2016 NBA Offseason Thread

[jeebs9]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

10 years of great play isn't enough?

23 is gonna come in here with the quickness and shut down the OKC sympathizers lol.

Seriously though, they sold out their stadium for years, merch sales, concession sales, they maximized their profits and the things that they cared about. Only thing he didn't give them was a title and they dont care anyway.

Man, sometimes break ups happen. It's no one's fault and everyone has to move on. **** happens.

This is bigger than KD and OKC. The last thing they need to add is something that restricts players even more and to be giving teams picks because THEY couldn't keep a player.

Guys you I don't want to players to be stuck. People take my post and focus on one side. I feel for both sides here.

[jeebs9]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

“What I’m hearing here in Las Vegas from some GMs is that they think not only Russell Westbrook will get traded, that it’ll be sooner than later,” Beck said in a video posted Wednesday morning, “and that the most likely destination now would be the Boston Celtics.”

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2...mming-national

Wow that's huge!!

[jeebs9]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

Players are free too leave in free wgency legally if they want to.

Teams get rif of players all the time.

Is it fair they bought a team and lied to the fans then moved said team out of the city?

If they dont trade RWB and he leaves its their own fault

The owner shouldn't have been a cheapskate

Think about how they just threw harden a take it or leave it offer then shipped him out.

Same for Ibaka...just bye bye

9 or 10 years is more than enough. Careers dont last forever. OKC couldn't get it done.

I could literally name a ton of more things to disagree with the reasoning that its wrong for him to leave for nothing.

Thats bad planning on their part.

You guys once again went a little too hard at one side of my post. There are 2 sides to the coin in this situation. Players and Owners. Put yourself in both their shoes.

edit: By the way I agree bad planning on their part. I think after the James situation they actually wanted to give KD a legit chance to stay. Because the James situation happen to quickly and cost them in the long run.

[ProfessaPackMan]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

If he doesn't want to go to Boston then does it really mean much?

[DieHardYankee26]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

Guys you I don't want to players to be stuck. People take my post and focus on one side. I feel for both sides here.

Why feel for the owners in the first place? Ignoring the way they got the team, Durant was already on it, and he was drafted, he never chose to play there. So essentially what your post reads as is "Even though KD couldn't choose where he wanted to play, he was so good (which is his own doing, not the team) that the value he gave them hurts to be taken away and they should be compensated for it." It reads like when an athlete gets divorced and their wife asks for alimony on the basis of "having grown accustomed to a certain manner of living".

Before that athlete, she was alive and poor. She'll survive again. Why does Durant owe the Thunder or why are they entitled to anything when they lucked into him in the first place?

[Majingir]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/242826/Bryan-Colangelo-Admits-76ers-Will-Likely-Trade-Okafor-Noel-Or-Embiid

76ers still looking at trading one of their big men.


I'm still holding out on some kind of deal getting Noel + Covington(and even taking on Landry as a salary throwin)

[23]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

You guys once again went a little too hard at one side of my post. There are 2 sides to the coin in this situation. Players and Owners. Put yourself in both their shoes.

edit: By the way I agree bad planning on their part. I think after the James situation they actually wanted to give KD a legit chance to stay. Because the James situation happen to quickly and cost them in the long run.

They didn't stop being cheap after Harden...and they weren't going to stop. Anybody that wanted a bigger role was gone. Harden, Jackson, Ibaka and anyone else other than KD and RWB.

You can't win like that, and what they did to Harden was wack. They weren't even willing to negotiate with the dude.

I don't feel anything for Clay Bennett. That's David Stern's homebody, and he got what he wanted. If Presit ever quits he's really gonna be in it deep.

[ProfessaPackMan]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

And based on Silver's comments, you can best believe the Owners will be presenting something to prevent future moves like this from happening, even though not a single rule was violated.

It's the "ethics" they have a problem with, as corny as it sounds.

[jeremym480]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

Any team (especially small market teams) that has a player that wants to hit the FA market is taking a risk by not trading them. OKC was put in a bad position by the cap increase because obviously KD would have benefited from waiting to sign in the offseason instead of extending last season. Normally, if a player won't extend, then it's much easier to get trade them, but waiting kind of screwed them. Hopefully, they learned from that and get something for RWB rather than just letting him walk.

