Leonard and George to Clippers

benhogan

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I'd be surprised if Morris doesn't end up with the Lakers

What a day this is.
Kawhi stones the Lakers and brings PG with him.
The Lakers instead of getting Kawhi end up using their space on Danny Green, KCP, Quinn Cook and probably Marcus Morris
And OKC gets a haul for PG.
Having control of the Clippers picks for 5 straight years going out 7 years, plus two Heat 1sts, SGA and Gallo? That's a whopping return. I'd bet on at least a couple lottery picks in there.

Wonder if the Clippers were holding the line on the picks, the earthquake hit, and they just said screw it we could die tonight! All the first rounders and swaps you want!
Those nights, when AD takes off, that Laker defense will be porous.

I thought OKC (major cap issues/5 seed purgatory) and Pelicans did fine under the circumstances this off-season.
OKC can start a full rebuild once they unload RWB/Adams with Sam Presti's drafting track record.
 

benhogan

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Jerami Grant, 25, who started hitting 3s at 39% last season is on the last year of his deal ($9MM this season) would be interesting for the Celtics.

Yabu & filler & '20 Milwaukee late 1st rounder

~Dec.15th will be very busy in the NBA, jockeying by tankers/contenders, recent deals, filler all around the NBA
 
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lovegtm

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He said it verbatim:
“KD is out for the year. The other guys you named are tier 2 superstars as far as most fans are concerned.”
I decided to just use the ignore button. Should have just done it back when he was pumping out the “Kuzma is as good as Tatum” zingers.
 

Captaincoop

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Calling Gianni a tier 2 player immediately invalidates anything Coop says now and forever.
I missed Giannis when I read the first post, he's certainly a tier one star.

It should be a fairly non-controversial point that this puts almost all the league's star power in the West, but Mr. Hot Take feels differently.

I'm very upset he won't be reading my posts anymore. I'll miss his pleasant personality.
 
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Euclis20

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4/5 of 1st team All NBA guys are in the west, and just 5/15 of the All NBA guys will be playing in the East this year. Looking at the teams from a year ago, none of the 1st Teamers and just 4/15 of the whole group will be playing in the East this year. It may be marginally better next year with Durant back but for now it's not a controversial position.
 

Captaincoop

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The NBA is, was, and always will be red hot in LA and the Bay Area. In LA, I'd argue it's the #1 sport.

This is not going to help the NBA in the East Coast markets. They will be desperately pushing the young Eastern Conference guys like Tatum, hoping someone is a breakout star.
 

Devizier

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The NBA is, was, and always will be red hot in LA and the Bay Area. In LA, I'd argue it's the #1 sport.
It doesn’t hurt that the most NBA players from a single state come from California. New York is number two but it’s a distant second and their rank is declining.
 

Captaincoop

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It doesn’t hurt that the most NBA players from a single state come from California. New York is number two but it’s a distant second and their rank is declining.
And also that LA went 20 years without NFL Football.

The bottom line for me is that I'm going to be cranky at work a lot of Fridays.
 

NYCSox

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Toronto didn't want Westbrook's contract when Presti offered it (+ Paul George). If Westbrook wants to go to the Knicks, I'm sure Presti would oblige.
They could in theory grab a bunch of first round picks from someone (is that Dolan on line 1?) to go with their own high picks and the various Clippers and Heat picks and basically own the draft for the next 5-7 years. Question is how economically sustainable would a 20 win team be in a smaller market like OKC?
 

lovegtm

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They could in theory grab a bunch of first round picks from someone (is that Dolan on line 1?) to go with their own high picks and the various Clippers and Heat picks and basically own the draft for the next 5-7 years. Question is how economically sustainable would a 20 win team be in a smaller market like OKC?
More sustainable than a team in OKC paying the luxury tax.

They've also already proved concept on this: they moved to OKC from Seattle with their only asset being a rookie Durant, and proceeded to tank and draft well for a few years. As long as fans have a good narrative, it doesn't take long to get a team back to interesting. NO is starting a rebuild, and their fans are more excited than ever, because they have Zion. None of Atlanta's core was picked above #5, and that team has a buzz now that they didn't have when they were mediocrely making the playoffs.

NBA fans aren't dumb. They don't like endless Knicks-ing, but they get excited about properly done rebuilds and young guys they can dream on.
 

AMS25

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They could in theory grab a bunch of first round picks from someone (is that Dolan on line 1?) to go with their own high picks and the various Clippers and Heat picks and basically own the draft for the next 5-7 years. Question is how economically sustainable would a 20 win team be in a smaller market like OKC?
The Thunder are the only major league professional team in town. There's the Thunder and....college football. (OKC does have the Dodgers' triple-A team, but no one gets excited about that unless an LA Dodgers player is rehabbing in town.) The Thunder have sold out the arena for years. Also, the team has worked hard to be a good citizen, and has built excellent relations with the fanbase/citizenry of OKC. The fans would understand if Westbrook requested a trade and OKC obliged. But, they wouldn't be too thrilled if OKC abruptly sent Westbrook to a team without much notice.
 

