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NBA 2023-24


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17 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Durant gonna ask for another trade.  

Maybe he'll go to a team with 2-3 of his friends.  They'll all be wing players.  No depth.  He'll wonder why he can't win there and then go somewhere else.

Clippers, you are describing the Clippers 

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1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Durant gonna ask for another trade.  

Maybe he'll go to a team with 2-3 of his friends.  They'll all be wing players.  No depth.  He'll wonder why he can't win there and then go somewhere else.

I mean, you're not wrong: he has to wear some of this. As much shit as LeBron gets for his movements and GM skills, KD has been much worse. Hitched his wagon to Kyrie by following him to Brooklyn, brought in his friend washed DeAndre Jordan at the expense of Jared Allen, told the Nets to go get Harden, demanded a trade unless Nash (his guy from Golden State) was fired, rescinded that trade request, demanded another trade request after Nash was ultimately fired, then signed off on going all in on Bradley fucking Beal and his redundant skillset at the expense of any and all depth.

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2 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Suns Reddit is hilarious

2f5b0873ab310ed0902a107bdb8779b6.jpg

Everybody: we lost that series

Suns Reddit is usually terrible and they deleted their subreddit 2 years ago when the Mavs wiped the floor with them in game 7.

But I agree with the premise of that post. If the Suns took care of business at home like they did last year, the series is back on. And unlike last year, you are playing an inexperienced Minnesota team who could get rattled losing 2 in a row unlike Denver. I think Minnesota wins the series because this Suns team is extremely flawed and is ugly to watch on offense. But series can change when they change venues. Curious how Minnesota plays on the road.

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5 hours ago, aggie08 said:

I mean, you're not wrong: he has to wear some of this. As much shit as LeBron gets for his movements and GM skills, KD has been much worse. Hitched his wagon to Kyrie by following him to Brooklyn, brought in his friend washed DeAndre Jordan at the expense of Jared Allen, told the Nets to go get Harden, demanded a trade unless Nash (his guy from Golden State) was fired, rescinded that trade request, demanded another trade request after Nash was ultimately fired, then signed off on going all in on Bradley fucking Beal and his redundant skillset at the expense of any and all depth.

You forgot the veiled trade request earlier this year but that about covers it.  In all fairness to LeBron, though, he won titles with three different teams.  Durant won with GS, who won before he got there and after he left. 

As far as pure basketball talent, Durant might be on Mt Rushmore.  If it's just one on one scoring ability, I'd take him over anyone today.  Might be the best pure scorer in NBA history.  However, his self awareness and leadership are subpar.  You can take a pass on the leadership but the self awareness is the thing.  No one besides him thought the Phoenix thing would work and now he's stuck there.  He's like a rich guy in a bad marriage with no prenup.  He just needs to make it work somehow.

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Suns Reddit is usually terrible and they deleted their subreddit 2 years ago when the Mavs wiped the floor with them in game 7.
But I agree with the premise of that post. If the Suns took care of business at home like they did last year, the series is back on. And unlike last year, you are playing an inexperienced Minnesota team who could get rattled losing 2 in a row unlike Denver. I think Minnesota wins the series because this Suns team is extremely flawed and is ugly to watch on offense. But series can change when they change venues. Curious how Minnesota plays on the road.

Booker shot out of his mind. Like 85% and averaged almost 40 points. All 3 of their players are going to need to be clicking at an efficiency rate to win. Wolves have clearly more size, youth and depth by large margins.

And I don’t get this “inexperienced” crap. We have playoff/play in experience the last 2 years albeit first round exits but It’s not like this is our first bout with this core.

Suns are gonna show out Friday. In their wins they destroy us in the first. If it’s close/ wolves lead after the 1Q, wolves will wear em down. If the suns are up 8-10 and the 3 are clicking….gonna be a long night for us.

Their big 3 played the entire 3rd and most of the 4th last night and they lost ground even with ant on the bench. They have no depth, none. Nurk has honestly been their best player outside of KDs game 1
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Phoenix has a very flawed roster and the last thing they needed was an injury to Allen. But let’s see what happens when they get home. It always amazes me how much better the role players play at home in the playoffs vs on the road. 

