2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

chicago, some of the gs teams, cleveland, and milwaukee weren't big threes for sure. milwaukee was a big one. the others (except the kd gs teams) were big 2s with great supporting casts (that weren't vet mins).

hell, even the big threes had really good players around them (most that were there for years and not vet min mercenaries).

the newly-formed big 3 plus vet mins is nearly 0 for the century.

 

It depends who the actual players are, neither Big 3 nor Big 2 + better role players work better by default.

 

Well, that's what I meant just using Shaq as an example. If he does or says anything causing some friction then that is different but that has not been the case at all between LBJ and Jeanie and the talk about him holding his extension over our heads unless he gets his demands is all media hooey. From all reports, LBJ is in alignment with our FO and Jeanie in particular. They want the same thing, a championship. Now.

 

Negative. Curry, Green and Klay were a big 3, then they got KD.

James, Wade, Bosh

Jordan, Pippen and Rodman

KG, Paul and Ray were too.

Duncan, Parker, Manu

Lebron, Kyrie and Love was a big 3.

Giannis, Middleton and Holiday make over 30 million apiece, that's a big 3 too

.A big 3 doesn't have to mean 3 All NBA caliber players or something. When you have a trio, one of them is going to suffer from a numbers standpoint, that doesn't diminish their stature or importance in the equation at all IMO.

It's more hardware won in that fashion than a Lebron/AD and a bunch of role players.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, However they aren't going to win anything, if one gets injured. If one of the big two get injured, it's the same thing. I can't think of many chips won with the role players and one main guy. Dallas and maybe Toronto? Lowry was a just as important as Kawhi tho. I suppose it's a perceived " stature " type of argument.

 

I'm curious as to what Charlotte is offering. They could use us in this deal because they don't have sizeable enough expirings or enough picks to entice Utah. Then we get a mix of players from both. There's a lot on the menu from both teams that I'd be interested in.

Wiz would have a near impossible time unless Utah wants Porzingis. I don't like the guys they'd be willing to give us, either.

Ultimately this is probably a leverage play to get the Knicks back to the table just because the path for either of those teams is tough to see.

 

I think you are mixing it. We are talking here of big 3 with LeBron, Durant, AD, Kyrie, Harden.
Jrue, Middleton, Green, Love, Rodman are all different players. They don't hog the ball, teams don't build around them, they don't run franchises. They were just highly paid great role players. That's why it worked. Even Bosh worked because he stopped playing like a superstar.
Another point is that those teams had other role players that fit the system so well and had a clear role. Lopez, Portis, Wiggins, Poole, Barnes, Iggy, Kukoc and alikes were all critical to the success of their teams. Even Pat, Thompson, Hill, JR Smith, Looney or Livingston were huge in some games. We trade them all for Russ and didn't re-sign another similar type of player.
I think is much more on the supporting cast then in that 3rd star. Would never run a franchise with a 3 star model

 

A pair of firsts for Turner? No wonder they keep shopping him with no buyers.

 

I'd give up more for Turner with a severed leg than I would for a healthy Gobert. Gobert was traded for 5 1sts (4 + their pick in this year's draft). I don't think the ask is what's scaring teams away it's that he's a rental and unless he is traded here, he's going to test the market (just basing that off him saying he wants to be a Laker). THEN factor in the injury concerns on top of that and your market will dry up.

 

I think a pair of firsts would have been fair last season at the trade deadline or whenever both he and Sabonis were shopped but right now he's an expiring contract and coming off of ANOTHER lower body injury.

 

no. this requires your typical semantic gymnastics. if you can't be considered part of a big two, then you can't be considered part of a big three. guys like rodman, green, middleton, holiday, and honestly maybe even manu and parker do not qualify. love doesn't qualify. it's not about salary (though it is partly, due to its downstream consequences) as much as actual starpower.

moreover, my point was the nobody has been successful just cobbling together three allstars and a bunch of vet mins. closest thing was the 2008 C Bags, which is an exception that proves the rule.

cycling out your whole roster with scraps and mercenaries around three big salaries just isn't a good strategy. it does not make us anywhere near title favorites, and thus we should not sell out any chance at later improvement for it. none of this even mentions that lebron is nearing 40 and hasn't played a healthy season with us, kyrie hasn't played one in 4 years, and AD hasn't played one in 2 years. just read the writing on the wall.

 

yeah, all this. that's nuts.

and if teams are asking for two 1sts just to take on russ, they can go to hell, tbh. not interested. when you come to me at the deadline when you're out of the playoff race and on the hook for disgruntled vet salaries, maybe i ask for your picks.

