(11-21-2020, 02:32 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: [ -> ] (11-21-2020, 02:28 PM)Mavs2019 Wrote: [ -> ]You guys are all overblowing their culture issue.
If some dumb franchise had offered THJ 100/4, he´d have been like, nah I love this Mavs culture so much, I´ll opt into my final year.
Hayward was looking for that last huge payday (before his injury+age-related decline) and his calculated gamble paid off.
Is Ainge a ruthless mofo? Absolutely, but come on now.
Right there with you in terms of signing/keeping players. Money rules.
But in terms of the team reaching its potential? In terms of winning? It still might be overblown, but I think it matters.
@"cow"'s gif game has definitely gone up a notch over the past week.
(11-22-2020, 07:49 PM)omahen Wrote: [ -> ] (11-22-2020, 07:22 PM)Jason Terry Wrote: [ -> ]Expecting a 4-5 seed
Taking from here.
Top of West. LAC, LAL and Denver are powerhouses. First two improved, Denver core is young so a certain level of improvement can be expected. However, they were unable to improve at a SG position (Harris), where they had the biggest hole. Portland improved greatly on the paper. They look terrific. These four will be difficult to beat.
Solid playoff teams. I would put Utah, GSW and Dallas here.
Playoff hopefulls. Houston, Memphis and Phoenix in this tier. Houston is just a little worse, but a ticking bomb. Tucker, Westbrook, Harden are reportedly unhappy. Phoenix made that huge CP3 deal, but followed by meh draft. They covered some holes in FA. I don't think they improved enough to be a tier higher. Can Memphis repeat the very successful season?
Think they are a playoff team but not likely. San Antonio, New Orleans, Minnesota. San Antonio drafted well and mostly kept the group, so they will remain a fringe playoff team. They might start a firesale at TDL if they feel they don't make it. New Orleans built somehow strange team with pieces that don't really fit the idea of modern basketball, but defense will be better than last year. Minnesota put together a very straneg roster. Most of main guys don't play defense, but have big offensive talent. Rubio is very strange decision for this group. They don't have wings and overpaid Beasley.
Rebuilding: Sacramento. Unless they match Bogi offer from Atlanta, they will be worse. But seems like FO has given new management time to build a team that makes sense.
G-league: OKC. They might be historically bad. Horford and SGA (I expect Hill gone) are the only serious players on the roster, the rest is a group of guys that barely played up to now. They might be fighting hard, but will just lack quality for something more.
The Lakers lost Bradley, Green, and Rondo arguably 3 of their top 5 perimeter players. The McGee/Howard combination was pretty salty.
I do not think they got better. Wesley Matthews is trash on defense. KL is going to abuse him
The Lakers really turned Danny Green, Rajon Rondo, McGee and Howard (the last two not even really playable in the playoffs) into Schroeder, Harrell, Gasol and Mathews, along with keeping KCP and AD.
That's good stuff. Options to go big, and their best lineup (AD at the 5, Lebron basically at the 4) got better, too. Schroeder will close games for them when they go to that lineup.
(11-22-2020, 07:53 PM)Omega_Supreme Wrote: [ -> ]The Lakers lost Bradley, Green, and Rondo arguably 3 of their top 5 perimeter players. The McGee/Howard combination was pretty salty.
I do not think they got better. Wesley Matthews is trash on defense. KL is going to abuse him
Bradley wasn't even playing in the playoffs. They replaced Howard with Gasol and McGee with Harell, definitely an upgrade. Schroeder is an upgrade over Rondo and is not even close. Matthews can give what Green gave. They improved, substantially.
Too much for Baynes but not too bad. 1/7 or 2/10 would make me wish he was a mav
If Saric gets his extension done in time, realgm will be correct that FA started and ends with Bogdanovic.
Some of you really need to watch the playoffs this year. There's a lot of basketball knowledge in this community, but McGee was a non-factor in the playoffs from start to finish, not even seeing the court really in the last two rounds. Howard was actually surprisingly effective against Jokic, but imo this was largely due to Mike Malone's lack of understanding of how to exploit that matchup. He played right into LA's hands. Howard, like McGee, was a non-factor in the finals.
AD at center is what won LAL that championship. They clearly don't want to play that way all season, and that's fine. The options they have now (Gasol and Harrell) bring much, much, MUCH more to the table than McGee/Howard did. Howard is so dumb he doesn't even know when he's being offered a contract. His goal for this free agency was to get a deal for guaranteed money, and there were so few teams willing to offer such a contract that he was forced to take a 1-year deal for his minimum on the first day of free agency. This is not a player you worry about losing.
I don't see the fit with Harrell and AD together. Gasol is pretty much done as a player too. Won't matter too much in the playoffs if they play AD at the 5 like they should but I think their bigs are much worse than last year.
(11-22-2020, 08:04 PM)Branduil Wrote: [ -> ]I don't see the fit with Harrell and AD together. Gasol is pretty much done as a player too. Won't matter too much in the playoffs if they play AD at the 5 like they should but I think their bigs are much worse than last year.
I think you'll be surprised. I'm not a huge Harrell fan, either, but he's young and plays with energy. Gasol makes that team better simply by not being an idiot. He just knows how to play the game.
Lakers got better offensively but worse defensively. Last year defense was there hall mark to championship. Lets see how being worse on that end affects them this season.
