2013 NBA Season News and Discussion

[Pendulous]

Nash Bryant Gasol and Howard would just be silly. I kinda want it to happen so I can have hope the Heat dont repeat this year, Id rather they get knocked out in the East though

I don't wanna see either team win, nor do I want to see the Celtics win. Actually, I'd rather see the Heat win out of those three.

[conscript]

Looks like the next Dwight Howard talk is a three-team trade with Houston and the Lakers, Lakers being the one getting Howard. Just...get it done already.

With Houston getting Bynum which makes no sense to me. I hope Orlando is getting about 10 picks if they aren't getting a franchise player in Bynum.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 07:08 AM ----------

Nash Bryant Gasol and Howard would just be silly. I kinda want it to happen so I can have hope the Heat dont repeat this year, Id rather they get knocked out in the East though

I don't know if I can take another title from Kobe and then all the talk of his "greatness" while getting more help to win those titles than any player in NBA history. That would be an incredible team to watch though.

[Blueobelisk]

Nets are signing Brook Lopez max contract of 58m/ 4 years or 78m/ 5 years. It seems like a lot to me lol.....and we can't trade him till December so that's that.

So fucking sad. I hate Orlando now, which is weird because my grandparents live 30 mins from Orlando and I always used to like them. But now they can get ....

[conscript]

Nets are signing Brook Lopez max contract of 58m/ 4 years or 78m/ 5 years. It seems like a lot to me lol.....and we can't trade him till December so that's that.

Well, goodbye Nets super team, hello Nets okay but not amazing team. Now the Nets can focus on actually trying to fill their roster.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 10:49 AM ----------

The NBA really, really needs a website like Capgeek for the NHL. That website updates every single contract, trade, waive, etc. within minutes of them occurring giving you a constant and ridiculously accurate picture of what every team's roster looks like. They even have buyout tools and other random cap stuff along with the entire contract history for every single player in the NHL. The NBA you have Hoopsworld, Hoopshype, etc. which are updated god knows how often considering Hoopshype still don't have Derrick Rose's contract on it.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 11:15 AM ----------

Speaking of the Nets flushing out their roster, they signed Jerry Stackhouse for a year at vet minimum. He only played 30 games last year putting up 3.6 points in 9 minutes (which is a healthy 14.4 per 36 assuming Stack played anything close to 36 minutes in a month).

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 11:27 AM ----------

I just realized Scalabrine is a free agent. Can't wait until the Nets inevitably add him to be their glue guy. It would be even better if the Heat did it. Right them in to repeat if he is on their bench. He would also be the final piece of the Lakers championship puzzle if they add Howard. How could having the White Mamba and the Black Mamba on the same team possibly be a bad thing?

Nets are probably going to make one final push for Howard but have informed the Magic they are out if not done today. They will be forced to give Lopez an extension at that point or he is going to be pirated by Houston or Portland locking Lopez out of any potential sign and trade deals after today.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 01:59 PM ----------

Throw the Cats on the "We're signing Lopez to a 4 year max deal if you don't trade for Howard today" list. Nets are running out of time.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 03:57 PM ----------

Howard trade to Brooklyn officially dead. Magic have informed Dwight they are suspending all trade talks with teams to focus on coaching search. Yay for dragging this out for even longer and all because Dwight couldn't handle a little fan criticism on Twitter at the trade deadline.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 05:45 PM ----------

Howard will officially be getting no sleep because Brooklyn has signed Lopez to a 4 year $61 million deal. So much money for a guy who played 5 games last year and can't rebound.

Mavs signed Kaman for a year to hold them over until Howard sweepstakes time next offseason.

[Blueobelisk]

:/ WHYYYYYYYYYYYY. Why couldn't I get my Big 3? I even got a few statistics books from library today while I was on break from lab.

Lost my motivation to learn a lot of extra stuff to TRY TO TRY to get a part time job with a team that can't win a title now.

[obake1]

I have to admit, when I was in the car last week and I heard the guy on the radio say Steve Nash joining the Los Angeles Lakers, I had to pull out my phone and double check to confirm what I heard. While I’m not a Laker fan at all, I hope Nash wins at least one ring before he retires.

[conscript]

:/ WHYYYYYYYYYYYY. Why couldn't I get my Big 3? I even got a few statistics books from library today while I was on break from lab.

Lost my motivation to learn a lot of extra stuff to TRY TO TRY to get a part time job with a team that can't win a title now.

Hey man you still have the Big 3 of Lopez, Williams, and Johnson. Lopez is making almost the same money as Howard so that means he is just as good right? Right?
They should have given an offer sheet to Javale McGee a better, more entertaining center in my opinion. Lopez is probably better offensively, but damn it I am just so anti-Lopez I can't accept him being better than McGee.

