Durant and the harsh reality of being a small market

[AbeVigodaLive]

This thread needs to be renamed. This situation happened because of a ton of key factors, and none of them were because of the size of the market.

Probably not. But there were many rumors that Durant's handlers were pushing for him to move on from the less-than-ideal NBA mecca. There'll be many factors that come up when Towns and others are in a similar situation:

- familiarity
- teammates
- money
- future success probability
- pressure from PR folk in his corner
- pressure from friends (groupies/buddies/deadbeats/wife/et al)
- weather
- coach
- superstar friends around the league
- etc...

So many things go into these decisions. Hopefully, the Wolves check off enough of them to keep the star player. Championships will go a long way, too. It's a new generation. We see it in our everyday lives... who's expecting a slightly more entitled generation to be any different when it comes to hoops players...

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

A few things
1. As some of you know, I am very protective of "The 612", or "The 612, 763, and 952", as it were. Just the other day, someone made a crack about M/SP and I said "Oh, you mean the place where they have 51 murders a year, not a weekend? You mean the place where the most dangerous animal at the beach is a poodle? You mean the place where Fortune 500 companies actually take responsibility for wild animals on their grounds? You mean that M/SP?"
I can't stand when someone refers to M/SP as a SMALL MARKET. Though M/SP is the smallest market with NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL, THEY DO HAVE ALL FOUR!. And they don't give you all four if they don't think you can handle it.
2. The Wolves have two big problems: Their own 28 year Shakespearean tragedy, and the fact that far too many people in M/SP would rather watch the Mild lose 1-0 than the Wolves win 110-100.
3. The Wolves ROUTINELY paid the Luxury Tax back in the late 90's/Early aughts, back when paying a guy $20m/year actually meant something.
4. The Wolves got Cassell by taking on salary and because MIL was tired of listening to Sam bitch about his contract, and they got Spree by giving ATL Terrell Brandon's fully insured expiring contract in a unicorn known as a 4-team trade. No free agency involved.

[Monster]

I guess I'll put this thought here since its OKC related.

Selfishly I want to see Westbrook stay for one year just to see that Russ Dipo backcourt together. Could be pretty fun. Also I find it interesting that Dipo and Kris's Dunn have basically the same height/length measurables.