quik1987
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48 Million
2013-2014 NBA Thread - IND @ WAS and OKC @ LAC on ESPN
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by big j 33,
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http://s.photobucket.com/user/addict4sneakers/media/kobev.gif.html
He was amazing last season and that team was the 8th seed.
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Not true. He modeled his game after the bestExactly, afflalo doesn't even have offensive gane
jumpmanfromdabay
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EL OH EL
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What
black migo
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Idk why kobe thought being a facilitator ending up with 8 TO's & only taking 9 shots was helping the team any kind of way
do work son
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Haters at full force already... forgot what NT looks like when Kobe had a bad game..
@ Rocket fans hyping up Harden. " did a very good job guarding..." LOL
Exactly, afflalo doesn't even have offensive gane
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At the end of the day Kobe had more pts and as many rebounds as pau... even tho he was asked to play too may min and still obv has to get back n the game speed groove
Mamba >
Mamba >
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Pau sucks but you have to keep in mind the offense also has to learn to play with him
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well that was about what I expected from kobe's return (not too many points, a bunch of turnovers)
cant even be mad at all the hate in here, we did the same thing for that first clippers loss and the first few rockets losses
hopefully this will follow the same pattern and kobe sucking will not be a big deal anymore after around game 3-4
cant even be mad at all the hate in here, we did the same thing for that first clippers loss and the first few rockets losses
hopefully this will follow the same pattern and kobe sucking will not be a big deal anymore after around game 3-4
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O hush, lolsee now bad enough i gotta see and hear about this ghoulish broad in the movie thread now you bringing this monster in here? :x
go on and bring old rat face anna kendricks in here while your at it
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sensitive Kobe fans. I was just kidding.. Of course Kobe>Harden
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Philly is the frontrunner… Perhaps Hawes/Thad Young for Asik/Dmo
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Last edited:
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Grizz have the Portland curse.
Marc Gasol - out indefinitely; sprained MCL
Ed Davis - probable; ankle injury
Quincy Pondexter - out indefinitely; on crutches, foot injury
Tony Allen - probable; hip injury
Zach Randolph - probable; toe injury
Tayshaun Prince - probably; thigh bruise
Mike Miller - midas well add him because he's going to get hurt sooner or later
all injured. I think Gasol, Davis, Pondexter and TA will all be out tonight vs Orlando.
Marc Gasol - out indefinitely; sprained MCL
Ed Davis - probable; ankle injury
Quincy Pondexter - out indefinitely; on crutches, foot injury
Tony Allen - probable; hip injury
Zach Randolph - probable; toe injury
Tayshaun Prince - probably; thigh bruise
Mike Miller - midas well add him because he's going to get hurt sooner or later
all injured. I think Gasol, Davis, Pondexter and TA will all be out tonight vs Orlando.
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http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-t...dy-gay-trade-means-for-toronto-and-sacramento
[h1]A New King: What the Rudy Gay Trade Means for Toronto and Sacramento[/h1]By Zach Lowe on December 9, 2013 11:30 AM ET
ROCKY WIDNER/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES
The Raptors canvassed damn near the entire league in their quest to become the second team in two seasons to dump Rudy Gay well in advance of the trade deadline, according to sources across the NBA. They went to every team that made at least some theoretical sense: Detroit, with expiring contracts and at least some need on the wing; Milwaukee, with fading postseason ambitions and a massive hole at small forward the Greek Freak isn’t quite ready to fill; Cleveland, with a playoff mandate, a GM on shaky ground, and perhaps the worst group of starting wing players in the league; and many others.