My question is, would Stern have vetoed a Howard trade to the Nets and will he do it to the Lakers? How is a trade to one of those things not WORSE than the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers last year? When considering "competitive balance" either of those Howard deals looks so much worse than the Paul trade. The veto still angers me.

[Windry]

Stern only had the ability to veto the CP3 trade cause the Hornets was owned by the NBA last season... but ya, that veto still pisses me off.

Dallas signs Chris Kaman 1yr $8M. They're going to amnesty Brendan Haywood, and bid on Elton Brand. Elton Brand said that he hopes no one bids for him, but if they do, he hopes Dallas wins the bidding. Kaman and Dirk played together on the German national team, and of course Brand and Kaman are still friends from their 5 years together on the Clippers.

It'd be interesting though cause Brand would be coming off the bench. Mavs also pick up Darren Collison and Dahntay Jones by trading Ian Mahinmi to the Pacers.

So Dallas right now looks like:
Kaman
Dirk
Marion
V.Carter
Collison
with: Beaubois, Dahntay Jones coming off the bench.
They probably also get Brand and a few more players before this summer's over.

---------- Post added 2012-07-12 at 12:44 AM ----------

Free agents I'd still want (in general, not for a specific team):

For league minimum: Gilbert Arenas, Derick Fisher, John Lucas, Mickael Pietrus, Brian Scalbrine, Ronny Turiaf, Raymond Felton

Likely to be 2-5M: Aaron Brooks, Shanon Brown, Jordan Hill, Grant Hill, Kenyon Martin, T-Mac, Ramon Sessions, Delonte West

Over $5M players: Leandro Barbosa, Javale McGee, OJ Mayo, Kris Humphries

[conscript]

Houtson is nutso hard for Howard. Now they are going to amnesty Scola to open up room to absorb one of the Magic's abysmal contracts from the previous GM. And Howard is still going to walk in a year lol. I'm trying to think if that Scola amnesty is the first amnesty of a legitimately good player and a player not on a bad contract for their production as he is owed $21 million over the next three years. Big grats to whichever team wins him and his 16 points and 6 boards in the amnesty auction.

What the fuck is Houston doing. Seriously.

[Blueobelisk]

So for Team USA (besides all the "we beat 1992 Dream Team" talk), starting 5 are Melo, Chris Paul, Lebron, Tyson Chandler, andddd Kobe.

2/5 of the starters on team USA? Knicks sure are good eh?

ALRIG time to rank the best 8 teams in East, and West up to four if you want.

[Jibjabb]

If the Brand bid is successful which it probably will be and they manage to resign Delonte West, Dallas should actually be a solid respectable team again this year assuming Kaman doesnt break his glass body once again. Losing Terry, Kidd, Haywood, Mahimi for Brand, D. Collison, Kaman, is actually a pretty good tradeoff. Also are in talks to trade for Calderon as the Raptors no longer want him around apparently. Wont be good enough to really contend unless all the pieces fit in well, meaning VC plays much better, Collison goes back to his Hornets days and Kaman/Brand stay healthy and beastly. Id rather they just trade Dirk and blow it up but they could catch lightning in a bottle, no team seems to really shake its starting lineups more frequently than the Mavericks do. Dirk has been the only staple for years.

Houston is incredibly arrogant thinking once Dwight comes there he will want to stay because of how good it is there. Chances are he wont want to and what is the point of the whole experiment to trade for him. They wont be good enough to win it all, Dwight will realize that and book it to somewhere "safer" whether that can still be Brooklyn Im not entirely sure.

Free agents I'd still want (in general, not for a specific team):

For league minimum: Gilbert Arenas, Derick Fisher, John Lucas, Mickael Pietrus, Brian Scalbrine, Ronny Turiaf, Raymond Felton

Likely to be 2-5M: Aaron Brooks, Shanon Brown, Jordan Hill, Grant Hill, Kenyon Martin, T-Mac, Ramon Sessions, Delonte West

Over $5M players: Leandro Barbosa, Javale McGee, OJ Mayo, Kris Humphries

lol why do you want Scal other than as something fun for the fans to chant for. Hes a pretty awful basketball player on the NBA level. He gets in there in garbage time and jacks up a shot that a lot of times doesnt even hit rim. Pietrus would be an absolute steal at that low of a contract, he has some game. The others not as much, Lucas is infuriating cause he will kill you as much as he will save you. He is completely unafraid though to take big shots and that leads him to throwing up garbage sometimes, worth the minimum easily but buyer beware. Im fairly sure the Nuggets will match anything McGee gets unless its an absurd amount. Humphries is a little more interesting, nobody seems to want to pay the man despite him having a solid season albeit for a downright awful team. Mayo wants more money than hes worth from what Im hearing, hes a nice player but not a 10 mil player like he was asking for earlier.

