NBA Offseason

So the Rockets are going to put Harden back to SG when he was almost the MVP at PG? Doesn't make much sense to me. I do think, though, that this makes the Rockets a lot better but they're still not going to compete with Golden State.

I guess Blake Griffin is going to officially opt out now and they're probably going to trade Jordan. The Lakers really will be back to being L.A.s best team.

I think the old notion that players only focus on one role is starting to evaporate, and The Rockets are a great example of that. They want guys that can pass and shoot, and both Harden and Paul are great at both those things. Rocket offense is gonna be hard to stop if both Harden and CP3 need constant attention from the defense.
 
Hey, CP3 might make it past the second round now!

Then get wrecked by Golden State.

I don't know, if the Rockets have any cap room for one more notable FA move (and I don't see why they wouldn't, they should have at least 10 milli or so), they should be able to compete with Golden State.

I'm not saying that they'll win, just that they could at least compete... probably.

I don't think they can land any A listers (i.e. Blake Griffin or Gordon Heyward), but they could probably sign a B-lister like Paul Millsap, Danillo Gallinari, or maybe JJ Reddick, all of whom fit into Mike D'Antoni's score fast offense.

I rarely ever root for Houston sports teams, and I loathe Mike D'Antoni's system, but if the Rockets can add one more piece, they could be interesting potential foils to San Antonio and Golden State.
 
James Harden needs a PG to be a more efficient scorer. Harden wasn't going to win anything being a poor man's Westbrook (who isn't winning anything, either).
 
It's good to see a team making a move but I can't see Houston wanting to give Paul $200m after this season. That's $40m a year on average for a PG who will be about 38 when that contract runs out (please check my math).

I know free agency still hasn't kicked in but I'm so excited for next off-season. They should just skip this regulsr season and start the next off-season in October.
 
Never thought Paul would go to the Rockets of all teams. Happy though. I love Paul as a player and seeing him and Harden team up is like seeing Davis and Cousins team up. Harden is saying he wants more off ball time and having CP3 feed ya the ball isn't bad at all.
 
You guys have got to get rid of him, he's going to be public enemy number one every time he steps on the floor at home.

Conversely, he's going to get a hero's welcome when the Pacers play @ Lakers.

I'll go more into detail about it when I have more time, but PG did play a HUGE role in getting us to those ECFs. He is also a HUGE reason the team imploded.

So I finally decided to sit down and talk about this.

There is no denying that PG played a giant role in getting us to back to back ECFs. The main reasons we got there was because at the time, PG was the second best two way player in the game behind LBJ, and Frank Vogel instilled a lockdown mentally and a brilliant defensive game plan, but without PG constantly on LBJ, there is little chance we take the Heatles to seven in back to back years.

Now George was the star, no two ways about it, but that team had key players. Lance Stephenson was actually a borderline All-Star during that run, George Hill was a solid if unsung two way point man, and most of all, Roy Hibbert had morphed into a dominant All-Star center.

Now, it's easy to say that PG breaking his leg was what caused the downfall. The fact is, when he came back he wasn't the same player for a while. He did regain that form, but by the time he did, he had already fucked over Indy royally.

First of all, Hibbert. Yeah he was exposed at one point as just being a paint roaming center, but how does a 2x All-Star who was once regarded as a Lebron stopper go from those heights to an absolute bum? Well Paul George happened. See Hibbert was doing some charity work in his native Jamaica. While he was gone, PG decided to post up on Hibbert's wife. Hibbert actually caught George in the act. This lead to massive fights between the two. It got so bad that management had no choice but to step in. Now I'm not saying I don't see their logic, but they sided with PG. Like I said, a top two way forward like George is going to have more value than a slow footed rim protecting center whose offensive game was limited to under the basket stuff and an underrated hook shot, but that absolutely killed Hibbert's confidence. He actually started to see a sports psychologist over the ordeal.

Then we have his instance of being unable to keep his dick in his pants. There was a stripper who claims that PG came into club one night and paid her for sex, which resulted in pregnancy. When she told PG, he offered her a million for her to get an abortion and to keep quiet. When questioned, his response was basically "I'm Paul George, why would I need to pay for sex?" He then laughed it off. Then she filed a paternity suit, and he admitted to the sex and they settled out of court. Pretty trash human being in my eyes for that.

Then came last season. Now we all knew that the season he was out due to the broken leg, we were trying to keep our head above water until he got 100%. There were no grumbling about the team around him, no complaining to management about a lack of names around him. He knew that was going to be a lost season. Last offseason, we made more moves than usual. First of all, we made the awful decision to let Frank Vogel go and bring in Mate McMillan. McMillan was supposed to bring a faster offense to the team, something George was in favor of. We signed Al Jefferson to a bit of an ugly contract, but he was an offensive minded big man who could mentor Myles Turner. We traded for Thad Young, who was better than expected until he struggled with nagging injuries late in the season. We traded for Jeff Teague, who was more of a traditional point guard than George Hill (who was also rumored to be doubling up on Hibbert's wife with PG) so he could get George more touches. We gave the role of team leader over to PG. He couldn't handle it. We made improvements to the team, and all he could do was bitch about how he needed more. All this was happening while he was inconsistent on the court. He would have a 40 point game, then go on a two or three game stretch where he barely got 10. He constantly looked fatigued as well.

