Around the League - '24-25 Season

[Coolbreeze44]

14 players have signed the supermax in the nba since 2017. I’ll be very curious on how that is going to effect teams with the new CBA.

1. Jaylen Brown (next year will be the year that will be super interesting when it comes to Celtics long term roster construction)

2. Curry (became a mid team because of it)

3. Westbrook (traded from the Thunder)

4. Giannis (having a really hard time building a legit contender)

5. Embiid (0 conference finals appearances and now one of the worst contracts in the league)

6. Jokic (middling West team)

7. Kat (traded from the wolves)

8. Rudy (traded from the Jazz)

9. Luka Doncic (traded from the Mavs and was up for another super max contract)

10. Lillard (traded from the blazers)

11. Wall (one of the worst contracts in NBA history)

12. Beal (worst contract in the current NBA)

13. Devin Booker (on a play in West Team)

14. Ant (on a middling West team)


Luka, SGA, Tatum are eligible for a supermax. Bam, Fox (just traded), BI, JJJ all technically could qualify this year but unlikely.

So only Jaylen Brown is on a legit contender and the Celtics are going to be in a really interesting spot next year.


These contracts kill teams and there is going to be a very difficult Ant conversation in 2 to 3 years if there are no changes to the CBA

Well done Kek

[AbeVigodaLive]

Giannis and Jokic are worth every penny... and much, much more.

I get the issues with it (paying handsomely for player just as his age creeps up)... but if we've learned nothing from that list... it's possible to trade any contract.

[Q-is-here]

Giannis and Jokic are worth every penny... and much, much more.

I get the issues with it (paying handsomely for player just as his age creeps up)... but if we've learned nothing from that list... it's possible to trade any contract.

Also....not sure if I'd characterize Denver as a middling West team. If you are 30-19 and 4th in the West, that's damn near a contender.

[DNatagal]

Giannis and Jokic are worth every penny... and much, much more.

I get the issues with it (paying handsomely for player just as his age creeps up)... but if we've learned nothing from that list... it's possible to trade any contract.

Also....not sure if I'd characterize Denver as a middling West team. If you are 30-19 and 4th in the West, that's damn near a contender.

With a Chip in the previous 5 years with many of the same players.

[Lipoli390]

This kind of encapsulates my feelings on the trade:



Will Cain
@willcain
How does Luka get traded. Period.

How is he not shopped around?

How does no one in the league know he’s available?

How does he go to the Lakers like every other star?

How will the league recover from bad ratings? Oh…

I certainly seems suspicious. But I just don’t see how the League could get the Mavis to make an absolutely terrible deal. The League is just a collection of billionaire owners who competing against one another for the bragging rights of a championship. They can’t and wouldn’t empower Adam Silver to force one team to make a terrible deal with another. And even if they would, the League can’t force a team to make any deal. What would Adam do - threaten to kick Dallas out of the League?

Sometimes we tend to overthink things, become suspicious and find conspiracies when we see something that’s utterly ridiculous. But truth is, there are a lot of really stupid people who do stupid things.

I just think the Mavs’ GM is an idiot. I think he truly believes that Anthony Davis is as good as Luka but better defensively and that, in his words, “defense wins championships.” It’s the same thinking that prompted TC to give up a ton of assets for Rudy Gobert, but TC’s move was a reasonable calculation that included keeping all our key players and acquiring a guy known for being physically resilient and playing every game. The Mavs’ GM is probably just dumb and thought he was being really clever working this deal out quietly with the Lakers so no one else would swoop in and grab the often-injured, aging Anthony Davis. Or maybe the Mavs’ GM cut a deal to eventually become head of the Lakers’ organization, which would a scandal but not a League conspiracy. .

NBA history is littered with really dumb decisions by inept front offices. Heck, Ted Stepien forced the NBA to create a rule named after him to protect dumb owners from themselves.

But this one is up there. Definitely.

It's not about the return, while I think it's entirely underwhelming and sorta ridiculous. It's that as others have noted... no other teams were contacted to create a bidding war. That's the DUMBEST part of all of this.

Even if the Mavs were deadset on Davis, getting other teams involved would have forced the Lakers to throw in more. And now this is the 2nd time that two different LA decision-making regimes have pulled off a one-sided blockbuster trade without any other teams contacted to up the ante.

In other news, the Lakers lead the NBA in free throw differential this season... AGAIN. Different players, different coaches, different schemes... but the Lakers continue being the one franchise able to figure out how to foul less than their opponent almost every night.

And now they're also the smartest at pulling off trades. Again.

Amazing how that happens.

Yes. The dumbest part of this deal was Nico’s failure to shop Luka around for a better return or to up the price for the Lakers. Apparent, Nico and Rob Pelinka go way back and are very close friends. I think Rob took his “friend” Nico to the cleaners on this one. Rob probably told Nico that he would only do the deal if Luka was exclusively available to the Lakers. And he might have convinced Nico that someone else might swoop in and make a deal for Anthony Davis. It’s impossible to know exactly what happened, but it’s crystal clear that Nico is an idiot and his buddy Rob just embarrassed him.

