2017-2018 NBA Season Thread [Archived] Basketball • Page 249

Houston is the best team in the league that I don’t trust attttttttt alllllllll in the playoffs.

 

I've been cheering Houston lately, and I'm big on Harden and Capela, but I'm always down on Chris Paul and I think they get bounced in the second round by the Spurs or something

 

You know it’s a rough game when mbah moute is hitting threes

 

their style of gameplay is so fucking boring, i hope they get bounced round 1

 

Here's my Cavs rant since I have not been in this thread much this season. Sometimes staying away is for the best haha. Sorry for the rant.

For various (mostly cap and competitive) reasons the options for Cleveland were limited. They played bad defense last year and made up for it until the finals. I still think given the situation, the Boston trade was about as good as they could have expected. That said, Gilbert has a lot to do with that being the case. We should never have been in a position where our front office was largely overhauled at the decision-making levels and ultimately unable to manage the Kyrie situation. The doubt that stems from that will be a factor in LeBron next summer. Altman made some interesting and affordable additions, but he was working against the cap in free agency and had limited trade assets.

On a playing level, Crowder has been bad defensively. He doesn't really have a role on offense and so I think that plays a factor in the defensive being down on an individual level. The team pretty much doesn't practice at this point, so there is no fixing some issues (team or individually) behind closed doors. Everything is on the fly and Lue is largely sticking to his guns. The local media has been saying that they have figured their issues out before, but this team has essentially played worse defense and lost Kyrie's scoring ability (and focus from opposing defenses). That's a bad recipe. We said in theory IT could help mitigate that scoring loss, but in crunch time in the playoffs, you probably aren't playing him anyway, so the problem remains.

Maybe we should still give them the benefit of the doubt, but I think Cleveland fans need to be honest with themselves. The even worse defense and the lack of scoring options beyond LeBron are glaring issues. Then you get into the age and the rest of the roster makeup and the problems grow. Players like JR having down years only compounds things. Things can be turned around and hope they do, but I have serious doubts.

 

fuck, i feel bad for kemba

orlando should offer their first and simmons

 

Well, that's what happens when the front office is incompetent at drafting and giving out contracts. A rebuild is necessary and Kemba is our only valuable asset. It sucks to move him but it kinda has to be done. If we don't trade him and he walks for nothing the franchise is in big trouble. If we trade him for a few nice assets then there's still a little hope. But if the front office stays the same none of this matters because they can't be trusted with a rebuild.

 

trade kemba and marvin for simmons, augustin and orlando’s first. orlando 100% does it to pair kemba with gordon and vuc, and charlotte gets two top 10 picks that they can pair to maybe get a top 3 pick and center the franchise around Bagley/Ayton

 

god dammit

we need him for the sixers rivalry if we lose to the sixers i’ll probably never go online again (for the rest of the weekend)

 

Kemba trade idea. Link, plus 1st rounder (either their's, thunder's or Wolves')

 

everything that's come out about it has made it seem the hornets are looking to pair kemba as a sweetener with a salary dump, which leads me to think any team taking kemba would have to take MKG or Williams too

 

Gonna have to read about so many bad trade ideas until the deadline

 

MKG expires this year, so I don't think that one matters. But Marvin Williams is definitely a contract they should try to unload.

 

Williams and Batum will be the guys they try to package with Kemba.

 

What's the motive for tanking teams to get rid of bad contracts? If you going to lose, it doesn't really matter. Is it just not wanting to pay that much to lose?

That being said... I'm look at some of these Hornets contracts and... Good God.

 

i mean, the goal is to eventually get out of the tank haha. if you can't bring in free agents or have room for trade assets because you're pressed for cap space, you're gonna be ... well ... brooklyn, hahaha

 

Trade whatever you need to get rid of Teague, thibs.

Kemba and MKG's contract should be a goal. What would Charlotte want?

 

someone i could get behind the bucks landing

 

Brooklyn got trapped mainly because of trading all their picks awayin combination with giving bad contracts to aging players with the goal of winning a championship. Most teams trying to tank understand its going to be at least 2-3 seasons before there is a flicker of hope and signing free agents. By the time they’ve acquired young assets any bad contracts are about to expire, so they’d be off the books or easy to trade. If you keep giving out bad contracts it’s dumb, but taking on or keeping a few at the start of tank isn’t really hurting.

 

Brooklyn has been doing that recently where they'll take a bad contract off your hand, but you gotta give them a pick or something. They did it a couple times this offseason.

 

They’re smartly taking on bad contracts to pick up young assets. It still blows my mind that they still don’t own their own pick this year haha.

 

That batum deal is horrid. Hindsight they had to pay him or lose him, but his production doesn’t come close to his price.