LAL did well and are for sure the team to beat. LAC swapped Harrell for Ibaka and gave big money to Morris: they got older and more expensive. Not a good offseason.
(11-22-2020, 08:08 PM)Playmaker Wrote: [ -> ]Lakers got better offensively but worse defensively. Last year defense was there hall mark to championship. Lets see how being worse on that end affects them this season.
How can you support this? I can see Green to Mathews as a downgrade defensively, but they kept KCP, who was their best 3&D guy, and Schroeder is a MASSIVE upgrade on defense over Rondo.
Their best defensive players were AD/Lebron/KCP/Green/Caruso. Rondo was
great in the playoffs, but literally the rest of the time he has been in LA he has been to them what Wright was here for us. The fans HATED that dude. He was great in the playoffs because he made some plays and dropped a ton of 3's, not because of his defense.
(11-22-2020, 08:08 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: [ -> ] (11-22-2020, 08:04 PM)Branduil Wrote: [ -> ]I don't see the fit with Harrell and AD together. Gasol is pretty much done as a player too. Won't matter too much in the playoffs if they play AD at the 5 like they should but I think their bigs are much worse than last year.
I think you'll be surprised. I'm not a huge Harrell fan, either, but he's young and plays with energy. Gasol makes that team better simply by not being an idiot. He just knows how to play the game.
Knowing and still being physically capable of doing it are two different things.
I mean, Baynes was right there. He would have been a WAY better option than both of those guys, he'd fit right in next to AD.
East suffered again:
Miami - a bit better (kept core, adequately replaced Crowder)
Toronto - worse (lost Ibaka and Gasol)
Atlanta - improved to get to the playoffs. Overpaid 3 vets (but how else will you convince them to join you), but kept a ton of young talent. Should make playoffs
Boston - worse
Brooklyn - much better just if KD and Irving remain healthy. Other than that they mainly kept the team
Chicago - basically didn't change anything
Charlotte - short term improved, long term disaster
Cleveland - basically didn't do anything
Detroit - ??? I guess no one understands what their plan was
Indiana - stayed the same, if healthy can finally do something
Milwaukee - Basically changed whole team, so difficult to say. Jrue brings a lot, but there is no depth. Got good vets for minimum contracts. Still, I would say they are worse - too much changes
New York - bottom again, basically didn't do anything. Will collect some picks for cap space.
Orlando - basically stood pat
Philadelphia - consolidated and it didn't cost them much. Should be better, but will it be enough?
Washington - overpaid Lopez and Bertans. Their max is to reach playoffs. Wall is an idiot - guy is paid max, didn't played for two seasons and he has the balls to demand trade???
(11-22-2020, 08:09 PM)Jason Terry Wrote: [ -> ]LAC...gave big money to Morris
Yeah, I admit, that deal isn't great. I think Ibaka, as a 3&D big (the rarest of things) is a pretty successful bounce back from losing Harrell, though, and might actually fit better for them in the short term.
(11-22-2020, 08:09 PM)Jason Terry Wrote: [ -> ]LAC swapped Harrell for Ibaka and gave big money to Morris: they got older and more expensive. Not a good offseason.
They also added Kennard, which should be great for them
(11-22-2020, 08:15 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: [ -> ]I think Ibaka, as a 3&D big (the rarest of things) is a pretty successful bounce back from losing Harrell, though, and might actually fit better for them in the short term.
One thing to watch here. Williams-Harrell were really good together. Ibaka is a much different player than Harrell - can we expect significant drop of production from Williams?
(11-22-2020, 07:48 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: [ -> ]Hate to say it, but imo, the team who had the best off-season in the West might've been the Lakers.
Portland and Dallas also did well, imo, and the Clippers are one PG away from patting themselves on the back, too. I think they might get it done.
Gonna be a crazy season.
Call me crazy... But I think they actually had one of the worst of the contenders.
Harrell is such a massive downgrade for who they are. They won by defense. Harrell was an absolute liability against everyone in the playoffs.
Gasol is a nice pickup but I'm not sure how much he has in the tank. He's a banger and can shoot and he's definitely an upgrade from McGee if he's got anything left.
But they lost almost all of their best defending role players. I'm not sure there are any real upgrades except maybe Schroeder over Rondo offensively.
To me it feels like the Lakers fell in love with the big names regardless of fit instead of actually getting better and getting guys that fit what they want to do. Vogel has always been an all defense team that just scores enough. And so far he's not been able to win with offensive style play.
But in an indirect play... They may have had a great offseason because I'm not sure anyone at the top of the west improved. And I'm not sure anyone but the Bucks in the East contenders got better.
I think the league is wide open yet again.
(11-22-2020, 08:16 PM)omahen Wrote: [ -> ]One thing to watch here. Williams-Harrell were really good together. Ibaka is a much different player than Harrell - can we expect significant drop of production from Williams?
They did work well together. But, on the other hand, now Williams will have more space with Ibaka. Gonna be fun to watch.
(11-22-2020, 08:19 PM)cjeter24 Wrote: [ -> ]Harrell was an absolute liability against everyone in the playoffs.
Harrell in the playoffs was not the same as 6th man of the year before the bubble Harrell. How many times do we have to point it out. The difference was just obvious, he was a shell of himself and he had objective reasons for that.
TLDR: I remain skeptical that Vogel can coach a team to a championship that relies on their offense to win games which I think LAL will now. But never bet against Lebron.