#TheStormIsComing | Nashville Expansion Story Pt. 2 | NBA 2K18

[orlegend0208]

Expansion Draft Night

We went into the Expansion Draft with a lot of optimism. The Draft Lottery that took place on July 2nd turned out in our favor as we finished with the 4th Pick in the draft. As you're probably aware, expansion teams can get either the 4th or the 5th pick. Luckily, we were awarded the 4th pick while Seattle was awarded the 5th pick.

Then, for the Expansion Draft, we were awarded the 1st Pick. So, we had free reign over who we were going to select with our pick.

We narrowed our top pick down to four players: SG-Evan Fournier from Orlando, PG-Jordan Clarkson from the Lakers, C-Cody Zeller from Charlotte, and PF-Montrezl Harrel from the Clippers.

Ultimately, we felt that the best move here was to select Evan Fournier with the 1st pick.

Seattle went with Zeller and Clarkson, in that order, for the 2nd and 3rd picks of the Draft.

We were up again with the 4th and 5th overall picks. Harrell was still on the board, so we chose him with the 4th overall pick. With the 5th overall pick, we chose Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, the 22 year old SG from the Philadelphia 76ers. At that moment, if we decided to stick with both Fournier and Luwawu-Cabarrot, the plan was to move Fournier to SF.

With our next set of picks, we chose SF Glenn Robinson III from the Pacers and PG Dejounte Murray from the Spurs.

Finally, we nailed our starting lineup in place with our 6th pick as we chose Center, Tyson Chandler from the Suns.


Our front office felt very optimistic about our draft. The goal going in was to primarily draft young players under the age of 25 and add some vets into the mix to provide leadership, mentoring, and experience.

Mr. Price was content with slowly building the team up into a contender... Because of course he was. He can't be fired or replaced since he owns the damn team. But, I'm replaceable and so is our coaching staff.

In this profession, you have to win if you want to keep your job. And that's exactly what I intended to do.

I had some moves up my sleeve to quickly turn us into a contender.

Expansion Draft Results.PNG
After Expansion Depth Chart.PNG

[orlegend0208]

Draft Night Recap

Our front office had tireless discussions over what we would do here with the 4th pick.

Since we were an expansion team, we were going into our selection with the best player available mindset. However, this was one of the deepest drafts in recent memory, so we could go many different ways with our pick.

To start with, we had Markelle Fultz at the top of our draft board... Just like many other teams.

I knew I'd be stunned if we landed him.

Next, we had Lonzo Ball. Talent wise, I think he'll be a star, but some of our staff don't want the distraction that comes with the Ball family. Completely understandable.

Following those two, we had Josh Jackson and Jayson Tatum. Really we didn't have much of a preference between the two. Eventually, both will be NBA All-Stars so it was a win-win for us if we landed one of them.

So, our first pick was going to be one of those four players. But obviously, the question was, which one?

The Lakers lucked out big time and jumped from 3rd to 1st in the Draft Lottery... Adam Silver got the night rolling as he announced the Lakers' 1st pick, "With the 1st pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers select... Markelle Fultz, from the University of Washington."

The Celtics had the best odds at the #1 pick thanks to f****** Brooklyn, but they slid back to the #2 pick. It was obvious to me they were going to pick either Josh Jackson or Jayson Tatum. Why would they go with Lonzo Ball when they have Isaiah Thomas as their PG?

"With the 2nd pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics select... Josh Jackson, from the University of Kansas."

So now we were down to two players who we'd pick with our #4 selection... Either Lonzo Ball or Jayson Tatum. Surely, the Magic would pick one of those two with the 3rd pick.

"With the 3rd pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, the Orlando Magic select... Lonzo Ball from UCLA."

So there it was, Jayson Tatum would be the first NBA Draft selection by the Nashville Storm. As soon as we got word that the Magic selected Lonzo I went ahead and sent in our pick.

Tatum 6'8" Small Forward from Duke. He is another one and done player. He's arguably one of if not the most polished scorer in the draft. He's great in isolation and has a good mid range game. He has potential to be a great defender some day. Hell, he has potential to be an all-around great player some day. And I'm extremely excited that we can see him develop into that great all-around player in a Nashville Storm uniform.

