Around the League - '23-24 Season

[Coolbreeze44]

Why would the Raptors do that? SMH

It does seem unbalanced, doesn't it? But reportedly, Toronto has been shopping OG for weeks, and this must have been the best return they could find. Toronto fans must have PTSD reflecting on all the great players who have left with nothing back in return, so management probably thought they had to do something rather than letting him walk at the end of the year. Plus, they weren't going anywhere with this roster anyway...12-18 on the season. Barnes looks like a budding superstar, so maybe they're pinning their hopes on Barrett finding his game upon coming home to Canada.

I agree with you Fungo, but hate seeing the big market team reap the benefit.

[Monster]

Why would the Raptors do that? SMH

It does seem unbalanced, doesn't it? But reportedly, Toronto has been shopping OG for weeks, and this must have been the best return they could find. Toronto fans must have PTSD reflecting on all the great players who have left with nothing back in return, so management probably thought they had to do something rather than letting him walk at the end of the year. Plus, they weren't going anywhere with this roster anyway...12-18 on the season. Barnes looks like a budding superstar, so maybe they're pinning their hopes on Barrett finding his game upon coming home to Canada.

I agree with you Fungo, but hate seeing the big market team reap the benefit.

I think some people might be underrating Quickly in this deal. He will be a RFA so I don’t know how much he will cost but it seems like he is actually a good player and his stats this year are pretty good. 15ppg very efficiently off the bench? That seems pretty pretty good and he might fit pretty well with Barnes. If they are able to resign Quickly for a reasonable price and he is worth that price this could end up being a nice move.

Barrett idk but they probably have salary flexibility to live with overpaying him some. They got 2 younger players for a good player that was gonna leave anyway and Precious was gonna be a FA and I’m guessing nobody is crying over losing Flynn.

One other thing I just found out the 2nd round pick is Detroit’s 2024 pick so that’s basically a late first round pick which is a nice asset.

[kekgeek]

It does seem unbalanced, doesn't it? But reportedly, Toronto has been shopping OG for weeks, and this must have been the best return they could find. Toronto fans must have PTSD reflecting on all the great players who have left with nothing back in return, so management probably thought they had to do something rather than letting him walk at the end of the year. Plus, they weren't going anywhere with this roster anyway...12-18 on the season. Barnes looks like a budding superstar, so maybe they're pinning their hopes on Barrett finding his game upon coming home to Canada.

I agree with you Fungo, but hate seeing the big market team reap the benefit.

I think some people might be underrating Quickly in this deal. He will be a RFA so I don’t know how much he will cost but it seems like he is actually a good player and his stats this year are pretty good. 15ppg very efficiently off the bench? That seems pretty pretty good and he might fit pretty well with Barnes. If they are able to resign Quickly for a reasonable price and he is worth that price this could end up being a nice move.

Barrett idk but they probably have salary flexibility to live with overpaying him some. They got 2 younger players for a good player that was gonna leave anyway and Precious was gonna be a FA and I’m guessing nobody is crying over losing Flynn.

One other thing I just found out the 2nd round pick is Detroit’s 2024 pick so that’s basically a late first round pick which is a nice asset.

Also rumors are OG wants 40 million a year and a bigger role in the offense. He wants to go the Jeremi Grant route. So that’s a lot of money a 3 and D wing even if he is great at that role.

I personally don’t hate it for the Knicks

[Q-is-here]

Bulls now 10-5 since LaVine got hurt and Alex Caruso, a career plus/minus stud, took his spot.

[Q-is-here]

OKC continues to roll, beating Boston tonight. Two things that may make them look a little better than they are...1) hardly any missed games - incredible injury luck by today's standards, and 2) 19 out of 32 of their games have been at home.

Let's see how they do when a key guy gets hurt and they are on a long road trip. But man, they have been as good as anyone so far!

[Q-is-here]

OKC loses on the road to Brooklyn and Denver loses at home to Orlando. And so we continue to hang on as #1 in the West. Just a few more games left in this ridiculously tough stretch, but so far we're no worse for the wear.

[Lipoli390]

The Milwaukee Bucks lost to the Rockets last night in spite of 48 points and 17 rebounds from Giannis. The Bucks had three players with double-digit scoring totals and one of them, Middleton, had only 10. The other double-digit scorer was Lillard. He had 18 points on horrendously inefficient 5-16 FG shooting. Lillard was a -11. Meanwhile, the Rockets had 7 players with double-digit scoring totals. I’ve been watching box scores closely this season and I’ve noticed that the winning team typically has more players with double-digit scoring totals - typically 4-7 players.

The Bucks are in 2nd place in the East. Embiid’s physical inability to play every game is the only reason the Bucks haven’t fallen to 3rd. In any event, I’d wage a lot of money that the Bucks will NOT be in the NBA finals and I’d probably wager a bit that they won’t win more than one playoff round - maybe not even one. I’m not happy about that because I always pull for smaller market teams and Giannis is my favorite player in the NBA. But the reality is that Giannis doesn’t have enough support around him. Middleton isn’t the player he used to be and neither is Lillard.