NYCSox

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The Thunder are the only major league professional team in town. There's the Thunder and....college football. (OKC does have the Dodgers' triple-A team, but no one gets excited about that unless an LA Dodgers player is rehabbing in town.) The Thunder have sold out the arena for years. Also, the team has worked hard to be a good citizen, and has built excellent relations with the fanbase/citizenry of OKC. The fans would understand if Westbrook requested a trade and OKC obliged. But, they wouldn't be too thrilled if OKC abruptly sent Westbrook to a team without much notice.
Thanks. I think the last thought is the key one. Management has to spin the story right (also noted by lovegtm above). It's going to be a little different now as compared to 2008 since there is no KD type in hand for the rebuild - at least not yet.
 

Devizier

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In thinking of, driving, and then benefiting from the deal that put him in Los Angeles, Leonard carefully planned and kept secret from the often-cited-but-rarely-correct Sources Who Say a deal so eye-watering that it shames the ones already provided us in this maniacal offseason. Indeed, he almost managed to derail one of the others by reaching out to Kevin Durant days before he honored his word to Kyrie Irving to see if he’d like to be a Los Angeles Clipper instead of a Brooklyn Net.

This would suggest that Leonard had decided on the Clippers before he was sure to go to the Lakers or sure to stay with the Toronto Raptors according to Sources Who Say. But for the man who keeps his cards nailgunned to his chest at all times, secrecy prevailed. It helped that Durant is not a chatterbox either, but we’re still talking at least a week of radio silence, which shows yet again that the player who knows how to keep quiet when all around him are firing out specubombs wins the day.
Ray Ratto.
 

lexrageorge

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I missed Giannis when I read the first post, he's certainly a tier one star.

It should be a fairly non-controversial point that this puts almost all the league's star power in the West, but Mr. Hot Take feels differently.

I'm very upset he won't be reading my posts anymore. I'll miss his pleasant personality.
The only Tier 1 star that moved West was Kawhi. My own imperfect rankings has Giannis in the same tier as AD, LeBron, Kawhi, Curry, Harden, KD. That's 5 of 7 top tier players in the West. I don't think your take is necessarily hot, but I would probably group Embiid and Lillard together as the next 2 players on the boundary of being in this tier. Adding these 2 means 6 of 9 top players are in the West, but still 3 in the east (2 of whom will be playing).

The next tier (in random order):

Jokic
Gobert
Paul George
Kyrie
Jimmy Butler
KAT
Westbrook (maybe)
Kemba (if you include Westbrook)
Aldridge
Klay Thompson (maybe)
Drummond

There's probably sub-tiers within that group, but of that group, 7 of the 11 play in the West, or 13 of the top 20 players are currently in the West. Please feel free to add any I may have forgotten in my haste.
 

DeadlySplitter

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Really feels like Leonard trolled the Lakers. And West outgunning LAL has to really sting that fan base.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27130335/how-kawhi-pulled-paul-george-away-okc
good article from Ramona Shelbourne, relevant quote to the quoted post below...

Leonard's camp was essentially trying to buy time, asking the Lakers as late as 9 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday night to delay the consummation of the Anthony Davis trade until "as late as Sunday," according to sources close to the situation. No reason was given for that delay by Leonard's camp, except that they should do it if they still wanted Leonard to consider them.
 

djbayko

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Trading for Westbrook would be the most Knicks-iest thing ever. I would not be surprised if that happened. They just struck out in free agency in a loaded year with tons of cap space, and next year's FA class is extremely weak and only getting worse with players like Ben Simmons possibly signing extensions this year. I can see them making a move out of desperation.

Edit: ...and end up counting the days until they can get out from under his contract.
 
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lovegtm

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lovegtm

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Trading for Westbrook would be the most Knicks-iest thing ever. I would not be surprised if that happened. They just struck out in free agency in a loaded year with tons of cap space, and next year's FA class is extremely weak and only getting worse with players like Ben Simmons possibly signing extensions this year. I can see them making a move out of desperation.
Yup, Simmons already agreed to his extension. In general, star RFAs don't really "count" as part of an FA class, since they're getting extended or matched (which just reinforces your point about 2020 being weak).
 

djbayko

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The only Tier 1 star that moved West was Kawhi. My own imperfect rankings has Giannis in the same tier as AD, LeBron, Kawhi, Curry, Harden, KD. That's 5 of 7 top tier players in the West. I don't think your take is necessarily hot, but I would probably group Embiid and Lillard together as the next 2 players on the boundary of being in this tier. Adding these 2 means 6 of 9 top players are in the West, but still 3 in the east (2 of whom will be playing).