 

The 3 high end players are what allow these role players to be effective. The high end players are effective without those particular role players. They are able to do so with other role players on other teams. These same role players don't have that same ability, that's why they are considered such. My point is that the NBA is the best basketball players in the world. Some of these guys are simply better than their peers. KD,Kyrie and Harden could have worked, they weren't healthy at the same time. That is not some "evidence " that it can't work at all. It's not some difficult task to find role players that will fit around the stars, the stars have to be healthy and available, that's what makes it work. If it doesn't work, injuries to the stars are the culprit. All these guys can ball, those players you mentioned, are always duplicated on other teams with the high end trios. Like I said, one of the trio is gonna put up lessor numbers than they are capable of, that doesn't diminish their importance to the trio. They however can't be replaced by " role players " tho. Talent wins, the higher level of talent, the more you win.

 

That’s my main concern.

 

They didn't qualify based on what exactly?What the hell is this " star power" stuff you are referring to? All of those guys were at least All Stars, they weren't the everyday run of the mill NBA players. Their salary reflects that point. You can't just plug in some random guy to replace a single one of the players you mentioned. That is star power man. I'm not talking about popularity. We won a chip with a bunch of minimum salaries around AD and Lebron dude, Green was the only other guy on the team getting paid. Rondo on a minimum salary, was more important than Danny Green in the bubble.

 

The only " evidence " against a trio is related to an injury situation. On the flipside, I can't think of many, really no instances, where the "balanced team" actually beat a healthy trio in a playoff series. Which teams are we talking about specifically?

 

They are HIGH over there in the Pacer Front Office- the whole lot.

 

the only big threes involve three superstars. if you don't know the difference between superstars and guys who occasionally make allstar teams, i don't know what to say. if you think the league is divided into "stars" and "replaceables", i also don't know what to tell you.

that's because there have been so few healthy trios, like, ever? partly because you can rarely amass that level of talent unless one or more of the players is old and/or injured. as would be our situation.

but anyway: we beat boston and miami lost in the finals twice. once to a one-star team and once to a balanced team (late career spurs three + pre-dominant kawhi).

 

https://hoopshype.com/lists/nba-luxury-tax-teams/

The article above outlines the amount of luxury tax each team is set to pay for this upcoming season.

Brooklyn will owe $90 million in luxury taxes, that’s a ton of money for a team in disarray.

The article mentions they can actually get very close to being under the luxury tax by offloading Kyrie to a team with salary cap space, which would be either Indiana or the Spurs.

I know a lot of the trade rumours we have been hearing is basically regarding this premise. The Nets wanted the Lakers to find a 3rd team willing to take on Westbrook because they don’t want to. For Brooklyn, it’s not even just about the basketball fit but it’s financial as well. They don’t want to pay that luxury tax just to buyout Westbrook, which I can completely understand. That whole financial transaction would basically cost them $136 million ($90 million tax+Westbrook’s salary).

It kind of makes me convinced that eventually, Nets ownership will move Kyrie and the deadline is likely the start of the season. They don’t want to run the risk of either Indiana or San Antonio using up their cap space for other purposes (ie another team using them as a salary dump ground, they absorb salary to help facilitate another trade - Donovan Mitchell trade?) thus drying up their options to get under the luxury tax.

I do somewhat agree from the Lakers end that to offload Westbrook, it’s looking more and more like we do have to use both picks.
One going to each of the other teams.

The following trades work from a salary cap perspective:


Lakers trade Westbrook, Stanley Johnson, 2 FRPs
Lakers receive Kyrie, Hield

Indiana trades Hield
Indiana receives Westbrook, 2029 frp

Nets trade Kyrie
Nets receive Stanley Johnson+2027 pick


Or if the Spurs are the third team, it would likely have to be:

Lakers get Kyrie, Josh Richardson
Nets get Romeo Langford, Lakers 2027 pick
Spurs get Westbrook, 2029 pick

The thing about the Spurs is I can actually see a scenario where they don’t buyout Westbrook and expect him to play. They are clearly in rebuild mode and their only point guard on the roster is Tre Jones. The spurs might just use Westbrook to stay somewhat relevant enough for their fan base to stay somewhat engaged. He won’t make them good enough that it drastically hurts their tanking, and I can’t necessarily see Popovich doing a OKC/Sam Hinkie intentional tank job either.

Having said all that, I do think a deal likely will happen more so where Kyrie is not on the Nets just because of the financial costs. The two trades I mentioned are basically the only ways the Lakers can land him if the Nets prioritize minimizing their tax bill

 

Do it Rob!