NBA Discussion

[2010sarenevercomingback]

 

[Kaladin]

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

[Kaladin]

Here's your conspiracy theory of the day



someone in the comments mentioned that this is the NBA version of Major League

great movie

 

[Kaladin]

 

[Kaladin]

 

[Boondock_St_Sker]

Short term improvement for the Mavs, long term improvement for the Lakers.

I don't think it makes the Lakers better this season since the loss of Davis is a huge hole in the middle and on defense. Luka can be the face of the franchise once LeBron is gone and is only 25.

LeBron can't leave fast enough for me

 

[Boondock_St_Sker]

I have some direct inside sources on NBA stuff.

EDIT: I don't want to piss off my friends who have deep and direct ties to NBA stuff, so deleting most of that.

Luka wanted the Lakers for years, and only the Lakers. Was not going to re sign with the Mavs. I may expand on this later a bit.

 

[Kaladin]

LeBron can't leave fast enough for me

i don't mind him anymore, i used to really dislike him

with that said, i'm ready for the Luka era now. time for lebron to walk and bring in some new guys

 

[Kaladin]

😆

 

[tman87]

Here's your conspiracy theory of the day



someone in the comments mentioned that this is the NBA version of Major League

great movie

This is all bunk.

As I mentioned, I have friends that are deep into the NBA with legitimate league-wide connections. Not going to throw out names, etc. I deleted my previous post as it gave too many hints on the names/people.

To make this simple - star players, especially supestar players - but even just 2nd team, sometimes fringe, all star level players, these players have almost all of the leverage. People/fans mistakenly think that the year this leverage hits is their final contract year. It is actually the year/season before their final contract year.

Teams don't like an open bidding war with disgruntled superstars and shit going public: see the current Jimmy Butler fiasco (although aging stars have far less leverage than in-prime stars). So once a star player makes it known they want out - and their agents know the best time to do this is the year/season before the last year of the contract - then the front office/GM/ownership of the team has a chance to get things done without all the public and team-destroying drama.

Almost always, the star player has a single team as their preferred destination. And both sides (team and player) has it in their best interest to keep things under wraps at this stage - the year before their final contract year.

In this case, there are multiple things that made this deal happen. The biggest is that Luka has long wanted to be a Laker. He (through his agent Bill Duffy) let the Mavs know that Luka wanted the Lakers, and only the Lakers. Sure, teams hope they can either convince the star player to stay and re-sign their new, usually much larger, contract. Or they can convince the star player to open the field a bit more and add several other near-contending level teams as possible destinations. But this rarely happens or works out this way. The team does not have the leverage, the star player does.

So 1), Luka said Lakers and only Lakers.

No 2) is, even if the Mavs could have traded Luka to another team (Luka would have to OK it as no team will take a chance on trading good players + draft picks for a star player who doesn't want to be there), go ahead and name the alternative teams and player(s) that the Mavs could have targeted. The Mavs wanted a top level star defensive big (and AD happens to be a great offensive player too). Mavs are in win-now mode still for the next few years while flat-earth Kyrie is still playing well enough. So what other bigs of AD's caliber could they possiblly have gotten? Bam Adebayo? He's good, but not AD. To end point number 2 - there weren't/aren't many other good options for teams or players that make any sense. They weren't going to get equal value straight up for Luka, so get the best (and HOF level) big they can. And that guy happened to be on the Lakers.

No 3). Relationships. The biggest one being the nearly 50 year friendship between Luka's longtime agent and business partner, Bill Duffy and Lakers owner/CEO Jeanie Buss. That long term friendship was large in this scenario. Other relationshp items: Mark Cuban. Luka trusted Mark Cuban and trusted that Cuban was the type of owner to be willing/able to build a bling level team around Luka. Cuban sold of most of his take in the Mavs several years ago, and Luka has little confidence in the new owners (Adelsons) or the long term direction of team ownership/management.

