Not that the Celtics would do it, but I'm quite certain that there are multiple teams out there that would try to beat that offer if given the opportunity. The only way it works is if Luka not only demands out, but he demands to go to Boston.
Mavs give up
- Thread starter Phil Plantier
- Start date
It's interesting because it's actual acknowledgement too many teams make the playoffs. The appearance is effectively valueless relative to a potentially better draft slot. The Knicks made it to the finals in 1997-98 but generally 7-8 seeds that advance just lose in the next round anymore. 7-8 seeds basically can't compete. Not like how NFL or MLB teams can upset things a bit.
The math is colored somewhat by the fact that it's not just a better draft slot, it's giving up their pick entirely. If Dallas had made the playoffs, they wouldn't have a 1st round pick this year.
That might still end up happening (missing out on their 1st round pick), which would really be the cherry on top for their season.
The list of young WINGs, that have been on 2 All-Star teams & potentially make the All-NBA team is short. Depends on what Dallas wants, picks &/or young players? or like you said what Luka demands?
Clearly, Brown's offseason work ethic > Luka, which matters a lot when it comes to young players IMO
A team like the Nets could staple picks to Bridges/Claxton if they wanted to.
Memphis has the young players to make it happen, but combining Ja with Luka would be no better than what we saw with Ky/Luka
Then again, I have ZERO clue on what makes the Dallas Mavericks tick after their work over the last few seasons.
The reason the Celtics could do it is that they can give a much better player than anyone else (Brown), while still doing picks+swaps. The new supertax limit on trading far-out picks could hinder that, however.
Most teams that have someone as good as Brown would need to keep him in a Luka deal to still have a team good enough to make the trade worthwhile in the first place.
Thank god you're not running the Celtics. Brown for Luka is an overpay, adding in other players and picks is how you end up being the Nets.
At exactly # 10? Not too often, but in the late lottery (10-15) there are all-stars or borderline all-stars drafted nearly every year. Haliburton, Herro, Langford, SGA, Bridges, Porter Jr, Mitchell, Bam, Sabonis, etc
Ridiculous. Every GM in the league would do that trade straight up in a nano second
Yes, if you're going to be paying a max salary slot, you want the guys in it to be as elite as possible.
It's hard to not have a perennial contender if you have Tatum and Luka. You can fill in JAG centers and guards and be totally fine.
Tatum+Brown obviously has championship upside, but the teambuilding has to be a lot more careful.
It's logical for teams to tank because everything that the league has set up incentivizes tanking. That is undeniable. I just think that it's overall bad for the league to have the least interesting part of the season be the end of it. We're heading into the final games and there's nothing interesting at stake, and that's been the case since practically mid-March. The storylines are more concerned with who's sitting out instead of heated playoff races. It sucks.
I guess the league doesn't really care because they're adding a mid-season tournament that will only exacerbate this issue, but hopefully they'll land on some kind of strategy that actually elevates the level of play as we head into the playoffs.
I guess the league doesn't really care because they're adding a mid-season tournament that will only exacerbate this issue, but hopefully they'll land on some kind of strategy that actually elevates the level of play as we head into the playoffs.
Yeah, definitely teams like OKC could put the biggest offer in league history on the table
But That doesn't make sense either. Not all #11 are the same. Sometimes it is the Mavs tanking the second last game of the year to miss out in what was a horribly disappointing (underachieving) season. Say the year had ended the other way, and Dallas won their last 2 and OKC lost to Mem on Sunday. OKC certainly wouldn't deserve to be punished, they are a young team who played their ass off all season, and won 15 games more than people were predicting preseason.
What? The last 3+ weeks have felt like playoff basketball for many if not most games. The west still has like 30 different possibilities of seeding.
Are we following the same league? Spots 5-11 in the West are still up in the air with 1-2 games left in the season. And securing a playoff, as opposed to a plan-in spot, is a big deal.
Yeah this is where I am. Less drama in the east since the top 10 have basically been set forever, as have the top 5 (with some slight jockeying at the very top), with the only real question being whether or not Miami could pass a blown up Brooklyn team to avoid the play in. The west has been incredibly exciting, with multiple teams outside the top 3 that can make deep runs, and some teams with lofty expectations struggle to even make the play in. Can't ask for much more than that.
I think it would come down to, will any team be willing to offer up their best player for Luka (i.e. completely reimagine their own team)? Or are teams looking to build around their star just offer up secondary pieces? There's a pretty good argument that Jaylen is the most valuable secondary star in the league, assuming he's signed long term. The winner of the Wemby sweepstakes may be able to offer up more, too.
Yeah not to pile on but aside from the usual suspect handful of tankers this has been one of the most competitive finishes to a season we’ve ever had.
