2023-2024 NBA Season Thread

[Amazin69]

[accidental partial post; delete, please.]

[Amazin69]

Rockets free up minutes, trading K.J. Martin to Clippers for a pair of #2 picks.

A small forward who doesn't shoot 3s or FTs? No wonder his salary isn't huge.

Still, he's athletic and we'll need depth, once we do something stupid like trading for Harden. And it's nice to have Kenyon Martin Jr, as K-Mart played for L.A. at the end of his career.

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

But why take valuable playing time away from their young players?

I know they do not want to give OKC a good pick because they own them one in 2025.

But their moves are just bizarre.
These moves mean less playing time for their newly drafted rookies, Sengun, Eason, Smith Jr and maybe even Green.

This not only messes up their cap when they will have to start paying these guys, it also takes away from their development.

Working backwards, I don't really see Landale negatively affecting the minute spread of the important bigs. Sengun was already only getting 29 minutes a game last season (looks a little low to me imo), Smith's minutes will probably be fine, Eason may see a bit of a shrink in minutes from it but most likely it looks like if Landale is gonna successfully eat into anyone's minutes it'll be Usman Garuba's, which imo based on what he's shown so far is fine.

The Brooks move is again the most questionable to me because of how many promising, developing young wings they have but they also have so many guys behind the 8 ball in terms of their defensive development that giving that side of the ball a shot in the arm with an all-defense guy can possibly pay off this upcoming season or next if other things come together for Houston.

And then with the pretty bad overpay of VanVleet, it's almost as questionable as Brooks because of the talented starting backcourt the Rockets had in place but imo their depth there looks pretty rough. Still, whoever ends up hitting the bench between KPJ, FVV and Jalen Green will probably be miscast there. So not great but at least it possibly gives their defense a bit more bite assuming VanVleet doesn't continue backsliding.

I understand where you're coming from, minutes are the most important thing to a young player's development, but at a certain point I think the Rockets just saw they had too many players that were way behind in their defensive development and wanted to up their floor there. I think it's a better route than going the OKC route of just complete faith in letting their young players develop because they haven't hit on enough guys that have shown any signs of not being sieves defensively. But I also do dislike the logjam that still exists among the wings even with Kenyon Martin Jr. traded away.

[Syd Thrift]

Call me crazy but I think the Bulls have quietly set themselves up pretty well for next season. Javonte Carter is nothing super special but I think Coby White might actually be able to stick at the 1, which means both Carter and Caruso can be defensive minded guards off the bench, and now Craig is in there too to push Patrick Williams. In spite of reputation, the Bulls last year were one of the best defensive teams in the league but lost because they didn’t shoot well, especially on the second team, and they were absolutely terrible at offensive rebounding. Craig should help out a lot with the latter (as well as continued improvement from Paw) and replacing, frankly, the offensive black holes that were Javonte Green, DJJ, and Ayo Dosunmu (who I guess did score a little but was just plain a terrible fit at point guard) with guys who… aren’t black holes wil really help.

All of that’s to say that they still probably top out as a 50 win team if everything breaks right (and they get the full $10.5M or whatever it is to spend with the Ball exception and use it on someone who could step in and help, like PJ Washington maybe). I’d personally be really happy with that.

[Amazin69]

Clippers bring back Mason Plumlee to spell Zubac. Okay, I guess.

They also sent cash to Detroit for Balša Koprivica, who is 7'1" but couldn't even get off the bench for Partizan Belgrade. So Zubac's dreams of an all-Serb pivot combo are not likely to happen.

Fun fact, Koprivica was originally a #2 pick of the Hornets, and went to Detroit as partial payment for…Mason Plumlee. Huh.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Clippers bring back Mason Plumlee to spell Zubac. Okay, I guess.

They also sent cash to Detroit for Balša Koprivica, who is 7'1" but couldn't even get off the bench for Partizan Belgrade. So Zubac's dreams of an all-Serb pivot combo are not likely to happen.

Fun fact, Koprivica was originally a #2 pick of the Hornets, and went to Detroit as partial payment for…Mason Plumlee. Huh.

