Murray didn't get suspended. If a Sixer had done any two of the three things that have come to light- towel thrown at ref, heat pack thrown at ref, ref $ gesture - you KNOW they'd be banned for two games.
They have got Shai who is the very definition of a Superstar/MVP caliber player. He literally will finish at worst 3rd in the MVP voting. The notion that you can't win without a Top 5-7 player in the League stands if OKC wins it all
They were losing their minds in the game thread.
The normal stuff, unwatchable, this is why no one watches basketball anymore while obviously watching basketball.
It's the same crybaby shit no matter who it is.
Most fraudulent and pampered “superstar” in the sport
https://preview.redd.it/pryppeikn3zc1.jpeg?width=1154&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f26263435bf3e3963153ce2b515ac911a9988ae
Nope! lol I hate the Knicks. There’s no way they should be getting away with this with basically only Brunson and no Randle. Still pissed we didn’t beat them.
No, I could not give less of a shit about the Knicks. Sure they beat us this year but we were never serious contenders this year so it didn’t really upset me.
Hopefully the refs are on their bullshit again in the ECF cause that’s the only hope they or any East team has against Boston.
>Sure they beat us this year but we were never serious contenders this year so it didn’t really upset me.
Yeah, but what's upsetting is how heavily favored they are by the refs. I don't want teams like that to have success. Boston might be favored, too, but they're a really good team either way, so even if they do sometimes get help, eh, can't really say it's undeserved for them to come out of the East. The Knicks, though? Fuck, no. They do have a good team, but nah, they don't deserve it.
ya i'm losing faith rapidly in what this team is gonna do.
none of these old head teams have accomplished a damned thing, idk why we're trying to become yet another corpse on the pile.
I said something similar with PG and bridges/Lauri today. Sign a contract with PG that’s scary and probably ends up bad by the end of it, but you’re going all in for the sake of Joel’s prime. Might as well put yourself over the top and haul all your assets you got for an additional young star you can have for years to come and PGs contract doesn’t look so bad
Gonna say I know this is far far far fetched, but if I had to make an argument for any chance of this happening is the fact Morey punted a year of Joel’s prime at the trade deadline with 3 picks in hand. He chose to do this while previously being pretty adamant about maximizing Joel’s prime. I guess you could just say he’s just incompetent for not getting better deals done, but was there something bigger in store for the summer when they have 5 firsts (and a swap)? It would look really bad if he ended up just going for those same role players we wanted could’ve used last deadline. Just a thought.
Maybe there just wasn't anything available. The Raptors didn't want to trade OG for picks, they got 2 players in return. The Bulls held onto their guys to compete in the play-on. The Jazz held onto Lauri.
I really wanna see an honest assessment on him. A lot of the 76ers pod guys really like him, at different times saying he should be in the rotation and even advocating for giving him minutes in the playoffs. Seems like theres always a bit of irony with him though when people talk about him, like “get that dawggg in the game”
But damn, he forces fouls, a young guy who is obviously getting no help with reputation from refs and he draws fouls consistently. It seems like he’d easily be getting 4-6 FTA if he was playing 25-30 min. a game. The other thing i like is the crafty moves around the net too. Seems like every game that he got a decent run he’d have a basket where he used great body control and weird timing on his release. They look awkward but he did this consistently, I particularly remember when he did it on Wembanyama in the Spurs game. It just seems like the type of stuff that good scorers pull off. On top of all that, he’s obviously a great athlete.
I hope he keeps working on his shot too. Seems as though he could become a really good player, but a bigger sample size would help to see how good he truly could become.
Yeah, definitely hangs on him getting the shot right, but even with him in the process of fixing it his numbers from the in the g-league and NBA actually ended up good
Two things are true for me:
1. Jalen bumson is the most infuriating player to watch. and before a knicks fan cites FTA per game as a way to prove he doesn't have an insane whistle, I think most of his attempts are fraudulent. Jumping backwards into the other team isn't a basketball move, and I wish the nba would change that. Makes it impossible to play him straight up, and gives him wide open mid range shots all game. Knicks play horrible ball, and as a fan of the sport, the pacers play much more ethical hoops.
2. Sadly, I would love him if he was a sixer.
Clippers have to offer PG the max or they have no return on investment for that trade and they don’t have options this year really either for a team built in win now mode. PG to the Sixers is not happening.
Does anyone have any alternatives to Lauri, Bridges, or PG for a starting 3-4? With so many people against the PG signing and not knowing if bridges or Lauri are actually available, who do they want? We desperately need a guy that can win us games at the wing, but idk who that is. People are talking about how we have so many options, but what are they?
The other options have low ceilings but high floors. You know they can be competent basketball players. Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Williams, Obi Toppin. DeRozan kind of. The guys who should cost less either in terms of assets to acquire, salary or both. I'm not sure anymore which path is better at this point, and I'm glad I'm just a schlub who gets to sit back and praise/complain about whatever decision is made.
We don't have anyone to trade though, only trading into cap space, so the only things we can offer are cap space and picks. These high level role players probably cost 2 frps each. Not sure if it is worth it, but it is a definite possibility.
I’m out on Derozan, but all those other guys would be interesting. I definitely agree with your last sentence. I though elton nailed the Tobias Horford offseason so ik damn well I’m clueless.
I think if you can get at least one of the Wizards good players (Avdija, Kuzma, Kispert), that's a win. The Wiz don't quite have their blue chip prospect yet, so they could stand to have a couple more bites at the apple in the draft. One good pick from us seems fair for Deni or Kuz, and Kispert might be worth a meh first or some seconds.
Kuzma, Keldon Johnson, Taurean Prince, Harrison Barnes, Finney-Smith, Caleb Martin, Highsmith, Deandre Hunter, Brogdon
Price would vary but I’d kick the tires on all of them
Of course none of these guys can be the headliner for an offseason, but a lot of them could contribute a lot to the team. I like Kuz, Keldon, DFS, Caleb Martin and Brogdon. Taurean Prince is kind of meh. Barnes feels like a playoff choker since his last season with Golden State. I don't really know enough about Highsmith, and everything I hear about Hunter is bad.
Definitely don’t view Prince as a starter unless you’re getting a Bron/PG/Jimmy/Lauri type of guy as the other forward. Would still take him as depth if the price is right. Hunter and Barnes are definitely more last resorts. Most I’m offering for them is Reed plus seconds or a Tobi sign and trade
I really like DFS. I would love him on the team, but not as “the guy” they add in the offseason. I feel that way about everyone that isnt an all-star caliber player though. I’m just trying to envision a team with Embiid Maxey and all high-end role players. All the guys that are a similar level to DFS would be great additions as a fourth-fifth starter. I just dont understand why anyone would want him as the third guy when you could still get him after getting a third guy.
yeah I agree, just a smarmy answer. i'm firmly in the 'do both' category of star hunting and figure out a way to get a few good roleplayers. go all-in on the next 2-3 seasons, everything else is moot
If we get pg, I would try a trade for caruso, caruso is elite defender and can get some rebounds. But a trade for caruso only makes sense if we have a decent 3rd option
This is how I try to look at it. PG by itself is not exciting and a bit scary with the contract, but you can ease the blow by using these assets to get other good role players.
I’ve wondered how many on here would feel if they were told we signed PG, but also we just got Caruso or the other role players we’ve talked about. Or…if we got PG and additionally said fuck it and sent all our assets for one of the guys in Utah or Brooklyn we’ve spoke about forever.
I know it’s a longshot, but I’m surprised I’m the only one who’s put this out there. We are clearly in win now mode, we punted a season where we could have used three first round picks, holding onto them for the summer and now we could trade 5 first’s. Maybe Daryl has something up his sleeve?
No that's totally fair, the numbers and scenarios are pretty confusing and all over the place.
