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

If Darvin Ham also possesses the talent to perform a brain transplant on Westbrick, he could change. Anything short of this, and y’all are foolin’ yourselves if you think one of the hardest heads throughout the modern era of the NBA is going to completely change who he is as a player.

 

Interesting take.
Our rotation will always have LeBron or AD so the scoring will be there. I don't think a guy like JC fills a massive need, but I think it fills a bigger need than Conley. I agree he can be redundant with Nunn and Lonnie but the first we don't know if will play and the 2nd has a ton of question marks if he can fit that role.
Also, Clarkson is a guy who can give us a high scoring run of games when LeBron or AD are out, which will likely happen. That can help us remain somewhat competitive during such periods.
I don't think Conley does that

C'mon. "Much better"? JC was 6th man of the year. I like Conley, I said here I wanted him but you're reaching.

I don't see Pat playing SG, at all. That's why I don't like him with Russ (or Conley). Doesn't make sense in a lineup, with or without LeBron. The 2 should be for Reaves, Lonnie or Nunn. As I said before, Lonnie is a question mark and Nunn remains to be seen if he's healthy, so to add another similar guy wouldn't hurt too much. Clarkson is only unplayable together with Lonnie, which is probably even less redundant than Conley-Pat. We have to remember that LeBron is always our PG.
I prefer combos like Pat-Reaves, Pat-Nunn, Pat-Clarkson, Nunn-Clarkson or even Reaves-Clarkson than Conley-Pat. And to have Conley AND Pat while being short on the 2 and neither being a factor when LeBron is out, compared to Clarkson, makes it easy for me to pick the latter.

Those stats are interesting but seems cherry-picking. When I can I'll do some research. But the assisted threes surprised me based on eye test, thanks for sharing.

Only contenders would trade (and give picks) for Clarkson (or any of these Utah guys, at least the non-expiring ones). And contenders are all capped out.
Clarkson makes sense on teams like Clippers, Bucks, Dallas, Sixers or Phoenix to name a few on top of my head.

We have some advantage as they can't only receive players for them because they need to trim the roster. No better way to do it than with a massive expiring but I think the media drama makes it tough to deal Russ

Conley is great for the Clips but they would probably send Reggie's expiring so it's unlikely they would get a pick too. He also makes sense to Chicago for Patrick Williams and White, but also tough to add a pick there too. But if it's Denver for Gordon, then Utah gets a pick or 2. Or the Knicks for Fournier or even Randle, with picks too
Utah is well positioned to get bad long salaries and they can get more picks through that. I guess they want to suck for at least 3 years.

You can't put Westbrook on that top10. He was a net negative in pretty much every relevant metric. I think some people are starting to forget how awful he was

How can you say that after Durant and Kyrie were swept in the 1st round? I thought at this point NBA had shown that the supporting cast is the x-factor to get a chip. Not 2(or 3) superstars
I totally agree that no team is there in contention without their top 2 stars. But that's just to be in that top5/8. Then to be better than those, it's the supporting cast

Where's shooting in this group?


Also regarding your takes on Russ. I invite to read this (there's so much more on the web):
https://lakeshowlife.com/2022/03/18/russell-westbrook-stats-worst-season-nba-history/
https://www.silverscreenandroll.com...on-james-anthony-davis-worst-offensive-season

Also, considering every time he opened his mouth last season, firing his agent this offseason and the videos he have been posting, I don't see any change on his mindset and that's a huge problem.

I mean, he definitely is not comfortable not running the point, period. You see it in the court and whenever he says anything to the media. He won't do that with LeBron on the team, period. So if he's not doing that, he would need to either set screens, stay in the corner or move around providing spacing to maximize LeBron and AD. He has no skills or historical data supporting his proficiency in such a role.
So it's really hard to maximize his contribution to the team without giving him the ball, which would mean you go from LeBron to Russ handling the ball. I think the difference doesn't need to be further explained.
Then, on defense, he lacks the effort and basketball IQ. He never boxes out. NEVER. He always want HIS rebound and doesn't care about the TEAM rebound. He often makes risks to get a steal or goes to a double team when he shouldn't and messes up our defensive schemes.

Finally, it's interesting you've been criticizing Conley for his playoff performance and give a free pass to Russ, who is so much worse. His record is 55-56 in the playoffs. Without Durant...he won EIGHT games. Last 7 seasons he only made it to the 2nd round ONCE (and lost 1-4). He's a liability in the playoffs and barely unplayable. And I'm sure you know it

You left Kuz and Markieff out of that comp. And we don't have anyone similar. I actually think those 2 were key to our success because they allowed AD to play the 5 while having enough size to have a presence inside. Especially Markieff who's scrambled around the league ever since but was absolutely instrumental in that specific role.

