2018-2019 NBA thread

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Anyone saw Furkan Korkmaz 40 points game ? He seems quite interesting, 76ers got a steal off him.

Yep, watched the whole game. Best player on the floor. In the end he couldn't make any shots in the last 3 min though and the Sixers lost. Had a couple of nice looks, but after they'd gone in all evening, he missed them in the crucial moments.

Celtics won with group effort. Multiple guys had 10+ points. Several were pretty decent on defense (defense in SUMMER LEAGUE?!, Yeah, I know). If Sixers had had anyone besides Korkmaz they would have likely won easily.

Celtics first round pick went out after 7 min. Had a couple of nice plays, but banged knees with another player and sat out the rest. I have a suspicion we miight not see him again this Summer league, even though he could do with the reps.

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I guess no one is even going to make an offer to Jabari! Sad that injuries ruined his career.

There's pretty much not a team in the league that has the money to throw at him. Same thing for Marcus Smart. They'll have to take a short deal with as much as they can get and then hope to cash in in 1 or 2 years when teams have more cash to spend. Right now too many teams are paying for the sins of the '16 off season.

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Houston just lost Luke M'bah a Moute to the Clippers. After they already lost Ariza. Apparently their back up plan is to sign Carmelo Anthony. Good luck with that Houston.

They might have had their 1 year shot at a title run and blew it by missing 27 3's in the deciding game. Now the team's strength (wing defense) is leaving it, being replaced by questionable offense and unwilling defense.

GSW will continue to run the West.

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Sacramento Kings apparently in the process of making a package to offer Marcus Smart. They have money aplenty. This could end up as bad news to the Celtics.

They'll likely offer him more than the Celtics have room with their cap to force the Celtics to choose between keeping Smart and going into repeater tax early OR giving up Smart and all he brings to the team and having to replace him with limited cap space (impossible if you look at it from a heart of the team standpoint).

There's also a distinct possibility that the Kings are insane and give Smart an offer he can't refuse that the Celtics are just flat out not willing to pay for him.

Either way, this blows.

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I've viewed the lack of Brinks trucks for Smart and Capela as a good sign that the league is getting smarter.

I see it as a sign that teams just had no money to spend. They are all broke from splurging in 2016 and the cap not growing as much this year. There were only like 4 or 5 teams league wide that had enough cash to make significant offers to any prospectus free agents. Lakers spent theirs on Lebron. Bulls spent theirs on Jabari Parker (former no. 2 pick with offensive upside). And that's about the only teams that could spend on a Capela or Smart. The rest are not competing for anything and in rebuild mode. Doubt Smart or Capela would even want to sign there even if they got offered.

Smart just can't shoot which is a disaster if he's on the floor for significant minutes.

Smart actually has a positive +/- rating on offense due to being a good passer, getting fouled and making his shots pretty consistently and setting up the set plays that get called from the sideline. Add his defensive value and he's often among the Celtics with best +/- rating in games even after bricking five 3's and going 2 for 10 overall. If Smart ever figures out how to consistently shoot well, he'd be among the best 2 way players in the entire league.

The reality is that he likely won't and will always be a below average shooter that gets hot at odd times.

The trouble is that Smart and his agent have too high an opinion of what he's worth. They turned down a deal in OCtober that would have paid him more than Dante Exum got from Utah for 4 years. Now he's finding out that that was actually more than the market is willing to pay for him. He's said to be willing to consider the offer again if the Celtics give it to him, but the Celtics are now in a position where plans have changed significantly and they are in a position where keeping Smart on his qualifying offer actually has some benefits for them. They'd stay under the tax this year and avoid repeater tax from kicking in sooner. The potential money saved for ownership could be significant.

Now, they've always said they are fully prepared to pay for a championship caliber team, btu if you can avoid paying it, just by waiting things out and paying Smart his due next year, then there's some definite merit to that.

I mean. Smart misses out on 6M dollars that way, but that's basically on him for turning down the offer they gave him and betting on himself in October.

[Buckeyenut88]

Raptors agree to deal to acquire Spurs' Kawhi Leonard for DeMar DeRozan. Dang , that happened fast.

[Crissi]

I am ok with this. Gets the cancer out of the locker room, and Demar is good.

Also, its the complete opposite of where Kawhi wants to go lol.

