2016-2017 NBA Discussion

[Mentor]

He is playing at SF for us, at PF we are using Randle and Nance. The thing is, he has not been much of a stretch anything, he is missing all his shots, he will probably be better at the PF spot i agree, but with Randle and Nance playing well and us lacking any real SF, we do not have much of an option but to play him there. In our last win against OKC, he did not even play in the 4th quarter, he is slowly being phased out already.

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Okay that makes sense, but yeah I'd say that wasn't a great signing for you guys. I think he was already showing diminished value at the 3 before suddenly last year he seemed to rebound a little bit. But I think that was largely due to him just being a match-up problem at the 4. And if he's playing the 3 it'd make sense that his he's not as good at stretching the floor because most 3's are athletic enough to contest those 3's and still stay in front of him if he decides to put the ball on the floor. They can play up in his grill, where a lot of 4's aren't athletic enough to do so

[Mentor]

He played 4 against GS due to Randle being out and he sucked balls, given it was against one of the best teams in the league but still. We are probably going to struggle against them, we play them back to back and we are missing Russell again for the return game. Ingram got his first start against GS and was very poor, it will be a while before he can be a factor i think. If it was not for his potential he would not even be playing much, he has been one of the worse players in our 10 player rotation so far, not much of a return for a top 2 pick.

[shortfuse122829]

Yeah Draymond would be a 4 that can guard him on the block or perimeter so that's not surprising. There are a ton of 4's he'd probably be a match-up nightmare for though

[Mentor]

I doubt he can be anyone's nightmare at this point in his career. He was pretty good as a slasher in Chicago, i never considered him All Star level though, even though i think he made at least 2 appearances. He was a decent defender as well in that defense orientated team, but he is nothing more than average there now and he offense is pretty much non existent.

[shortfuse122829]

I love Joel Embiid lol. So not only is he up to like 8 straight games w/ 20+ points in less than 30 min (first in NBA history to do so) but he's also got this thing going right now where if he makes the all-star team this year he gets a date w/ Rihanna so two or three times a week he's asking people to help make his celebrity crush come true and vote him to the all-star team lol

[Mentor]

I love Joel Embiid lol. So not only is he up to like 8 straight games w/ 20+ points in less than 30 min (first in NBA history to do so) but he's also got this thing going right now where if he makes the all-star team this year he gets a date w/ Rihanna so two or three times a week he's asking people to help make his celebrity crush come true and vote him to the all-star team lol

 

Well he is lucky he does not play MMA Tycoon because you cant ask anyone to vote for you here, lol. The guy has talent though, that is without much doubt, too bad he lost the first few years of his career due to injury, but you could argue that for a guy that missed most of his first few years in the league, this is one of the best recoveries a player has ever done. I was worrying this guy could end up like Okafor, he was also really highly tooted when he joined but the injuries ruined him.

 

The Lakers are not bad but we wont be making the playoffs, the Cav's and GS are generally playing as i expected and they should be in the finals again. I would say the biggest surprise this year is Houston, they are playing awesome basketball and Harden looks revived. Westbrook has a pretty good chance for a triple double and Davis has had a fantastic season as well. I think Giannis Ade (forget me writing his surname), could be a top 10 player now (i have Greek roots, so that is a pleasant surprise), going to the rim i think he could already be the best player in the league. I also think Durrant's transition is much better and faster than most people expected, he is probably their best player now, another thing most people were not expecting (but i kind of was).

[shortfuse122829]

I saw a stat today that the Sixers defensive efficiency rating when he's on the court is #1 in NBA but #25 in NBA when he's not on the court. They showed the difference between him on the court and when he's not and it was like

 

 

DEF EFF RAT: 86.5 with him & 107.3 without him

 

OPP FG% against with him was 37% and without him 47%

 

OPP FG% within 5 fight from the rim was 46% with him and 60% without him

 

 

And I think opp FG% within 5 ft from the rim w/ him on the court is 28% so he's really solid defensively on top of the 20 pt stretch he's been on

[Mentor]

I never thought he was that good defensively, but those stats are ridiculous. One thing i did not know was that he is from Cameroon and from the same city/town as Luc mbah a moute who apparently discovered him while in Cameroon.

[Mentor]

A lot of hype about Giannis becoming the first ever Greek All Star! I think he is a top 6-7 player in the league at the moment and probably the best inside scorer.