Everyone said no, and they did so abruptly. This is how far Gay’s value has declined league-wide over the last 18 months. I know GMs who say they wouldn’t touch him now in free agency for the midlevel exception. Only one team was left: the Kings, with a new ownership group determined to make a splash and a new GM, Pete D’Alessandro, who worked with Toronto GM Masai Ujiri in Denver. The Kings’ wing rotation is a disaster, even after the recent acquisition of Derrick Williams, who has never resembled an NBA-caliber small forward. The Williams swap and DeMarcus Cousins max-level extension left Sacramento without meaningful projected cap room this summer, putting the Kings in a position where they could plausibly look at Gay’s $19 million player option for 2014-15 and say, “No harm, no foul.” The Raptors were betting Gay would pick up that option given his poor play this season, and dealing Gay allows them to plan with more certainty.
http://
And so here we are: The last remaining Rudy Gay suitor has agreed to send four rotation players to Toronto in exchange for Gay and (very tall) salary filler. If you’re even a medium-level NBA fan, you probably know the names of all four players going to Toronto. But don’t be fooled: This is a salary dump. This is not about Patrick Patterson, or Greivis Vasquez, the league’s second-leading assist man last season. This is about Toronto sloughing off Gay’s endless barrage of midrange bricks and beginning a full teardown — with the potential for a top-five pick in this draft, max-level cap space this summer, and similar space every summer going forward.
Here’s the thing: This deal, by itself, may well make the 2013-14 Raptors better. And that’s why we should expect the Raptors to begin (or continue) gauging the market for both DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry as we approach December 15, after which most free agents who signed over the summer are trade-eligible again. Dwane Casey, the team’s head coach, may also be in trouble, depending on Ujiri’s timetable with the position, per several league sources.
The current version of Gay is basically a harmful player. He used 30 percent of Toronto’s possessions with a shot, turnover, or drawn foul — a gargantuan usage rate reserved for the league’s biggest scoring stars. He’s also shooting 38.8 percent for the season. That is a historically rare combination of shot chucking and brick laying. Only three players in league history have used more than 30 percent of their team’s possessions while shooting below 40 percent: Jerry Stackhouse, Baron Davis, and Allen Iverson (twice). This is irresponsible offensive play. Those other guys could at least point to heaps of free throws or solid assist numbers. Gay can point to neither, in part because he has never been an intuitive passer who can read the floor at NBA speed.
He hasn’t been useless. He has shot the 3-pointer well this season, the one shred of evidence his fabled vision-improvement surgery might have worked (wink!). He can work as a stretch power forward, though he has shared some of that role this season with Landry Fields (owner of perhaps the most ridiculous contract in the league) and Steve Novak. He’s long, and when he’s engaged, he can be an above-average defender. Toronto’s wing rotation is shallow without him, though the promise of more time for Terrence Ross is exciting.
But a player who hijacks an offense this way mostly does harm. A lot of Toronto’s offensive possessions look fine for the first 10 or 12 seconds of the shot clock — until the ball ends up in Gay’s hands at the elbow area. Too many possessions devolve from there into a useless pile of slow-moving jab steps, sideways dribbles, pump fakes, and other “full of sound/signifying nothing” nonsense until the merciful 15-foot miss. Gay by all accounts has better intentions than this — plans to cut off the ball, pass more, and act more decisively with the rock. He just hasn’t been able to execute those plans, or come close to doing so.
DeRozan has shot better this season without Gay on the floor, per NBA.com. The Raptors’ starting lineup, torrid to finish last season, has scored just 98.9 points per 100 possessions this season — about equivalent to Orlando’s offense, ranked 24th in the league. The Raps turned into world-beaters when Casey separated the two wing gunners: 104.2 points per 100 possessions when DeRozan played without Gay, and 112.7 when Gay went solo. (This did not happen last season). DeRozan has improved incrementally in almost every one of his pro seasons, and he has much wider appeal around the league than Gay. He’s passing better and shooting the 3-pointer at a career-best rate, though we’ve seen DeRozan have hot 3-point streaks that prove fleeting. He’s still a midrange type who plays (mostly) below-average defense and is due $9.5 million in each of the three seasons after this one.
In any case, the Raps have separated Gay and DeRozan permanently. Redistribute some of the leftover possessions to Kyle Lowry pick-and-rolls with Amir Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas, and to Valanciunas post-ups, and the Raptors may develop a more efficient offense.