No 4). Bill Duffy. Duffy is a long-time NBA agent, who is old school and prefers to try to get things done quietly and not have a drama-infused public player auction. Duffy approached Jeanie Buss - not Rob Pelinka - with this idea several weeks ago. That convo got the Lakers owner into thinking more about the possibility of landing that next generational player, than continuing to try to build a better roster around aging (but still great) Lebron and oft-injured (but great and under appreciated) AD. This was the opening for Jeanie Buss to follow in her Dad's footsteps - get those generational talents in Purple and Gold.

So laying all of this out, Luka lost faith in the Cuban-less Mavs org, Luka has for many years wanted to be a Laker (Kobe is his BBall idol), so once Luka and Bill Duffy let the Mavs know that this is what Luka wanted, it gave the Mavs incentive to get it done sooner than later, without the public player-auction drama, and still keep the team contender level with a HOF and still in-prime, but starting to get past his peak, AD. The Mavs did in fat ask for more draft picks and Dalton Knecht, the Lakers rookie whom other teams want. But the Mavs had little to no leverage to get all of that. Should they have gotten more than one first round pick or Dalton Knecht? Probably. But they didn't have the leverage. So they get to keep their team in the hunt with one of the best (probably the best) current HOF NBA defensive Bigs, got a rising young talent in Max Christie, plus a first round pick.

Luka had told the Mavs he was not re-signing his upcoming supermax deal. It is well know Luka is "not all about the money" - he has plenty. So the Mavs moved preemptively on this, got Luka to the team he wanted, got a HOF big, possibly the legit best defensive big in the game, plus a first round pick and rising young wing player, back.

Another big point I need to add here, and it is fairly important, is that Jeanie Buss and the Lakers were tired of being under the thumb of Klutch Sports and Lebron. Klutch is also AD's agent, so this is how the Lakers are moving past Klutch.

Now the question will be - what does Lebron do? He is still an amazing player, even at 40. He just can't be top level as much or for as long. But see his play saturday against the Knicks - no other player in year 22, at 40 yrs old, has ever even come close to being at this level like Lebron is. What I think happens, and am hearing will happen, is Lebron uses the rest of this season and whatever they do in the playoffs to see how the Bron/Luka pairing can fair. The Lakers sorely need a bonafide good defensive starting center, and probably won't get that in the 3 days left before deadline. I think how things shake out in the remainder of the season will determine of Bron bolts or not. He won't have a ton of leverage turning 41 next season, but he will have some. He loves LA and LAL but he also moves to his own tune. Will be intersting to watch.

 

[KidsSeeGhosts]

This year seems pretty sunk for the Lakers now unless they're able to fix their front court by the deadline (and I don't realistically know how they do that with current assets available). No idea how the team functions on offense otherwise with as ball dominant as both Luka and Lebron play, unless Lebron commits to playing off ball going forward. AD was kind of the perfect second banana to Lebron.

Long-term and health/age obviously big concern for Macs going forward, but actually really like their roster if AD and Kyrie can figure out how to play together on the fly.

 

[KidsSeeGhosts]

This is all bunk.



As I mentioned, I have friends that are deep into the NBA with legitimate league-wide connections. Not going to throw out names, etc. I deleted my previous post as it gave too many hints on the names/people.

To make this simple - star players, especially supestar players - but even just 2nd team, sometimes fringe, all star level players, these players have almost all of the leverage. People/fans mistakenly think that the year this leverage hits is their final contract year. It is actually the year/season before their final contract year.

Teams don't like an open bidding war with disgruntled superstars and shit going public: see the current Jimmy Butler fiasco (although aging stars have far less leverage than in-prime stars). So once a star player makes it known they want out - and their agents know the best time to do this is the year/season before the last year of the contract - then the front office/GM/ownership of the team has a chance to get things done without all the public and team-destroying drama.

