2017 NBA Offseason

[MrCrowesGarden]

I'm not as smrt as the warriors, but I have to think that supermax contract for steph only gives them another year or two before the supporting cast starts to dip.

Klay's contract is up the year after next, and I guess Durant's would be too.

One consequence of this westward movement of All-Stars is that there will be some good West teams that miss the playoffs who get lotto picks while some not-so-good East teams will be cannon fodder in the playoffs and end up with picks in the 20s.

[Jocephus]

Sure are a lot of posts about a subject you don't care about.

No. It's a lot of posts about something I care passionately about, but presently has no meaning whatsoever.

epic

[thrill]

there will be some good West teams that miss the playoffs who get lotto picks while some not-so-good East teams will be cannon fodder in the playoffs and end up with picks in the 20s.

[themiddle54]

The best scorer of his generation, in his prime, joined a 73 win team. There is no precedent for that in what I feel perfectly comfortable calling the NBA as we know it.

That's only because there's not a precedent for a 73-win team. The closest is a Bulls team that had won three in a row, then added the game's best rebounder-slash-defender to win another three in a row. The most dominant player in the sandwich period between MJ and LeBron moved twice to get rings in Miami and Los Angeles. Miami was a playoff team and LAL were a 50+ win team when Shaq moved. LeBron went to Miami to win then came back to Cleveland to win. Elite players--even The Best Player In The Game--moving to get a ring is not new. Maybe you can't make history fit your narrative of "the best scorer" joining "the greatest regular season team in history" (esp since there's only one greatest reg season team in history) but we can easily find four movement in the last 12 years of "the best player in the game" joining an team for the purpose of an easy ring and none of those four would include Durant.

At what point should it be written into the rules that a team should stop trying to improve? At what level of talent should it be written into the rules that a player may not seek a better team/employer/situation? How bad and old does a player have to be for us to accept his decision to take a one year deal to play for a contender for less than max market value? Should we damn Nick Young for taking the Dubs filthy money?

Also the Blazers of the 90s had roughly a zero chance of winning a title. Largely because Jordan, but especially after that awful Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler demanded he be traded to a Rockets team that was coming off a championship.

[Socnorb11]

The Lakers lost in the first round the year before Shaq went there. Miami lost in the 2nd round the year before Shaq went there (and Shaq wasn't one of the top 3 players in the league by then). Drexler also wasn't one of the top 3 players in the league when he went to Houston. Obviously, there are all sorts of examples of good players changing teams. Nobody is disputing that. It happens every single year.

Are there any examples of one of the top 2 or 3 players in the game signing up with the best team in the league? No.

Did Durant or the Warriors break any rules? Of course they didn't. Is what they're doing good for the league. Not at all. I don't think the rules should be changed. I just wish players had the competitive spirit that they had 20 years ago.

[themiddle54]

NBA TV ratings are surging. A decade ago the New Orleans team was under league stewardship and they couldn't get a billionaire to take the team. Now there's a waiting list of billionaires who want a team. It's tough to demonstrate that the last 7 years of LeBron deciding the East Finalist and the last 3 years of the Dubs dominating the West have been bad for basketball.

I don't think the question of "Are there any examples of one of the top 2 or 3 players in the game signing up with the best team in the league?" is fair. It's artificially limiting the scope down just to give the asker the ability to point out Durant as the only one who has ever done this.

Drexler was averaging 22 PPG (higher than his career average) halfway through a year in which he demanded he be traded to the defending champ. He got a scant few MVP votes that year. That was 20 years before KD and was midseason. Is that ok, because Drexler was over 30 and was only a top-15 player in the league and not a top-3?

Shaq only gave Orlando 4 years before taking off for LA at age 24. He joined a 53-win team that went out in the playoffs to a HOU team that had the same Drexler who jumped ship to ring-grab and another HOFer in Hakeem. Is that ok, that the Lakers needed a HOF level player to level up and Shaq was that guy? Is 53 an acceptable amount of wins to add a top-3 player?

Nick Young could have taken more money and more years than the midlevel exception the Dubs gave him for next year. Is it ok that the Dubs are able to get a player that some other teams could use to get better since Young is good but not elite? Pau Gasol opted out of $16.2 million next year--an amount no one will pay Gasol next year--and is expected to take less money to return to a 61-win team so they can stay at the top. Is that ok, for a future HOFer on the back end of his career to give up a huge payday to help his team win? If it is ok, then how should we feel about Dwyane Wade opting into $24.3 million just out of pure unmitigated greed, a greed that makes his team worse?

[Socnorb11]

NBA TV ratings are surging.

What's your source for this? Everything I've read says that ratings were down.

I don't think the question of "Are there any examples of one of the top 2 or 3 players in the game signing up with the best team in the league?" is fair. It's artificially limiting the scope down just to give the asker the ability to point out Durant as the only one who has ever done this.