Also, the refs obviously call the games differently in the playoffs and there’s been a big difference post all star break anyway, but holy isolation ball batman there is some ugly ass offense being played. What happened to pace and space? Look at all these scores in the 90s and low 100s. Good looks are much tougher to come by these days it seems. 

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9 hours ago, aggie08 said:

brought in his friend washed DeAndre Jordan at the expense of Jared Allen,

Um. No. They traded JA to get Harden. And likely would have won the title in '21 if Kyrie doesn't get hurt. 

9 hours ago, aggie08 said:

then signed off on going all in on Bradley fucking Beal and his redundant skillset at the expense of any and all depth.

Beal didn't cost them any depth. It cost them picks and a luxury tax bill. PHO depth is better this season than it was last season. With a straight face you're going to tell me you'd take CP, Ayton and Shamet over Beal, Nurkic and Allen? They won 4 more games than they did last season against a tougher conference.

i.e. you have no idea what you're talking about. Congrats.

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Phoenix has a very flawed roster and the last thing they needed was an injury to Allen. But let’s see what happens when they get home. It always amazes me how much better the role players play at home in the playoffs vs on the road. 
Also, the refs obviously call the games differently in the playoffs and there’s been a big difference post all star break anyway, but holy isolation ball batman there is some ugly ass offense being played. What happened to pace and space? Look at all these scores in the 90s and low 100s. Good looks are much tougher to come by these days it seems. 

I was looking at that last night… points are definitely at a premium. Good to see
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1 hour ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

Phoenix has a very flawed roster and the last thing they needed was an injury to Allen. But let’s see what happens when they get home. It always amazes me how much better the role players play at home in the playoffs vs on the road. 

I feel like they could give Bol Bol a little run. He had some really impressive games in the regular season.

8 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

And unlike last year, you are playing an inexperienced Minnesota team who could get rattled losing 2 in a row unlike Denver.

I agree it's a different matchup but Minny is really good.

2 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

They have no depth, none.

Their depth looks better when their best player isn't complete ass. Booker needs to be better - it's basically that simple. When he's playing well they have enough on their roster to win playoff games.

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41 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Beal didn't cost them any depth. It cost them picks and a luxury tax bill. PHO depth is better this season than it was last season. With a straight face you're going to tell me you'd take CP, Ayton and Shamet over Beal, Nurkic and Allen? They won 4 more games than they did last season against a tougher conference.

i.e. you have no idea what you're talking about. Congrats.

Maybe not their immediate depth with players in that trade, but they have very little to build with in the future being a second apron team. I think it's fair to say that this 2023/24 team is likely the best they will have during KD's time with the Suns.  There are some new rules around luxury tax spending teams, and it puts some serious limitations on their roster building options (plus losing all those picks). The Suns in 2024/25 are projected to be over the Second Apron by 17m and then have 38m in cap holds for their free agents. They will be unable to do much of anything to improve significantly. They also have 188m committed to 2025/26, so it's going to be quite the balancing act to improve or make trades. 

New CBA rules:

What are the penalties for the first apron?

The first apron hits when a team's payroll exceeds $172 million. At this point, the following restrictions are triggered:

  • Teams cannot acquire a player in a sign-and-trade if that player keeps them above the apron
  • Teams cannot sign a player waived during the regular season whose salary was over the $12.2 million midlevel exception
  • Salary matching in trades must be within 110 percent, rather than 125 percent for teams not above the apron

What are the penalties for the second apron? 

All of the penalties for the first apron apply to the second apron as well, which is triggered when a team's salary exceeds $182.5 million. For the 2023-24 season, one additional penalty is added when crossing the second apron:

  • No access to the $5 million taxpayer midlevel exception

Starting at the end of the 2023-24 season, even more restrictions will be added to the second apron. These include:

  • Teams cannot use a trade exception generated by aggregating the salaries of multiple players
  • Teams cannot include cash in a trade
  • Teams cannot use a trade exception generated in a prior year
  • First-round picks seven years out are frozen (unable to be traded)
  • A team's first-round pick is moved to the end of the first round if they remain in the second apron for three out of five seasons

 

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1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Um. No. They traded JA to get Harden. And likely would have won the title in '21 if Kyrie doesn't get hurt. 