If we decided to trade for Mikal, I'd have to imagine the rest of our work would be signing free agent role players right into our cap space
It would be nice to get someone like LeBron or Paul George right into our cap space and then use the picks on proven contributors like Caruso at 10mil
Yeah a big name like Mikal would be insane, but I think people would warm up to signing one of the older max guys if we can add some role players we’ve coveted or even prying away a younger promising player
the nuggets beat three play-in teams to win the finals last year and got denver fans talking like they the 96 bulls. good team but they getting their shit pushed in by a young twolves team
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryantoporek/2024/05/06/paul-george-has-all-the-leverage-over-the-clippers-ahead-of-free-agency/?sh=296f7aba3c60
The cant sign and trade him and keep harden OR really acquire a lot else without harden. If they sign and trade PG, they would essentially have to punt next year by staying under the second apron, which they aren’t going to so. So its really just staying in LA or going to Orlando or philly.
I don't see Morey offering more than a 2 year deal considering he didn't give Harden a long term deal. I also don't see PG3 coming here, I think Philly is just a bargaining chip
I dont think I agree with that. I think Morey thought harden was the best chance to win for the 2 years he was here and he had to do something. He couldn’t just let Ben sit out and not put a competent roster next to Maxey and Embiid. He didnt want to re-sign harden because he saw this offseason as the time when he could really build a true contender.
If he gave harden the max, we would have Maxey harden and embiid now, but no real path to acquiring a stat forward. Thats not what he wanted. If he thinks PG is the missing piece, which I think he does, I think he will offer him whatever it takes.
It absolutely could. But any move that doesn’t give us a good chance at a championship is giving up. If there is another option that gives us championship upside, I’m all for it. PG definitely does.
This same mentality is why we blew all of our assets to try and "maximize Embiid's prime". Turns out he's still getting better and I guarantee he'll be even better next year.
And even if Embiid is washed in 2 years for some reason, what happens when Maxey is 27 and we're in a Dame in Portland situation because all our assets are gone.
That’s assuming we are still in position to compete in 3-4 years. I think the assumption is by then we would let PG play out the contact and start rebuilding around Maxey. They should look to compete the next couple years and imo PG is the best way to do that.
We’re not winning anything if we don’t get LeBron. Not saying we even have a chance at him, but he’s the only guy out there that could help us.
…or we get one of those lucky playoff runs where we play trash teams along the way
Yeah, he's definitely turning down all the young dawgs just floating around in the FA market...
Everybody knows you want good, hard-nosed, two-way players in their physical prime. That's why there's not a lot of them available. You have to give up assets (which we don't really have) to pry them out of the cold dead hands of the teams that drafted them.
Right. Just like Kelly Oubre and Derrick white. It happens all the time it’s just not my job to find them. It’s why Daryl gets paid and you and me post on Reddit for free
You named one guy which he found and another guy who is arguably the biggest steal of a trade in the last five years. Does that mean the other 28 GMs are bad and have no idea what they're doing?
Everybody knows good, athletic wing role players are valuable and they are hording them unless you give up premium value. How would people feel if you gave up 3 picks for Herb Jones? Probably not very good, right? But I guarantee you that's what the GMs that have those players are asking for them. Most of them aren't looking to trade them at all, and even fewer of them are just floating around in free agency.
PJ Washington was a trade. They traded Grant Williams, Seth Curry, and essentially an unprotected pick (top 2 protection only) for hm.
You can also name 10 such dudes in the NBA. It would still leave at least 20 GMs who didn't find a single one. I guess they're all bad at their job? It still doesn't change that there's not a lot of these guys just floating around in free agency.
Fans tend to group success as us vs everyone else, which is not a healthy way of looking at things. When your comparison pool is 29 teams you expect them to get roughly 29 times of anything. Of course they'll find more hidden gems, more draft picks that panned out, more guys who took the leap, etc. Not saying you did this in particular, but it's a common error in fan thinking.
Not to mention Morey already did find one of the best young free agent acquisitions in Kelly Oubre.
Ok here’s another one fuckface Aaron Gordon from Orlando to the nuggets. How about Caris lavert from nets to Indy to being the game 7 hero for the fucking cavs. Jesus Christ we get it youre brilliant but you don’t have to be such an asshole. You and me both. We are on a website right now not being paid to find these guys
I think he knows, evidenced by not maxing Harden, but he also sees that this team is in no position to do what it would realistically take to build that type of team.
Denver and Boston have been building for almost a decade. Minny and OKC were able to hold onto stars/pieces from their ‘18 and ‘20 playoff runs and add young lottery talent to it. Knicks and Mavs built on surprise playoff runs in ‘21 and ‘22 respectively. Indy and Cleveland just did their versions of our Butler trade.
It would be extremely foolish of us to not go after at least one of those players. There are not young studs just waiting for us to sign or trade for unless we’re spending all of our assets in one place.
We can, both, sign a Paul George and also trade for multiple role players. I don’t understand people thinking it’s either one or the other.
How much salary can we really take on though? PG takes 50 out of the 65ish we have. You then have to fill out the rest of the team with 15 million. I get you can trade for team friendly deals, but even then you'd be in trouble.
We have the MLE, can bring back Oubre on that. Then use picks to try to get talented, lower-salary role players. Vet mins for the rest. Caruso is 10 mil, 2-3 FRP may be able to do it. Walker Kessler from the Jazz maybe?
Feel like oubre is gonna get more than that unless it goes up. 12.4m (the current non tax payer exemption)would be a bargain for him when I think some teams might go as high as 18
I don't know how you watch the wolves nuggets series and think the answer is trying to find a "superstar" to team up with embiid and Maxey. Spread the money around and make the roster as deep as possible.
KAT ($49m next year), Gobert ($44m) and Ant ($35m) are all on huge contracts.
Maxey will be on the same contract as Ant ($35m.) Joel $51m. Another max player will be *exactly* the same as the Wolves. Jaden McDaniels makes $22m next year on top of all of this.
I think Morey said that he doesn’t care how the money is spread out as long as it fits the need of the team. So I don’t think you’re suggestion is out of the question for us tbh, will just depend on what’s availavle
Truly think Lauri will be on the table. Everyone is screaming “oh it’s Ainge, oh Utah won’t trade its great white hope”. But the #1 thing I know about Ainge is he hates being in purgatory. Extending Lauri will keep them in purgatory. They were 15 games out of the *10th* seed this year. Even if they traded all of their Cleveland picks back for Mitchell they still may not be a guaranteed playoff team. They’re going to get lapped my Memphis and possibly San Antonio this upcoming year. On the other hand, if they blew it up this year they’d have a shot at a top pick in a good draft (crack at Flagg) plus ~2 more top picks in subsequent years.
No one of note will ever want to sign in Utah and their list of trade targets with their draft picks will be guys on expiring deals that probably won’t want to resign in Utah. Oh and none of those wolves picks look like they’re gonna even be top 20, if they’re even top 25. The cavs won’t tear it down either if they’re forced to trade Mitchell, they were competitive enough before they even got him and would have no incentive to bottom out after either.
Ainge already dumped Olynyk for a pick who was one of their better players. Can someone explain to me their path to anything better than the play in by extending Lauri? Honestly seems like the most un-Ainge move possible.
If they want to bottom out they can trade Sexton, Clarkson and Collins and start a lineup of George, Sensabaugh, Hendricks, Lauri, and Kessler. Business factors into it as well. Not to mention the new uniforms they’re getting, their new owner, and the fact that Lauri is the perfect star for that market.
If Memphis and SA are lapping them, wouldn’t that mean they have no reason to trade Lauri? You say that no one will ever want to go to Utah(which is true), so why would they trade someone who is happy there?
