Running NBA offseason/come join us Lebron! thread

Mets, Jets and Nets a disaster? Knicks: Hold my beer.

What a mess. Jax was awful at this job. Many more 50-loss seasons ahead.

 

The Chris Paul trade makes no sense to me at all, on any level. Crazy.

 

I don't entirely get the move. Paul is an upgrade, but did anyone look at the Rockets and think a scoring point guard was what they were missing? And they give up a lot in this deal.

 

I think you meant any player not on the Warriors.

 

I don't get it either. But it's going to be fun to watch what D'Antoni has in mind for them.

 

Yeah, D'Antoni is certainly the right coach for this experiment. And the narrative from the Houston brass was that Harden was overused and broke down during the season. This would seem to alleviate that problem.

Have to imagine there are more moves coming. Maybe Paul was intended to entice a big-name free agent.

 

One fun side note -- the 2018 free agent free-for-all between the Lakers and Clippers could be amazing.

 

I also love that Morey felt the need to put top-three protection on the draft pick. I suppose Paul and Harden could both die during the season.

 

I don't consider Chris Paul to be a "scoring point guard", at least not in the same sense as these other shoot-first points that have come in vogue in recent years. Instead, I see him as sorta the last of the old school pass-first "pure" points to be a star in the League, as well as probably the best defensive point in the world over the last decade-plus. After all, this is a guy best known for how many times he's led the league in steals and assists, not his scoring numbers.

I don't think they'll have any problems with shot allocation. The better question is how Paul and Harden will deal with reducing their ball usage time to accommodate the other. Both are used to running the show and having the ball more than anyone else on their team. Obviously both can't be that any longer.

 

Yes, Harden was essentially the point guard on that team on the offensive end—I did not know until looking it up that he led the NBA in assists last year with 11.2 per game. I suppose he slides back into a wing role, but it seems to change what made Houston interesting offensively. Of course the Spurs seemed to solve it quite well in the Western Conference semis.

 

Why do I have a feeling Phil will be back with the Lakers in a couple years, or at least with Jeanie Buss? Probably won't happen, but he's gotta salvage his career somehow.

 

He's 71 years old, has more money than he can imagine, and coached 10 championships. He doesn't have to salvage anything.