There are other benefits: Toronto adds two legit big-man rotation guys in Patterson (struggling horribly with his shot) and Chuck Hayes to a three-man front line leaning too heavily on Tyler Hansbrough before Hansbrough’s injury over the weekend. Vasquez is a giant upgrade over the D.J. Augustin–Julyan Stone–Dwight Buycks pupu platter, and brings the delightful possibility of another point guard controversy for Casey and the ornery Lowry.
But again, this deal is about dumping Gay and getting that cap space. Toronto could have about $18 million in room this summer, depending on where it picks in the draft, but getting all that dreamy space requires some work. The Raptors will have to buy out the final year of John Salmons’s deal for $1 million (easy) and renounce their rights to Patterson and Vasquez — both restricted free agents this summer — at the outset of free agency. Vasquez’s cap hold is about $2 million less than Patterson’s, meaning Toronto could maintain its matching rights on Vasquez and still have about $12 million in space. The point guard position is otherwise bare, given that Lowry is also a free agent and unlikely to return or finish this season in Toronto. Vasquez is a nice player, but he's not fast enough to turn the corner off the dribble or credibly guard his position. He has compensated by using his height to float runners over shorter defenders, and he can switch over to defend shooting guards on the other end. But he's almost 27 and looks like a high-quality backup rather than a pricey starter.
It’s popular to say no major free agents will go to Toronto. It’s cold, it’s in Canada, the Mountie was a mean WWF villain, and signing there brings tax issues. Perhaps. But cap space isn’t just for LeBron James. It allows teams to act as predators in lopsided trades, gobbling up extra assets (first-round draft picks, young players) in exchange for taking on short-term toxic deals. And there are sub-star free agents who sign in less glamorous markets — Josh Smith, O.J. Mayo, Kyle Korver, Monta Ellis, Paul Millsap, Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, etc. Some of those deals were smart; others were less smart. Ujiri is very smart, and he’ll maximize returns on this cap space.
As for the Kings, they made noise last month about dealing with the future in mind. Acquiring Williams, even with his $6.3 million salary for next season, fit that mold. Acquiring Gay does not, though it may put Williams in a better position amid a lineup now very heavy on shoot-first types — a problem in Sacramento since the breakup of the Chris Webber–Vlade Divac teams.
Williams is 22, still a mostly unknown NBA commodity who could not gain Rick Adelman’s trust in Minnesota. Gay is 27 and declining. They play the same position, though Williams in his limited NBA time has looked much more promising as a spot-up small-ball power forward. Slicing away two players from Sacto’s crowded power forward rotation opens up the possibility of Mike Malone using Gay and Williams together in smaller lineups, where one of them is the nominal power forward. Speaking of the Kings’ power forward situation:
1. Remember when Hayes was the darling of the NBA — the short center who could? What a falloff, though some scary health issues didn’t help. But careers really do go to die in Sacramento, don’t they? It’s like he ceased being relevant the moment he got there — like he caught a virus.
2. Jason Thompson’s five-year, $30 million contract is starting to look like an overpay. Thompson is a decent rotation player, but he doesn’t have one killer skill, and he has never put his entire game together over a full season. He’s just kind of there these days, though Patterson shot poorly enough for Thompson to at least reclaim his starting job.
Even worse, if Gay picks up his $19 million option for next season, the crux of the issue here, Sacramento will have about $71 million in committed salary before paying Isaiah Thomas a single dollar in free agency. This is the sad coda to the Geoff Petrie era: Thompson’s deal, the Hayes overpay, the bizarre Salmons–Jimmer Fredette deal that left Salmons on the books a year longer than the other players involved, the inexplicable aggression in the Travis Outlaw amnesty auction, the Marcus Thornton contract (a deal I didn’t mind at the time). Sacramento either has to shed salary or go into the luxury tax to sign Thomas.