Apologies, forgot that Allen and Jordan did actually play together during Durant's injury year. But the writing was in the wall that they weren't going to re-sign Allen when they brought in Jordan for 4 years at KD's behest. Allen was getting traded in 2020 with or without Harden. They obviously weren't going to commit $30M to centers in 2021.

 

1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Beal didn't cost them any depth. It cost them picks and a luxury tax bill. PHO depth is better this season than it was last season. With a straight face you're going to tell me you'd take CP, Ayton and Shamet over Beal, Nurkic and Allen? They won 4 more games than they did last season against a tougher conference.

Beal cost them any and all reasonable mechanisms to acquire quality depth now and in the future. Not exactly a controversial take. Which would be fine if a core of KD/Booker/Beal could be legit championship contenders. But they're not. They gave up a haul and destroyed their cap flexibility for a C-tier star.

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20 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Apologies, forgot that Allen and Jordan did actually play together during Durant's injury year. But the writing was in the wall that they weren't going to re-sign Allen when they brought in Jordan for 4 years at KD's behest. Allen was getting traded in 2020 with or without Harden. They obviously weren't going to commit $30M to centers in 2021.

 

Beal cost them any and all reasonable mechanisms to acquire quality depth now and in the future. Not exactly a controversial take. Which would be fine if a core of KD/Booker/Beal could be legit championship contenders. But they're not. They gave up a haul and destroyed their cap flexibility for a C-tier star.

Yeah, Beal is guaranteed $57M in 2027 for God's sake and he played 53 games this year, which is the most since 2020.

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Their depth looks better when their best player isn't complete ass. Booker needs to be better - it's basically that simple. When he's playing well they have enough on their roster to win playoff games.

Royce O’Neal, the shell of Eric Gordon and Drew Eubanks aren’t serious depth pieces. Grayson Allen and Nurk are literally their depth but they’re both starters.

Their big 3 played all of the 3rdQ and all started the 4th. Minny pulled away with the lead because mcdaniels had free rein of layups.

That was all with edwards sitting out the start of the 4th.

Yea if Booker is in mode, Phoenix is a threat to win. They’ve gotten destroyed by Denver last year and MIN so far tho is year
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@ztejas I'm not sure how you can say the depth doesn't look that bad when they just played Drew fucking Eubanks 17 non-garbage time minutes in a playoff game.

The Beal trade wasn't bad, all things considered. Since Phoenix had already given up all their future picks and swaps for Durant, the only thing they had left to trade were some second rounders and swaps on swaps. Meaning, they essentially gave Washington rights to the worse end of a swap that somebody else could potentially exercise. Sloppy seconds swaps, as it were. Based on the Bullets storied history and their current plan of tearing the franchise down to the studs, what are the odds that they get anything out of that? And Washington had no other option because of the idiotic no trade clause Beal had.

But all that goes to the larger point that Phoenix has hardly any options to improve that roster. It took the Knicks almost 15 years to recover from Isiah Thomas gutting their future and putting them in cap hell, and that was before the luxury tax was even marginally punitive. Phoenix will end up keeping their own pick this year, but otherwise don't have control of their own first round pick until 2031. Other than getting ring chasing vets on the minimum or trying to unearth some hidden gems from the g-league or Europe who also would play for the minimum, there aren't many opportunities to improve that roster.

They have a very rapidly closing window that wasn't very wide to begin with, and once it's shut they are going to have to fire sale whatever they can get for Booker and the ghost of Kevin Durant. They are going to look a lot like what Brooklyn does about now sooner rather than later.

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6 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:


Booker shot out of his mind. Like 85% and averaged almost 40 points. All 3 of their players are going to need to be clicking at an efficiency rate to win. Wolves have clearly more size, youth and depth by large margins.