"With the 4th pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, the Nashville Storm select... Jayson Tatum from Duke University."

And it was official. Our war room went crazy as our pick was finalized.


Now, let me take a step back and answer a question that you may have now... If we have Luwawu-Cabarrot and Fournier at the 2 and the 3, why would I pick Tatum?

Well, you're about to find out.

With the 5th pick, Seattle chose PG Dennis Smith Jr. from NC State. That was rather surprising to me since they picked Jordan Clarkson and Ish Smith in the Expansion Draft. So, maybe the plan is to move Clarkson to SG? Who knows...

With the 6th pick, Phoenix chose PF, Lauri Markkanen from Arizona.

With the 7th pick, Sacramento chose SF Jonathan Isaac from Florida State.

With the 8th pick, Chicago chose PG Frank Ntilikina from France.

With the 9th pick, New York chose SG Malik Monk from Kentucky.


It was widely known that the Philadelphia 76ers, who owned the 10th pick, really wanted Malik Monk at SG. And once they got word of the Knicks selecting Monk they began to shop their 10th pick.

I had already had discussions with them previously about what it would take to trade for the pick.

So, I don't know if it was due to the time crunch, but we struck a deal, that I thought, was better than my original offer.

The trade gave us the 10th pick in the draft for Evan Fournier, Damian Jones, and our 2019 2nd Round Pick.

I thought it was a win-win for both of us. Last season, Fournier had the best season of his career in terms of PPG, RPG, and APG. It gives the 76ers a solid scorer at the 2 or the 3 with 5 years of experience. Fournier has the talent that can help the Sixers finally get back to the playoffs.

Then for us, we got another Top 10 pick as we continue to build the foundation for our team.

I made the trade because I already knew exactly who we were going to select. The #5 player on our board this entire time was PG, De'Aaron Fox from Kentucky. He has unbelievable speed, he's a great finisher at the rim, and he's a good passer. Over time, we believe he can become a solid defender. The one knock against Fox is the fact that he really is not a good shooter. But, once he develops a jumper/3 pointer, he'll be nearly unstoppable thanks to his speed and athleticism. I was stunned that he fell back to #10.

"With the 10th pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, the Nashville Storm select... De'Aaron Fox from the University of Kentucky."

So just like that, we had our SF of the future in Jayson Tatum and our PG of the future in De'Aaron Fox.

I didn't make anymore moves in the first round. So, our final selection of the night was the 2nd pick of the 2nd Round.

With the 34th pick, we selected C, Harry Giles from Duke University.

Giles was rated as the #2 player in the 2016 Recruiting Class. He didn't make his Duke debut until December due to a knee injury. At Duke, he only averaged 3.9 PPG and 3.9 RPG before declaring for the draft. Obviously, we knew about the knee concerns... But if Giles could live up to his potential, we got an absolute steal here in the 2nd round.


This was a great night for our franchise. We ended up with the #2, #4, and #7 players from the 2016 Recruiting Class. All 19 year olds who we can develop over the next few years into great players.

Here are the 2017 NBA Draft Results:

2017 NBA Draft.png

Trades:

Atlanta Hawks Receive: 15th Pick, PG Jameer Nelson
Denver Nuggets Receive: C Dwight Howard, 2019 Atlanta 1st Round Pick

Miami Heat Receive: PF Kyle Kuzma (14th Pick)
Detroit Pistons Receive: 16th Pick

Milwaukee Bucks Receive: PF Marvin Williams and Charlotte's 2019 1st Round Pick
Charlotte Hornets Receive: PG Matthew Dellavedova and 19th Pick

Atlanta Hawks Receive: SG E'Twuan Moore and SF Quincy Pondexter
New Orleans Pelicans Receive: 21st Pick and Atlanta's 2018 2nd Round Pick

[vikings2017]

Looks good, keep posting.

[orlegend0208]

Free Agency: Moratorium Period

Day 1

There weren't too many stars that decided to test Free Agency... But, there was a lot of players that we could pursue which would help us tremendously.