And, umm, they sort of need Thomas, since he’s the only proven point guard left here. Lucky for the Kings, Thomas has upped his assist rate into acceptable point guard territory after grading out more as a hybrid bench spark plug over his first two seasons. He’s still scoring a ton, and has been in the top-10 overall in player efficiency rating most of the season. He has outplayed Vasquez, especially in fourth quarters, and he has earned the increase in minutes this deal will provide him. He’s shooting a career-best 40 percent from deep, he still can’t miss around the rim, and he has an unmatched arsenal of tricks that make him one of the most entertaining players in the league — runners, modified hook shots, stutter steps, and a wicked hesitation dribble.
But he’s a borderline shoot-first guy on a team full of shoot-first guys now. Gay craves the ball and generates little respect from defenses when he doesn’t have it. Thomas is a wizard with the rock. A huge portion of Sacramento’s sets are post-ups for Cousins, playing by far the best two-way ball of his career.
It will be a challenge for Malone to mesh all these parts. It helps that Ben McLemore, promising so far, works best for now as a spot-up guy feeding off the creative work of others. Williams has always struggled to do much off the bounce. Thornton is a very good spot-up guy around post-ups and pick-and-rolls; he’s not of much use as an off-the-dribble creator.
There are ways this could work for a team that has been about average offensively. The Kings have been a catastrophe on defense, and Gay doesn’t really move the needle in that respect. Beyond that, it’s unclear what the point really is here. Shedding Hayes’s salary is nice, but Gay’s option overwhelms it. If Gay works out this season, he takes minutes (and touches) from younger players and moves Sacramento down the draft board. If he doesn’t work out, he takes minutes (and touches) from younger players while stagnating the franchise.
The financial costs won’t be horrible, presuming the Kings find a way to keep Thomas without paying the tax. They weren’t going to have meaningful cap room this summer, and they weren’t going to salary-dump any of this Patterson-Salmons-Hayes group for value. There’s also the chance that Gay opts out of that $19 million option to secure a longer-term deal, a move several players — Gerald Wallace, Monta Ellis, Andrei Kirilenko, and others — have made in the last couple of years. There is value in locking up as much long-term guaranteed money as possible, as soon as possible. Injuries happen, and the revised collective bargaining deal coming after 2017 may be less favorable for players.
But none of those guys were looking at anything close to $19 million for a single year of missing shots. Around a dozen teams could have max-level space this summer, but Gay’s value is at rock bottom right now. He might struggle to get $25 million over three seasons if he keeps shooting like this. The Raptors wagered he’d opt in, and that’s the likely outcome here.
The Kings have to hope that Gay isn’t a sunk cost and fight against any inkling of an urge to extend him early. Just don’t expect Sacramento fans to be excited upon news of the deal, as desperate Toronto fans were last season. Everyone knows better now. It’s up to Gay to prove the league wrong.
The Raptors canvassed damn near the entire league in their quest to become the second team in two seasons to dump Rudy Gay well in advance of the trade deadline, according to sources across the NBA. They went to every team that made at least some theoretical sense: Detroit, with expiring contracts and at least some need on the wing; Milwaukee, with fading postseason ambitions and a massive hole at small forward the Greek Freak isn’t quite ready to fill; Cleveland, with a playoff mandate, a GM on shaky ground, and perhaps the worst group of starting wing players in the league; and many others.
Everyone said no, and they did so abruptly. This is how far Gay’s value has declined league-wide over the last 18 months. I know GMs who say they wouldn’t touch him now in free agency for the midlevel exception. Only one team was left: the Kings, with a new ownership group determined to make a splash and a new GM, Pete D’Alessandro, who worked with Toronto GM Masai Ujiri in Denver. The Kings’ wing rotation is a disaster, even after the recent acquisition of Derrick Williams, who has never resembled an NBA-caliber small forward. The Williams swap and DeMarcus Cousins max-level extension left Sacramento without meaningful projected cap room this summer, putting the Kings in a position where they could plausibly look at Gay’s $19 million player option for 2014-15 and say, “No harm, no foul.” The Raptors were betting Gay would pick up that option given his poor play this season, and dealing Gay allows them to plan with more certainty.
http://
And so here we are: The last remaining Rudy Gay suitor has agreed to send four rotation players to Toronto in exchange for Gay and (very tall) salary filler. If you’re even a medium-level NBA fan, you probably know the names of all four players going to Toronto. But don’t be fooled: This is a salary dump. This is not about Patrick Patterson, or Greivis Vasquez, the league’s second-leading assist man last season. This is about Toronto sloughing off Gay’s endless barrage of midrange bricks and beginning a full teardown — with the potential for a top-five pick in this draft, max-level cap space this summer, and similar space every summer going forward.