Regarding OKC and Harden, I read this on reddit last week and found it to be very interesting. *spoilered for length

Spoiler

Redditor:
I apologise if the following is common knowledge but I've heard people talk about the Harden trade a lot (shout out to Simmons) and can't remember ever hearing this story. I was going to paraphrase what Windhorst said but the filibuster he gave was so good I decided to transcribe it. I edited what he said a bit to make it easier to follow. This story is taken from the true hoop podcast from yesterday, starting around the 34 minute mark if you’d prefer to listen to it.

Some Context:
Ethan Strauss asks the guys if the Harden trade “lit the fuse” for Kevin Durant’s decision to join Golden State and ultimately ruin OKC's roster. Windhorst says he thinks the Thunder losing a 3-1 lead in the WCF was the key factor. Someone else (Tom Haberstroh?) tries to clarify Ethan’s point by asking would the Thunder have lost that lead with Harden on the team? This sparks Windhorst to get something off his chest…

Brian Windhorst:
“So here’s the thing guys, I have to step in here, you cannot look at that trade and say either/or. The Thunder were the product of their own misjudgements but they were the product of some terrible misfortune along the way. And one of the misfortunes was in 2011 a new CBA came in with extremely penal luxury tax penalties and as part of that CBA, without Durant even asking for it, [the league] grandfathered his contract in to giving him the ‘Rose provision’. When the CBA opened (the next year) it was like “by the way, you now have a luxury tax that’s twice or three times as penal as it was before, when you were planning your team. Oh and by the way, we decided we’re giving Kevin Durant three more million dollars over every year of his contract” and the Thunder we’re like “umm…WHAT?!” And it was such a bad deal for the Thunder that the league later refunded them the money but it was too late because they had to make the decision on Harden. Now if you wanna retort and say…
Someone else on the panel interrupts with a big “wait, whaaat?” because, like me, they can’t believe this **** either

BW (cont.)
“…So as you know, there’s this thing called the ‘Rose provision’. It was called the ‘Rose provision’ but it might as well have been called the ‘Durant provision’ because he was the first person to actually get it. (It allows a player) to get extra money if you made two all NBA teams or were voted into two all-star games. Durant had signed his extension before the CBA and it was kicking in as soon as the new CBA came in. He didn’t have the opportunity to get the ‘Rose provision’ (in this contract because it didn’t exist when he was negotiating his contract). And somewhere in the lawyering…
Amin Elhassan jumps in to mention that the Rose Provision is negotiable between the player and the team from 25%-30% of the cap. However, in Durant’s case the league gave him the full 30% retrospectively without negotiation.

BW (cont.)
“They just gave it to him and it was a crazy decision and pardon my podcast French but they absolutely screwed the Thunder on it. Now, you’re gonna say “what are you complaining about? So what you have to give KD more money” but it screwed the Thunder’s planning. All of a sudden it meant that they had to account for three million dollars more per year for the next five years when they had to try and decide on Harden. And you may say to them “well you’re still an idiot because you should still pay Harden and pay the luxury tax. What’s your freaking problem, Thunder?” and the answer is they were horribly afraid of the repeater tax which they’d be in right now if they had signed Harden. So yes, if you want to frame the decision that they screwed up with Harden – yeah - but they got a terrible piece of misfortune there.”
And in case anyone wants to ask “well, why not still blame the Thunder’s cheap owners for not paying the repeater tax?”...

BW (from a little later in the pod):
“All I’m saying is, the thunder’s point of view of it is, that we’re now in year 6 of the CBA and the Thunder would have been a tax payer for 5 of those 6 years had they done the Harden deal and therefore they would not be in a position to do anything. As you know, the repeater tax even scared away Prokhorov. He fled on the repeater tax. The Miami heat fled on the repeater tax. [The league] has been trying to figure out ways to create a hard cap – well you’ve finally found it. Everybody’s afraid of that repeater tax, even guys like Micky Arison who are worth like 8/10 billion and Prokhorov, one of the richest people in the world, are afraid of the repeater tax. And that’s what OKC was afraid of and that’s what was put on their plate (by the league). They knew that because they had Durant and Westbrook and if they added Harden they’d be deep in the repeater tax by now and they still couldn’t afford them.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comment...ndhorst_story/


In hindsight, it's easy to say that OKC screwed up by trading Harden too early, but the NBA put them in a bad situation by giving KD the Rose Provision without any negotiation. All of that, along with the cap influx basically is what helped KD make his decision to move on from OKC.

