2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

We're talking about Ballmer, the tax isn't an issue. Guy's worth 150+ billion, what's an additional 40m in tax a year if he had to pay 6x that 7 million extra in the highest punitive tax bracket. He could pay 500m in tax every year for 300 years.

The clippers didn't gain an advantage in team building (unless you can prove that Kawhi signed there because of this stuff). But Kawhi did gain an advantage, so him and uncle Dennis should be punished for sure. Maybe give the clippers a 100m fine? That would be probably provide a decent enough incentive to not cheat. 100m is still a lot of money.

 

I 100% disagree.

Firstly, Joe Smith's deal wasn't waiting another year, it was actually signing for the minimum deal 3 consecutive years in a row, so the Timberwolves could get his bird rights, then they were going to offer him a max 4 year contract. Taking the minimum was way below market value, and then getting a 4 year max was above market value.

To put it into perspective, imagine our team, Lebron, Luka, Ayton, Smart, Rui, Reaves etc etc. And then all of a sudden we sign someone like Pascal Siakam, Lauri Markannen or OG Anounby for the minimum for the next 3 years, and then when we get their bird rights at 32, and sign them to the full max at 300m. That's why it's worse, because there's a real advantage, those guys aren't worth the minimum and we get an unfair advantage by paying the minimum for someone.

Signing a player like that is the difference between a ring and losing in the second round.

 

i'm saying the in principle, they had 7 million more to spend than other teams did. again, if you can just tack on to the max, you don't have a max, and you don't really have a cap. kawhi's functional salary was 7 million more than what he got. in the apron era, that would have negated their ability to use the mle had the money been properly accounted for.

their squabble is with the owners, not the fans. and the owners are the ones cheating themselves on these deals. which is why other owners should be annoyed with ballmer. if they're not, the players should definitely highlight this during the next work stoppage: you guys won't even abide by your own rules to keep our costs down!

and the only people making these huge endorsement deals are players that don't need it. a tiny percentage. the majority of players should be interested in helping the median nba player make more money. kawhi's no-show deal does s*** for them. the point you keep throwing out about money tacked on to the max not mattering is precisely why most nba players should be annoyed, too, imo. only a handful of people are getting this potential benefit. if they catch you pulling an aspiration on a sub-max, you're screwed!

not being able to stop everything doesn't mean you allow egregious s*** like the aspiration deal to happen. rich people will always cheat on their taxes; that's not a reason to disband the IRS or not to try to close loopholes as you find them.

so yeah, you close this loophole with clearer language, then you watch ballmer like a hawk for the next loophole.

meanwhile, you use the fact that you're not a court of law to punish violations of the spirit of your agreement.

 

this is interesting because the wolves would have at least eventually had to pay the piper, right? the punishment almost should have been forcing them to honor the under-the-table agreement! joe smith's max would have created a competitive disadvantage on the back end.

there are no downsides for ballmer in the aspiration situation, as the money not counted against the cap...still doesn't count against the cap.

 

Exactly 5 years ago today AD hit the “Kobe” shot vs Denver in the bubble.

 

Peak AD - that jumper was never the same

 

my theory is still that the injury caused rust which caused him to just abandon the shot. but maybe the three point shot was always going to be a bit too far out for him. but the midrange used to be a thing he could do, and he got it back up to the mid-40s from 16-23ft last year. he's taking fewer of them, though, and more threes, which he's not hitting enough to warrant it, imo.

 

Reminds me a bit like Ibaka - I thought he was really hard to defend as he legit automatic 20 footer but then they pushed him to take 3's and the whole thing became clunky.

Anyways I've been mulling how to describe this and where I"m now at is I think taking the least efficient shot doesn't necessarily mean less efficient future possessions and I do think that hurt AD. Similar to how stats folk didn't believe in the hot hand till it was proven correct. We discount how comfort level and getting into the rhythm impacts players. When AD had that mid range jumper he was basically unguardable 1v1 - Amare Stoudemire like with the combination of explosion, footspeed, and size

 

I hope AD gets traded elsewhere because it’s just so hard for me to root for the Mavs- with all those years being owned by Cuban.

 

What you’re saying is in principle or in spirit, but doesn’t transfer to reality. We have max contracts and you can’t get paid above one. So this didn’t help the clippers field a better team, all it did was give Kawhi more money. The clippers didn’t have a player sign below market value to join like the Joe Smith debacle and they didn’t have a player take less to add another player (like what Harden did at Philly).

I don’t understand this one, I’m not sure if it’s a language issue on my side. The players feel the owners benefit far outweighs there’s because owners have an equal share of the profits but have all of the equity. Any kind of policing of their endorsement money isn’t going to be met with aggressive pushback from the players association.

Agreed. If you’re on a sub max and pull this stuff, it is worse because you helped your team gain an unfair advantage. It can be argued that you would have signed elsewhere for more money - thereby eating your cake and getting it too. Whether we choose to accept it or not, it’s not as bad if you have the max and get more money because your team building didn’t get artificial cap space.