Here’s the thing: This deal, by itself, may well make the 2013-14 Raptors better. And that’s why we should expect the Raptors to begin (or continue) gauging the market for both DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry as we approach December 15, after which most free agents who signed over the summer are trade-eligible again. Dwane Casey, the team’s head coach, may also be in trouble, depending on Ujiri’s timetable with the position, per several league sources.
The current version of Gay is basically a harmful player. He used 30 percent of Toronto’s possessions with a shot, turnover, or drawn foul — a gargantuan usage rate reserved for the league’s biggest scoring stars. He’s also shooting 38.8 percent for the season. That is a historically rare combination of shot chucking and brick laying. Only three players in league history have used more than 30 percent of their team’s possessions while shooting below 40 percent: Jerry Stackhouse, Baron Davis, and Allen Iverson (twice). This is irresponsible offensive play. Those other guys could at least point to heaps of free throws or solid assist numbers. Gay can point to neither, in part because he has never been an intuitive passer who can read the floor at NBA speed.
He hasn’t been useless. He has shot the 3-pointer well this season, the one shred of evidence his fabled vision-improvement surgery might have worked (wink!). He can work as a stretch power forward, though he has shared some of that role this season with Landry Fields (owner of perhaps the most ridiculous contract in the league) and Steve Novak. He’s long, and when he’s engaged, he can be an above-average defender. Toronto’s wing rotation is shallow without him, though the promise of more time for Terrence Ross is exciting.
But a player who hijacks an offense this way mostly does harm. A lot of Toronto’s offensive possessions look fine for the first 10 or 12 seconds of the shot clock — until the ball ends up in Gay’s hands at the elbow area. Too many possessions devolve from there into a useless pile of slow-moving jab steps, sideways dribbles, pump fakes, and other “full of sound/signifying nothing” nonsense until the merciful 15-foot miss. Gay by all accounts has better intentions than this — plans to cut off the ball, pass more, and act more decisively with the rock. He just hasn’t been able to execute those plans, or come close to doing so.
DeRozan has shot better this season without Gay on the floor, per NBA.com. The Raptors’ starting lineup, torrid to finish last season, has scored just 98.9 points per 100 possessions this season — about equivalent to Orlando’s offense, ranked 24th in the league. The Raps turned into world-beaters when Casey separated the two wing gunners: 104.2 points per 100 possessions when DeRozan played without Gay, and 112.7 when Gay went solo. (This did not happen last season). DeRozan has improved incrementally in almost every one of his pro seasons, and he has much wider appeal around the league than Gay. He’s passing better and shooting the 3-pointer at a career-best rate, though we’ve seen DeRozan have hot 3-point streaks that prove fleeting. He’s still a midrange type who plays (mostly) below-average defense and is due $9.5 million in each of the three seasons after this one.
In any case, the Raps have separated Gay and DeRozan permanently. Redistribute some of the leftover possessions to Kyle Lowry pick-and-rolls with Amir Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas, and to Valanciunas post-ups, and the Raptors may develop a more efficient offense.
There are other benefits: Toronto adds two legit big-man rotation guys in Patterson (struggling horribly with his shot) and Chuck Hayes to a three-man front line leaning too heavily on Tyler Hansbrough before Hansbrough’s injury over the weekend. Vasquez is a giant upgrade over the D.J. Augustin–Julyan Stone–Dwight Buycks pupu platter, and brings the delightful possibility of another point guard controversy for Casey and the ornery Lowry.