Again, I can see some merit to the deal if you believe Luka will never do what it takes to be in the sort of physical condition necessary to play on a regular basis, especially as Luka gets older. In that case, I can see the Mavs not wanting to give Luka the super max deal it would take to keep him after this season, although concerns about Luka’s physical conditioning would be a more understandable basis for this deal if not for the fact that AD has never been able to stay healthy even when he was younger. In any event, not even shopping Luka around is beyond stupid and should be considered malfeasance by Dallas ownership. And making this deal with a Conference rival piles stupid on top of stupid.

Let’s be honest here. The best and brightest in our society don’t typically become basketball executives. There are a few really smart ones and after that a bunch of mediocre minds. Then of course there are a number of really dump ones. Nico clearly falls into this last group.

https://youtu.be/6nBNfrtcFPw?si=-0OSH74b0X--4KNd

[AbeVigodaLive]

Giannis and Jokic are worth every penny... and much, much more.

I get the issues with it (paying handsomely for player just as his age creeps up)... but if we've learned nothing from that list... it's possible to trade any contract.

Also....not sure if I'd characterize Denver as a middling West team. If you are 30-19 and 4th in the West, that's damn near a contender.

Yep. I had something written about that and then deleted it.

[Coolbreeze44]

You guys scoff at my conspiracy concerns but can't answer the fundamental question. Why always the Lakers?

[Q-is-here]

You guys scoff at my conspiracy concerns but can't answer the fundamental question. Why always the Lakers?

I'm suspicious, but I'm also pretty sure this wasn't "directed" by Adam Silver or any of his minions in the League office.

In this case, "why the Lakers" has to do with the fact that Nico Harrison and Rob Pelinka actually have a connection that dates back 20 years and were meeting for coffee when this came up casually. How often do front office execs just pal around together casually? I'm pretty sure Adam Silver didn't set up this meeting.

I think this is a modern version of the "good old boys" club where two long-time NBA insiders that were very well connected did a deal in a vacuum, with one walking away giddy as a schoolgirl and the other walking away being too clever by half.

[Lipoli390]

You guys scoff at my conspiracy concerns but can't answer the fundamental question. Why always the Lakers?

I don’t think I’m scoffing. You might actually be right. I’m definitely open to the existence of conspiracies, including the possibility in this instance. For example, I don’t think JFK was the victim of a lone crazed gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.

But my answer to your fundamental and very fair question is that we don’t actually have a long history of conspicuously one-sided trades favoring the Lakers. We had the Kareem deal 50 years ago and now this one. Two such trades in 50 years is not enough for me to believe the Doncic deal was orchestrated by the League in a Laker-centric conspiracy.

The success the Lakers have had getting other great payers in the 50 years between these two one-sided deals has been the natural advantage that franchise has signing free agents - the climate, money, glitz and allure of Southern California combined with the Lakers’ iconic brand. More specifically, Shaq wanted to get into the music business and Southern California was the epicenter of the American music scene at the time (and still is). Shaq has always loved attention and there’s no better place for attention that playing in America’s largest media market for the NBA’s more iconic brand. LeBron was also attracted to the money and glitz of Southern California just as he was previously drawn to the warm climate and glitz of South Beach. His wife liked it there and his son had his sights set on going to college there.

I don’t believe the Pau Gasol trade was conspicuously one-sided. And drafting Kobe was just a smart move by a very savvy GM named Jerry West. It’s not surprising that a lot of teams passed on drafting Kobe given the skepticism at the time surrounding players coming right out of high school. The KG effect hadn’t had its full impact yet. There were also a lot of dumb GMs back then, as there are now, and Jerry West was brilliant by comparison. It’s also true that Kobe wanted to go to the Lakers, which isn’t surprising since that’s where Kobe lived, not to mention the allure of playing for an iconic franchise like the Lakers.

Again, I simply see this deal as the product of a really dumb GM named Nico Harrison or, perhaps, some underhanded arrangement between two friends (Nico and Rob), but even that wouldn’t be a League conspiracy. Maybe we’ll find out otherwise at some point. I’m still convinced the League covered up more widespread gambling among officials when the Donaghy scandal came to light. So again, I’m still open to the possibility of something more nefarious in this instance. For now, I don’t think so.

[Phenom]

You guys scoff at my conspiracy concerns but can't answer the fundamental question. Why always the Lakers?

I'm suspicious, but I'm also pretty sure this wasn't "directed" by Adam Silver or any of his minions in the League office.

In this case, "why the Lakers" has to do with the fact that Nico Harrison and Rob Pelinka actually have a connection that dates back 20 years and were meeting for coffee when this came up casually. How often do front office execs just pal around together casually? I'm pretty sure Adam Silver didn't set up this meeting.

I think this is a modern version of the "good old boys" club where two long-time NBA insiders that were very well connected did a deal in a vacuum, with one walking away giddy as a schoolgirl and the other walking away being too clever by half.

It was well known that Ainge and McHales relationship helped grease the wheels to get KG to Boston. Relationships make a difference sometimes. The most curious part to me is what the ultimate reason is for Dallas to be done with Luka.