The next tier (in random order):

Jokic
Gobert
Paul George
Kyrie
Jimmy Butler
KAT
Westbrook (maybe)
Kemba (if you include Westbrook)
Aldridge
Klay Thompson (maybe)
Drummond

There's probably sub-tiers within that group, but of that group, 7 of the 11 play in the West, or 13 of the top 20 players are currently in the West. Please feel free to add any I may have forgotten in my haste.
Well, you really should remove KD from the discussion for now. So that's 5 of 6 and 7 of 10, respectively. It's not a hot take at all.
 

lexrageorge

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Well, you really should remove KD from the discussion for now. So that's 5 of 6 and 7 of 10, respectively. It's not a hot take at all.
I did say 3 of 9, 2 of whom will be playing.

If I remove KD, the West has 13 of the league's top 19 players; not sure if the 20th comes from the east or the west, to be honest.
 

ifmanis5

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Also Zubac is back per Woj:
Restricted free agent center Ivaca Zubac has agreed to a four-year, $28M deal to stay with the Los Angeles Clippers, Excel Sports agents Jeff Schwartz and Mike Lindeman tell ESPN.
 

DJnVa

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Flipping between ESPN Radio and NBA Radio—various “experts” on and they all want to say they always figured he’d end up with LAC.

Suuuuuure
 

jon abbey

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It's the Knicks so it would almost certainly blow up in their faces, but if they could get Westbrook without giving up much of their young talent and then add a disgruntled Anthony Davis next summer after the Lakers situation blows up this year, they might be in better shape than Brooklyn going forward. Admittedly I like Westbrook irrationally.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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The whining from my laker friends and family this morning is amazing.

Guess you assholes will just have to settle for lebron james and Anthony Davis. Gtfoh
Yeah the Lakers took an L here but lets be real. They secured Anthony Davis to pair with one of, if not the, greatest basketball players of all time. As a Celtics fan, its fun to watch them lose out on guys like Leonard and George but then I remember that the Lakers are demonstrably better than they were at the end of this past season while the Celtics are demonstrably worse (mainly from the loss of Horford). As such, I am refraining from taking victory laps around my Lakers-fan friends.
 

lovegtm

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Yeah the Lakers took an L here but lets be real. They secured Anthony Davis to pair with one of, if not the, greatest basketball players of all time. As a Celtics fan, its fun to watch them lose out on guys like Leonard and George but then I remember that the Lakers are demonstrably better than they were at the end of this past season while the Celtics are demonstrably worse (mainly from the loss of Horford). As such, I am refraining from taking victory laps around my Lakers-fan friends.
I think the victory lap, from a Celtics fan perspective, is that Kawhi was the Lakers’ best chance to get better for awhile. They have great top end talent now, but also have more ways to get worse than they do to get better.

The Celtics probably have more ways to get better (post downward adjustment for losing Horford) than they do to get worse.

The Clippers, at least in the short to medium term, still have ways to get better, which is scary.
 

benhogan

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NBA fans aren't dumb. They don't like endless Knicks-ing, but they get excited about properly done rebuilds and young guys they can dream on.
"knicks"
/niks/
verb
gerund or present participle: Knicks-ing
  1. put an end to; cancel.
    "Kawhi knicks-ed Lebron's offer to star in Space Jam before signing with the Clippers"
 

mcpickl

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Jerami Grant, 25, who started hitting 3s at 39% last season is on the last year of his deal ($9MM this season) would be interesting for the Celtics.

Yabu & filler & '20 Milwaukee late 1st rounder

~Dec.15th will be very busy in the NBA, jockeying by tankers/contenders, recent deals, filler all around the NBA
The Celtics don't really have filler to offer.

They'd have to send out around 5.3M to make that trade work.

It would have to be Yabusele+Robert Williams+Semi.

It could, but it's not clear who would take Westbrook's contract (or Adams' either). Maybe OKC trades Schroder?
Washington is on line one offering John Wall for him.
 

lovegtm

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The Celtics don't really have filler to offer.

They'd have to send out around 5.3M to make that trade work.

It would have to be Yabusele+Robert Williams+Semi.



Washington is on line one offering John Wall for him.
The Celtics can start trading new guys on Dec 15th, correct?
 

lars10

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Paul George re-signed there knowing full well what type of player Wetbrook is/was though
[/QUOTE]
How long did he stay though? Perhaps it’s one thing to see it but another to be on the same team.
 

lovegtm

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He also got to wait a year until the right situation opened up, while locking in money. All worked out well for both him and for OKC.
 

benhogan

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The Celtics don't really have filler to offer.

They'd have to send out around 5.3M to make that trade work.

It would have to be Yabusele+Robert Williams+Semi.



Washington is on line one offering John Wall for him.
yea, I was thinking around ~ Dec.15 window. Whichever Kanter, Poirier, Theis doesn't work out as the additional filler.

my Cuse bias aside, Jerami Grant is worth keeping an eye on.

Also want to see what we have in TL, Semi this season