But again, this deal is about dumping Gay and getting that cap space. Toronto could have about $18 million in room this summer, depending on where it picks in the draft, but getting all that dreamy space requires some work. The Raptors will have to buy out the final year of John Salmons’s deal for $1 million (easy) and renounce their rights to Patterson and Vasquez — both restricted free agents this summer — at the outset of free agency. Vasquez’s cap hold is about $2 million less than Patterson’s, meaning Toronto could maintain its matching rights on Vasquez and still have about $12 million in space. The point guard position is otherwise bare, given that Lowry is also a free agent and unlikely to return or finish this season in Toronto. Vasquez is a nice player, but he's not fast enough to turn the corner off the dribble or credibly guard his position. He has compensated by using his height to float runners over shorter defenders, and he can switch over to defend shooting guards on the other end. But he's almost 27 and looks like a high-quality backup rather than a pricey starter.
It’s popular to say no major free agents will go to Toronto. It’s cold, it’s in Canada, the Mountie was a mean WWF villain, and signing there brings tax issues. Perhaps. But cap space isn’t just for LeBron James. It allows teams to act as predators in lopsided trades, gobbling up extra assets (first-round draft picks, young players) in exchange for taking on short-term toxic deals. And there are sub-star free agents who sign in less glamorous markets — Josh Smith, O.J. Mayo, Kyle Korver, Monta Ellis, Paul Millsap, Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, etc. Some of those deals were smart; others were less smart. Ujiri is very smart, and he’ll maximize returns on this cap space.
As for the Kings, they made noise last month about dealing with the future in mind. Acquiring Williams, even with his $6.3 million salary for next season, fit that mold. Acquiring Gay does not, though it may put Williams in a better position amid a lineup now very heavy on shoot-first types — a problem in Sacramento since the breakup of the Chris Webber–Vlade Divac teams.
Williams is 22, still a mostly unknown NBA commodity who could not gain Rick Adelman’s trust in Minnesota. Gay is 27 and declining. They play the same position, though Williams in his limited NBA time has looked much more promising as a spot-up small-ball power forward. Slicing away two players from Sacto’s crowded power forward rotation opens up the possibility of Mike Malone using Gay and Williams together in smaller lineups, where one of them is the nominal power forward. Speaking of the Kings’ power forward situation:
1. Remember when Hayes was the darling of the NBA — the short center who could? What a falloff, though some scary health issues didn’t help. But careers really do go to die in Sacramento, don’t they? It’s like he ceased being relevant the moment he got there — like he caught a virus.
2. Jason Thompson’s five-year, $30 million contract is starting to look like an overpay. Thompson is a decent rotation player, but he doesn’t have one killer skill, and he has never put his entire game together over a full season. He’s just kind of there these days, though Patterson shot poorly enough for Thompson to at least reclaim his starting job.
Even worse, if Gay picks up his $19 million option for next season, the crux of the issue here, Sacramento will have about $71 million in committed salary before paying Isaiah Thomas a single dollar in free agency. This is the sad coda to the Geoff Petrie era: Thompson’s deal, the Hayes overpay, the bizarre Salmons–Jimmer Fredette deal that left Salmons on the books a year longer than the other players involved, the inexplicable aggression in the Travis Outlaw amnesty auction, the Marcus Thornton contract (a deal I didn’t mind at the time). Sacramento either has to shed salary or go into the luxury tax to sign Thomas.
And, umm, they sort of need Thomas, since he’s the only proven point guard left here. Lucky for the Kings, Thomas has upped his assist rate into acceptable point guard territory after grading out more as a hybrid bench spark plug over his first two seasons. He’s still scoring a ton, and has been in the top-10 overall in player efficiency rating most of the season. He has outplayed Vasquez, especially in fourth quarters, and he has earned the increase in minutes this deal will provide him. He’s shooting a career-best 40 percent from deep, he still can’t miss around the rim, and he has an unmatched arsenal of tricks that make him one of the most entertaining players in the league — runners, modified hook shots, stutter steps, and a wicked hesitation dribble.
But he’s a borderline shoot-first guy on a team full of shoot-first guys now. Gay craves the ball and generates little respect from defenses when he doesn’t have it. Thomas is a wizard with the rock. A huge portion of Sacramento’s sets are post-ups for Cousins, playing by far the best two-way ball of his career.