And I don’t get this “inexperienced” crap. We have playoff/play in experience the last 2 years albeit first round exits but It’s not like this is our first bout with this core.

Suns are gonna show out Friday. In their wins they destroy us in the first. If it’s close/ wolves lead after the 1Q, wolves will wear em down. If the suns are up 8-10 and the 3 are clicking….gonna be a long night for us.

Their big 3 played the entire 3rd and most of the 4th last night and they lost ground even with ant on the bench. They have no depth, none. Nurk has honestly been their best player outside of KDs game 1

The 2 games the Suns won last year against the Nuggets had KD and Booker both going bananas.  They averaged 79 ppg between the 2 of them for those 2 games.  Not sustainable at all, but that's how they steal a game or two in a series.

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3 hours ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

@ztejas I'm not sure how you can say the depth doesn't look that bad when they just played Drew fucking Eubanks 17 non-garbage time minutes in a playoff game.

The Beal trade wasn't bad, all things considered. Since Phoenix had already given up all their future picks and swaps for Durant, the only thing they had left to trade were some second rounders and swaps on swaps. Meaning, they essentially gave Washington rights to the worse end of a swap that somebody else could potentially exercise. Sloppy seconds swaps, as it were. Based on the Bullets storied history and their current plan of tearing the franchise down to the studs, what are the odds that they get anything out of that? And Washington had no other option because of the idiotic no trade clause Beal had.

But all that goes to the larger point that Phoenix has hardly any options to improve that roster. It took the Knicks almost 15 years to recover from Isiah Thomas gutting their future and putting them in cap hell, and that was before the luxury tax was even marginally punitive. Phoenix will end up keeping their own pick this year, but otherwise don't have control of their own first round pick until 2031. Other than getting ring chasing vets on the minimum or trying to unearth some hidden gems from the g-league or Europe who also would play for the minimum, there aren't many opportunities to improve that roster.

They have a very rapidly closing window that wasn't very wide to begin with, and once it's shut they are going to have to fire sale whatever they can get for Booker and the ghost of Kevin Durant. They are going to look a lot like what Brooklyn does about now sooner rather than later.

Watch OKC offer some package of firsts and players (not the big 3) and nab him after next season.  Suns then restart with that and Booker or trade Booker and restart with all of that.

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2 hours ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Watch OKC offer some package of firsts and players (not the big 3) and nab him after next season.  Suns then restart with that and Booker or trade Booker and restart with all of that.

Kinda where I'm at. What are the chances he ends up back in OKC in the next year or two? At least 40% yeah?

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Boston is for sure going to win the series and most likely this game, but they haven't faced any adversity whatsoever this year.  In general, you want your team to learn those lessons in the regular season but they were so busy beating the crap out of everybody that you just don't know how they are going to respond.

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12 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

Boston is for sure going to win the series and most likely this game, but they haven't faced any adversity whatsoever this year.  In general, you want your team to learn those lessons in the regular season but they were so busy beating the crap out of everybody that you just don't know how they are going to respond.

I'll be surprised to see celtics pull out a win tonight.  Their defense and rebounding has not been good tonight, while the Heat are on 🔥🔥🔥 shooting. 

Heat defense awesome and team discipline better.  Bam" Adebayo has been unstoppable.

 

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16 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

Boston is for sure going to win the series and most likely this game, but they haven't faced any adversity whatsoever this year.  In general, you want your team to learn those lessons in the regular season but they were so busy beating the crap out of everybody that you just don't know how they are going to respond.

Also replying 17 minutes later with the Heat up 9 with a minute left to tell you Boston probably won't win 

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Just now, CurlyDumps said:

My God, they're really gonna steal one. Boston was like a 14 pt favorite.

Heat totally controlled this game in the 2nd half.  Crazy, but celtics may be feeling the fear of struggles vs Heat from 2023 playoffs.

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9 minutes ago, LTtxfan said:

Erik Spoelstra is a helluva coach and the Heat organization is top shelf.  

He really is. Playoff basketball against the Heat is always a battle. I didnt think they stood much of a chance against this Boston squad without Jimmy, but I was wrong. 

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