Almost always, the star player has a single team as their preferred destination. And both sides (team and player) has it in their best interest to keep things under wraps at this stage - the year before their final contract year.

In this case, there are multiple things that made this deal happen. The biggest is that Luka has long wanted to be a Laker. He (through his agent Bill Duffy) let the Mavs know that Luka wanted the Lakers, and only the Lakers. Sure, teams hope they can either convince the star player to stay and re-sign their new, usually much larger, contract. Or they can convince the star player to open the field a bit more and add several other near-contending level teams as possible destinations. But this rarely happens or works out this way. The team does not have the leverage, the star player does.

So 1), Luka said Lakers and only Lakers.

No 2) is, even if the Mavs could have traded Luka to another team (Luka would have to OK it as no team will take a chance on trading good players + draft picks for a star player who doesn't want to be there), go ahead and name the alternative teams and player(s) that the Mavs could have targeted. The Mavs wanted a top level star defensive big (and AD happens to be a great offensive player too). Mavs are in win-now mode still for the next few years while flat-earth Kyrie is still playing well enough. So what other bigs of AD's caliber could they possiblly have gotten? Bam Adebayo? He's good, but not AD. To end point number 2 - there weren't/aren't many other good options for teams or players that make any sense. They weren't going to get equal value straight up for Luka, so get the best (and HOF level) big they can. And that guy happened to be on the Lakers.

No 3). Relationships. The biggest one being the nearly 50 year friendship between Luka's longtime agent and business partner, Bill Duffy and Lakers owner/CEO Jeanie Buss. That long term friendship was large in this scenario. Other relationshp items: Mark Cuban. Luka trusted Mark Cuban and trusted that Cuban was the type of owner to be willing/able to build a bling level team around Luka. Cuban sold of most of his take in the Mavs several years ago, and Luka has little confidence in the new owners (Adelsons) or the long term direction of team ownership/management.

No 4). Bill Duffy. Duffy is a long-time NBA agent, who is old school and prefers to try to get things done quietly and not have a drama-infused public player auction. Duffy approached Jeanie Buss - not Rob Pelinka - with this idea several weeks ago. That convo got the Lakers owner into thinking more about the possibility of landing that next generational player, than continuing to try to build a better roster around aging (but still great) Lebron and oft-injured (but great and under appreciated) AD. This was the opening for Jeanie Buss to follow in her Dad's footsteps - get those generational talents in Purple and Gold.

So laying all of this out, Luka lost faith in the Cuban-less Mavs org, Luka has for many years wanted to be a Laker (Kobe is his BBall idol), so once Luka and Bill Duffy let the Mavs know that this is what Luka wanted, it gave the Mavs incentive to get it done sooner than later, without the public player-auction drama, and still keep the team contender level with a HOF and still in-prime, but starting to get past his peak, AD. The Mavs did in fat ask for more draft picks and Dalton Knecht, the Lakers rookie whom other teams want. But the Mavs had little to no leverage to get all of that. Should they have gotten more than one first round pick or Dalton Knecht? Probably. But they didn't have the leverage. So they get to keep their team in the hunt with one of the best (probably the best) current HOF NBA defensive Bigs, got a rising young talent in Max Christie, plus a first round pick.

Luka had told the Mavs he was not re-signing his upcoming supermax deal. It is well know Luka is "not all about the money" - he has plenty. So the Mavs moved preemptively on this, got Luka to the team he wanted, got a HOF big, possibly the legit best defensive big in the game, plus a first round pick and rising young wing player, back.

Another big point I need to add here, and it is fairly important, is that Jeanie Buss and the Lakers were tired of being under the thumb of Klutch Sports and Lebron. Klutch is also AD's agent, so this is how the Lakers are moving past Klutch.

