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

In transit currently but wanted to get online quickly to share a recap of the Rich Paul meeting I just got.

- First the bad news: Lakers were not discussed explicitly.
- Rich Paul told Luka Doncic to take the max contract. This is consistent with what I hear about Paul, players like him because he always gives advice in the player's best interest.
- Seems like the reporting from The Athletic recently is > 50% accurate.
- Luka was concerned about how to handle the pending contract negotiations. Rich Paul gave him some advice on that.
- However, Rich Paul was prepared. He had the financials showing how even if Luka were to forgo a max contract this time around and sign with a big market team in free agency, it would likely be a net positive from an overall long term net worth and brand standpoint. He emphasized that a player like Luka especially would thrive in a more international market like New York or Los Angeles, giving the example of Pau Gasol vs. Marc Gasol (in terms of net earnings). Apparently this came as somewhat of a surprise to Luka, who has been missing the bigger city experience in Europe. He said this gave him a lot to think about for his future, but in the short term he's strongly considering taking the guaranteed money.


Thank you all for your time!!

 

dallas is most certainly a big city. but it is different than the large cities in europe. but ny is more like those than la is (which is more like dallas: everything is spread out). sure, there's branding stuff that can make a difference, but if luka's missing say, barcelona, i don't think la is going to cut it.

to me, the bigger concern for luka is that he just watched the dallas organization essentially fritter away most of the career of an all-time great player because--for whatever reason--they couldn't find a single superstar to play alongside him. this despite him being one of the most genial and unselfish people and players the league has had as a star (duncan is maybe the other example). pair that with the weird tension and house cleaning going on there, and you've got to be concerned about your career if you're luka. does this franchise have a good track record of fielding contenders? not in the last decade. this is why i think they turned it all over. but again, to me the issue is cuban. his money and competitiveness helped them in the past, but over time, he's gotten too involved in basketball ops decisions to the detriment of the franchise.

so if i were selling luka on moving, it wouldn't be about the big city experience, it would be about pointing to my franchise as one that can and will field the best teams.

anyway, i think he takes the full supermax (that's a LOT of cash) or at least 4 years of it, but it's possible that he's done with them halfway through it. just need to be ready to pounce. our picks are somewhat controlled until 2027, but that doesn't mean we can't pick some up via other means or trade the later ones when the time comes.

but lots can change i guess.

 

I’m curious why Rich Paul is giving Luka this kind of advice when Bill Duffy is his agent. Wouldn’t this rub Duffy the wrong way as Rich is obviously stepping on his toes by giving free agency advice to Luka?

 

Because some people are full of it...

 

If Philly decides to break up that team this summer, I'm targeting Seth Curry.

 

be careful. he's not the picture of health, and he's a bit of a choker (saw him miss crucial fts as a 90% shooter on multiple occasions in dallas). his defense is also pretty bad for the most part.

that said, i wanted him the year dallas signed him (and i thought we could have gotten him but magic was all in on the lance stephensons and rondos of the world, iirc). he's a consistently good shooter who is a decent (but not great ballhandler). more importantly, he's the kind of guy who can be a 5th starter when you have a point forward like lebron.

if he's willing to take a short MLE deal, i'm listening, but we'd still have to find someone who can penetrate or hope THT takes another step.

 

You can make trades when the season isn't over yet?

 

Maybe Luka is hiring Rich Paul and the league hasn't gotten word of it yet.

 

lol at woj calling it a major deal. yes, it's going to dramatically alter the landscape.

 

Great assessment.

Still want. Lol

 

I'll also mention Morey and Rob have a great working relationship reportedly...if something makes sense, I'm sure they could work something out.

 

oh, i was thinking he was set to be a FA based on the suggestion. he's paid 8 per for two years, which is a bargain. i don't think we have what morey wants in return. he can't have eagle or THT, and i'm not sure he can have kcp, either. i don't see an easy path.

 

Nothing is easy but anything is possible.

And while I think he would be hunted on defense, I'm hoping we can make that liability with athletic wings and a rim protecting/mobile C....

If he can shoot over 40% from three, I'll take all the weaknesses as a player.

We need shooting this off-season.

 

we keep saying that...

but really, we had 4 of our rotation players (ac, kuz, lebron, kcp) shooting 37-40% from three. five if you count marc (41%). we were 21st in overall percentage, though, which isn't great. we were just horrific in the playoffs. i wonder if schroder and AD just shot what they did the prior year what our numbers would have looked like overall.

now, we were also 24th in three point attempts, which is interesting in conjunction with the other.

i'm not as sold we need shooting. we need health and someone to be what schroder was supposed to be. maybe one more center with some mobility for a change of pace.

watching the playoffs, i think last year's team (or this year's team, pre-injury) would be an overwhelming favorite to repeat right now.

 

Caruso also shot well from a percentage standpoint.

You're a numbers guy - I'm really wondering how much our three-point shooting was an outlier in your opinion.

For example, at the very beginning of regular season, KCP and Caruso were shooting lights out. It seemed like the whole roster was...

I'd have to go game by game to see if we really cooled off, which is normal. Nevertheless, it wasn't just a cool down; we both know there were games we couldn't buy a shot.

I might go back and look at game to game and certain points of the season to see where it kind of went south.

And yes, no Dennis, please Specifically, we need a PG who could shoot at the PG position and has the ability to shoot above the break 3s....Schroder isn't that.

And as Rob stated, you could never have enough shooting. Just give me 2-3 knock down shooters, and I think we'll be fine.

Yes, we might be talking differently if AD and LBJ are healthy, but they weren't, and we got bounced.

It might not be right for an entire overhaul, but there are changes that are going to occur whether we like it or not.

 

I wonder if there’s a stat on 3pt shooting % variance? A player that shoots 5/5, 0/2, 0/3, 0/3, 0/2, 3/5 is less valuable than a player who shoots 2/5, 2/5, 1/3, 1/2, 2/5 even though they’re both at 40% overall. If most of your “shooters” are the first kind, and they slump at the same time, you’re f****d in today’s nba.

Shooting Consistency seemed really important this year. There were games where we did everything right in terms of defense and offensive execution with few turnovers(even when we were healthy) but guys just bricked tons of open shots.

 

i did a quick/lazy comparison in the kuz thread (i think) where i feel like it showed that consistency is really a marker of higher quality, such that the higher the average, the more "consistent" someone is (that was just scoring, but i think it's just a general pattern across various measures). variance happens in the middle--people who are bad shooters are bad all the time, people who are great are great almost all the time, most people have things more like your first line.

the game logs are out there, and i would know how to do all this, but i don't have time for a full analysis. i'm betting someone's done it, though.

regarding the value, i think the timing of 5/5 games matters, right? if that guy's 5/5 game came in a game you won but might have lost, and you won the others without his help, was it less valuable?

as we've discussed a lot here, the real value is in whether teams respect you, as it opens the offense up for others. kuz doesn't get that respect, which is why he needs to shoot 5% higher than he does (like kcp and AC did this year) to offset how he hurts the spacing. i'm really wondering about whether AD needs to go back to taking midrangers again, too--if teams won't chase him to the three point line regularly, i'm not sure he should bother going there.

so yes, adding a seth curry would change the geometry of our offense. but we'd have to work harder on d. a couple of his previous teams decided it actually wasn't worth it--dallas in particular. but then dallas was done in all year by their bad shooting outside of luka, so...