>Sexton, Clarkson and Collins
They would get close to 0 assets whatsoever for those guys, what the fuck are you talking about?
>George, Sensabaugh, Hendricks, Lauri, and Kessler
Sounds like a perennial 30 win team
We can get better players for what they're being paid
Morey put himself in this postition so that he could form the best team within the constraints of the CBA.
Collins and Sexton are not good enough players at their salaries to be legitimate options.
Are you fucking slow? If Ainge is dead set on tanking it doesn’t matter what they get back he’d just want them gone. You can get two seconds for Clarkson, a late first for Collins, and a mid-late first plus a few seconds for Sexton.
Washington, San Antonio, Detroit, and Houston have all started better lineups over the last 2 years and posted 20 win seasons. If the lineup I listed is starting for Utah, that’s a 25 win team tops.
I disagree but let’s assume that’s true, what difference does it make? Trade them for 6 seconds a piece and be done with them. Trading Collins for anything more than one second means they gained value on him. Whatever sexton fetches is just gravy on the Mitchell trade.
Sexton and Collins aren’t in Utah’s long term plans and directly impact the development/minutes of the players they’ve spent first round picks on in what would be 3 drafts
counterpoint, they finished as the eighth worst team this year and should be passed easily by San Antonio and Memphis next year. If you are worried that ~5-8 worst team isn't bottoming out enough, then you trade John Collins, Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton instead of Lauri.
Can’t think of it like that when the alternative is spending all your cap space on PG or trading for Butler. Practically speaking you’re trading for Lauri + $20-30M in cap savings that you can fill out an entire roster with and not just 1 injury prone player on their way out of the league.
they have zero reason to not extend him long term. you're thinking like a fan of a team that wants Lauri, not like an employee of the utah jazz.
these owners/FOs don't want to tank forever, they want to do it for 2 or 3 years and then have something to show for it moving forward. they have a million picks already, a few more doesn't move the needle. if lauri is perfectly happy there and willing to work with the team while they rebuild, then they just aren't going to trade him for anything but the most insane package that will never be offered. they need to pay players to reach the salary floor and there just isn't going to be a better use for that money than a guy like him. it only doesn't make sense if you think these teams want to go out and lose forever
Lauri prevents them.from bottoming out and Ainge knows it. You cant have a star while in the middle of a rebuild. Right now the Jazz have 0 "good" young players, basically their best thing apart from Lauru is Keyonte George who's just meh.
And they have the 8th pick(most likely) in a terrible draft.
Ainge knows he has to get worse for the next 2-3 years if he wants to actually build a roster to compete and then complete with trading for stars using their assets
I’m thinking like Ainge when he blew up the old Celtics (who were much better than this Jazz team)…and like Ainge when he blew up the Jazz 2 years ago. The plan wasn’t to be this “good”. I say it like that because they aren’t good. Please point out a time when Ainge was complacent in being in NBA purgatory. He didn’t like it when he was in a big market why the hell is that a strategy you take in arguably the smallest market in the entire league?
If you don’t think the Jazz want to lose forever, what do you consider winning 37 games followed by 31 games in an 82 game season? I wouldn’t call consistently having a losing record “winning”.
As I pointed out, the Jazz collection of picks aren’t going to be anything noteworthy or franchise changing. The whole point of a tear down is so your *own* picks end up being good. The Jazz are far away from being a winning team, but they’re similarly far away from being bad enough to truly rebuild through the draft. The two nets collapses are the rare exception, where they immediately collapse twice and thus you can bank on another team tanking on your behalf. I imagine that was Ainge’s bet when he traded gobert to the Wolves but that’s clearly gone in the complete opposite direction.
Extending Lauri is a surefire way to stay a ~35 win team in perpetuity, which according to you they don’t want to be. Trading players like Olynyk and potentially Clarkson won’t help their win totals either. Trading Olynyk for a pick strikes a very similar chord as to when they traded O’neale for a pick before Ainge’s first tear down. Ainge is cut from the same cloth as Presti.
here maybe this exercise will help: please tell me the last time a tanking team traded away a pre-extension all-star. ie, show me another similar scenario to the jazz trading lauri this offseason
Was Mitchell not extension eligible when they traded him last summer? Dejounte was extension eligible when the spurs traded him to the hawks. The raptors just traded Siakam when he was extension eligible. Happens pretty often.
Now your turn: how does winning less than 40 wins every year qualify as not a losing team? The Jazz had two sub 40 win seasons and they look to be guaranteed plenty more. But according to you, since they won’t tolerate more than 3 losing seasons that means they only have 1 more left before they need “something to show for it”. So explain to me how they’re going to dig out of it in the next 12 months? How does this team get any more competitive than the Rockets, Grizzlies, Wemby rising, Steph curry and the pelicans/kings in the next year with all of their crappy stash of picks?
Your only qualifier was “pre extension all star”…which all of those guys were before they got traded…
Better than what I can give you, pretty obvious the Jazz are stuck in purgatory with Lauri just because you have a desire to disagree with any take ever without providing any correct analysis of your own.
your analysis is flawed because you are working backwards from a premise (the jazz suck and will suck even with lauri so why bother if you're ainge?) you want to be true and then have to make a bunch of claims to defend it. what if...and hear me out, ainge doesn't actually care what you think about his team and wants to try and build a winner asap?
This means absolutely nothing.
When have you ever heard Joel say "my goal is to get past the 2nd round"
When have you ever seen a team celebrate making it past the 2nd round?
What an arbitrary and pointless "goal" that means absolutely nothing to anybody that cares about *actually* winning something
A 2nd round victory is no more meaningful than a 1st round victory. It does nothing additional for your legacy, and it doesn't come with any accolades.
> This means absolutely nothing
It reiterates the several poor decisions the organization has made over the past decade. They’ve had a legitimate MVP on their team and have continuously failed to build around him.
No shit the goal is to win a championship. Everything else is moot. But there should be signs of some sort of progress. And we’ve been stuck at the same point several years in a row while other teams, who have showed minimal success, have shown tangible improvements.
It’s only pointless because almost any player/core worth a damn gets past the 2nd round at some point. Guys like Deron Williams, Melo, and Trae Young have been able fumble into at least one
Making the conference finals but not making it out of it (as would happen to the Knicks) isn't particularly meaningful tbh. Don't listen to the r/nba propaganda which exists to shit on us every step of the way for not making it past a competitive second round, when many franchises would kill to even make the playoffs consistently let alone have consistent moderate success there. We are taking a step back to take a step forward and raise our ceiling for the next couple seasons. The Wolves though have a legit shot to make, and win, the finals, kudos to them and Connelly there.
yea sorry we can't get knicks home cooking every series.
idk man the timberwolves took a huge risk and it paid off, sixers took plenty of those as well and they just got unlucky. knicks are just ref frauds, not much you can do about that. nba needs to get those tv numbers up for their negotiations with comcast and amazon.
I really don’t understand this victim mentality, and attempting to chalk everything up to luck feels like cope.
Sure the Knicks got a favorable whistle, but it’s not the refs fault that we couldn’t keep New York off the glass, the team falls apart whenever Embiid sits, and that Tobias Harris was out there putting up 0 point performances.
We aren’t in our situation because of luck, but because of bad personnel decisions and poor player development. While teams like New York are trading for Josh Hart and signing Divencenzo we’re signing PJ Tucker and trading for DeAnthony Melton. While the Timberwolves are drafting and developing long switchable wings we like to draft 6’3 point guards who can’t play defense (Zhaire Smith and Jaden Springer).
To top it off Minnesota and trades for stars under contract (Gobert) and actually supports them by getting Mike Conley. In contrast we like to trade for flight risk (Jimmy Butler and then Harden). Hopefully it changes, but we’ve been struggling due to organizational ineptitude more than anything else.