We could do w/o rehashing past Hornet drafting failures thank you.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Call me crazy but I think the Bulls have quietly set themselves up pretty well for next season. Javonte Carter is nothing super special but I think Coby White might actually be able to stick at the 1, which means both Carter and Caruso can be defensive minded guards off the bench, and now Craig is in there too to push Patrick Williams. In spite of reputation, the Bulls last year were one of the best defensive teams in the league but lost because they didn’t shoot well, especially on the second team, and they were absolutely terrible at offensive rebounding. Craig should help out a lot with the latter (as well as continued improvement from Paw) and replacing, frankly, the offensive black holes that were Javonte Green, DJJ, and Ayo Dosunmu (who I guess did score a little but was just plain a terrible fit at point guard) with guys who… aren’t black holes wil really help.

All of that’s to say that they still probably top out as a 50 win team if everything breaks right (and they get the full $10.5M or whatever it is to spend with the Ball exception and use it on someone who could step in and help, like PJ Washington maybe). I’d personally be really happy with that.

I hate to say it on this holiday. But you are crazy

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

I hate to say it on this holiday. But you are crazy

I mean, last year’s team should have won 44 games by fun differential and that was spending the first 2/3rds of it without a point guard…

[Syd Thrift]

I’m really looking forward to how the NBA Cup will play out. Maybe in time we can get some kind of FA Cup setup going where all number of college teams and minor league teams (maybe G League teams!) can get into a gigantic single elimination tourney where NBA teams show up towards the end. Imagine being able to say you got blown out by 80 points by the Lebron James and the Lakers. In the meantime though I am all for doing stuff to make November and December more exciting.

[rudel.dietrich]

It really depends on how much the players care. These games counting towards the standings will matter.

The cash incentive is not so much.

Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

[Cobra Mgr]

I still don't get this cup mess.

And I think most Americans won't "get it". Especially since it is being held during football season.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

I still don't get this cup mess.

And I think most Americans won't "get it". Especially since it is being held during football season.

I think it’s engineered to end just as college football isn’t playing every week anymore and the NFL is just in the late regular season. There will be like a Friday and Sunday that will hopefully push the NBA into the zeitgeist for one weekend. That’s kind of all it’s expected to do. They’ve even set things up so that a. the round robin portion is just normal regular season games so there’s not necessarily a FA early rounds issue where the big teams will necessarily just bench everyone and b. they’ve reportedly engineered the schedule so that if there are back to backs, the cup games will be the first one (usually load management happens on the 2nd game).

[Cobra Mgr]

I think it is something better suited to set up the All Star game. I'm not sure of the current format but maybe start preliminary games 2 weeks beforehand. Set up the Final 4 teams the weekend before the All Star game. Play the Final 4 all star friday, All star game festivities on Saturday. Doubleheader w/All Star game & Cup final.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

I think it is something better suited to set up the All Star game. I'm not sure of the current format but maybe start preliminary games 2 weeks beforehand. Set up the Final 4 teams the weekend before the All Star game. Play the Final 4 all star friday, All star game festivities on Saturday. Doubleheader w/All Star game & Cup final.

One reason they are doing this is because they wanted a showcase event in Las Vegas where the basketball world descends on Las Vegas for a week.
That used to be All Star weekend but is becoming less and less of an event.

I have no idea if this cup will have growing pains or maybe even die completely. But I like that tney are at least trying.

Basketball sickos like myself pay attention from summer league through June. But the league kind of struggles for eyes from that mid October to January range.
I don’t think this will solve or even help that. But the days they choose do happen to be football free days.


If this idea does go forwards. I could see it morphing into a UEFA champions league type event where eventually the winner or this plays a one off game or even a 3 game series against the previous years Eurolegue champion. But that is a one way off.

For now, we will see how December goes.

[rudel.dietrich]

Summer league was fun. But now that very long and boring time between now and the beginning of training camp.

[Amazin69]

Still no Cancer-to-the-Clippers deal, I see. I guess Cancer is making things difficult, huh?

Gosh, I am so shocked.

[Cobra Mgr]

Jaylen Brown resigns w/C's.

5/$304M

Insanity!

[monkeyman576]

Bronny James suffers cardiac arrest

Wish him a speedy recovery!

I wonder if he’ll be able to play again.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

Bronny James suffers cardiac arrest

Wish him a speedy recovery!

I wonder if he’ll be able to play again.

Holy Moly! At first I thought this was some kind of joke that I wasn't getting.

Hope he's ok.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Jaylen Brown resigns w/C's.

5/$304M

Insanity!

That is a good bit of pocket change