I like what I've seen from McGrady so far, guest on First Take, stuff like that, I think he'll do a good job.
he's more thoughtful than shaq or barkley or even Kenny smith. but these are low bars. I actually think tmac's candor cost him a bit in terms of fan/media esteem during his playing days. it may be an asset as an on-air analyst, though.
How come there's never any blockbluster trades or even anything close to it these days? When was the last big blockbuster trade? I can't even remember
honestly? too much cap space. the "parity" (seriously, lol, there are four contenders this year if you're being generous) everyone so desired created a market in which most teams are in the same boat. this means that you don't see the deals between teams heading in different directions (e.g., pau to lakers), which is where the big names tend to move. ironically, the only real talent share created by the new cba was the ill-advised harden deal, which nipped a budding dynastic squad in the bud. oh, and it involved a small market losing a player to a bigger market, essentially for financial reasons. of course, i could talk all day about what a sham the last lockout/cba negotiation was. add in the crazy cap jump this summer, and i think folks could have predicted that this trade deadline would be a big bag o' nada. i mean, Houston probably would have sold howard for expirings and a couple 1sts. even three or four years ago, that would have created a bidding war. now, like 20 teams will have the money to get him the summer, so bird rights mean nothing. and the teams that don't are afraid of the luxury tax. personally, i was fine with the old system. i liked that the top 10-12 teams in the league would overpay and move picks for stars whilst the bottom 10-12 teams would be on the opposite end until they built their own core. who knows, though, with the evolution of front offices, maybe that system was heading towards having 8 phillys instead of just the one embarrassing eyesore.
^^ Totally agree abeer3. The new CBA most hurt OKC which had become the poster child for what a small market team could become in the NBA.
yeah, i think proponents of the new cba would point to the lakers' demise as a big win, but that was created artificially by the cp3 nix, not by the system.
And the big winner was Miami, so the new CBA whose rationale was to stop that happening again, only served to enforce that Miami would be the only team to have the advantage of all those stars colluding. It wiped out the competition, especially in the case of OKC who was poised to take them on. Of course they could have eaten the luxury tax and signed Harden to max - so that part was a bad gamble on their part. But if there hadn't been the luxury tax penalties, which Miami seemed able to skate around, OKC could have kept Harden no problem. Meanwhile all that talk about how small market teams couldn't compete and the Spurs got another Chip just by being their usual smart selves. That rationale was always garbage. And it was hypocritical for Gilbert and the owners to go after the Lakers when they were getting a chunk of their new TV contract.
Boston really tried to be a player at the deadline -- Love, Coward, Melo, Horford, Okafor. They just couldn't make anything work. Guess they were trying to capitalize on the lightning in a bottle season they're having and hope one of those guys could catapult them into a competitive series against Cleveland.
they could have had any of them if they offered brooklyn's pick, i think. maybe not love, as cleveland is in title mode and needs a player back, but the others. tells me they were trying to pawn off all their mid and late firsts, just like at the draft last year when they were also denied. at some point, they're going to have to get a star-level player. isaiah thomas doesn't count. and none of their young guys looks to be on the cusp of stardom.
They're holding out hope for Ben Simmons and I think that's a mistake for them. They're so close to being competitive right now, just be competitive! That pick could have gotten them a great impact player.
Good move, 'bout time. I guess we can be thankful to DeAndre Jordan for one thing at least. Now we don't have to wait what what feels like agonizing weeks for some of this FA stuff to get done, and with the position we may be in to sign players, may still have B0ron around hindering that, I'm grateful for this.
*since getting ball handling duties If he's actually playing the PG position, he's 6'11 with the wingspan of a pterodactyl, that would be a nightmare.