[shortfuse122829]

 

Well he is lucky he does not play MMA Tycoon because you cant ask anyone to vote for you here, lol. The guy has talent though, that is without much doubt, too bad he lost the first few years of his career due to injury, but you could argue that for a guy that missed most of his first few years in the league, this is one of the best recoveries a player has ever done. I was worrying this guy could end up like Okafor, he was also really highly tooted when he joined but the injuries ruined him.

 

The Lakers are not bad but we wont be making the playoffs, the Cav's and GS are generally playing as i expected and they should be in the finals again. I would say the biggest surprise this year is Houston, they are playing awesome basketball and Harden looks revived. Westbrook has a pretty good chance for a triple double and Davis has had a fantastic season as well. I think Giannis Ade (forget me writing his surname), could be a top 10 player now (i have Greek roots, so that is a pleasant surprise), going to the rim i think he could already be the best player in the league. I also think Durrant's transition is much better and faster than most people expected, he is probably their best player now, another thing most people were not expecting (but i kind of was).

 

 

I had an inkling of an idea he was going to be that good defensively. One reason 76ers fans have been dying to see this guy finally is because we've been hearing for the past 2 years from his teammates that he's every bit as good as Okafor offensively but just a little bit better (can make 3's and a better FT shooter). And then he's every bit as good as Noel defensively but probably even better.

 

So as a 76ers fan I know I've fantasized about the idea of somehow merging Noel & Okafor's games into being 1 player because that player would be very good on both sides of the ball. But to think that you could merge those two players and they still wouldn't be as good as Embiid? That was so much hype to live up to you didn't really think it could possibly come to fruition and now it is. Now your only thought is dear god let this guy stay healthy for a while

[Mentor]

Staying healthy is the #1 thing for him, especially in the first year after all those injuries.

[shortfuse122829]

Man if it wasn't for Embiid his teammate Saric might be the ROTY. I believe he's second to JoJo in the rookie stats @ 10 pt & 6 reb in 24 mpg. I wonder if we'd have the 3 best rookies this season if Ben had played since day 1

[Mentor]

Westbrook is the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple double and .....................................he still did not start for the all star team. I love Curry, but based upon performance this year it has not even been close. It should be Harden and Westbrook starting. Also Lillard became the first ever player to average over 25 points per game and not get into the team, I think he most certainly should be in over Thompson. I also hate the new system for picking the all star players based upon 50% the fan vote, 25% the player vote and 25% the coaches votes because end of the day the only thing that matters is what the fans think because they are watching the all star game. The all star game is not an "life achievement award", it is who the fans want to see, so if they want to see Kobe, Wade or any of the other ageing legends, so be it.

[shortfuse122829]

Source: Deal will not complete today. PHI wants to re-engage on bringing Jrue Holiday back to PHI. Trade could expand.

 

— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) February 6, 2017

[shortfuse122829]

yes please

[Mentor]

He had his best days while there + you need a point guard, depends what you will need to give for that.

[Rambo]

Go Heat!

 

 

since the buzzer beater vs Golden State we've been on fire.

[Mentor]

And the Lakers have been sucking balls yet again, i think we have the 3rd worse record in the league and the worse defensive record as well. The biggest issue i see is that i think our young core have gotten a lot of hype, the truth is that none of them are likely future all stars. Randle, Russell, Ingram, Clarkson, Black, Nance, Zubac are all good guys. Some could be decent rotation players, maybe a couple of them could be good starters, but none will be super stars and none will likely be all stars. You cannot make the playoffs with "good guys".

 

The worse part of all this is that we have a pretty good chance of losing our top pick (unless it is a top 3) to the 76ers. We have zero flexibility because our dumb ass GM hired Deng and Mosgov on long term deals, i have no idea how we plan to offload them, i think their value is nothing. They are not even playing recently, so this means that all we have is "hope" our average young core will become great, because that seems to be the only plan.

 

I like the move to bring Magic Johnson in an advisor role, i think he increases our appeal. I like Luke Walton as the coach, at least he is getting the most out of his average base of players, but how i see it, unless we offload the dead wood (Deng and Mosgov) and attract a super star (or 2), then we are basically fucked. I think we could need to offload a bit more (probably Young and Williams) to open up enough space to get 2 stars.

 

I also do not "buy" into Kupchak as being the so called genius GM. He did get us Bynum and Gasol and he did almost pull off the CP3 trade. But this was the guy who chose Russell, Ingram. He is also the guy who offloaded players like Ariza, signed Mosgov and Deng and pulled off the Nash and Howard trades. He had significantly more failures than successes. I do not think Magic is the replacement (that is for sure), but i would consider someone else, he is most certainly not irreplaceable as some Lakers fans make him to be.