Now the question will be - what does Lebron do? He is still an amazing player, even at 40. He just can't be top level as much or for as long. But see his play saturday against the Knicks - no other player in year 22, at 40 yrs old, has ever even come close to being at this level like Lebron is. What I think happens, and am hearing will happen, is Lebron uses the rest of this season and whatever they do in the playoffs to see how the Bron/Luka pairing can fair. The Lakers sorely need a bonafide good defensive starting center, and probably won't get that in the 3 days left before deadline. I think how things shake out in the remainder of the season will determine of Bron bolts or not. He won't have a ton of leverage turning 41 next season, but he will have some. He loves LA and LAL but he also moves to his own tune. Will be intersting to watch.

Super max with the second apron is brutal.

Smart move for LA would be to deal Bron now, but Idk if they'll do that. He seems pretty tied to LA at this point either way though.

 

[tman87]

Let me also add, the Lakers already have their next superstar identified whom they are going to position to get in PnG: Giannis. Giannis contract comes up in 26. The Bucks are slowly sinking - they are old, don't have cap flexibility, and not likey a true contender anymore. See Giannis public comments just last night about star Euro players should be playing in the leagues biggest markets (NY, LA). Hmm.

So it wouldn't surprise me if the Lakers trade Lebron to GSW, even though GSW does not have the players to send back to really make the Lakers better now, the Lakers could work a deal that gives them a couple coveted pretty good (but likely not all star) level younger talent players, some OK vets whose contracts will be up in time either to give cap space, or to trade in a Giannis deal (teams trading a player the level of Giannis will need to take back some older players whose contracts allow future flexibilty - not huge contracts nor long term, being 2 years or less under contract). The idea when trading a player like Giannis is a rebuild, so the Bucks will be looking at how can they get some young talent (likely not star level but good young talent that has value) plus draft pick capital for a rebuild.

Lebron wants GSW if he is to be traded. Not a secret, and certainly not a secret to the Lakers. Now a Bron/Steph pairing in truly their twilight years will likely not bring back a bling, but it would be something both Bron and Steph want. So that is something to watch. It wouldn't surprise me greatly if the Lakers (or Bron) decided to do that trade now, before thursdays deadline. Although I think it is probably 80/20 Lebron at least sticks out the rest of this season as a Laker. Beyond this season, who knows.

 

[tman87]

This year seems pretty sunk for the Lakers now unless they're able to fix their front court by the deadline (and I don't realistically know how they do that with current assets available). No idea how the team functions on offense otherwise with as ball dominant as both Luka and Lebron play, unless Lebron commits to playing off ball going forward. AD was kind of the perfect second banana to Lebron.

Long-term and health/age obviously big concern for Macs going forward, but actually really like their roster if AD and Kyrie can figure out how to play together on the fly.

This season was probably sunk for the Lakers, anyway. They didn't have a backup big to spell AD, nor did they have the wing/guard depth or talent to keep up with teams like OKC. Plus Denver and LA are currently, again, set to play each other in the first round. Denver is not as good as they were, not nearly as deep, but Jokic kills the Lakers, even when they had AD. The rest of Denvers roster was built to hamper Lebron - Gordon and MPJ. Murray is a playoff riser - his game improves in the playoffs, something that rarely happens for even star players.

Since the Lakers likely can't get a starting level Center to go with Bron and Luka, their defense will decline, and it was already an issue even with likely the leagues best post defender on the team in AD. Their defense has gotten better though of late - adding Dorian Finney Smith and Jared Vanderbilt now being healthy enough to play, along with Gabe Vincent being more healthy and on the uptick (he is a good guard defender) - their defense was defenitely better. But that takes a huge hit with no AD on the floor anymore. I think what happens is they end up taking Mo Bamba off the waiver wire (he just got waived), and Bamba along with Jaxson Hayes is their Center lineup for most of the minutes. Not good enough, but also likely where this ends up. Don't see a path to a true great defensive starting Center being attainable via trade in the next 3 days.

