Naz Reid-Powell starting five would be a good start?
That’s exactly why it’s difficult. Mavs momentum are ruined once Luka goes to the bench because the ball handler has no rhythm and it’s hard for him to get into game mode by playing bits of 2-3 mins.
Absolutely, but even objectively I don't see how anyone could put him above Kobe.
Objectively.
Knew they could do it. Every confidence.
That's the crazy thing about guaranteed NBA contracts where it's just 12 players under a soft salary cap. The NBA has allowed this level of player control but you know owners all don't like it.
He better enjoys it because once it's done he will be lucky to even find a 2-way contract
Players get shut down for the season for all sorts of reason. Does Dame not deserve his money because his team is tanking and shut him down?
I don't think you could have chosen a worse example than Dame tbh. The man has been carrying his franchise so any time off given to him will never be an issue to me, Simmons is a lost cause. You do have a point, I went a bit OTT but it annoys me that Simmons earns a lot of money but displays no improvement as a player whatsover.
No it’s just to point out the hypocrisy for complaining about players getting shut down and still getting paid when it’s a decision made by both the players and the team.
His confidence issues, his shocking lack of shooting all precede his back issues. The way I see it is that shutting down a player needs to be criticized on an individual case. Zion has been injury prone, Simmons has been a lot more available with next to no improvement to his game.
And the Nets are shutting him down because they want to get his back fixed. He’s clearly playing injured and his total lack of confidence in himself is related to that. He clearly needs some help to get himself back. He’s good enough to be an all star just by relying on his athleticism.
Still so pissed off from that loss against the Bulls last Sunday. We better get our revenge tonight. Pels and Thunder losing came at a nice time. Fecking Wolves also on an improbable winning streak...
All I know is that he's lucky his contract is guaranteed. The money he's earned in relation to the games he's played and how he's performed, horrible horrible business
The Nets knew who they were trading for. They gambled. They lost. They only have themselves to blame.
Unfortunately there is no incentive in winning. An example of that is the Vikings who are historically a franchise that doesn't tank, by doing so they often damaged their draft position and ability to bring top players. Think about this the Vikings have an all time win percentage of +54% and have the 7th best record but they have won nothing and people routinely make fun of that.
I think if you are an athlete, winning in itself should be enough of an incentive. I absolutely understand the reasoning behind it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s deeply unsportsmanlike. If you’re not in it to win it, then don’t compete. I have zero respect for tanking.
I think that you are a bit mistaken here. Athletes aren't the ones tanking, it's the coaches and more importantly GMs. They do it by altering rotations or roster to a point that it's detrimental to the team, athletes keep playing at 100%.
I know. And they are competing in sports. And if you compete, you either try to win or you should let others try. The gm is a competitor just like the player. Otherwise they should stay clear from title celebrations and such.
It's more complicated than that. I don't really like the idea of tanking but as I said there is no incentive to not tank. Teams that do not tank end up in the proverbial league purgatory and there is no actual way to escape it outside of luck. And the GM has a job to protect, he won't be allowed to stay 10 years close to .500 and without any prospect of winning a thing.
I don’t have a problem with my team (Portland) doing this two years in a row as both times we did not approach season aiming to be as bad as possible, it just unfolded naturally due to deficiencies in quality that the team had. Last year it allowed Dame time to heal and we started this season fairly well, it’s only at the deadline where our FO realized we can’t get any superior talent in and we can either let some of our assets go and fetch some compensation or continue being mediocre and probably end up losing a play-in series, or at best losing first round. So we basically opted to tank for the final 15 games of season or so which was the difference between having 9-10% chance at a top pick, and 1-2% chance.
Again, I know all this. And I still disagree with the premise. Because it all boils down to this: you compete, you try to win. Winning in itself is the incentive. And if that's no incentive to you, you should not compete. I expect players to compete. I expect the coaches to compete. I expect management to compete. And gutting your roster, resting players for longer stretches despite being healthy, all that is not competing. It's trying to be clever by gambling on an imperfect system.
But you are not saying much. How do you compete? What are you competing for?
European sports feature tremendous financial disparity between teams, whereas this is already greatly lessened in the US due to salary caps. The current system just props up incompetent owners who can't be bothered to build their teams through smart decision making and take the easy way out by repeatedly tanking until they hit the jackpot.
There is talent outside of the first few picks. The Warriors built a dynasty and the highest picked player they drafted was seventh. The Packers competed for decades by acquiring Favre with a 2nd round pick and Rodgers with a pick in the twenties. Brady was drafted at 199, if I remember correctly. There’s loads of stars in the NBA too, who were drafted outside the top 10.
You are using exceptions which do not make the rule. Also the Packers acquired Favre from Atlanta with a first round pick, Rodgers dropped in the draft due to character concerns and Brady was pure luck. The Patriots were up to that point the worst franchise in NFL history and it's not as if they rated Brady that highly otherwise they wouldn't have drafted him in the last round. But even then we are talking about a Franchise that despite good records only managed to have 2 superbowls while having 2 hall of fame caliber QBs, they have largely competed to not win the NFC, Rodgers prime has been absolutely wasted.
And I was never arguing it doesn't work. I don't know if it works or not. What I'm saying is that I believe the concept to be fundamentally and in its very core unsportsmanlike. What I'm also arguing is that it's not necessary. So that 17th overall pick for Favre (thanks for clearing that up) is something that would be available for precisely the kind of teams you mentioned. So would the picks for Brady or Rodgers. Or those for Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Now we can argue if that 7th overall pick fits that bill (I think so). But even if it doesn't, from the 2023 All Star Game alone, we have Donovan Mitchell picked at 13, Giannis was picked 15, De Rozan 9, Haliburton 12, Holiday 17, Adebayo 14, Siakam 27, Sabonis 11, Paul George 10, SGA 11, Jokic 41.