[mmagladiators]

And the Lakers have been sucking balls yet again, i think we have the 3rd worse record in the league and the worse defensive record as well. The biggest issue i see is that i think our young core have gotten a lot of hype, the truth is that none of them are likely future all stars. Randle, Russell, Ingram, Clarkson, Black, Nance, Zubac are all good guys. Some could be decent rotation players, maybe a couple of them could be good starters, but none will be super stars and none will likely be all stars. You cannot make the playoffs with "good guys".

 

The worse part of all this is that we have a pretty good chance of losing our top pick (unless it is a top 3) to the 76ers. We have zero flexibility because our dumb ass GM hired Deng and Mosgov on long term deals, i have no idea how we plan to offload them, i think their value is nothing. They are not even playing recently, so this means that all we have is "hope" our average young core will become great, because that seems to be the only plan.

 

I like the move to bring Magic Johnson in an advisor role, i think he increases our appeal. I like Luke Walton as the coach, at least he is getting the most out of his average base of players, but how i see it, unless we offload the dead wood (Deng and Mosgov) and attract a super star (or 2), then we are basically fucked. I think we could need to offload a bit more (probably Young and Williams) to open up enough space to get 2 stars.

 

I also do not "buy" into Kupchak as being the so called genius GM. He did get us Bynum and Gasol and he did almost pull off the CP3 trade. But this was the guy who chose Russell, Ingram. He is also the guy who offloaded players like Ariza, signed Mosgov and Deng and pulled off the Nash and Howard trades. He had significantly more failures than successes. I do not think Magic is the replacement (that is for sure), but i would consider someone else, he is most certainly not irreplaceable as some Lakers fans make him to be.

Jerry West to the rescue

 

i do agree with most of what you say but, Ingram and Russell have potential to be stars, however they need a lot of work, Especially Ingram.

 

also dont agree with the whole Kupchak being a bad GM, in your eyes. no one saaw nash being that bad.. or the D 12 injuries.

[Mentor]

Nash was almost 40 when they picked him up and they gave away serious long term assets to sign him. He already had health issues when they signed him, so although nobody could predict the issues he ended up having, the writing was on the wall.

 

Ingram is a very raw product, people were saying he is the new Durrant. I do not see where the comparisons are, other than the body type and ball handling. I do not like the stroke on his shooting, he also shoots the ball way too low, almost at his face/elbow level. Also when attacking the rim he does not attack with power, he also hangs way too long which is why his shots are contested most the time. He needs a lot of work for sure. Russell is a good passer and has size for his position, but in this day and age, everyone has size. He is not very fast, not explosive, his shot is very flat and he has poor shot selection in general. Put it this way, for a #2 pick he is nothing special. I think both players could become solid starters, but at this point in time they are long term projects and it will take a good 2-3 years of proper development to get anywhere with them. The Lakers cannot afford to waste another 3 years developing "maybe good" types of players.

 

West could come back actually, his contract with GS ends in June or July, but the guy is 78y, so no idea what you can expect from him at that age.

[shortfuse122829]

This is exactly why the 76ers didn't sign many veterans the last few years & were right not too. The Lakers overpaid for Mozgov & Deng in an effort to not be bottom feeders and really handicapped your ability to bring in help without offloading Ingram, Russell or Clarkson to get something in return now. Turning that mess into a championship contender is going to take a lot of work.

 

 

Where we finally brought in a few vets on like 3yr/24mil dollar deals for Bayless & Henderson. A 1yr/8mil deal for Sergio Rodriguez. We got OKC to give us a 1st round pick to take Illyasova who's been our 2nd best player this year.

 

We're 14-10 in our last 24 games (half those w/o Embiid & Simmons hasn't played all year) we potentially get the LAL pick. We can swap our pick with the Kings pick & have two 1st rounders in every drat thru 2020

[Mentor]

The 76ers are in a MUCH better position overall. For one, you have a potential superstar, I mean very few people would argue Embiid is that type of level or at least an all-star calibre player. The only problem I see with him is that he is very injury prone, but if he can stay healthy, he should be a long-term cornerstone type of player, at the very least a top 6-7 center. You still have no idea what Simmon's can do, but the guy is highly recommended going into the draft and most people expect him to be at least solid. You also have plenty of good young assets you can trade (Okafor, Noel etc), all on small contracts and easy to move around. With all those picks you have, even a total idiot can figure out something.

 

The Lakers are screwed and this is why:

 

There is only really 4 ways you can develop your franchise, #1 via player development (the root the Spurs take), #2 via the draft or #3 via free agency, #4 via trades (assuming you accumulated assets). The Lakers have limited options in all 4 departments.