[DieHardYankee26]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

That post explains why OKC would've had to pay the tax if they re-signed Harden. No one denies that. The issue is if you aren't willing to pay the tax to keep together a trio of all stars that are all under 25, then you dont deserve the team, and especially dont deserve to have moved the team away from another city.

Ballmer should've stepped in and bought them. He's not from there but I know he was involved in trying to keep a team there and everything. Unfortunate but OKC being "cursed" with 3 great young players and having to pay the tax for a few years while they rake in money from sellouts and merch is a problem owners in the league WHO ACTUALLY WANT TO WIN would love to have.

[23]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

And based on Silver's comments, you can best believe the Owners will be presenting something to prevent future moves like this from happening, even though not a single rule was violated.

It's the "ethics" they have a problem with, as corny as it sounds.

Which is what they tried to do already with LeBron, but got greedy and signed with ABC/ESPN for more money without caring. Now they care?

The only reason this worked is because GS had stars who developed on cheap deals. Steph is 2 years removed from almost being out of the league with ankle issues. I don't see how people forget that so quickly.

Any team (especially small market teams) that has a player that wants to hit the FA market is taking a risk by not trading them. OKC was put in a bad position by the cap increase because obviously KD would have benefited from waiting to sign in the offseason instead of extending last season. Normally, if a player won't extend, then it's much easier to get trade them, but waiting kind of screwed them. Hopefully, they learned from that and get something for RWB rather than just letting him walk.

Regarding OKC and Harden, I read this on reddit last week and found it to be very interesting. *spoilered for length

Spoiler

Redditor:
I apologise if the following is common knowledge but I've heard people talk about the Harden trade a lot (shout out to Simmons) and can't remember ever hearing this story. I was going to paraphrase what Windhorst said but the filibuster he gave was so good I decided to transcribe it. I edited what he said a bit to make it easier to follow. This story is taken from the true hoop podcast from yesterday, starting around the 34 minute mark if you’d prefer to listen to it.

Some Context:
Ethan Strauss asks the guys if the Harden trade “lit the fuse” for Kevin Durant’s decision to join Golden State and ultimately ruin OKC's roster. Windhorst says he thinks the Thunder losing a 3-1 lead in the WCF was the key factor. Someone else (Tom Haberstroh?) tries to clarify Ethan’s point by asking would the Thunder have lost that lead with Harden on the team? This sparks Windhorst to get something off his chest…

Brian Windhorst:
“So here’s the thing guys, I have to step in here, you cannot look at that trade and say either/or. The Thunder were the product of their own misjudgements but they were the product of some terrible misfortune along the way. And one of the misfortunes was in 2011 a new CBA came in with extremely penal luxury tax penalties and as part of that CBA, without Durant even asking for it, [the league] grandfathered his contract in to giving him the ‘Rose provision’. When the CBA opened (the next year) it was like “by the way, you now have a luxury tax that’s twice or three times as penal as it was before, when you were planning your team. Oh and by the way, we decided we’re giving Kevin Durant three more million dollars over every year of his contract” and the Thunder we’re like “umm…WHAT?!” And it was such a bad deal for the Thunder that the league later refunded them the money but it was too late because they had to make the decision on Harden. Now if you wanna retort and say…
Someone else on the panel interrupts with a big “wait, whaaat?” because, like me, they can’t believe this **** either

BW (cont.)
“…So as you know, there’s this thing called the ‘Rose provision’. It was called the ‘Rose provision’ but it might as well have been called the ‘Durant provision’ because he was the first person to actually get it. (It allows a player) to get extra money if you made two all NBA teams or were voted into two all-star games. Durant had signed his extension before the CBA and it was kicking in as soon as the new CBA came in. He didn’t have the opportunity to get the ‘Rose provision’ (in this contract because it didn’t exist when he was negotiating his contract). And somewhere in the lawyering…
Amin Elhassan jumps in to mention that the Rose Provision is negotiable between the player and the team from 25%-30% of the cap. However, in Durant’s case the league gave him the full 30% retrospectively without negotiation.