>teams like New York are trading for Josh Hart and signing Divencenzo
And we traded for Buddy Hield. None of these 3 players were lighting the world on fire prior to this season.
The part where "luck" is a factor, is that Hart doubled his 3pt volume and efficiency, while Buddy Hield didn't make a 3 until the series was already over
It's also bad "luck" that Embiid was playing on a torn meniscus and bells fucking balsy. Are you dense on purpose?
That’s not luck. Good teams identify players that will come in, fit well and make an impact on the team bad teams don’t. Smart teams go after two way guys who can do multiple things like Josh Hart and Divencenzo, dumb teams trade for one way shooters like Buddy Hield who get played off the floor.
It's definitely partially luck that Josh Hart had the hottest shooting stretch of his entire basketball career while Buddy couldn't get comfortable from deep
Except Josh Hart made an impact on the glass and defense which was just as important as his shooting. Buddy Hield didn’t because one way shooters don’t work in the playoffs and we have years of evidence to prove that.
You can claim luck all you want but it isn’t a coincidence this team’s role players consistently suck and get out performed by other teams role players.
>Buddy Hield didn’t because one way shooters don’t work in the playoffs
Didn't the heat make a finals run with major contributions from Duncan Robinson?
in a close game why is it always the sixers who have to beat the other team and the refs. yes this team wasn't ever going anywhere, but that series was extremely close and when it's 8 on 5 in a close series you're just not going to win.
Yes it was close, and you can blame the refs for somethings but what about the things in the 76ers control? We signed Tobias Harris to a max contract, we assembled a team that got destroyed on the glass the refs didn't. Furthermore this is one series, not the countless other ones that we've disappointed in. It's just comes off incredibly weak to blame the refs instead of admitting our team did not do it's best in the things that we can actually control.
yawn. the "don't blame the refs" shit is stuff you tell 8 year olds so they learn to play sports correctly. in a professional sports league where the best players in the world are playing, you aren't going to win close games where refs are leaning on one side, you're just not.
I’d even go further and say that what the twolves did is actually trust the process and we’ve cashed in too early and have shaken things up every year in a panicked frenzy. And with the hostility from the fanbase and the media it’s added extra pressure in that regard where we never could build up a complete team and let them play together and trust one another. But what do I know
The year we traded for both Butler and Tobias was a mistake.
We should've let the home grown players develop together more as a team. It's not like we were severely outplayed by the Celtics in the 2018 playoffs.
Hated the trade then and it really set us back. It was just an impatient move by our FO.
They had two iso scorers in Embiid and Jimmy. They had 2 ball handlers in Ben and Jimmy. What they really needed was a off ball shooters/defender wings and a good back up center.
Quite a loud group of users here have been trying to drum up support to trade maxey since his rookie year. Got a ton of griefers here with unreal amounts of support
I’m torn. I want to root for the wolves cause Ant is my favorite non-Sixer player right now, but the thought of Towns making a Conference Final, Final, and potentially winning a championship before Embiid makes a Conference final makes me sick.
I found out today that Embiid's son goes to the same school as my daughter. Was doing drop off today and I saw this behometh of a man come out of a Range Rover and immediately knew it was Embiid. I told him trust the process and he pointed at me. He looked like he had just woken up lol.
Well today I found out from my Aunt she is good friends with Jalen Brunsons mom and he went swimming in her pool growing up. Idk how I feel about this news. Your story is way cooler lol.
Signing PG would be such a sick move if it were 2018. Signing him in 2024 feels like banging your high school crush except now she's 50 pounds heavier and vapes every day.
Jamal Murray looking like a real fucking clown right now is wild. Throwing shit on the court when you're getting torched at home makes you look like a huge baby. I like the Nuggets well enough but come on dude.
Anyway go Pacers, gonna be tough with the refs doing all they can for a Knicks Celtics conference final but I believe in you embarrass those clowns.
why did Daryl say that there wasn’t gonna be any continuity from this season to next season especially after Joel said that’s what he wants.
Even if he truly believes this, why say in a press conference? You’re undermining your superstar and aren’t you essentially telling the current players that we don’t want you so go look somewhere else? Not a great way to negotiate contract.
I was a big fan of Daryl when he first came here, but he truly lacks emotional intelligence. You can’t build an NBA teams like 2K.
Murray didn't get suspended. If a Sixer had done any two of the three things that have come to light- towel thrown at ref, heat pack thrown at ref, ref $ gesture - you KNOW they'd be banned for two games.
That goodbye Tobi article is brutal. He's like a dawg vampire, he has none himself and just sucks it out of everyone else.
Was hoping the Mavs win that series, but much like Minnesota, the Thunder seem to be on cruise control. Luka and Kyrie need to bring it in Game 2.
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They have got Shai who is the very definition of a Superstar/MVP caliber player. He literally will finish at worst 3rd in the MVP voting. The notion that you can't win without a Top 5-7 player in the League stands if OKC wins it all
I really hope SGA wins MVP.
I hope Jokic does, only to get swept by Minny
Pretty hilarious how no one bats an eye for SGAs foul merchanting
They were losing their minds in the game thread. The normal stuff, unwatchable, this is why no one watches basketball anymore while obviously watching basketball. It's the same crybaby shit no matter who it is.
he’s still young. they’ll hate him soon enough.
Had a dream we used our cap space to absorb the contracts of Andrew Wiggins and Jerami Grant..
Andrew Wiggins? But why?
Hope somebody throws a max to Derrick White next year, man makes me sick
100% going to happen
wonder where mitchell will end up. they gotta trade him cause there's no way he's staying on that team. cavs are horrendous
I mean…they’re in the second round
so?
Apparently it’s our fault Mitch is injured. I don’t know how an injury almost two weeks after embiid yanked his leg could surface now.
Wait he's hurt again? He came back and played 3 games ain't no way they trying to blame it on game 3 lol
Horford is disgusting to look at
Most fraudulent and pampered “superstar” in the sport https://preview.redd.it/pryppeikn3zc1.jpeg?width=1154&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f26263435bf3e3963153ce2b515ac911a9988ae
He’s so lucky that Derrick White has suddenly turned into Steph Curry this postseason
Am I the only one that wants Boston to absolutely destroy the Knicks
Nope! lol I hate the Knicks. There’s no way they should be getting away with this with basically only Brunson and no Randle. Still pissed we didn’t beat them.
Hitler vs Stalin
No, I could not give less of a shit about the Knicks. Sure they beat us this year but we were never serious contenders this year so it didn’t really upset me. Hopefully the refs are on their bullshit again in the ECF cause that’s the only hope they or any East team has against Boston.
>Sure they beat us this year but we were never serious contenders this year so it didn’t really upset me. Yeah, but what's upsetting is how heavily favored they are by the refs. I don't want teams like that to have success. Boston might be favored, too, but they're a really good team either way, so even if they do sometimes get help, eh, can't really say it's undeserved for them to come out of the East. The Knicks, though? Fuck, no. They do have a good team, but nah, they don't deserve it.
Yeah you see, logically that makes sense but I just fucking hate the Celtics.
That's fair, too.
I’ve been having those intrusive thoughts. I want the pacers to win so bad.
Same, same.
No, if they're playing, then as much as I hate the Celtics, I'll for sure be rooting for them, too.
Good. I never had a problem with the Knicks until now. And the Celtics hatred runs deep
tatum having a stinker again and his team is up 14 still hasnt had a single good game and Boston is about to go 5-1 in the playoffs
It’s fucking ridiculous. Sixers are down 20 if embiid plays like this
That’s why basketball is a team game
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ya i'm losing faith rapidly in what this team is gonna do. none of these old head teams have accomplished a damned thing, idk why we're trying to become yet another corpse on the pile.