 

#1 Our core of players although young, do not have super-star or all-star potential. I think Randle, Clarkson, Russell, Nance, Ingram etc are ok to good players, some could become starters, so they are rotation material. Even if Walton ends up being a fantastic development type of coach, he is still very limited to what he can do without real talent, so we cannot grow significantly via player development. With the assets we have now, the best we can hope is a top 8 spot and first round exit in the playoffs.

 

#2 We have no real chance via the draft because although we are ranked one of the worse teams in the league, you guys will likely get our pick this year and Orlando has our next first rounder (because we are idiots and gave away that pick in the Howard trade). So development via the draft is not an option for the next 2 years at least.

 

#3 A lot of hype is connected towards Magic joining us, they say he can attract FA's. How do we plan to pay them? Deng and Mosgov take up almost 50% of the cap now and they are locked up for 3 or 4 years! They are already in their 30s and had terrible years, so nobody is dumb enough to take those contracts on, without accepting draft picks or other assets (which we do not have). I know the cap will increase, but it increases for everyone, so developing via the Free agency (which was always our plan in the past), is almost impossible. At best we can sign 1 marque player, but who is stupid enough to join the Lakers with this current situation?

 

#4 We do have some limited options via trading, the Williams and Young countracts are good, we could offload them to some playoff team this year for some picks or some younger players. I guess we could bundle some of the younger players to get a super star or we could bundle some of them together with the Deng / Mosgov contracts to try and create cap space. I think there are some options via this root.

 

If i was the Lakers, i would seriously consider buying out (if that is even possible) Deng / Mosgov or at least one of them (probably Deng). That will free up some more cap space for 2 marque players. That is a huge hit for the owners (over 120m for both of them), but it will make us legitimate fast. We still need to come up with a strong pitch to sign those 2 super stars, but if we had 2 top notch players, together with our young core + players like Young and Williams (both getting old, but still good players and on decent 7m per year contracts). Then we could become significant quickly. If we cannot offload those 2 contracts though, i think the Lakers will be in a tough position for the next 4-5 years.

[shortfuse122829]

#TrustTheProcess

 

Yeah we're definitely in a much better position. I honestly used to get very frustrated sometimes with the national perception of our team. I mean I get the argument against tanking don't get me wrong, but I liked most of the moves that Sam Hinkie made when he was running our organization. Because I think the alternative was doing what the Lakers did this past off-season. When all of this first started we traded

 

Jrue Holiday to Pelicans for

 

Nerleans Noel and the draft pick that became Eflrid Payton. Then we traded to Payton to the Magic for Dario Saric and a future 1st round pick. (Saric probably wins ROTY this year imo if Embiid keeps sitting).

 

 

Okay so after this trade you knew Noel wasn't going to play this season so what do you do? Go out and pay a Mozgov TYPE player 4yr/72 mil to come in and fill in for a season so you can win 25 games instead of 19?

 

That was 13-14 and MCW won the ROTY that year and it wasn't long after that we traded him to the Bucks for the LAL (top 5 and then top 3 protected) pick we're still waiting on.

 

 

 

Can't remember if that was a 3-way trade of some sort or if they just already owned that Laker pick but either way. So this was always 1 of the biggest arguments to our tanking. MCW was young and won ROTY and was the best player on the team that year and we traded him away in most people's mind so we could continue to collect top 3 picks. And in one way that is somewhat true, we knew we needed more guys who could turn into potential superstars and we know that drafting top 3 is your best chance at doing it. But that trade also happened because Hinkie is an Analytics nut and in the #'s tell him that today's NBA the majority of your points are scored at the rim, from the 3-pt line and from the FT line. MCW was good at getting to the rim, but shot 33% from more than 3 feet away from the basket in his rookie season so players started to just give a big cushion and dare him to shoot the ball. So he was extremely inefficient and Hinkie didn't think he was a top 20 caliber PG in the NBA (which it seems he was right) so to him we won that trade because we're probably going to end up with a top 7 pick at some point.