Because he is. That's the point.

Drexler was averaging 22 PPG (higher than his career average) halfway through a year in which he demanded he be traded to the defending champ. He got a scant few MVP votes that year. That was 20 years before KD and was midseason. Is that ok, because Drexler was over 30 and was only a top-15 player in the league and not a top-3?

Shaq only gave Orlando 4 years before taking off for LA at age 24. He joined a 53-win team that went out in the playoffs to a HOU team that had the same Drexler who jumped ship to ring-grab and another HOFer in Hakeem. Is that ok, that the Lakers needed a HOF level player to level up and Shaq was that guy? Is 53 an acceptable amount of wins to add a top-3 player?

Nick Young could have taken more money and more years than the midlevel exception the Dubs gave him for next year. Is it ok that the Dubs are able to get a player that some other teams could use to get better since Young is good but not elite? Pau Gasol opted out of $16.2 million next year--an amount no one will pay Gasol next year--and is expected to take less money to return to a 61-win team so they can stay at the top. Is that ok, for a future HOFer on the back end of his career to give up a huge payday to help his team win? If it is ok, then how should we feel about Dwyane Wade opting into $24.3 million just out of pure unmitigated greed, a greed that makes his team worse?

Why stop there? You could make a list of good or very good players who changed teams every year, with their goal being to lead a team to a championship. Their goal was to take a team to the next level. That's not what Durant did. He jumped aboard a team that was already favored to win the championship, and had already won one. There's no competitive spirit there.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

You're comparing competitive apples to AAU oranges. I would say (correctly) that the awful Clyde Drexler is far more comparable to Chris Paul last week than to Kevin Durant last summer, in that he was past his prime leaving a team that was post peak and done in its form. And most critically to the point I've been ham-fisting for a few pages; the league wasn't a pitiful, cruel joke of meaninglessness after the Glide took his Avias to Houston.

In the words of Zach Lowe:

There is no response beyond mealymouthed muttering about ill-timed injuries to the non-fan who dismisses next season as decided.

There may need to be some parity rules eventually, but I'm not demanding anything. I guess I just don't relate to the values of these players anymore; in terms of geographical location (which has always been true) and in terms of what a meaningful victory is. Kevin Durant can do whatever he wants and find whatever meaning and joy in it that he likes. But I think it's super lame and the league is now pointless. At what point should it be written that I don't get to think and argue that?

I am pretty sure the NBA is as healthy as it has ever been, especially overseas. But La Liga is also hugely popular and hugely stupid. At least they have the Champions League, though. As long as it's secure and not going anywhere, I don't really care how healthy the NBA is.

Lastly, it wasn't too many posts ago that I also shat on LeBron.

And for real lastly, Jordan was just lucky Sabonis was stuck behind the Iron Curtain. Put a 7'3" Larry Bird on that Blazers team...

Now off to do your research, but please clearly lay out the merits of an appropriate response to your preparations so I can reply within the parameters.
Prove to me that Drexler is in fact the same human as Kevin Durant and this will still be true: It doesn't matter how much data you throw at incorrect people, opinions will still be subjective.

[themiddle54]

That's what I'm asking is: what are the parameters? At what point does a guy become a villain? At what point is what a guy does ok?

To me, Wade taking his option and saying when asked why he took it "24 million reasons", thus taking a deal to play for a team that he has no desire to play for just because he can unilaterally make it happen and because no one else would give him that kind of money right now, is as bottom-of-the-barrel as it gets. There should be 3X the outrage over Wade being a greedy [expletive] as there is for Durant wanting to go make the Dubs even better. And FWIW the Dubs lost the title the year before Durant joined. They were the 2001 Mariners. And nobody would have gotten huffy if the 2002 Mariners added a Cy Young Winner or Home Run King, I suspect largely because in baseball we have been trained by big-market teams to not expect players to make contract decisions based on our own desires for parity.

Anyway, there are parity rules. All the taxpayer midlevel exception stuff and cap hold stuff and max deal stuff and no deals over X for guys older than Y stuff and all the no minimum deals for more than 2 years and yadda yadda yadda have an express purpose: parity. And they all fail, with many of them having the adverse effect of that which is intended.

Broncos, the Finals this year were the most watched since Jordan '98. They've been on an upward trend since 2007.

[Socnorb11]

The Finals might have had good ratings. That doesn't make up for the poor ratings all season.

Wade had already led his team to championships. His and legacy was already cemented in Miami. He's got nothing to prove, at this point. Why not take the money that he sacrificed a few years earlier?

To me, it's not even about the rules. It's about the players. They just don't have that competitive spirit that we saw 20 years ago. They want an easy ring. It's the world we live in, I guess.............