 

[Kaladin]

 

[Kaladin]

 

[KidsSeeGhosts]

This season was probably sunk for the Lakers, anyway. They didn't have a backup big to spell AD, nor did they have the wing/guard depth or talent to keep up with teams like OKC. Plus Denver and LA are currently, again, set to play each other in the first round. Denver is not as good as they were, not nearly as deep, but Jokic kills the Lakers, even when they had AD. The rest of Denvers roster was built to hamper Lebron - Gordon and MPJ. Murray is a playoff riser - his game improves in the playoffs, something that rarely happens for even star players.

Since the Lakers likely can't get a starting level Center to go with Bron and Luka, their defense will decline, and it was already an issue even with likely the leagues best post defender on the team in AD. Their defense has gotten better though of late - adding Dorian Finney Smith and Jared Vanderbilt now being healthy enough to play, along with Gabe Vincent being more healthy and on the uptick (he is a good guard defender) - their defense was defenitely better. But that takes a huge hit with no AD on the floor anymore. I think what happens is they end up taking Mo Bamba off the waiver wire (he just got waived), and Bamba along with Jaxson Hayes is their Center lineup for most of the minutes. Not good enough, but also likely where this ends up. Don't see a path to a true great defensive starting Center being attainable via trade in the next 3 days.

Yeah, obviously Lakers were a flawed team this year and weren't really a Western Conference finals contender. I mean more that team is probably a 9-10 seed play-in team as currently constructed (esp w/ Luka's injury history this year). They're going to get eaten alive with all the size in the West right now.

 

[Kaladin]

 

[Boondock_St_Sker]

This is all bunk.



As I mentioned, I have friends that are deep into the NBA with legitimate league-wide connections. Not going to throw out names, etc. I deleted my previous post as it gave too many hints on the names/people.

To make this simple - star players, especially supestar players - but even just 2nd team, sometimes fringe, all star level players, these players have almost all of the leverage. People/fans mistakenly think that the year this leverage hits is their final contract year. It is actually the year/season before their final contract year.

Teams don't like an open bidding war with disgruntled superstars and shit going public: see the current Jimmy Butler fiasco (although aging stars have far less leverage than in-prime stars). So once a star player makes it known they want out - and their agents know the best time to do this is the year/season before the last year of the contract - then the front office/GM/ownership of the team has a chance to get things done without all the public and team-destroying drama.

Almost always, the star player has a single team as their preferred destination. And both sides (team and player) has it in their best interest to keep things under wraps at this stage - the year before their final contract year.

In this case, there are multiple things that made this deal happen. The biggest is that Luka has long wanted to be a Laker. He (through his agent Bill Duffy) let the Mavs know that Luka wanted the Lakers, and only the Lakers. Sure, teams hope they can either convince the star player to stay and re-sign their new, usually much larger, contract. Or they can convince the star player to open the field a bit more and add several other near-contending level teams as possible destinations. But this rarely happens or works out this way. The team does not have the leverage, the star player does.

So 1), Luka said Lakers and only Lakers.

No 2) is, even if the Mavs could have traded Luka to another team (Luka would have to OK it as no team will take a chance on trading good players + draft picks for a star player who doesn't want to be there), go ahead and name the alternative teams and player(s) that the Mavs could have targeted. The Mavs wanted a top level star defensive big (and AD happens to be a great offensive player too). Mavs are in win-now mode still for the next few years while flat-earth Kyrie is still playing well enough. So what other bigs of AD's caliber could they possiblly have gotten? Bam Adebayo? He's good, but not AD. To end point number 2 - there weren't/aren't many other good options for teams or players that make any sense. They weren't going to get equal value straight up for Luka, so get the best (and HOF level) big they can. And that guy happened to be on the Lakers.

No 3). Relationships. The biggest one being the nearly 50 year friendship between Luka's longtime agent and business partner, Bill Duffy and Lakers owner/CEO Jeanie Buss. That long term friendship was large in this scenario. Other relationshp items: Mark Cuban. Luka trusted Mark Cuban and trusted that Cuban was the type of owner to be willing/able to build a bling level team around Luka. Cuban sold of most of his take in the Mavs several years ago, and Luka has little confidence in the new owners (Adelsons) or the long term direction of team ownership/management.