This was a stressful period of time for our front office. Because there were so many "what if" situations that could arise during Free Agency. We already had 15 players on the team. But, everyone in our front office knew that we could increase the talent on our team by offering players in Free Agency. And then trade or cut some players from the Expansion Draft.

Anyway, here is a breakdown of the top players, sorted by position, available in Free Agency:

Top PG's Available in Free Agency
#	NAME	POS	AGE	HT	WT	SALARY
30	Stephen Curry (95)	PG	29	6'3	190	$34.68M+
7	Kyle Lowry (88)	PG	31	6'0	205	$34.68M+
3	George Hill (82)	PG	31	6'3	188	$29.67M+
44	Jeff Teague (82)	PG	29	6'2	186	$26.68M+
25	Derrick Rose (81)	PG	28	6'3	190	$26.86M+
11	Jrue Holiday (79)	PG	27	6'4	205	$15.29M+
7	Darren Collison (78)	PG	29	6'0	175	$10.11M+
31	Derron Williams (77)	PG	33	6'3	200	$1.42M
10	Ty Lawson (77)	PG	29	5'11	195	$4.34M+
9	Rajon Rondo (76)	PG	31	6'1	186	$2.42M
8	Patrick Mills (76)	PG	28	6'0	185	$1.42M

Top SG's Available in Free Agency
#	NAME	POS	AGE	HT	WT	SALARY
10	Tim Hardaway Jr. (79)	SG	25	6'6	205	$14.30M+
11	Dion Waiters (79)	SG	25	6'4	220	$15.18M+
4	J.J. Redick (78)	SG	33	6'4	190	$11.68M+
9	Tony Allen (78)	SG	35	6'4	213	$1.42M
5	Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (77)	SG	24	6'5	205	$16.47M+
26	Kyle Korver (76)	SG	36	6'7	212	$1.42M
20	Manu Ginobili (76)	SG	39	6'6	205	$1.42M
2	Wayne Ellington (75)	SG	29	6'4	200	$1.42M
6	Sean Kilpatrick (75)	SG	27	6'4	219	$1.42M
4	Jordan Crawford (75)	SG	28	6'4	195	$1.78M

Top SF's Available in Free Agency
#	NAME	POS	AGE	HT	WT	SALARY
35	Kevin Durant (95)	SF	28	6'9	240	$34.68M+
20	Gordon Hayward (88)	SF	27	6'8	226	$28.32M+
8	Rudy Gay (81)	SF	30	6'8	230	$23.44M+
22	Otto Porter (80)	SF	24	6'8	198	$21.83M+
16	James Johnson (79)	SF	30	6'9	250	$10.00M+
9	Andre Iguodala (78)	SF	33	6'6	215	$9.40M+
2	Joe Ingles (77)	SF	29	6'8	226	$6.72M+
32	Tyreke Evans (77)	SF	27	6'6	220	$6.26M+
15	Shabazz Muhammad (77)	SF	24	6'6	223	$7.55M+
44	Bojan Bogdanovic (77)	SF	28	6'8	216	$6.16M+

Top PF's Available in Free Agency
#	NAME	POS	AGE	HT	WT	SALARY
32	Blake Griffin (88)	PF	28	6'10	251	$29.73M+
4	Paul Millsap (84)	PF	32	6'8	246	$30.23M+
50	Zach Randolph (80)	PF	36	6'9	260	$4.15M+
41	Dirk Nowitzki (80)	PF	39	7'0	245	$3.98M
9	Serge Ibaka (80)	PF	27	6'10	235	$17.08M+
44	Nikola Mirotic (77)	PF	26	6'10	220	$4.30M+
90	Amir Johnson (77)	PF	30	6'2	240	$3.34M+
7	Ersan Ilyasova (77)	PF	30	6'10	235	$4.46M+
6	Terrence Jones (76)	PF	25	6'9	252	$4.66M+
9	Michael Beasley (76)	PF	28	6'10	235	$1.42M
15	Alan Williams (76)	PF	24	6'8	260	$4.57M+
3	David West (75)	PF	36	6'9	250	$1.42M