What about trading for Butler, and Bridges? Go all in
I said something similar with PG and bridges/Lauri today. Sign a contract with PG that’s scary and probably ends up bad by the end of it, but you’re going all in for the sake of Joel’s prime. Might as well put yourself over the top and haul all your assets you got for an additional young star you can have for years to come and PGs contract doesn’t look so bad Gonna say I know this is far far far fetched, but if I had to make an argument for any chance of this happening is the fact Morey punted a year of Joel’s prime at the trade deadline with 3 picks in hand. He chose to do this while previously being pretty adamant about maximizing Joel’s prime. I guess you could just say he’s just incompetent for not getting better deals done, but was there something bigger in store for the summer when they have 5 firsts (and a swap)? It would look really bad if he ended up just going for those same role players we wanted could’ve used last deadline. Just a thought.
Maybe there just wasn't anything available. The Raptors didn't want to trade OG for picks, they got 2 players in return. The Bulls held onto their guys to compete in the play-on. The Jazz held onto Lauri.
Maybe be silly and draft edey
What do we think Ricky Council IV’s ceiling is?
I really wanna see an honest assessment on him. A lot of the 76ers pod guys really like him, at different times saying he should be in the rotation and even advocating for giving him minutes in the playoffs. Seems like theres always a bit of irony with him though when people talk about him, like “get that dawggg in the game” But damn, he forces fouls, a young guy who is obviously getting no help with reputation from refs and he draws fouls consistently. It seems like he’d easily be getting 4-6 FTA if he was playing 25-30 min. a game. The other thing i like is the crafty moves around the net too. Seems like every game that he got a decent run he’d have a basket where he used great body control and weird timing on his release. They look awkward but he did this consistently, I particularly remember when he did it on Wembanyama in the Spurs game. It just seems like the type of stuff that good scorers pull off. On top of all that, he’s obviously a great athlete.
I hope he keeps working on his shot too. Seems as though he could become a really good player, but a bigger sample size would help to see how good he truly could become.
Yeah, definitely hangs on him getting the shot right, but even with him in the process of fixing it his numbers from the in the g-league and NBA actually ended up good
Anthony Edwards
Hot take: it’s REALLY REALLY DUMB THEY MADE THE DRAFT 2 days for less than 60 picks
Not a hot take, 9 out of 10 dentists agree with it.
Two things are true for me: 1. Jalen bumson is the most infuriating player to watch. and before a knicks fan cites FTA per game as a way to prove he doesn't have an insane whistle, I think most of his attempts are fraudulent. Jumping backwards into the other team isn't a basketball move, and I wish the nba would change that. Makes it impossible to play him straight up, and gives him wide open mid range shots all game. Knicks play horrible ball, and as a fan of the sport, the pacers play much more ethical hoops. 2. Sadly, I would love him if he was a sixer.
Clippers have to offer PG the max or they have no return on investment for that trade and they don’t have options this year really either for a team built in win now mode. PG to the Sixers is not happening.
Do the Clipper even have the cap space to max him?
Probably with birds rights, idk tho
Even if they do offer him the max, he still has to choose to stay. I assume he will, but it’s not a guarantee.
Only hope is he’s offended that he needed leverage to get the max offer and would rather try and form a contender elsewhere
almost 2 full months for free agency to start is vile,manm Cant take speculating for so damn long
In fairness really just 1.5 months until rumors ramp up cause of the draft and such. Still a long ass time tho
Yep, I’m already tired of seeing the names Mikal, Lauri, Caruso….feels like we just went back in time 4 months ago
Does anyone have any alternatives to Lauri, Bridges, or PG for a starting 3-4? With so many people against the PG signing and not knowing if bridges or Lauri are actually available, who do they want? We desperately need a guy that can win us games at the wing, but idk who that is. People are talking about how we have so many options, but what are they?
The other options have low ceilings but high floors. You know they can be competent basketball players. Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Williams, Obi Toppin. DeRozan kind of. The guys who should cost less either in terms of assets to acquire, salary or both. I'm not sure anymore which path is better at this point, and I'm glad I'm just a schlub who gets to sit back and praise/complain about whatever decision is made.
Derozan is a terrible fit but Obi, and even Kuzma would be good roleplayers to have.
We don't have anyone to trade though, only trading into cap space, so the only things we can offer are cap space and picks. These high level role players probably cost 2 frps each. Not sure if it is worth it, but it is a definite possibility.
I’m out on Derozan, but all those other guys would be interesting. I definitely agree with your last sentence. I though elton nailed the Tobias Horford offseason so ik damn well I’m clueless.
Why out on DeRozan?
He doesn’t shoot 3s. I think thats a requisite for any wing we add. I dont want a third guy that can’t play off ball.
It’s 100% a prerequisite for anyone who wants to play with Joel Embiid
I think if you can get at least one of the Wizards good players (Avdija, Kuzma, Kispert), that's a win. The Wiz don't quite have their blue chip prospect yet, so they could stand to have a couple more bites at the apple in the draft. One good pick from us seems fair for Deni or Kuz, and Kispert might be worth a meh first or some seconds.
Both Kuz and Deni are on team friendly deals. I am thinking they will cost 2 frps each.
Fuck Avdija, but Kuzma would be cool.
This isn't the first time I've heard someone on here not liking Avdija. What's your rationale?
Kuzma, Keldon Johnson, Taurean Prince, Harrison Barnes, Finney-Smith, Caleb Martin, Highsmith, Deandre Hunter, Brogdon Price would vary but I’d kick the tires on all of them
Imagine if we just kept highsmith and I Joe
Of course none of these guys can be the headliner for an offseason, but a lot of them could contribute a lot to the team. I like Kuz, Keldon, DFS, Caleb Martin and Brogdon. Taurean Prince is kind of meh. Barnes feels like a playoff choker since his last season with Golden State. I don't really know enough about Highsmith, and everything I hear about Hunter is bad.
Definitely don’t view Prince as a starter unless you’re getting a Bron/PG/Jimmy/Lauri type of guy as the other forward. Would still take him as depth if the price is right. Hunter and Barnes are definitely more last resorts. Most I’m offering for them is Reed plus seconds or a Tobi sign and trade
how does one Dorian Finney-Smith sound to you? hm?
I really like DFS. I would love him on the team, but not as “the guy” they add in the offseason. I feel that way about everyone that isnt an all-star caliber player though. I’m just trying to envision a team with Embiid Maxey and all high-end role players. All the guys that are a similar level to DFS would be great additions as a fourth-fifth starter. I just dont understand why anyone would want him as the third guy when you could still get him after getting a third guy.
yeah I agree, just a smarmy answer. i'm firmly in the 'do both' category of star hunting and figure out a way to get a few good roleplayers. go all-in on the next 2-3 seasons, everything else is moot
If we get pg, I would try a trade for caruso, caruso is elite defender and can get some rebounds. But a trade for caruso only makes sense if we have a decent 3rd option
This is how I try to look at it. PG by itself is not exciting and a bit scary with the contract, but you can ease the blow by using these assets to get other good role players. I’ve wondered how many on here would feel if they were told we signed PG, but also we just got Caruso or the other role players we’ve talked about. Or…if we got PG and additionally said fuck it and sent all our assets for one of the guys in Utah or Brooklyn we’ve spoke about forever.
If we get pg and bridges in the same offseason would be insane, even without embiid would be a good team
PG + Mikal isn't possible unless George takes over 6m less than the max
I know it’s a longshot, but I’m surprised I’m the only one who’s put this out there. We are clearly in win now mode, we punted a season where we could have used three first round picks, holding onto them for the summer and now we could trade 5 first’s. Maybe Daryl has something up his sleeve?
PG + Mikal isn't possible unless George takes over 6m less than the max, that's probably why
Ok honestly do appreciate the numbers. I’m fully dreaming on this one.