 

 

That next draft we take Joel Embiid @ #3 and Dario Saric at #10

 

 

Again this is another one of the big arguments I would hear for our tanking. You're coming off the worst record in the league and you draft two players that aren't going to play for your team during the next NBA season. My first response to that is we were unlucky (or maybe it'll turn out we were actually lucky) not only didn't we pick #1 that year w/ Cleveland jumping from 7th worst record to #1 pick but we didn't even pick #2 that year because the Bucks did. If we had picked #1 there is no doubt we would've taken Andrew Wiggins because that's who we were reportedly interested in all season & I believe we even tried to make the Cle/Min trade a 3-way to try to get Wiggins as well. But we picked #3 and due to Embiid's injury before the draft I'm pretty sure whoever picked #3 that year was going to end up with him. Everybody said going into that draft it was a draft that had 3 potential cornerstone pieces and then there was a big drop off. As it turns out picking Jabori Parker hasn't worked out much better. The other really hyped guys that draft were Julius Randle who's turned into a nice player but he also missed most of his rookie season with an injury. Also Dante Exum was another, is he even still in the NBA? So as far as drafting Joel I don't think we really had another choice and he looks to be a potential cornerstone player if he can stay healthy.

 

The Saric part I would say was a little bit of tanking because you could've kept Payton and even though he's just an okay player you would've at least had a young PG but I don't think we really wanted him because we viewed him like MCW as a guy who wasn't a top 20 PG in the NBA and didn't fit into today's game with how Hinkie views it w/ analytics where we thought Dario would develop into a really nice stretch 4 so we stashed him overseas. Overall I'm still fine w/ this move because I think we win that trade. You get the better player imo and a 1st round pick.

 

 

The next draft we take Jahlil Okafor @ #3 and then two other guys late in the 1st round.

 

This is the 1 spot where I would say Hinkie MAYBE made a mistake. Taking a 3rd C when you already had Embiid & Noel when you could've taken Mudiay or Hezonja or Devin Booker or Justice Winslow. To be fair though at this point we had already been hit by bad luck again. Joel Embiid grew 2 or 3 inches that year and the screws that had been put in his surgically repaired foot had to be removed and new screws had to be put in because his growth spurt fucked his recover up. So instead of only missing 1 season he ended up missing 2. Hinkie will say he took Okafor because he viewed him as the best player available, a potential 20 & 10 guy that could either be our future C if Joel couldn't get or stay healthy or it gave him a really nice asset that he could use with some of the picks we'd acquired to get a superstar guard. I don't know that any of the guys I listed earlier are better than Okafor w/ the exception of Booker but a lot of other teams missed on him as well. I would say the mistake Hinkie made here was overvaluing Okafor and also the bind he would put himself in because teams KNOW we have to trade one of these guys so they can come in w/ low-ball offers.

 

 

 

Also one of the reasons that we didn't go out and sign too many veterans during this span was two-fold. He didn't want to overpay guys in an effort to compete for the 8th seed and handcuff himself down the road when he was close to being a contender to be able to bring someone in to put him over the top. The second reason was because it gave him the space to make moves at the deadline like this

 

 

As the Denver Nuggets continue to attempt to offload veterans and salary as part of a rebuilding project, they traded JaVale McGee to the Philadelphia 76ers, the Nuggets announced Thursday.

 

To do this deal, the 76ers will acquire the Oklahoma City Thunder's 2015 first-round pick, which the Nuggets got in an earlier trade for Timofey Mozgov. That pick is top-18 protected, and if it rolls to next year it would be lottery protected.

 

 

Sacramento is trading Jason Thompson and Carl Landry as part of a salary dump to the Philadelphia 76ers, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.

 

The Kings are sending Nik Stauskus to the 76ers as part of the deal too, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.

11:09 PM - 1 Jul 2015

Sixers will receive a protected 1st-round pick from the Kings, and swap rights w/ Sacto in the 1st round of two other drafts, sources say.

In this trade you get a young player Sacramento gave up on after 1 season in Stauskas that you can potentially develop and then you also get picks in return for taking salary. Stauskas has actually developed into a decent rotational piece for us and is shooting 37.6% from 3 point this year. So right now we're not going to swap picks w/ the Kings because we have 21 wins and they have 24 wins so our pick is the better pick for now. But that pick is only protected 11-30 so anything in the top 10 if we have a better record we can swap with them. We also have their 1st round pick in 2019 I think or the right to swap that year which if they give up on Boogey and rebuild isn't going to be a bad pick to have tbh. I know we also took flyers on guys like Thomas Robinson in trades where we took young players we hoped to develop or draft picks in return for eating salary

But if you were to ask me if I could go back and re-do the last few years the ONLY decision that Hinkie made that I would do differently is I would draft Devin Booker at #3 instead of Okafor. That'd be it.

[mmagladiators]

76ers tanked, lakers didnt... at the end of the day lakers are worth 3 billion dollars and 76ers arent worth 1 billion... and at the end of the day its a business and both teams still have a future.