BW (cont.)
“They just gave it to him and it was a crazy decision and pardon my podcast French but they absolutely screwed the Thunder on it. Now, you’re gonna say “what are you complaining about? So what you have to give KD more money” but it screwed the Thunder’s planning. All of a sudden it meant that they had to account for three million dollars more per year for the next five years when they had to try and decide on Harden. And you may say to them “well you’re still an idiot because you should still pay Harden and pay the luxury tax. What’s your freaking problem, Thunder?” and the answer is they were horribly afraid of the repeater tax which they’d be in right now if they had signed Harden. So yes, if you want to frame the decision that they screwed up with Harden – yeah - but they got a terrible piece of misfortune there.”
And in case anyone wants to ask “well, why not still blame the Thunder’s cheap owners for not paying the repeater tax?”...

BW (from a little later in the pod):
“All I’m saying is, the thunder’s point of view of it is, that we’re now in year 6 of the CBA and the Thunder would have been a tax payer for 5 of those 6 years had they done the Harden deal and therefore they would not be in a position to do anything. As you know, the repeater tax even scared away Prokhorov. He fled on the repeater tax. The Miami heat fled on the repeater tax. [The league] has been trying to figure out ways to create a hard cap – well you’ve finally found it. Everybody’s afraid of that repeater tax, even guys like Micky Arison who are worth like 8/10 billion and Prokhorov, one of the richest people in the world, are afraid of the repeater tax. And that’s what OKC was afraid of and that’s what was put on their plate (by the league). They knew that because they had Durant and Westbrook and if they added Harden they’d be deep in the repeater tax by now and they still couldn’t afford them.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comment...ndhorst_story/


In hindsight, it's easy to say that OKC screwed up by trading Harden too early, but the NBA put them in a bad situation by giving KD the Rose Provision without any negotiation. All of that, along with the cap influx basically is what helped KD make his decision to move on from OKC.

OMG they would be tax payers?

That's the thing...they wouldn't have had they just gotten rid of Perkins, but they decided it was better to keep him than give Harden an extra 4 million.

That's their bad.

[jeebs9]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

And based on Silver's comments, you can best believe the Owners will be presenting something to prevent future moves like this from happening, even though not a single rule was violated.

It's the "ethics" they have a problem with, as corny as it sounds.

No Pack... they mean MONEY. That's the end game for them.

[DieHardYankee26]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

You also dont enter into the repeater tax until you've paid the luxury tax 4 out of 5 years, so unless they had been paying it for 3 consecutive years or so at that point, to trade a guy over a few million ay that age over having to pay some extra money 5 years from now when you're skimming hellacious profits off the team and the value is skyrocketing? Hard to feel bad for them.

[ProfessaPackMan]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

No Pack... they mean MONEY. That's the end game for them.

Well obviously everything always comes down to money. Problem here is they can't play that card when they're benefitting GREATLY from the TV Money.

Silliest solution to stopping this that I've heard(kinda funny that we're treating this like its some sort of plague to the league that's been here for years)has been to eliminate individual max contracts.

They already got these dudes taking less to LEAVE their team when they're a FA but now they want to take away MORE? And for what? For the sake of "fairness"??

Where was all this noise at when LaMarcus Aldridge left Portland to go to SA?

[23]

re: 2016 NBA Offseason Thread

Well obviously everything always comes down to money. Problem here is they can't play that card when they're benefitting GREATLY from the TV Money.

Silliest solution to stopping this that I've heard(kinda funny that we're treating this like its some sort of plague to the league that's been here for years)has been to eliminate individual max contracts.

They already got these dudes taking less to LEAVE their team when they're a FA but now they want to take away MORE? And for what? For the sake of "fairness"??

Where was all this noise at when LaMarcus Aldridge left Portland to go to SA?

Bruh

I can't agree with the owners here at all. It was Adam Silver that said the league wont have NFL type parity

"We're never going to have NFL-style parity in this league," Silver told reporters in advance of Game 1 of the NBA Finals. "It is the nature of this league that certain players are so good that those teams are likely almost automatically, if that player remains healthy, to become playoff teams, and especially mixed with other great players.


"But having said that, there are still additional things we think we can do that will further encourage strong competition throughout the league. One fantastic trend I believe we're seeing in the league, and you saw it with the Western Conference Finals, Oklahoma City has the smallest market in the league, has the exact same ability to put together a fantastic team and create culture just like a team from the Bay Area, and just in the same way that Cleveland does with the Toronto team. And I think that was one of our goals in the last collective bargaining agreement."

but the NBA has a problem NOW?



























....and when the owners start talking losing money or wanting concessions during the lockout this summer ill be looking at them like this when they talk