Top C's Available in Free Agency
#	NAME	POS	AGE	HT	WT	SALARY
3	Nerlens Noel (78)	C	23	6'11	228	$19.69M+
24	Mason Plumlee (78)	C	27	6'11	235	$9.99M+
42	Nene (77)	C	34	6'11	250	$1.42M
1	JaVale McGee (77)	C	29	7'0	270	$1.42M
31	Festus Ezeli (76)	C	27	6'11	265	$1.71M
27	Zaza Pachulia (76)	C	33	6'11	275	$1.42M
47	Tiago Splitter (75)	C	32	6'11	245	$1.42M
41	Kelly Olynyk (75)	C	26	7'0	238	$2.41M+
50	Salah Mejri (75)	C	31	7'2	245	$1.89M
21	Alex Len (75)	C	24	7'1	260	$3.45M+

So, now you see what the market looked like in our first Free Agency period.

There were 5 superstars, with some solid starting caliber players, with a lot of guys that we could sign to provide some depth.

So, here's where our front office stood on Free Agency.

We weren't going to offer Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Kyle Lowry, or Paul Millsap. If we're being realistic, did we really have a chance to sign Steph or KD? Why would they leave one of the greatest teams in NBA history to join an Expansion team? That just didn't make any sense, so we didn't even pursue them (despite the fact that I REALLY want to, but I understood it was pretty much a guaranteed waste of time and effort to do so). Then, Kyle Lowry and Paul Millsap just wanted too much money.

I'm stingy with money, as you will find out over time. If I offer a player $30M+ per year, they better be one of the best damn players in the league.

After many discussions, we decided to offer three players on the first day of the Moratorium period: Blake Griffin, Gordon Hayward, and Jared Sullinger.

We extended a 3 year offer to Blake Griffin on a contract that would be worth $93.64M with a Player Option for a 4th year. We wanted a dominant low post presence and we believe Griffin was the only player on the market that truly was that dominant force. We offered Griffin and sold him on being the star player on the team.

We extended a 3 year, $90.12M offer to Gordon Hayward. Hayward's offer also had a Player Option for a 4th Year. We offered Hayward with the intention of moving him or Tatum to SG. We felt both had the skill set to move to SG, it would have just been a matter of who we felt played better at the position. Sadly, it was obvious that Hayward was torn between playing for Utah or Boston.

For our final offer of the day, we extended a 2 year, $10.25M offer to Jared Sullinger. We wanted a solid Center to either challenge Tyson Chandler for the starting job, or at least a quality backup Center/PF. We felt like Sullinger was just that. And he really peaked our interest due to the fact that he only wanted $5M per year.

Now, we waited to hear back from the three as well as figure out who to offer on Day 2.

[orlegend0208]

Free Agency: Moratorium Period

Day 2

Today was a great day.

As I'm sure you remember, we offered Blake Griffin, Gordon Hayward, and Jared Sullinger on yesterday.

We received word today that Blake Griffin and Jared Sullinger accepted our contract offers. Both would sign deals with us following the Moratorium period.

Both of them agreeing to contracts with us were absolutely huge! Griffin is going to be the star of the team, while Sullinger is going to provide us with a quality big man who can play the 4 and the 5.

But, with both of them agreeing to contracts with us, that meant we had 17 players on our roster... Which meant I had to look into trading players unless we wanted to start eating some contracts.

Now, before I get into trade discussions, there were only four players that I viewed as untouchable... Jayson Tatum, De'Aaron Fox, Montrezl Harrell, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot.

First, I began shopping Ed Davis. He's a really good rebounding Center, but that's about all he provides. He doesn't have much of an inside post game, he's not a really good defender, and he's being paid $6.35M per year. Again, we just got Sullinger for $5M in 2017-18 and $5.25M in 2018-19.

So, I ended up agreeing to a deal that would send Davis to the Los Angeles Clippers. Here are the details to the trade:

Nashville Receives: Los Angeles Clippers' 2019 2nd Round Pick and 2020 2nd Round Pick
LAC Receives: C Ed Davis and Nashville's 2021 2nd Round Pick

As you can see, we sent Davis and our 2021 2nd Round Pick to the Clippers in exchange for their 2019 and 2020 2nd Round Pick. I originally offered Davis for only their 2019 2nd Round Pick. If they declined, I was going to offer him for their 2020 2nd Round Pick. But, they countered with this trade, so I figured I'd go ahead and accept this.