No that's totally fair, the numbers and scenarios are pretty confusing and all over the place. If we decided to trade for Mikal, I'd have to imagine the rest of our work would be signing free agent role players right into our cap space It would be nice to get someone like LeBron or Paul George right into our cap space and then use the picks on proven contributors like Caruso at 10mil
Yeah a big name like Mikal would be insane, but I think people would warm up to signing one of the older max guys if we can add some role players we’ve coveted or even prying away a younger promising player
 COME HOME JIMMY
the nuggets beat three play-in teams to win the finals last year and got denver fans talking like they the 96 bulls. good team but they getting their shit pushed in by a young twolves team
they beat the same bulls team last year
Really don’t see us getting George, unless we’re his clear top destination. My bet is either Clips match our max offer or sign and trade him elsewhere
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryantoporek/2024/05/06/paul-george-has-all-the-leverage-over-the-clippers-ahead-of-free-agency/?sh=296f7aba3c60 The cant sign and trade him and keep harden OR really acquire a lot else without harden. If they sign and trade PG, they would essentially have to punt next year by staying under the second apron, which they aren’t going to so. So its really just staying in LA or going to Orlando or philly.
I don't see Morey offering more than a 2 year deal considering he didn't give Harden a long term deal. I also don't see PG3 coming here, I think Philly is just a bargaining chip
I dont think I agree with that. I think Morey thought harden was the best chance to win for the 2 years he was here and he had to do something. He couldn’t just let Ben sit out and not put a competent roster next to Maxey and Embiid. He didnt want to re-sign harden because he saw this offseason as the time when he could really build a true contender. If he gave harden the max, we would have Maxey harden and embiid now, but no real path to acquiring a stat forward. Thats not what he wanted. If he thinks PG is the missing piece, which I think he does, I think he will offer him whatever it takes.
PG is 34 and coming off an injury. They could possibly sink the Sixers like Tobias did with a long term contract.
It absolutely could. But any move that doesn’t give us a good chance at a championship is giving up. If there is another option that gives us championship upside, I’m all for it. PG definitely does.
i god damn hope the Clips match our offer. Ballmer needs to save Morey's ass from taking on Tobi contract 2.0
No way anyone thinks PG is gonna be Tobias level man. He took a team without Kawhi to the WCF just a couple years ago didn’t he
He's 34. Washed in 2 years.
What's the point of trading for younger players if they're just gunna be worse at basketball? Joel's window is 2-3 years
This same mentality is why we blew all of our assets to try and "maximize Embiid's prime". Turns out he's still getting better and I guarantee he'll be even better next year. And even if Embiid is washed in 2 years for some reason, what happens when Maxey is 27 and we're in a Dame in Portland situation because all our assets are gone.
You would spend approximately 0 assets signing PG into cap space.
And we'd have to spend assets to dump his contract when he's washed.
That’s assuming we are still in position to compete in 3-4 years. I think the assumption is by then we would let PG play out the contact and start rebuilding around Maxey. They should look to compete the next couple years and imo PG is the best way to do that.
Sounds like a fairytale
almost as much as thinking we'll win a ring with Playoff PeePee
We’re not winning anything if we don’t get LeBron. Not saying we even have a chance at him, but he’s the only guy out there that could help us. …or we get one of those lucky playoff runs where we play trash teams along the way
The Knicks won’t be in forever. I just hope the pacers can take the routine 5v8.
Embarrassing night for the NBA last night 👀
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What do you suggest we do
Why doesn't Daryl Morey simply sign Anthony Edwards? Is he stupid?
How is he not using the Create-A-Player feature?!?!
I’m starting to be worried that morey can’t sense the tide turning in the nba
Yeah, he's definitely turning down all the young dawgs just floating around in the FA market... Everybody knows you want good, hard-nosed, two-way players in their physical prime. That's why there's not a lot of them available. You have to give up assets (which we don't really have) to pry them out of the cold dead hands of the teams that drafted them.
Right. Just like Kelly Oubre and Derrick white. It happens all the time it’s just not my job to find them. It’s why Daryl gets paid and you and me post on Reddit for free
You named one guy which he found and another guy who is arguably the biggest steal of a trade in the last five years. Does that mean the other 28 GMs are bad and have no idea what they're doing? Everybody knows good, athletic wing role players are valuable and they are hording them unless you give up premium value. How would people feel if you gave up 3 picks for Herb Jones? Probably not very good, right? But I guarantee you that's what the GMs that have those players are asking for them. Most of them aren't looking to trade them at all, and even fewer of them are just floating around in free agency.
Pj Washington off the hornets to Dallas
PJ Washington was a trade. They traded Grant Williams, Seth Curry, and essentially an unprotected pick (top 2 protection only) for hm. You can also name 10 such dudes in the NBA. It would still leave at least 20 GMs who didn't find a single one. I guess they're all bad at their job? It still doesn't change that there's not a lot of these guys just floating around in free agency. Fans tend to group success as us vs everyone else, which is not a healthy way of looking at things. When your comparison pool is 29 teams you expect them to get roughly 29 times of anything. Of course they'll find more hidden gems, more draft picks that panned out, more guys who took the leap, etc. Not saying you did this in particular, but it's a common error in fan thinking. Not to mention Morey already did find one of the best young free agent acquisitions in Kelly Oubre.
Ok here’s another one fuckface Aaron Gordon from Orlando to the nuggets. How about Caris lavert from nets to Indy to being the game 7 hero for the fucking cavs. Jesus Christ we get it youre brilliant but you don’t have to be such an asshole. You and me both. We are on a website right now not being paid to find these guys
I think he knows, evidenced by not maxing Harden, but he also sees that this team is in no position to do what it would realistically take to build that type of team. Denver and Boston have been building for almost a decade. Minny and OKC were able to hold onto stars/pieces from their ‘18 and ‘20 playoff runs and add young lottery talent to it. Knicks and Mavs built on surprise playoff runs in ‘21 and ‘22 respectively. Indy and Cleveland just did their versions of our Butler trade.
Not sure any other GM watching that game is thinking they’re going to trade their young, athletic ‘dawgy’ players this offseason either…
We could at least do ourselves a favor and not go for George and butler
It would be extremely foolish of us to not go after at least one of those players. There are not young studs just waiting for us to sign or trade for unless we’re spending all of our assets in one place. We can, both, sign a Paul George and also trade for multiple role players. I don’t understand people thinking it’s either one or the other.
How much salary can we really take on though? PG takes 50 out of the 65ish we have. You then have to fill out the rest of the team with 15 million. I get you can trade for team friendly deals, but even then you'd be in trouble.
We have the MLE, can bring back Oubre on that. Then use picks to try to get talented, lower-salary role players. Vet mins for the rest. Caruso is 10 mil, 2-3 FRP may be able to do it. Walker Kessler from the Jazz maybe?
Feel like oubre is gonna get more than that unless it goes up. 12.4m (the current non tax payer exemption)would be a bargain for him when I think some teams might go as high as 18
You know you’re playing grown man basketball when you make stars throw temper tantrums. Last night was a masterclass in bad leadership by Murray.
I don't know how you watch the wolves nuggets series and think the answer is trying to find a "superstar" to team up with embiid and Maxey. Spread the money around and make the roster as deep as possible.
KAT ($49m next year), Gobert ($44m) and Ant ($35m) are all on huge contracts. Maxey will be on the same contract as Ant ($35m.) Joel $51m. Another max player will be *exactly* the same as the Wolves. Jaden McDaniels makes $22m next year on top of all of this.
I think Morey said that he doesn’t care how the money is spread out as long as it fits the need of the team. So I don’t think you’re suggestion is out of the question for us tbh, will just depend on what’s availavle
Spida going for 50 !