---------- Post added 2012-07-13 at 01:49 AM ----------

So for Team USA (besides all the "we beat 1992 Dream Team" talk), starting 5 are Melo, Chris Paul, Lebron, Tyson Chandler, andddd Kobe.

2/5 of the starters on team USA? Knicks sure are good eh?

ALRIG time to rank the best 8 teams in East, and West up to four if you want.

Theres no chance in hell Melo should start over Durant. Chandler is more of a "we have no other legit centers on the team" choice. Too early to do ranks all the pieces arent set up yet.

[fizzbob]

team USA looked good tonight. this dominican team is better than any team the dream team faced, i know they won't hit 3s like they did tonight in every game but this team has some nice outside shooting and defensively blows the doors off of ANY usa basketball team in history.

[Twiddly]

So blake griffen (Whom I think is vastly, vastly over rated anyway) signs a contract with the clippers, a team that is known to be cursed with leg injuries...and within a week tears his meniscus. Hmmmm

[conscript]

So blake griffen (Whom I think is vastly, vastly over rated anyway) signs a contract with the clippers, a team that is known to be cursed with leg injuries...and within a week tears his meniscus. Hmmmm

Clippers are cursed bro. I still find it hard to believe Sterling is willing to pay both Paul and Griffin bug max contracts. Can't wait to see Sterling blow that at the end of next season.

I am thoroughly on board with a healthy version of this team USA (with Howard, Bosh, and Wade) being way better than the 1992 team. It just isn't the same game anymore at all. At that point you maybe had one athlete that could compete with the modern NBA players, Jordan. Everyone else was at the tail end of their careers(Magic) or just simply isn't anywhere close to as athletically dominant as the current guys in the NBA. Plus that Dream Team faced joke after joke of teams because international ball was barely getting off the ground back then. Now you have Spain and all the other good teams to contend with.

The deal Houston is working on will have them take back Howard, Hedo, Duhon, Richardson, and Big Baby in exchange for a bunch of recently drafted players, multiple future first round picks including the lottery Toronto pick they got for Lowry, seventeen Rolls Royces, and god knows what else. Morey is going to take back every single bad contract on the Magic to potentially rent Howard while completely mortgaging the future of the Houston franchise. This is the type of deal you look back at in about 8 months and wonder what the fuck were they thinking. If Howard leaves, Houston is going to implode on and off the court. You don't give up that amount of prospects and picks and get nothing guaranteed in return. If they do this and Howard leaves they are looking at basically adding two young guys to their team over the next 5-6 years. You can't trade your picks to a team in back to back years so they are probably going to give up their 2013, the Raptors 2013, their 2015, and their 2017. That means they add a guy two years from now in the first round and another four years. Everyone else is pieced together in free agency.

To even make room to absorb the contracts they are going to have to give the Magic Parsons, Morris, Patterson, and Martin along with all three guys they drafted this year. So they would go from having Scola, Martin, Dalembert, Parsons, Lowry, Budinger, and Dragic last year, seven respectable players who nearly took them to the playoffs but were hit by injuries to having ZERO of those guys this year and would basically import the Magic's horrible roster from last season minus Anderson. Oh ya, and Houston would also need to waive 5-6 non-guaranteed guys to make room as well.

[jreg]

The deal Houston is working on will have them take back Howard, Hedo, Duhon, Richardson, and Big Baby in exchange for a bunch of recently drafted players, multiple future first round picks including the lottery Toronto pick they got for Lowry, seventeen Rolls Royces, and god knows what else. Morey is going to take back every single bad contract on the Magic to potentially rent Howard while completely mortgaging the future of the Houston franchise. This is the type of deal you look back at in about 8 months and wonder what the fuck were they thinking. If Howard leaves, Houston is going to implode on and off the court. You don't give up that amount of prospects and picks and get nothing guaranteed in return. If they do this and Howard leaves they are looking at basically adding two young guys to their team over the next 5-6 years. You can't trade your picks to a team in back to back years so they are probably going to give up their 2013, the Raptors 2013, their 2015, and their 2017. That means they add a guy two years from now in the first round and another four years. Everyone else is pieced together in free agency.