It will be a challenge for Malone to mesh all these parts. It helps that Ben McLemore, promising so far, works best for now as a spot-up guy feeding off the creative work of others. Williams has always struggled to do much off the bounce. Thornton is a very good spot-up guy around post-ups and pick-and-rolls; he’s not of much use as an off-the-dribble creator.
There are ways this could work for a team that has been about average offensively. The Kings have been a catastrophe on defense, and Gay doesn’t really move the needle in that respect. Beyond that, it’s unclear what the point really is here. Shedding Hayes’s salary is nice, but Gay’s option overwhelms it. If Gay works out this season, he takes minutes (and touches) from younger players and moves Sacramento down the draft board. If he doesn’t work out, he takes minutes (and touches) from younger players while stagnating the franchise.
The financial costs won’t be horrible, presuming the Kings find a way to keep Thomas without paying the tax. They weren’t going to have meaningful cap room this summer, and they weren’t going to salary-dump any of this Patterson-Salmons-Hayes group for value. There’s also the chance that Gay opts out of that $19 million option to secure a longer-term deal, a move several players — Gerald Wallace, Monta Ellis, Andrei Kirilenko, and others — have made in the last couple of years. There is value in locking up as much long-term guaranteed money as possible, as soon as possible. Injuries happen, and the revised collective bargaining deal coming after 2017 may be less favorable for players.
But none of those guys were looking at anything close to $19 million for a single year of missing shots. Around a dozen teams could have max-level space this summer, but Gay’s value is at rock bottom right now. He might struggle to get $25 million over three seasons if he keeps shooting like this. The Raptors wagered he’d opt in, and that’s the likely outcome here.
The Kings have to hope that Gay isn’t a sunk cost and fight against any inkling of an urge to extend him early. Just don’t expect Sacramento fans to be excited upon news of the deal, as desperate Toronto fans were last season. Everyone knows better now. It’s up to Gay to prove the league wrong.
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anyone with espn insider?
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/stor...-millsap-11-most-interesting-trade-candidates
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/stor...-millsap-11-most-interesting-trade-candidates
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Deng is gonna get moved ...who wants him... & possibly boozy too
calibeebee
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not trying to take anything away from Monta here, but that Defense was pretty awful. how you gonna give him an open look like that? Aldridge was the closest person in front of him
[/quote]
Did you watch the game or just this gif? Dirk hit 27,0000 clutch shots prior to that last play so not letting him touch the ball was 1st 2nd and 3rd priority. Well drawn up play and monta hit a tough shot. The bet was dirk or the field and blazers took the field and lost the gamble
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"Let's take a look at 11 of the most interesting names that could potentially be dealt between now and the Feb. 20 trade deadline.
Millsap
Millsap is the most important player carrying the Dec. 15 restriction. Since the Hawks have the inside track on the third seed in the Eastern Conference, they might hang on to Millsap as half of their underrated frontcourt alongside Al Horford. But with Atlanta also thinking long term, GM Danny Ferry would have to consider a deal that would net the Hawks a quality draft pick or a quality center to pair with Horford. (Omer Asik, perhaps?) Millsap has only enhanced his value by making a career-high 15 3-pointers already this season.
Luol Deng
The next few months could determine if the Bulls are buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. If they decide to make Deng available, there will be plenty of suitors for a two-time All-Star who doubles as an expiring contract. TheCleveland Cavaliers, for example, might see Deng as a low-risk option who allows them to compete for a playoff spot this season while maintaining the ability to change directions next summer.
Dion Waiters
Speaking of the Cavaliers, their second-year shooting guard could be on the move after a locker room argument with Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson, as reported by Insider's Chris Broussard. The Cavaliers would be selling low on Waiters, who lost his starting job around the same time as the incident. He's been more effective as a reserve, improving his scoring average from 13.3 PPG to 15.4 in nearly identical minutes, which might foretell his future as a volume scorer off the bench.