Our bubble run is also overrated, imo. The pandemic allowed AD to recover from an injury pre-pandemic. And he had a couple of scares during the bubble, he even left the court limping. It also helped LeBron re-energize which proved to be key to get the best of him in both sides of the floor which you don't see that often nowadays. Finally, the absence of traveling seems to have helped both too, especially AD. We also haven't faced any major opponent and in the Finals even Miami was hobbled. It is what it is and there's no lack of merit for winning it, we made the best of the hand we were dealt, I just think there were a lot of conditions that served us

This I agree with you. We will never be anywhere near contending without LeBron AND AD being healthy. As I said above, your top 2 stars get you to the contenders group. Then the separation between those is the supporting cast

I don't see why Rob is to blame there. That's LeGM all over it. The guy continues to fool so many people, he never takes blame despite the recurring management style lol
I can agree Rob could challenge it and say no, but I'm pretty sure he would be fired the next day. Tell me how many long contracts were signed with LeBron on the team, especially after returning to Cleveland when he established that power in the league

I'm pretty sure you don't need cap space to sign vet mins

 

Not the point. You can go over and be subject to tax rules but you can't go over the cap signing vet mins and not be over the cap lol. You are still over the cap. You still receive none of the benefits of a team under the cap.

Capeesh? If the cap is 100 million and you are at 99 million and you want to sign a vet min contract that will go against your cap 1.6 million, you can sign him, but you will lose every single benefit of being under the cap. The worst of which generally being it going against your # of years over the cap toward your repeater tax.

 

I see. But why would we ever be under the cap? Especially with LeBron and AD in the books?

 

repeater tax

if you meant "how?" One can fairly easily put together a 2-super star team and stay under the cap.
40+40 = 80 million. Next year you would still have 53 million left to assemble a team. Easy-Peasy

 

October 18th the season starts..we shall soon see how much the " experts" media or arm chairs got right or wrong.

My flag is firmly planted on this hill. I'm ready for training camp to start as is. Currently constructed the Los Angeles Lakers are top 3 in the West IMO. With Russell Westbrook, no shooters, and all these scrub nobody kids. Yep..that's my take. Save this post..refer back to it. I'll be here for whatever happened.

 

Yeah but I would be baffled if that's an issue after re-signing LeBron for 50mil.
Not to mention that it's both unexplainable and terrible management to have 2 max and still try to be under the cap.
I think that's not in our FO minds

 

There’s this little thing called: evidence.
Ever heard of it?

 

Cut to the chase..what's your prediction?

 

oh, we learned plenty last season:
1. Westbrick still can’t shoot.
2. Westbrick is still a turnover machine.
3. Westbrick is not interested in playing any team defense, whatsoever.
4. Westbrick still camps in the paint to pad his stats.
NONE of these have to do with “fit.” They have to do with the fact that he’s an awfully bad player who has a negative affect on winning.
You can blow your fantasy horn all you want- we aren’t buying it.

 

Keeping Russ and not adding any shooting= 10th place
Trading Russ for a couple of Jazz players= 7th
If the Nets would have dealt us Kyrie in good faith= 3rd with at least a WCF appearance

 

Duly noted. We shall revisit this post often.

 

See above

 

Playing catchup on commenting on a few things here...

- Like the Mitchell move for the Cavs. They have the front court size to make it work. They've not a FA destination, it's either trade or draft for them. So when you can take a swing on a high level guard like Spider, you do it. Ainge is collecting picks and kids, but I don't think the Cavs picks will be very good based on the age and quality of the core in Cleveland.

- Does 3 picks for Mitchell help recalibrate the pick ask for Russ? It should.

- Anthony Irwin said on his pod that he heard as recently as the afternoon before the Cavs/Jazz trade, from a source he trusts, that the Lakers side was agreed on and the Jazz and Knicks were hashing out the final details. We were going to get Bogdanovic, Fournier, and Reddish and the expectation was that 3 team deal would be complete within 48 hours from then. I hope we are still operating within that time line for any and all Russ trades. Bummer knowing we were that close to getting rid of Russ.

- I like the current rumored package of Bogdanovic, Conley, and JC better than the 3 team deal. Not as much as the Indy deal, but it seems like we have a better shot of dealing with Ainge again, currently. Get some shooting, stabilizing starting PG, and a rich man's Monk.

- IF we swing that version of the Jazz deal, I expect us to flip Nunn for Reddish. I think he's Rob's runner up obsession. If he can't get Hield, he'll get Cam to the Kamp Klutch. Then hopefully Ham and Handy can mold him to be better defensively, he's got the size and his man D is decent enough.

 

This. Has. Absolutely. Nothing. To. Do. With. The. Repeater. Tax.

 

Hey Alcindor, I see the benefit in getting under the repeater tax, it would be a really positive outcome for future years - but I just don’t see it happening.

As an example the fact that Conley’s contract is only guaranteed for 14m doesn’t mean it’s only 14m counting against the cap, his whole contract is counted. It just means we can cut him at up to 14m worth of play without paying him the remaining amount. But it doesn’t help us cap wise unfortunately.

To compete, we’re either going to need to spend as much as the clippers or warriors of the world or have some amazing rookies on cost controlled contracts and benefit for a few years before we have to pay everyone. I don’t see a real in between.

 

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

 

?
Aren't you trying to come up with a way of us being under the luxury tax threshold to avoid the repeater tax next year?

 

if he's cut, it's only 14 against the cap, but if he's retained, he gets the whole 24. but that doesn't matter anyway, as with just lebron, AD, and holds, we a) probably only have about 30 million max, and b) really don't have much to spend it on.

the only thing that getting some expirings in a russ trade could do is maybe get us under the lux tax for a year and/or allow us use of the full MLE. but even that requires opting not to retain any other pieces brought in the russ trade (expiring or no) and probably leaves us with less to buy than we could simply retain.

i just don't see operating under the cap as a viable strategy.