NBA Off-Season

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one with thirty-seven million dollars
And that has made all the difference.

 

Wasn’t that a crypto ad from the Super Bowl?

 

Kyrie’s fight song:

 

If you’d invested in sage futures since Kyrie said this, you’d have made 30 cents.

 

The Knicks get nothing and like it

NBA Trade Rumors: Detroit Pistons trade for Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks as New York Knicks dump money for Jalen Brunson pursuit - Detroit Bad Boys

 

Wizards find a point guard

https://www.mlive.com/sports/2022/0...ds-monte-morris-kyle-kuzma-in-washington.html

 

Wizards should have gotten this one:

Sources: Hawks get All-Star Murray from Spurs

Why would Spurs trade Murray? He's homegrown and made the All-Start team (in the West no less, its not like a D'Angelo Russell or David Lee nod). 3 1st rders? So what.

 

The Spurs are going the OKC route. No worse place to be in the NBA than the middle.

 

Thinking about the Hawks, are basketball teams the most fickle around? Last summer, it was all about Bogdan Bogdanovic, "woo hoo, look at how he pairs with Trae!! Bucks really screwed up not getting Bogdan!!" and really he did little to affect the fortunes of either team. He didn't even start for the Hawks. For the Bucks, it wasn't losing out on Bogdan that was a killer, it was losing PJ Tucker (well and Middleton getting hurt).

 

God bless James Harden's confidence in himself for turning down that option.

 

I was just thinking about this and I've got to give him credit for forcing his way out of the NJ circus because of the Kyrie failure to get vaccinated. He wasn't his best in the playoffs no doubt. Declining the option gives the Sixers more flexibility heading into free agency because their cap goes down and they can sign players while holding Harden's Bird rights so he's partly doing it for them based on reports. I don't think he's worth $50M per relative to others but to the franchise, he's likely worth that as opposed to having to somehow re-create his asset.

 

I keep going back and forth on this one. I think ultimately it's probably a pretty good deal for both sides, but with serious drawbacks.

The Spurs feel like they're just locked into the play-in scenario for eternity. They probably felt like they had no real path to get back to contending anytime soon so they pulled the trigger on this. I hate when teams tank and I think it rarely works out, but they needed to do something. This certainly seems to put the Spurs out of the playoffs for the next 2-3 years. Curious how long Pop sticks around to coach a loser.

For the Hawks, this should definitely make them better... but does it allow them to compete with Boston, New Jersey, Miami and Philly? I'm not sure it does, and not having those picks means it's going to be really hard to make any other deals for a few years.