To even make room to absorb the contracts they are going to have to give the Magic Parsons, Morris, Patterson, and Martin along with all three guys they drafted this year. So they would go from having Scola, Martin, Dalembert, Parsons, Lowry, Budinger, and Dragic last year, seven respectable players who nearly took them to the playoffs but were hit by injuries to having ZERO of those guys this year and would basically import the Magic's horrible roster from last season minus Anderson. Oh ya, and Houston would also need to waive 5-6 non-guaranteed guys to make room as well.

Bring Hakeem back from retirement? The Houston Novelties.

[fizzbob]

So blake griffen (Whom I think is vastly, vastly over rated anyway) signs a contract with the clippers, a team that is known to be cursed with leg injuries...and within a week tears his meniscus. Hmmmm

20/10 his first 2 years, isn't overrated. he's got a simple game but he's big, strong and fast and can play with anyone in any era

the problem is that the average fan has no clue in hell what makes a good player, defense doesn't count, rebounding doesn't count, hustle doesn't count, strength doesn't count and that top 6 or so in scoring on espn.com is about the only thing that counts

fans are less knowledgeable than EVER

[conscript]

Further proof you don't have to be good to get paid in the NBA, just have to be tall, Kwame Brown agreed to a two year deal with Philly that will pay him $6 million.

[fizzbob]

Further proof you don't have to be good to get paid in the NBA, just have to be tall, Kwame Brown agreed to a two year deal with Philly that will pay him $6 million.

that's just stupid as shit too, roy hibbert was paid due to his height too, $15,000,000 a year for 13/9/2 is a joke when guys like lebron, dwade and bosh are making $17,000,000 next year

you'd think after miami won the finals 4-1 with a team that played 1 guy over 6'8" that people would finally say "damn, we don't need a 7' center"

6'6" charles barkley led team USA in scoring in 1992. you've never needed tall but people still throw money at it

[Twiddly]

20/10 his first 2 years, isn't overrated. he's got a simple game but he's big, strong and fast and can play with anyone in any era

the problem is that the average fan has no clue in hell what makes a good player, defense doesn't count, rebounding doesn't count, hustle doesn't count, strength doesn't count and that top 6 or so in scoring on espn.com is about the only thing that counts

fans are less knowledgeable than EVER

No, Blake Griffen is extremely over-rated. He is on ESPN and has awesome dunks, but he is mediocre at best as a player. The fact that they chose him over like...20 other players for the olympic team made me sick, and I was happy to see him off, though not injured of course. He is NOT a good fit for an olympics team.

Yes, I am not knowledgeable because I think "highlight" players that do nothing to help there team win beyond that of another mediocre player are over rated. Interesting.

The "Average" fan you say? I can pretty much assure you that I watch more basketball in half a season then you do in a five year stretch. Blake griffen is over-rated beyond belief.


Go ahead and say 20/10 is amazing. How far did that get his TEAM (Basketball=ultimate team game) before they got chris paul? Chris Paul 100% carries that team, without him they would be in the lottery or close, every single year. Why? Because Griffen is not good enough to carry a team, period.

[fizzbob]

No, Blake Griffen is extremely over-rated. He is on ESPN and has awesome dunks, but he is mediocre at best as a player. The fact that they chose him over like...20 other players for the olympic team made me sick, and I was happy to see him off, though not injured of course. He is NOT a good fit for an olympics team.

Yes, I am not knowledgeable because I think "highlight" players that do nothing to help there team win beyond that of another mediocre player are over rated. Interesting.

The "Average" fan you say? I can pretty much assure you that I watch more basketball in half a season then you do in a five year stretch. Blake griffen is over-rated beyond belief.


Go ahead and say 20/10 is amazing. How far did that get his TEAM (Basketball=ultimate team game) before they got chris paul? Chris Paul 100% carries that team, without him they would be in the lottery or close, every single year. Why? Because Griffen is not good enough to carry a team, period.

first person to ever get 20/10 in his first 2 seasons, one of the best double/double guys ever already breaking a few franchise records in his rookie year and the only person other than lebron who goes for 260lbs with the quickness of a guard but not good enough?

who should have went instead? who puts up 20/10 and wasn't invited? howard was "injured", bosh doesn't get 20/10 (18/8) but is injured and couldn't go, a lot of other big men aren't americans

it's why anthony davis is the first alternate

blake 100% deserved it and if he stays healthy will have a great career but 2 knee injuries in 3 years = bad, so who knows

i don't get you people who refuse to accept reality and pretend that stats mean nothing, winning means nothing but your feelings do. what are your feelings even based on?

most of the time it's the person's appearance or demeanor. a lot of people don't like the way griffin looks or they hate his commercials. so they hate on his game even when the stats say they're idiots

why do YOU dislike him? he's had 2 of the best "first 2 years" in history so far, plays hard, is fun to watch and takes the game seriously while remaining humble