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Full trade deal is: Spurs agree to trade Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green to Toronto for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a protected 2019 first-round pick.

That's definitely not a lot. Spurs got a raw deal in this whole thing.

[Rennadrel]

Well, either it gets sold as a win now and at least get to the finals for the Raptors, because outside of Boston, no one is a threat at this point. If Leonard doesn't sign an extension then they sell it as a rebuild and we got an easy salary dump.

[xskarma]

Interesting. Kawhi gets traded to Toronto and suddenly there's developments for Marcus Smart's contract. Bill Simmons and Kevin O'Connor seem to think it;s related. That Smart was part of the deal the Celtics were offering the Spurs. Spurs would have then negotiated their contract with Smart in a sign and trade deal.

Either way, there's now rumours that Smart is going to sign a front loaded deal that will make it possible to more easily sign our other young guys in the future. Hopefully this gets done!

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"Restricted free agent Marcus Smart has agreed to a four-year, $52M deal to return to the Boston Celtics, league sources tell Yahoo Sports." - Shams Charania

Woop. Glad this is done.

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Well then. Seems OKC managed to swindle the Atlanta Hawks into paying for Carmelo (the 76'ers are involved too).

trade:

• Carmelo Anthony, forward Justin Anderson and a lottery-protected 2022 first-round pick go to Atlanta, with Anthony getting bought out to enter unrestricted free agency;

• Point guard Dennis Schröder and wing Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot go to Oklahoma City;

• Big man Mike Muscala heads to Philly.

[ramayana1423]

SMARFFFFFFFFFFFF! I'm thrilled they got his deal done. 13m a year for him a steal compared to a lot of contracts around the league.

[Rennadrel]

Obviously, the main issue is how good do people think DD is. If you think he is a borderline star or can be the 1st or 2nd best player on a title team, then maybe you think this trade was okay. I personally do not think that and think the Spurs did this trade out of spite, because they got fleeced.

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wow, that last trade is crazy. I kind of wanted the Bucks to try and get Dennis Schröder for Bledsoe.

He's a good offensive player, his defense has continually been a point of question over his career.

[xskarma]

Kevin Love got PAID. "Cavaliers forward Kevin Love has signed a four-year, $120 million contract extension --- topping out his overall deal at five-years, $145 million, league sources tell ESPN." - Woj

I kind of expected the Cavs to rebuild, but with this contract for Kevin Love they are basically doubling down and pretending they can still compete this season. That's going to be a hell of a wake up call come October.

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Jayson Tatum just posted to his instagram a pic of what looks like him working out with Kobe Bryant. So, that's pretty cool.

At least, if he takes on some of the pointers on scoring and not some of the pointers on how to be a diva.

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"Houston has reached an agreement with Clint Capela on a 5-year, $90m extension, sources tell ESPN." - Woj

Word is that it's 80M guaranteed and 10M in incentives. That's a good deal for both sides if Capella keeps playing like he did last season.

[xskarma]

When there's plenty of bad stuff being written about players and what they get up to in the off season, here's something cool: ( @Pendulous and @-aiko- )



https://twitter.com/DeezyUte/status/1024918735105216513

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Man, the Sixers can't get ANY luck with their first round draft picks:

Zhaire Smith has a Jones Fracture (i.e. broken foot).

Shitty luck for the team and Zhaire.

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Schedule is out: https://stats.nba.com/schedule/

Celtics open against the Sixers on Tue Oct 16th at home.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9JoFKlaZ0

[Blueobelisk]

When does the NBA season even start? Not til like, late October?

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When does the NBA season even start? Not til like, late October?

October 16th. Sixers at Celtics in the evening and Thunder at Warriors as the night game.

Pre-season games start in 17 days on the 28th of September.

Training camp for teams starts shortly before that, for the Celtics it's the 25th of September.

[xskarma]

Well then. Seems like the NBA off season is about to come alive again, just before it is going to end.

[xskarma]

And with the news that Jimmy Butler is on his way out of Minnesota...

"In a deal that cements him as the franchise’s long-term cornerstone, Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns has agreed to a 5-year, $190M super-maximum extension, league sources tell ESPN." - Woj


At least Minnesota now knows where it;s going. They're going to get absolutely nothing for Jimmy Butler though, so that was a big waste of assets.