Greg Monroe
Sunday's loss to the Miami Heat snapped a four-game Detroit win streak, which included a victory at Miami last week. During the winning streak, the Pistons' starting frontcourt of Monroe, Andre Drummond and Josh Smith was plus-37 together in 78 minutes, a big change from getting outscored by 4.6 points per 48 minutes through November according to NBA.com/stats. So there are signs the big lineup might be coming together, especially at the defensive end. If not, Monroe appears to be the most likely candidate to be dealt before he hits restricted free agency next summer.
Asik
At this point, it's a question of when and not if Asik will be dealt. Our Marc Stein reported Friday that the Rockets are in a hurry to make a trade by Dec. 19 so they can repackage players they acquire before the deadline. I broke down players Houston could get for Asik last month. Since then, Terrence Jones' solid play as a starter (his net rating of plus-11.0 points per 100 possessions on the floor is second to Omri Casspi on the team) has made it more reasonable that the Rockets might target a quality wing defender rather than a stretch 4. Ideally, the player Houston ultimately acquires would be able to fill both roles
Zach Randolph
With each loss, the Grizzlies find themselves further out of the West playoff picture. Their point differential now ranks 14th in the conference, ahead of only the lowly Utah Jazz. While that will surely change when Marc Gasol returns from his sprained MCL, Memphis might fall too far behind to have a realistic chance of catching up. Already, the Hollinger Playoff Odds have them reaching the postseason less than 10 percent of the time. If this season is lost, the Grizzlies have to seriously consider moving Randolph, who is 32 and has one season beyond this on his contract. Expect his name to pop up in rumors soon.
Shumpert
With this season's Knicks plumbing new depths in Sunday's 41-point loss to the Boston Celtics, a shakeup is a real possibility and Shumpert is the team's most attractive trade asset short of an improbable Carmelo Anthony deal. For all the hand-wringing over Shumpert's disappointing season, his PER is essentially identical to what he posted last season, and similar to his rookie campaign. Most likely, this is what Shumpert is: an above-average wing defender who can make open 3s but shouldn't be asked to do too much on offense.
Spencer Hawes
In an era of big men who can shoot, Hawes has set himself apart this season with his prolific long-range bombing. His 1.8 3-pointers per game (on fine 43.8 percent shooting) would be the second highest average for a 7-footer in NBA history, trailing only Dirk Nowitzki's 2002-03 campaign. (Here's the complete Nowitzki-heavy leaderboard from Basketball-Reference.com.) The Sixers are motivated to move Hawes, who could help a contender as a third big man, but finding a team with the right combination of expiring contracts and first-round picks is tricky.
Evan Turner
My favorite devious theory of the nascent campaign came from a reader in one of my chats who asked if the Sixers were playing at the league's fastest pace in order to boost the per-game stats of players they hoped to trade. In a related story, Turner is averaging 20.5 points per game, putting him 22nd in the league. Turner has been more efficient too, making a career-high 49.7 percent of his 2-point attempts. The fast pace has also translated into more easy opportunities for him. According to Synergy Sports Technology, 18.9 of Turner's shots have come in transition, up from 12.6 percent last season.
DeMar DeRozan
DeRozan's situation is more interesting. Toronto doesn't have to move the 24-year-old, who's in the midst of the best season of his career. But if GM Masai Ujiri finds another team values DeRozan's volume scoring more than he does, the Raptors could move on without any of their perimeter starters from opening night.
Kyle Lowry
As Stein reported Sunday night, the Raptors aren't finished dealing after moving Gay. Lowry is likely to be next, now that Toronto has a replacement on hand in newcomer Greivis Vasquez. At $6.2 million in the final season of his contract, Lowry is a cost-effective option for teams looking to solidify the point guard position, and the Raptors can target a late first-round pick or equivalent return.
Julius F. Wrek
quik1987
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I knew Rudy Gay was gone in preaseason as soon as he said I dunno how to tank. Stat sheet thing was final nail in the coffin.
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Who would take Zach Randolph and offer the Grizz some flexibility?
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