George is good, but he is no superstar.

He constantly flip flopped on saying he wanted to play on a winner, then reversing and saying he wanted to bring glory to Indy. He denied wanting out, only to say he wanted to head to LA in private.

If he wanted to play for a winner, fair enough, but the Lakers as is, are a fringe playoff team. With George they are going to be fighting for a low seed in a stacked West. Lakers with PG are no better than Pacers with PG. I understand he is from LA, and LA is a much bigger market than Indianapolis, but if he goes to LA, he is going to be playing with an inexperienced GM whose solution to make the Lakers better for years was to "get better players." Larry Bird wasn't the best, far from it, but Magic had zero experience building a team before he was hired.

I'm upset, I'm salty, I'm whatever term you want to use, because he jerked us around saying he wanted to stay and build a winner when we could have moved him. Then, when his value was already pretty low, he fucks us even harder.

So yeah, fuck Paul George.
 
I have no issue with PG wanting to go home. Unfortunately for Indy fans, home is LA. Indy isn't going to attract any good players. I hate that guys have decided to team up on four or five teams, but that's what is happening. If a small market team wants to compete, they will probably have to go the Philly route and hope draft picks work out. That scares me and I hate it.
 
I have no issue with PG wanting to go home. Unfortunately for Indy fans, home is LA. Indy isn't going to attract any good players. I hate that guys have decided to team up on four or five teams, but that's what is happening. If a small market team wants to compete, they will probably have to go the Philly route and hope draft picks work out. That scares me and I hate it.

The NBA has been mostly shit for over a decade now. The only thing that is even mildly interesting anymore is the superteam dynamic. But that, in turn, comes at a price.
 
I feel you. I blame a lot of it on the narritive that unless you get a ring or two, your career is somehow invalid.

I have zero issue admitting that in every sport, I have my favorite team, and then I have another team I root for that plays in the opposite conference. Except the NHL, as both my rooting interests are in the Western Conference, the Avs and the Preds.

The NFL it's Indy and Chicago. The MLB is Atlanta and Boston. The NBA it's Indy and Dallas. All of that is because outside of baseball, all Indy teams are small market and I want to have a rooting interest that gets on tv sometimes. Plus I love me some Dirk down in Dallas.

Despite being a state that produces a shit ton of NBA talent and having a rich basketball history, the Pacers have had minimal NBA success. They were great in the ABA, but outside of the Reggie years when we would beat up on the Knicks each year, we haven't been that good. We have been consistently above average for most of my life, but we have a grand total of one finals appearance...fucking Shaq and Kobe. That's why I'm on the fuck super teams bandwagon. I love Indiana, but despite being a fairly large city itself, Indianapolis has major issues. 1) It is overshadowed by the Chicago market. I had an ex who was from the northern part of the state, and in my visits I saw way more Chicago sports merch than Indy sports merch. 2) Despite being, I think the 16th largest city in the US, Indy has no....metroplex I think is the word. Basically Indianapolis is a fairly large city in the middle of not much else. All of Indiana's major cities are like that. They are basically urban bastions in the middle of farmland. 3) Indy itself is a shithole. I'm not saying it's a bad as say, inner city Detroit, but aside from the inner circle where most of the major business headquarters and the two stadiums are, it's a lot of old factories and low income neighborhoods. I don't blame people for not wanting to be there.

I'm just afraid that unless we do go down the Philly route and shit the bed for a few years and hope we hit on a few lottery picks, we are doomed to more of that hell that is being a middle of the pack sports team.
 
Why would I watch a regular season game when I basically know who will be in the title series? And unfortunately, I think this is just the start.
 
That's a common complaint I think. Even the media plays up how important playoff basketball is, completely downplaying most regular season games. Regular season games are such an afterthought that too coaches like Pops rest their stars on nationally televised games. It really pisses Adam Silver off too.
 
Not just Adam Silver. It pisses a lot of fans off too. I remember a game a few years ago that was on TNT between Miami and the Spurs. It was back when Miami had LeBron still. It was some big holiday game too. Like Memorial Day or something. Anyways, Pop decided that Duncan, Ginobli, Parker, and someone else didn't need to play. Jesus Christ, I remember the next day in the media that's all they talked about. TNT was pissed because they lost ratings, the NBA was pissed because TNT was pissed, the sold out crowd was pissed, and really you can't blame them. When you pay for tickets to go to a NBA game, unless you're a hardcore fan/homer, you're going to see the stars of the game. I see the logic in sitting players, however, I'm completely against it.