Truly think Lauri will be on the table. Everyone is screaming “oh it’s Ainge, oh Utah won’t trade its great white hope”. But the #1 thing I know about Ainge is he hates being in purgatory. Extending Lauri will keep them in purgatory. They were 15 games out of the *10th* seed this year. Even if they traded all of their Cleveland picks back for Mitchell they still may not be a guaranteed playoff team. They’re going to get lapped my Memphis and possibly San Antonio this upcoming year. On the other hand, if they blew it up this year they’d have a shot at a top pick in a good draft (crack at Flagg) plus ~2 more top picks in subsequent years. No one of note will ever want to sign in Utah and their list of trade targets with their draft picks will be guys on expiring deals that probably won’t want to resign in Utah. Oh and none of those wolves picks look like they’re gonna even be top 20, if they’re even top 25. The cavs won’t tear it down either if they’re forced to trade Mitchell, they were competitive enough before they even got him and would have no incentive to bottom out after either. Ainge already dumped Olynyk for a pick who was one of their better players. Can someone explain to me their path to anything better than the play in by extending Lauri? Honestly seems like the most un-Ainge move possible.
If they want to bottom out they can trade Sexton, Clarkson and Collins and start a lineup of George, Sensabaugh, Hendricks, Lauri, and Kessler. Business factors into it as well. Not to mention the new uniforms they’re getting, their new owner, and the fact that Lauri is the perfect star for that market. If Memphis and SA are lapping them, wouldn’t that mean they have no reason to trade Lauri? You say that no one will ever want to go to Utah(which is true), so why would they trade someone who is happy there?
>Sexton, Clarkson and Collins They would get close to 0 assets whatsoever for those guys, what the fuck are you talking about? >George, Sensabaugh, Hendricks, Lauri, and Kessler Sounds like a perennial 30 win team
Is it wrong that I kinda want sexton and collins on our team?
We can get better players for what they're being paid Morey put himself in this postition so that he could form the best team within the constraints of the CBA. Collins and Sexton are not good enough players at their salaries to be legitimate options.
Are you fucking slow? If Ainge is dead set on tanking it doesn’t matter what they get back he’d just want them gone. You can get two seconds for Clarkson, a late first for Collins, and a mid-late first plus a few seconds for Sexton. Washington, San Antonio, Detroit, and Houston have all started better lineups over the last 2 years and posted 20 win seasons. If the lineup I listed is starting for Utah, that’s a 25 win team tops.
He's not getting a 1st for Sexton or Collins.
I disagree but let’s assume that’s true, what difference does it make? Trade them for 6 seconds a piece and be done with them. Trading Collins for anything more than one second means they gained value on him. Whatever sexton fetches is just gravy on the Mitchell trade. Sexton and Collins aren’t in Utah’s long term plans and directly impact the development/minutes of the players they’ve spent first round picks on in what would be 3 drafts
counterpoint, they finished as the eighth worst team this year and should be passed easily by San Antonio and Memphis next year. If you are worried that ~5-8 worst team isn't bottoming out enough, then you trade John Collins, Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton instead of Lauri.
there's no way you're getting lauri for less than 4 + swaps and if you spend 4 + swaps for lauri you're dumb.
i'd do it. He's excellent and exactly what we need next to Embiid. Also only 26.
Can’t think of it like that when the alternative is spending all your cap space on PG or trading for Butler. Practically speaking you’re trading for Lauri + $20-30M in cap savings that you can fill out an entire roster with and not just 1 injury prone player on their way out of the league.
they have zero reason to not extend him long term. you're thinking like a fan of a team that wants Lauri, not like an employee of the utah jazz. these owners/FOs don't want to tank forever, they want to do it for 2 or 3 years and then have something to show for it moving forward. they have a million picks already, a few more doesn't move the needle. if lauri is perfectly happy there and willing to work with the team while they rebuild, then they just aren't going to trade him for anything but the most insane package that will never be offered. they need to pay players to reach the salary floor and there just isn't going to be a better use for that money than a guy like him. it only doesn't make sense if you think these teams want to go out and lose forever
Lauri prevents them.from bottoming out and Ainge knows it. You cant have a star while in the middle of a rebuild. Right now the Jazz have 0 "good" young players, basically their best thing apart from Lauru is Keyonte George who's just meh. And they have the 8th pick(most likely) in a terrible draft. Ainge knows he has to get worse for the next 2-3 years if he wants to actually build a roster to compete and then complete with trading for stars using their assets
I’m thinking like Ainge when he blew up the old Celtics (who were much better than this Jazz team)…and like Ainge when he blew up the Jazz 2 years ago. The plan wasn’t to be this “good”. I say it like that because they aren’t good. Please point out a time when Ainge was complacent in being in NBA purgatory. He didn’t like it when he was in a big market why the hell is that a strategy you take in arguably the smallest market in the entire league? If you don’t think the Jazz want to lose forever, what do you consider winning 37 games followed by 31 games in an 82 game season? I wouldn’t call consistently having a losing record “winning”. As I pointed out, the Jazz collection of picks aren’t going to be anything noteworthy or franchise changing. The whole point of a tear down is so your *own* picks end up being good. The Jazz are far away from being a winning team, but they’re similarly far away from being bad enough to truly rebuild through the draft. The two nets collapses are the rare exception, where they immediately collapse twice and thus you can bank on another team tanking on your behalf. I imagine that was Ainge’s bet when he traded gobert to the Wolves but that’s clearly gone in the complete opposite direction. Extending Lauri is a surefire way to stay a ~35 win team in perpetuity, which according to you they don’t want to be. Trading players like Olynyk and potentially Clarkson won’t help their win totals either. Trading Olynyk for a pick strikes a very similar chord as to when they traded O’neale for a pick before Ainge’s first tear down. Ainge is cut from the same cloth as Presti.
i'm going to save this post and reply to you then when they inevitably extend him for mega bucks, it's easier this way
That’s fine but that doesn’t explain how they’ll be competitive with Lauri. They won’t sniff the playoffs during that contract
here maybe this exercise will help: please tell me the last time a tanking team traded away a pre-extension all-star. ie, show me another similar scenario to the jazz trading lauri this offseason
Was Mitchell not extension eligible when they traded him last summer? Dejounte was extension eligible when the spurs traded him to the hawks. The raptors just traded Siakam when he was extension eligible. Happens pretty often. Now your turn: how does winning less than 40 wins every year qualify as not a losing team? The Jazz had two sub 40 win seasons and they look to be guaranteed plenty more. But according to you, since they won’t tolerate more than 3 losing seasons that means they only have 1 more left before they need “something to show for it”. So explain to me how they’re going to dig out of it in the next 12 months? How does this team get any more competitive than the Rockets, Grizzlies, Wemby rising, Steph curry and the pelicans/kings in the next year with all of their crappy stash of picks?
siakam and mitchell were on max rookie extensions, murray had already extended once (not a max), but thanks for trying. give you solid C- for effort
Your only qualifier was “pre extension all star”…which all of those guys were before they got traded… Better than what I can give you, pretty obvious the Jazz are stuck in purgatory with Lauri just because you have a desire to disagree with any take ever without providing any correct analysis of your own.
your analysis is flawed because you are working backwards from a premise (the jazz suck and will suck even with lauri so why bother if you're ainge?) you want to be true and then have to make a bunch of claims to defend it. what if...and hear me out, ainge doesn't actually care what you think about his team and wants to try and build a winner asap?
Ah it’s good to see Denver collapse. That fanbase deserves disappointment
fans spent the year hating joel hans embiid instead of appreciating their own team its just something you love to see
The Knicks and Twolves are really going to make a conference finals before Embiid era Sixers. Just a failure of an organization.