I take the Bucks’ situation as another reminder that trading for an aging superstar to rely on as the guy to get you over the hump rarely works as a championship strategy. It looks like the Durant deal won’t work for the Suns even in conjunction with the Bradley Beal deal. In other words, even trading for two aging stars typically won’t work. The James Harden/Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving experiment didn’t work for the Nets. Those three aging stars together didn’t get it done. The LeBron/Anthony Davis experiment paid off for one championship in a strange bubble season but has otherwise been a failure.

The model that works - the only model that works for a smaller market franchise - is to build your core organically through the draft and then fill in some gaps through free agency and/or minor trades. The Warriors built their championship core by drafting Curry, Thompson and Green in succession. The Nuggets built their championship core by drafting Jokic, Murray and Porter Jr. They supplemented that core by trading for Aaron Gordon. There are exceptions, but your odds are much better not trying to rely on the exception.

While I don’t like the Gobert trade, it’s not in the same category as the trades like the ones for Lillard and Durant. The Wolves already had their core via the draft with Edwards, KAT and Jaden. The deal for Rudy was intended to fill a gap. I still think we gave up too much for what we got considering what Rudy brings to the table and his age in relation to Ant, Jaden and KAT. However, trading for him wasn’t a fundamental gaff in the vein of the other deals I mentioned because TC wasn’t relying on Rudy to become a core foundational star. We already had that in KAT and Edwards who led the team to 46 wins before the Gobert deal. Even though TC traded good rotation players for Rudy, he didn’t give up anyone foundational like a Mikal Bridges.

That’s a long way of saying that, while I still don’t like the Gobert deal, it wasn’t in the same blunder category as the Durant deal and others like it. We lack draft assets and financial flexibility because of the Gobert deal, but we have a very good team leading the Western Conference and still have our relatively young, organically assembled core threesome in Ant, KAT and Jaden. Ant is clearly evolving into the superstar we were hoping he’d become - improving markedly year to year in multiple key categories. KAT hasn’t fully adjusted to playing with Rudy and he continues to have mental lapses, but his defense is much improved and he’s showing far more emotional discipline. Jaden continues to play great defense and we still see signs of his offensive potential, but his development has been disappointing as he continues to be foul prone, doesn’t rebound and hasn’t taken that big step forward offensively that I think he has in him. He’s still young though and it’s understandably hard for him to carve out a role offensively with KAT and Ant on the floor. So I remain patient with Jaden for now although my patience is waning.

Going forward, I think the lesson of NBA history is to avoid making any panic trades and avoid the temptation to swing for the home run. The Wolves will have to figure out how to deal with the 2nd apron cliff they’re headed towards. They’ll have to figure out life after Mike Conley, which could be as soon as next season. They’ll have to decide whether to bring back Slo Mo and, if not, how to replace him with no cap room and the 2nd apron constraints on the ability to sign and trade for players. We have our own first round pick and the Grizzlies 2nd-round pick next June. We’ll need to make the most of those if we want to keep the band together and be hard-capped by the 2nd apron. The only way to avoid the 2nd apron will be trading Ant, KAT, Rudy, Naz or Jaden. Obviously, we’re not going to trade Ant. I wouldn’t trade any of the other four unless this team collapses this season. If we at least make the Western Conference Finals, then I think you keep the band together and accept your lot as a 2nd apron team. Short of that, it depends. Bottom line is that the Wolves need to be careful and patient, avoiding the temptation to make a hale Mary move.

[FNG]

Sad news for Memphis with Ja out for the season. But it's good news for the Wolves for two reasons: it makes our 2 remaining games against them likely wins, and perhaps more importantly, I think we own the Griz's second round 2024 pick, right? That's pretty likely now to be a top 5 second round pick to go along with our owned first round pick.

[davemang]

The Nuggets built their championship core by drafting Jokic, Murray and Porter Jr. They supplemented that core by trading for Aaron Gordon. There are exceptions, but your odds are much better not trying to rely on the exception.

Aaron Gordon on the nuggets is also an example of how successful franchises are able to get value in FA/trades by maximizing incoming players impact on the team/winning vs the cost to get them, something the wolves have always been bad at.

[Q-is-here]

The Nuggets built their championship core by drafting Jokic, Murray and Porter Jr. They supplemented that core by trading for Aaron Gordon. There are exceptions, but your odds are much better not trying to rely on the exception.

Aaron Gordon on the nuggets is also an example of how successful franchises are able to get value in FA/trades by maximizing incoming players impact on the team/winning vs the cost to get them, something the wolves have always been bad at.

Milwaukee's acquisition of Jrue Holiday to replace Eric Beldsoe is another fairly recent example, although they gave up more than just Bledsoe. Still, they won a title which justifies almost any cost.

It's sort of interesting that they went back to the same playbook of swapping out PGs, this time with Jrue Holiday being sent off for a more offensive-minded PG in Lillard. The effectiveness of that trade is still an open question.

For the Wolves, the Gobert trade was largely panned as a blatant overpay, although that narrative is now starting to change. Still, it's debatable whether the Wolves are legit contenders. The regular season won't matter once the playoffs start and every team from seeds 1 through 7/8 via play-in will be really good.