BTW, there's talk now that Melo will waive his no trade clause if he can get traded to Houston. He also said that if he can sign with the Cavs, then he'd take a buyout of significantly less than what he's owed.
 
How do you fix the talent distribution in the NBA though? An even harsher salary cap? There's no way the players association is going to let that happen because it means salaries are going to go down. And that's the only idea I can think of.
 
You can't force people to have a competitive instinct. If someone is willing to take less money to make their playing days easier, what can you do? It's not like they can only allow 1 player per team to exceed a specific salary per year.
 
You can't force people to have a competitive instinct. If someone is willing to take less money to make their playing days easier, what can you do? It's not like they can only allow 1 player per team to exceed a specific salary per year.

That might actually be a pretty cool system, as it would inhibit teams from getting two mega stars. Right now the only team I can think of that has two mega stars is GS, though I guess it could be argued that now Houston meets the same criteria.

Of course, if one of those guys could put their egos aside (and I'm not saying that that's impossible, in fact in today's NBA it seems likely), there'd be nothing stopping 3 mega stars from teaming up by two of them accepting a lesser salary than they could make on another team.
 
Just cut the regular season to 50ish games. Its win-win. Players are better rested and dont have to play back to backs anymore and that means they'll perform better. On top of all that there is a less garbage games that nobody cares about and a win is so much more important. 1 game against each team from the other conference (15), 2 against each team in your conference that isnt in your division (20) and 3 against your division teams (12) is 47 games, not a perfect total but I think it works
 
Just cut the regular season to 50ish games. Its win-win. Players are better rested and dont have to play back to backs anymore and that means they'll perform better. On top of all that there is a less garbage games that nobody cares about and a win is so much more important. 1 game against each team from the other conference (15), 2 against each team in your conference that isnt in your division (20) and 3 against your division teams (12) is 47 games, not a perfect total but I think it works

That's a good number of games. I agree they have to change it but I do love watching 82 games a year.

I think. I matter what the total is (unless it's like under 30) players will get rested anyways. I mean as a coach I would do it. I have the opportunity to give Lebron a night off and be fresh for the stretch ahead or make him play a meaningless game. The fact of the matter is any regular season game will become meaningless once a clear winner has popped its head. Apart from the top 4 teams and bottom 4 (I know only 3 get relegated) teams in the EPL, they're is no point in giving a damn about any of the other teams. AFL as you know is trying to fix this with that bye before the finals, which doesn't stop players getting rested during the season. Priddis for the Eagles is getting managed this week and we just had a bye 4 weeks ago.

I don't travel to the games so it doesn't matter for me as much as people who do travel to the games, but at the end of the day if Lebron or whoever ain't playing, I still get to see the best players in the world, just not the best of the best. The funny thing is Spurs still slay the top teams with their bench when they do rest stats, which just proves that any game is winnable, and if a heavy underdog win then it doesn't get more entertaining.
 
Yeah, if they want less game it means less money. Players want the same amount of money for less work. Sorry but that's not how things work in the real world. You play a game for a living. Forgive me if I don't feel for the multi-millionaire playing a game two days in a row while flying in first class/private jets to their location and staying in the best accommodation.
 
Yeah, if they want less game it means less money. Players want the same amount of money for less work. Sorry but that's not how things work in the real world. You play a game for a living. Forgive me if I don't feel for the multi-millionaire playing a game two days in a row while flying in first class/private jets to their location and staying in the best accommodation.

I'm not saying I feel for them.

I dont know about the money thing. How many games are televised nationally each season? thats where the money is if that figure can stay roughly the same then they'll be able to demand a similar amount. On top of that the idea of decreasing games, increases importance/intenseness of each game which could/should translate into more interest and viewership. Higher viewers, more the networks can charge for advertising, more advertising, the more they'll pay for tv deal. Its completely theoretical and has zero research put into it so I'm not saying its a guarantee. Its why the super bowl is so special its a one off winner takes all, you cant miss it and just watch game 2 like you can the nba finals
 
Local television, gate revenues, food, merchandise. These are still regular season games in a league that puts through 16 teams in to the playoffs. Less games doesn't make these games that much more important.
 
It's the same reason the NFL has floated the idea of adding an extra week to the regular reason the last few years. While that is an entirely different topic of debate, it's all money based.

To quote the great Wu Tang Clan, "Cash rules everything around me."
 
How do you fix the talent distribution in the NBA though? An even harsher salary cap? There's no way the players association is going to let that happen because it means salaries are going to go down. And that's the only idea I can think of.

Get rid of max contracts, so teams can offer however much money they want.

I don't think it would ever happen though.
 

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