Yeah, and the GAMES deciding these spots are incredibly boring. Last night we had:
- The Warriors facing the Kings, whose best player on the floor was Harrison Barnes
- The Lakers beating the Suns, led by Cameron Payne
- The Grizzlies beating a Bucks team who's highest scoring player was Lindell Wigginton
Two nights ago:
- The Bruce Brown led Nuggets were beaten by suns
- The Thunder beat a Jazz team whose highest scorer was Kris Dunn
I'm sorry, I don't find it incredibly exciting when the seeding for the playoffs is decided by the level of disinterest expressed by the remaining teams on a particular schedule. Teams like the Pelicans staying in the hunt because they're beating the Knicks bench squad is not a super interesting twist.
To put a finer point on this: 22 teams played last night. About 7 played their normal rotation.
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You said it has been like this since mid-March, and your proof is the last few nights of basketball.
Every sport is going to have players sitting or resting when seasons are decided. Instead of focusing on the few bad games, find joy in the good ones
It's obviously increased in intensity since mid-March, but teams like the Blazers have been offering an automatic win since around then.
It's not like a crazy criticism to say "It would be nice if more teams had incentive to try, and the NBA would benefit if more teams tried."
The last few nights of load mgmt/tanking have been disappointing (Lakers getting a free pass) but the PLAY-IN has been a resounding success.
i would guess a big reason (other than being alive for the playoffs) that the league is going to "look into it" is that the Mavs went beyond the agreed upon level of tanking. There is a bit of an unspoken rule... you can build a terrible roster, you can shut down a guy with an injury he could have played through, you can even give a certain number of rest days..... but once the game starts the players and coaches should try to win. Last night, DAL sat 4 starters... fine. The team was up early, they shut down their star... they were still up, so they benched most of their 7-9 guys in the rotation to give exclusively 10-17 minutes. only real rotation guy to play minutes in the 2nd half was Bullock and that was only because he had been having a terrible game and the bench bigs played better.
The league is going to want to discourage that, because....
1. It's bad TV
2. When you partner with gaming companies, the appearance of a team trying to lose in game is a real problem.
The league is going to want to discourage that, because....
1. It's bad TV
2. When you partner with gaming companies, the appearance of a team trying to lose in game is a real problem.
I guess I’m still having trouble seeing a major distinction between the scenarios you present. I’m more than happy if they come down on the Mavs over this because I think it sucks, but it sucks for all the teams that participated over the year. It just isn’t a fun outcome.
i mean, you can't see the difference between a coach and players trying to win with the guys available and a coach and players trying to lose?
Sure, but I just mean from a league wide perspective I don’t care as much about a one off, single game from the Mavs compared to other teams throwing away weeks or months of trying to be competitive.
This is a fair point that should get more love. The play-in has a lot of teams trying REALLY hard, particularly in the west, but that can't provide consistent good games when the much better and much worse teams either don't care or actively want to lose.
It's a VERY hard problem, unfortunately. The easiest quick tweak would be letting the top seeds choose their 1st and 2nd round opponents, since then top seeding would get more NFL-like in its urgency. That only solves about 10-20% of the problem, however.
I'd love for the TOP3 seeds to be able to choose their first-round opponent. Not only would teams at the top try harder but the teams they chose would have bulletin board material.
Doesn't solve the tanking/load mgmt in recent days
BUT it does solve the its better to be the #3 seed than #2 issue from the last two seasons
I like that idea. A few other ideas:
- First round games of the playoffs for the top seeds are all played at home
- Teams that don't make the playoffs can't take part in revenue sharing
- Getting further in the playoffs (while staying under the tax) offers a progressively larger amount of revenue sharing
- How about we just get rid of the lottery? Teams that suck will suck. You'll likely stop seeing teams close to the play-in trying to dump games without the carrot of having a slightly higher % shot at getting higher in the lottery. Moving from 10th to 9th in the draft isn't a very compelling incentive
I know I'm in the minority on this board and I like watching the best players play each other instead of the G-League teams battling for two-way contracts, but it seems bad that playoff seeding is getting decided by anti-competitive teams.
And I'll add that there's a marked difference between playing young guys for development at the end of the year vs. the Blazers sitting Shaedon Sharpe because he's too good, or Paolo Banchero's magical back soreness.
You cannot be serious re: the bolded, unless the goal is to marginalize small market teams.
It's basically what they do in the English Premiership every season. Relegation is more interesting this season than Arsenal and Man City running away with #1 and #2
markets don't matter, owners do. If you can't afford it sell to a billionaire who can.
There are 28 NBA Markets, and NYK (#1 market), CHI (#3) DAL (#5) and ATL (#8) were in the bottom 6 spending teams over the last 5 years, MIA (17), MIL (25), POR (20) were all in the top 6.
What does small market have to do with anything? How does this "marginalize" them? We're in a thread about Dallas tanking - in what world is Dallas a small market? Or Houston?
If the business/competitive ability of these small market teams hinge on whether they get $12 million from revenue sharing, then there's a bigger structural issue with the NBA.
I mean, Milwaukee, that famously huge metroplex, is paying into the tax this year. I don't think that's going to bankrupt them.
This has been a trying year for the NBA between this and all the sleepless nights since Lebron didn't get that call in Boston. More apologies are forthcoming, methinks.