I imagine they work towards clearer understanding on this kind of stuff. But this isn’t the only grey area we have in the sport, every year we laugh about deadline opening signings, like they could negotiate deals in 7 seconds. Every team has a wide range of perks, from free private jet transport, to paying for random things like (nets with Durant and Kyrie) paying for family member or spouse accomodation, to giving family members jobs, to investment or endorsement connections. It’s a pretty complex web.

 

You’re missing the point, the wolves should never have been able to field that team without cap circumvention. Even if you eventually pay for it, it wouldn’t have been possible without it. You have someone’s bird rights and if you choose to pay the tax, you can field a team of all stars.

It allows super teams to be built like the KD warriors. Imagine if we add Jaden McDaniels, Derrick Whire or Jalen Johnson for the minimum right now?

Luka / Gabe
Reaves / Reaves
Johnson / LaRavia
Lebron / Rui
Ayton / Hayes

Any really good sub all star would put us over the top.

 

you're missing the point. if kawhi's salary was 57 million instead of 50 million, they don't have derrick jones jr. and they finish 10th.

we can do this all day. you think principle doesn't matter, only practicality. i think it matters.

 

what a shot. always annoyed me how much hate he got from his own fan base.

edit: btw, td hit a crazy shot that everyone forgot due to derek fisher's .4, and AD's shot wasn't as difficult, but it was similar in that it was a guy who's not supposed to be taking that shot in that situation and just drills it under the most pressure possible.

i always thought AD was a td/kg hybrid, for better and worse.

 

Tell me about it.

 

i meant that the owners get to benefit by skirting the rules but only a handful of players get to benefit by skirting the rules. the majority of the stakeholders here are actually harmed by this stuff, imo. especially if it can only be enforced when you sign for below market value, right?

 

At his best, I would get Kobe vibes with AD sometimes, in terms of he might go off for 60 right now. He was actually exciting to watch. I don't know what happened with him. Toward the end of his time with the Lakers, he was painful to watch. His game looked really clunky the past couple years, with him taking a bunch of inefficient shots and pouting constantly. The league has rapidly evolved over the past 10 years or so into an inside/outside league. There are still mid range shooters, but they are few and far betwer. Not too many volume mid range guys anymore. You have to be able to hit them like DDR if you want that to be your game. AD was ignoring teammates and jacking up Ill advised 22 footers.

 

he and lebron needed to play the same spot on offense, imo. and we had poor spacing due to bad shooting around the two of them. he looked great in dallas playing that pf spot on offense, getting to operate in the middle of the floor instead of trying to post. he likes to play face up and is nearly impossible to defend if he can get a clean catch from about 18ft facing the hoop from almost any angle. he's great in the low post against smaller guys, but the modern nba allows you to swarm that, plus we were playing him at center most of the time.

i'll grant that while his passing improved, it still never got where it needed to be in order to be a middle-of-the-floor offensive hub (like jokic). and his midrange shot never was like dirk/kobe/kawhi/SGA or even ddr, as you mention. that would have allowed his subpar vision to go largely unpunished.

the answer was to have a center (who could pass and shoot) to start halves and play AD at the 5 to close them (like he was in that shot, where their five had trouble chasing him). this was the theory with marc gasol, post-title (and had anyone been healthy, it would have worked).

whatever, it's all over. but he wasn't wrong to want a center (a vucevic would have really helped, imo), but with lebron declining, i'm not sure it would have mattered. we cashed in while he still had value to someone, and i think he'll get his chance to play his game in dallas.

 

We did manage to win an NBA championship in 2019-2020, although we did have Lebron and traditional centers in McGee/Dwight.

Key differences:

• AD and Lebron were obviously significantly younger and nimble enough to play at their original positions (defensively) at 4 and 3 respectively.
• AD shot 33% from three on 1.2 makes per game, which was good enough for a 4 at the time. Lebron shot a respectable 35% from three on 2.2 makes. So this mitigated any spacing issues, by the two becoming floor spacers themselves.
• They had good three-point shooters surrounding them (Green, KCP, Bradley). Kuz was only 32%, but had decent volume.

But 5 years later, AD was expecting the Lakers to plug in a center, although:

• At 32-33 years old, and in an even more shooting dominated league, AD was better suited defensively and offensively playing as a 5.
• At 39, Lebron was better suited as a 4, and it was better for his health and longevity.
• Lakers added another on-ball player in Reaves, who likes to get to the rack, and also shoot mid-range jumpers.
• Lakers really have any pure catch and shoot three-point shooting threats, besides Prince and Rui. Rui didn't have great volume though.

So if Lakers were to ad a center, it would of had to be a stretch 5. We know stretch 5's are still pretty rare in today's NBA. Magic tried to get one when he traded for Muscala. That shows really how hard they are to get. So AD asking for a big really was a big ask. I mean, you are asking for a very specific player. This could really hurt out bargaining power. And even, if we were to get a stretch 5, it would have moved Lebron to the 3, which is a huge problem in of itself, so i don't think AD was right for asking for one. Now a days, you can only afford to have one non-shooter on the floor at all times. This was especially going to be a problem with a modern coach like Reddick.