2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

So Embiid is still “ramping up” and will miss the opener tomorrow as well as a few other games, while PG will also miss tomorrow and a few other games.

I don’t consume much offseason NBA stuff between July and October because NFL is in full swing, but the last couple of weeks I’ve dug into the season preview stuff and gotten excited. Now I remember why my interest in watching other teams gets lower every year, because the best players don’t playing in the f***ing games. The other day I was up in the middle of the night with my newborn and watched the 08 Christmas Day game against the C Bags. They were 27-2 and had won a bunch in a row, we were 23-5. That kind of intensity in a regular season game is completely unthinkable now. The last “great” regular season games I can remember were probably the few against the Clips in 2020. It used to be that good teams would actually get up for playing other good teams in the regular season to see where they stood. Not anymore.

 

Why Davis isn't getting any endorsements ?
It should change this season
Even freaking Bradley Beal has some

 

I love Reaves but IF, (big if), Knecht continues to shoot like he did in that preseason game, his assent will be unstoppable.

 

I think we should temper expectations on Knecht. He was an insanely good draft pick at the position and will be an asset during the year, for sure.

But he shot poorly playing against starter players and only torched when playing against g-league players. He'll have scouting reports on him as the season progresses and teams will actively defend him and make his life difficult. He has a great baseline and will only get better from here, but it's a long way to go to be a guy who benches Reaves and stuff people are writing here.

I think he has the tools to be such a guy but that's a HUGE IF at this point. And likely only material by the year 2 or 3 as it happens with most rookies (even considering he's older than most).

 

While I agree in general with your point, the more other teams adjust to Knecht, the easier the life of our actual stars becomes. That's the main point of having a guy like him on the roster. He doesn't have to put up some incredible numbers, just space the floor effectively and punish the opponent when they try to cheat on defense / double AD, Bron or some of the other guys. We severely lacked this kind of players on our team in the past few years, I am very courious to see how him a d DLO together on the floor could fit next to AD, Bron and Vando for example. Could be an interesting combination.

It generally seems like we have a few good shooters now, I'm curious to see how JJ implements them.

 

Agree too! The gravitas a shooter like him has is wonderful for our stars. But it's something that takes time. He has to be elite in off ball movement, that was one of the keys of Klay/Curry, Duncan Robinson. They are always running and exploiting screens all over the place. It will take time to reach a higher level on that, I imagine.

He played a few minutes with the starting unit in DLo's place and we sucked, mostly defensively. Him and Reaves without a perimeter defender in the wings (Vando or Christie) didn't work out. DLo isn't a good defender but is more experienced and more used to playing with that group. That lineup is already bad defensively, but it was even worse.

Again, time will definitely improve all those things and Knecht will be instrumental to our success. Just don't think he justifies changing the lineup or long-term strategy on the value of guys like Reaves in the team. Not yet

 

He's 23 already though. I don't think it will take too long.

 

Athletic asks money lol

Yes 50 cents a week or whatever are nothing ,but still why I should pay to read something on internet which is already paid service
It makes no sense

 

What you pay for the internet isn't given to the pages you access, it's only for the internet provider.
How do you expect Athletic to pay for their journalists, all the travel they do to follow the teams and stay on top of the news?

 

Sure. But it won't be at the expense of AR. He'll eat minutes from Christie or even Rui if they aren't getting it done BOTH sides of the ball all tolled, more than Dalton is. Dalton is not going to suck on D either ultimately and will continue to improve. He is already showing flashes. He could eat some of DLO's minutes too or Vincent's depending who is on the court. Watch him get subbed in as well if not tonight, at some point, for when LeBron goes out to keep the scoring potential up there. All my opinion of course.

 

I subscribed last season for the first time but it was heavily discounted. Forget how much but thinking like $25 ish for the year. It just auto renewed on me for like $79 this year. Oh well I like the subscription and articles and sharing them here for the people that don't have it.

 

I don't think it's his place to be dropping information like this. Teams keep stuff like this close to the vest unless they want it out there. Poor form, but we should expect nothing less from nutkicker.

 

Honestly I don't care about how they're going to pay
Just in case Buha has YouTube channel that I am sure he covers same stuff
P S Just a few years ago ESPN + was free as part of ESPN magazine subscription and Athletic didn't exist
Now ESPN+ I think like 12 $ a month and ESPN insider also is paid service.
And ESPN+ isn't streaming any NBA games so you should pay for other services League pass or whatever to watch games.
P. S.S I would rather read Slam magazine than ESPN or Athletic
But it's just me

 

i think the internet warped our sense of the value of journalism, and it's had pretty disastrous consequences, imo.

pre-internet, you had to pay to get hoops magazines and physical newspapers to get hoops-related content. then it was everywhere. but how does one make a living writing about covering sports (or anything) now? substacks, etc., i guess, but otherwise, it's via charging for subscriptions like we did before the internet.

i do think they overcharge, though, and i haven't brought myself to actually purchasing any of them, as none have proven reliable enough (consistently have things i want to read) for my taste. marc stein's sub might be the closest i've come to actually supporting.

anyway, it's actually a large social problem to which i don't have a great answer.

 

Reaves and Caruso are different players. You act like they have a similar skillset. They are nothing alike, except for being undrafted 6-5 guards. I don't get it. Caruso is much more compatible with Lebron for obvious reasons.

 

I am not worried about Reaves getting his minutes, but he will have to share the court, same with DLO and Christie. Knecht is going to take it. Good problem to have though.

SG: AR, Max, Knecht
PG: DLO, Vincent

Only 20 minutes each, if they split all 96 minutes between each other. It should be very competitive. Not sure how JJ will figure this out. Vincent seems like the odd man out, who gets situational minutes. Is going to have to unequivocally earn his minutes. If ONLY the other 4 shared the time, they each get around 24 minutes.

 

To quote the best line in Winning Time

Spoiler: NSFW: LANGUAGE

 

Max and Knecht will play a ton at the 3 too. DLo and Reaves should play 30-35. Gabe, Max and Knecht around the 20s

It's a 9 man rotation, so 4 bench guys with 3 of them being Gabe, Max and Knecht. I think Cam may play some tonight just because Minny is so long