No 4). Bill Duffy. Duffy is a long-time NBA agent, who is old school and prefers to try to get things done quietly and not have a drama-infused public player auction. Duffy approached Jeanie Buss - not Rob Pelinka - with this idea several weeks ago. That convo got the Lakers owner into thinking more about the possibility of landing that next generational player, than continuing to try to build a better roster around aging (but still great) Lebron and oft-injured (but great and under appreciated) AD. This was the opening for Jeanie Buss to follow in her Dad's footsteps - get those generational talents in Purple and Gold.

So laying all of this out, Luka lost faith in the Cuban-less Mavs org, Luka has for many years wanted to be a Laker (Kobe is his BBall idol), so once Luka and Bill Duffy let the Mavs know that this is what Luka wanted, it gave the Mavs incentive to get it done sooner than later, without the public player-auction drama, and still keep the team contender level with a HOF and still in-prime, but starting to get past his peak, AD. The Mavs did in fat ask for more draft picks and Dalton Knecht, the Lakers rookie whom other teams want. But the Mavs had little to no leverage to get all of that. Should they have gotten more than one first round pick or Dalton Knecht? Probably. But they didn't have the leverage. So they get to keep their team in the hunt with one of the best (probably the best) current HOF NBA defensive Bigs, got a rising young talent in Max Christie, plus a first round pick.

Luka had told the Mavs he was not re-signing his upcoming supermax deal. It is well know Luka is "not all about the money" - he has plenty. So the Mavs moved preemptively on this, got Luka to the team he wanted, got a HOF big, possibly the legit best defensive big in the game, plus a first round pick and rising young wing player, back.

Another big point I need to add here, and it is fairly important, is that Jeanie Buss and the Lakers were tired of being under the thumb of Klutch Sports and Lebron. Klutch is also AD's agent, so this is how the Lakers are moving past Klutch.

Now the question will be - what does Lebron do? He is still an amazing player, even at 40. He just can't be top level as much or for as long. But see his play saturday against the Knicks - no other player in year 22, at 40 yrs old, has ever even come close to being at this level like Lebron is. What I think happens, and am hearing will happen, is Lebron uses the rest of this season and whatever they do in the playoffs to see how the Bron/Luka pairing can fair. The Lakers sorely need a bonafide good defensive starting center, and probably won't get that in the 3 days left before deadline. I think how things shake out in the remainder of the season will determine of Bron bolts or not. He won't have a ton of leverage turning 41 next season, but he will have some. He loves LA and LAL but he also moves to his own tune. Will be intersting to watch.

 

[tman87]

Yeah, obviously Lakers were a flawed team this year and weren't really a Western Conference finals contender. I mean more that team is probably a 9-10 seed play-in team as currently constructed (esp w/ Luka's injury history this year). They're going to get eaten alive with all the size in the West right now.

They will be worse defensively. They will likely be better offensively. They were already good offensively. But now they have two of the best (maybe the best) bully ball 6'-8" scorers, distributors and rebounders, the game has ever seen. One still great even at 40, the other only 25. Good luck containing those two, even if they seem redundant, offensively they will be tough.

Luka's injuries and weight/conditioning are an issue. His dad came out yesterday and said Luka could even play yet this week, though. I bet they push that off past the all star break, but you never know, they might want to get this Bron/Luka thing out on the court ASAP if Luka is truly that close to being ready to play.

In the paint, they will get hurt bad, definitely agree.

I don't know that they will be a worse team than they were pre-trade - to be determined. They could hang around about where they are now, a 4 to 6 seed. Or things could go badly - injuries, etc, and they end up being a bubble level team. This trade for the Lakers wasn't about this season.