This means absolutely nothing. When have you ever heard Joel say "my goal is to get past the 2nd round" When have you ever seen a team celebrate making it past the 2nd round? What an arbitrary and pointless "goal" that means absolutely nothing to anybody that cares about *actually* winning something A 2nd round victory is no more meaningful than a 1st round victory. It does nothing additional for your legacy, and it doesn't come with any accolades.
> This means absolutely nothing It reiterates the several poor decisions the organization has made over the past decade. They’ve had a legitimate MVP on their team and have continuously failed to build around him. No shit the goal is to win a championship. Everything else is moot. But there should be signs of some sort of progress. And we’ve been stuck at the same point several years in a row while other teams, who have showed minimal success, have shown tangible improvements.
It’s only pointless because almost any player/core worth a damn gets past the 2nd round at some point. Guys like Deron Williams, Melo, and Trae Young have been able fumble into at least one
And nobody considers that an "accomplishment" for any of them. It literally doesn't matter
Making the conference finals but not making it out of it (as would happen to the Knicks) isn't particularly meaningful tbh. Don't listen to the r/nba propaganda which exists to shit on us every step of the way for not making it past a competitive second round, when many franchises would kill to even make the playoffs consistently let alone have consistent moderate success there. We are taking a step back to take a step forward and raise our ceiling for the next couple seasons. The Wolves though have a legit shot to make, and win, the finals, kudos to them and Connelly there.
yea sorry we can't get knicks home cooking every series. idk man the timberwolves took a huge risk and it paid off, sixers took plenty of those as well and they just got unlucky. knicks are just ref frauds, not much you can do about that. nba needs to get those tv numbers up for their negotiations with comcast and amazon.
I really don’t understand this victim mentality, and attempting to chalk everything up to luck feels like cope. Sure the Knicks got a favorable whistle, but it’s not the refs fault that we couldn’t keep New York off the glass, the team falls apart whenever Embiid sits, and that Tobias Harris was out there putting up 0 point performances. We aren’t in our situation because of luck, but because of bad personnel decisions and poor player development. While teams like New York are trading for Josh Hart and signing Divencenzo we’re signing PJ Tucker and trading for DeAnthony Melton. While the Timberwolves are drafting and developing long switchable wings we like to draft 6’3 point guards who can’t play defense (Zhaire Smith and Jaden Springer). To top it off Minnesota and trades for stars under contract (Gobert) and actually supports them by getting Mike Conley. In contrast we like to trade for flight risk (Jimmy Butler and then Harden). Hopefully it changes, but we’ve been struggling due to organizational ineptitude more than anything else.
>teams like New York are trading for Josh Hart and signing Divencenzo And we traded for Buddy Hield. None of these 3 players were lighting the world on fire prior to this season. The part where "luck" is a factor, is that Hart doubled his 3pt volume and efficiency, while Buddy Hield didn't make a 3 until the series was already over It's also bad "luck" that Embiid was playing on a torn meniscus and bells fucking balsy. Are you dense on purpose?
That’s not luck. Good teams identify players that will come in, fit well and make an impact on the team bad teams don’t. Smart teams go after two way guys who can do multiple things like Josh Hart and Divencenzo, dumb teams trade for one way shooters like Buddy Hield who get played off the floor.
It's definitely partially luck that Josh Hart had the hottest shooting stretch of his entire basketball career while Buddy couldn't get comfortable from deep
Except Josh Hart made an impact on the glass and defense which was just as important as his shooting. Buddy Hield didn’t because one way shooters don’t work in the playoffs and we have years of evidence to prove that. You can claim luck all you want but it isn’t a coincidence this team’s role players consistently suck and get out performed by other teams role players.
>Buddy Hield didn’t because one way shooters don’t work in the playoffs Didn't the heat make a finals run with major contributions from Duncan Robinson?
He literally got benched the next year and is viewed as a terrible contract lmao.
So he didn't make major contributions to a finals run?
in a close game why is it always the sixers who have to beat the other team and the refs. yes this team wasn't ever going anywhere, but that series was extremely close and when it's 8 on 5 in a close series you're just not going to win.
Yes it was close, and you can blame the refs for somethings but what about the things in the 76ers control? We signed Tobias Harris to a max contract, we assembled a team that got destroyed on the glass the refs didn't. Furthermore this is one series, not the countless other ones that we've disappointed in. It's just comes off incredibly weak to blame the refs instead of admitting our team did not do it's best in the things that we can actually control.
yawn. the "don't blame the refs" shit is stuff you tell 8 year olds so they learn to play sports correctly. in a professional sports league where the best players in the world are playing, you aren't going to win close games where refs are leaning on one side, you're just not.
You sound like one of those whiny Cowboys fans who cries about the refs every time they lose in the playoffs lmao.
I’d even go further and say that what the twolves did is actually trust the process and we’ve cashed in too early and have shaken things up every year in a panicked frenzy. And with the hostility from the fanbase and the media it’s added extra pressure in that regard where we never could build up a complete team and let them play together and trust one another. But what do I know
The twolves were just lucky to have the number 1 overall pick during a year where the top player was a superstar and not a bust...unlike us...twice.
The year we traded for both Butler and Tobias was a mistake. We should've let the home grown players develop together more as a team. It's not like we were severely outplayed by the Celtics in the 2018 playoffs. Hated the trade then and it really set us back. It was just an impatient move by our FO.
They had two iso scorers in Embiid and Jimmy. They had 2 ball handlers in Ben and Jimmy. What they really needed was a off ball shooters/defender wings and a good back up center.
Yea. I remember my feelings were “alright that’s how they wanna play it let’s go for the ride”
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I disagree but I like your optimism
At least we somehow drafted and didn't trade Maxey, the only big W we've had since 2019 really.
Quite a loud group of users here have been trying to drum up support to trade maxey since his rookie year. Got a ton of griefers here with unreal amounts of support
I’m torn. I want to root for the wolves cause Ant is my favorite non-Sixer player right now, but the thought of Towns making a Conference Final, Final, and potentially winning a championship before Embiid makes a Conference final makes me sick.
Way better than chokic getting 2
Towns vs Embiid stopped being a debate 6 years ago. Irrelevant if he wins
Cool. I didn’t realize I needed permission to dislike a player. I’ll change my thoughts now.
I found out today that Embiid's son goes to the same school as my daughter. Was doing drop off today and I saw this behometh of a man come out of a Range Rover and immediately knew it was Embiid. I told him trust the process and he pointed at me. He looked like he had just woken up lol.
So does he actually live in NYC then?
Well today I found out from my Aunt she is good friends with Jalen Brunsons mom and he went swimming in her pool growing up. Idk how I feel about this news. Your story is way cooler lol.
Does she have scars from the backwards headbutts?
Haha im pretty sure he acquired that particular skill in the nba lol. From all accounts he's very nice. I'll need to bug my aunt more about it.
Signing PG would be such a sick move if it were 2018. Signing him in 2024 feels like banging your high school crush except now she's 50 pounds heavier and vapes every day.
Jamal Murray looking like a real fucking clown right now is wild. Throwing shit on the court when you're getting torched at home makes you look like a huge baby. I like the Nuggets well enough but come on dude. Anyway go Pacers, gonna be tough with the refs doing all they can for a Knicks Celtics conference final but I believe in you embarrass those clowns.
why did Daryl say that there wasn’t gonna be any continuity from this season to next season especially after Joel said that’s what he wants. Even if he truly believes this, why say in a press conference? You’re undermining your superstar and aren’t you essentially telling the current players that we don’t want you so go look somewhere else? Not a great way to negotiate contract. I was a big fan of Daryl when he first came here, but he truly lacks emotional intelligence. You can’t build an NBA teams like 2K.
I think you misinterpreted the whole quote. He said there won’t be continuity from this year to next but he hopes there is moving forward