I wasn't done for the day when it came to trades.

Next, I packaged together Glenn Robinson III and Jerian Grant and began seeing what teams would offer for the two. Again, I was only looking for maybe 2nd Round Picks... But, the Kings gave me a much better offer than what I was expecting. Here are the details of the trade:

Nashville Receives: C Skal Labissiere
Sacramento Receives: SF Glenn Robinson III and PG Jerian Grant

And that was it for the trades today... Now, I got back to offering players.

Today, I tried to address the need we had for a really solid Shooting Guard. To be specific, we were looking for young Shooting Guards who were good perimeter shooters and still had some potential to get better. At the moment, we really didn't have much perimeter shooting talent on our roster... So, that would play a huge role in who we offered later on in Free Agency.

To try and fill our need at SG, I offered 3 of the top Shooting Guards on the market: Tim Hardaway Jr., Dion Waiters, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

I offered a 3 year, $41.78M deal to Tim Hardaway Jr.

I offered a 3 year, $44.95M deal to Dion Waiters.

I offered a 1 year, $16.00M deal to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

The only problem was, we offered a little less than what Hardaway Jr and Waiters received on other offers... So, if they decided to pull the trigger early and verbally agree to a contract tomorrow, we weren't getting them. However, we were the only offer for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Now we were heading into the final day of the Moratorium period. And if the Pistons didn't match our offer in a few days (we didn't expect them to since they just drafted Donovan Mitchell), KCP would be our starting SG next season.

[orlegend0208]

Quote: Originally Posted by vikings2017

Looks good, keep posting.

Thanks! I appreciate the comment!

[Killuminati]

Following!

Great read so far! I love how you are breaking down all of the top players, and how you organized the draft and expansion draft, it's really easy to follow and keep track of what's going on

I have a quick question, are you giving your expansion team any cap restrictions? I remember looking it up a few years ago and the NBA had rules in place to limit the cap room of new expansion teams to prevent them from throwing big money at star players right off the bat

I believe in season 1, expansion teams only have 66% of the salary cap that other teams have, and in season 2 it bumps up to 75% of other teams cap room, then in season 3 they get 100% of the cap room

I'm not sure if they have changed things since then, or if that is a rule that even matters in 2k associations lol, but it makes it super hard to put together a team for the first few seasons

Sent from my N9560 using Operation Sports mobile app

[orlegend0208]

Free Agency: Moratorium Period

Day 3

This was the final moratorium day... And we got great news to start off the day.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had verbally agreed to our contract offer. But, there were some rumblings that Detroit might still match the offer.

I only offered 2 more players during the Moratorium Period... Those two players were SF Tony Snell and SG Wayne Ellington.

I offered Wayne Ellington a 1 year, $1.42M deal and I offered Tony Snell a 1 year, $1.84M deal.

I targeted both of them for a few reasons. First of all, I thought they could provide quality depth off the bench. Another reason is that both of them are solid perimeter shooters... So that definitely would help us out if they signed.

Finally, they both wanted less than $2M per year. It was a no brainer to offer these guys.


But, just in case we got both of these guys, I made another trade to lower the size of our roster.

I packaged PF Chris McCullough and PG Semaj Christon to see what teams would offer. Houston apparently liked the package and they offered me this trade... Which I accepted:

Nashville Receives: Golden State's 2020 1st Round Pick (Top 3 Protected) and Golden State's 2021 2nd Round Pick
Golden State Receives: PF Chris McCullough and PG Semaj Christon

Golden State only had 8 players on their roster at the time of this trade. So, this was surely a deal to get two cheap players who they probably think they could take some time to develop into solid contributors.

And for us, at this point in time, I'll take just about any 1st Round Pick I can get at this time as we continue to try and build the foundation for the team.

The excitement grew around our Franchise as we planned on making a huge splash tomorrow on the first day that contracts could officially be signed.