Wouldn't actually fix this case, as long as pick protection exists. Dallas owes it's 1st rounder to the Knicks unless they're top 10, which is why there's really value in getting below OKC & Chicago.
edit: and actually, it would be hilarious if the punishment wasn't to take the pick away, but move it to the end of the lottery. Which would cause it to convey to NY.
I'd add to this and say the issue here is not so much how they're tanking, but the situation. Tanking is obviously extremely common among non-playoff teams fighting for better draft position, but seeing a team actively tank when a playoff spot is well within reach is jarring. Maybe I'm missing obvious examples, but is there clear precedent for this of a team tanking to avoid making the playoffs? In any sport really?
I think what the Mavs last night did was gross. Right up there with the Mark Madsen game or the Warriors quest to keep the pick that became Harrison Barnes. But it does not warrant any structural changes to league's incentive structure vis a vis the lottery/play in. This was not about a team trying to improve its lottery odds. The Mavs did what they did because 1) their pick goes to the Knicks if it falls outside the 10, 2) they really need that asset because 3) they fell well short of preseason expectations and 4) they have a top-10 player with a ticking clock.
Yeah, if you want to do something about last night just add it to the long list of other reasons and Sarver/Sterling Cuban
My god, Brown for Luka is an overpay? He was getting MVP talk not that long ago. He's very young (2.5 years younger than JB) and still on the upswing of his career.
I suspect most NBA fans and most NBA execs would disagree with that, even if "Brown plus Smart plus picks is an overpay" would be a far more popular opinion.
100%. Punishing the Mavs for last night is punishing them for lack of style.
What would have been worse - the Mavs tanking one particular game so extremely or the Mavs "playing it smart" and decreeing that Luka was hurt after the first Charlotte loss on 3/24 and officially starting their tank a few games ago?
No kidding. The main strikes against Luka as a player (his defense and his poor fitness) aren't even points against him in the long run, they are very viable areas for improvement. He's a 1st team all-NBA level player, if he gets in shape and becomes just an average defender (not impossible given his intelligence and size), he'll be the best player in the league through his prime.
Luka is super overrated. Blame his supporting cast if you want, but guys "in the MVP conversation" don't lead teams that suck every year. Top 10 guys drag shit teams a round or two into the playoffs all of the time. Luka is world class at a few things, amazing to watch, and has a super high ceiling when he's clicking on all cylinders. But the guy doesn't carry a team in the NBA. The record speaks for itself.
Certainly more Harden than LeBron, right? LeBron carried some bad Cavs teams to deep runs and played defense. Luka is a great talent, but he’s not once in a generation.
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He's basically prime Harden right now, if Harden terrified teams in the playoffs. Luka is as old now as Harden was in his first year in Houston, for some perspective.
Lebron was never a great comp because he could take over games on both ends of the court, but you don't have to be Lebron to be the best player in the league. Luka's floor for the next decade is Houston Harden, but better in the playoffs.
Luka takes this year on the chin no doubt, but he's incredibly young. He's also 2nd all-time in playoff points per game, and ask any Clippers fan if he's capable of dragging a shit team to some scary playoff performances (to say nothing of his run to the WC finals last year). Jordan and Lebron had some super mediocre teams in their early years, Jordan didn't even win a playoff series until his 4th season (and there's a reason why we remember Lebron's performance against the Pistons in his 3rd year was so amazing, it's not normal for guys this young to make real noise in the playoffs on crummy teams).
Luka's not an 18yo Lebron. He's 24 in his fifth season, and his growth curve is basically a straight line since the beginning of year two.
The dude dragged his team to the fucking Western Conference Finals just last year.
Feels like the NBA is probably going to take action against the Mavs, but count me in the camp who thinks that the team should be allowed to make rational decisions which improve their long-term competitiveness. I honestly don't care that they gave up. The truth is that they're right - they weren't going anywhere this year. If I'm a Mavs fan, I applaud their decision...until they lose a draft pick over it, of course.
So we're going to play this silly game where the teams which are better able to tap dance around the line of "acceptable" tanking without going over are allowed to profit, and then for others who go a little too far we're going to pretend that it's an unforgivable sin? If they tell the players on the court to throw the game, that's too far for me, but I don't believe that happened here.
So we're going to play this silly game where the teams which are better able to tap dance around the line of "acceptable" tanking without going over are allowed to profit, and then for others who go a little too far we're going to pretend that it's an unforgivable sin? If they tell the players on the court to throw the game, that's too far for me, but I don't believe that happened here.
He put up 31-10-9 and 36-8-10 in the 2 playoffs they lost in the first round to very good Clippers teams, what did you want him to do to win those series? This is the first year he's actually been a star and they didn't make the playoffs
This is why you can’t have a joking attitude towards ‘the process’ - either tanking is ok or it’s not, once you get into subtle arguments about ‘well, it’s ok for one team to run a d-league quality team out for 3 weeks but it’s not ok for this other team to pull starters in the last game’ you’ve lost any moral high ground