NBA Season 2013-2014 (Sep.) FIBA World Cup

Blind_Evil wrote:

Most teams overpay old players. Good teams! Kendrick Perkins is still making like 12 million a year.

OKC plays Perkins because they don't have any alternatives. The Nets, in the ever-expanding Quest To Be Relevant, consciously decided to go for gigantic splash and are now locked out of trading first round picks until 2020. And they only have three (AFAIK) of between then and now. They have no assets to trade for picks except Williams (who may not be the same player after The Ankling) and Good Lopez. And they have "reassigned" an assistant coach to "game reports" despite him being under contract for the next six and a half years. They are a complete trainwreck of an organization, stemming from a complete trainwreck of a front office and a complete trainwreck of an owner. It's getting to the point where they need a mercy rule on Prokhorov's ownership.

I fell for it at the start of the season. I thought they'd be good. I had a couple in-the-know folks tell me "they're going to crater" and I didn't believe them. That was unwise.

Interesting. Bulls took down the Heat easy tonight.

It's a mystery to me why the Thunder didn't amnesty Perkins.

I would have pulled the plug before resigning Deron Williams. They decided to pay him almost $20 million per in 2012. They followed that up with disasterous signings of Gerald Wallace and many others. They've been digging ever since. Instead of trying to match the Jay Z-approved product launch of the Brooklyn stadium with a mediocre roster of former stars I would have blown it up then. Deron Williams was a mistake. They never properly rebuilt from the team that went to the Finals. It was time to finally do that.

Ed Ropple wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

Most teams overpay old players. Good teams! Kendrick Perkins is still making like 12 million a year.

OKC plays Perkins because they don't have any alternatives.

Yeah? I expect Steven Adams to overtake him in MPG soon enough. I can't figure out a good reason they haven't amnestied the guy. Smart basketball analyst says:

Whenever I write/tweet anything pointing out Perk issues, execs on other West teams implore me to shut up. Gleeful he still plays so much.

Again, everyone's quick to point out what the Nets did wrong without suggesting alternatives or providing further analysis. It's way, way more complicated than you guys seem to want to talk about.

When NJ traded for Williams in 10-11, they effectively set themselves on a path to attempting contention. That's what happens when you get the PG widely regarded as one of the two best in the league, right? The path becomes win-now. Now that we see he's regressed, that looks kinda bad. But that's not information anyone had at the time. What if they hadn't traded for him? Is Derrick Favors+Brook Lopez+Enes Kanter the frontcourt to lead them to the promised land? That's what the trade has turned into, Favors and Kanter, the guys leading the Jazz to their 4-16 record. Or maybe the Nets would've had the prescience to draft Cousins over Favors? Would-haves and could-haves involving the draft go way too deep and happen way too often to worry much about in analyzing this sort of situation. Nine teams lost that draft, and the Pacers won it when they picked Paul George 10th. Nobody knew he'd become an All-NBA player. He was actually called a reach by some. And if he'd gone to another team, would he have developed like this? It's all a bunch of unknowable things.

Anyway, back to the Nets. Going into the offseason after 11-12, they had two legit pieces - Williams and Lopez, PG and C. Building blocks! So they took on Joe Johnson's big contract, because their owner has infinite money. Despite the contract Johnson was among the ten best wings around. He cost them a bunch of meaningless players (Petro, Stevenson, Farmar, Morrow), a first round pick (turned into Lucas Noguiera), and a second rounder in 2017 or something.

They were also trying to get Dwight Howard, and Dwight Howard wanted to play there, but it wasn't up to him and he didn't get his way. We know how that turned out (is Lakers ownership terrible?).

They later traded for Gerald Wallace, who was coming off a season and a half of very solid play for Portland. This is where they were bamboozled, for the record, but again the move made okay sense for a team intent on competing in the now. The pick they lost for Wallace ended up being Damian Lillard. Now, would the Nets have drafted Lillard at #6, knowing they had their franchise PG? Would he have developed so quickly as an understudy, rather than having the reins handed to him? A lot of unknowable things. Wallace got hurt about two weeks after the trade and was given his current contract based on his solid play that season. Again, this is the one move I can agree was pretty boneheaded.

This brings us to this past offseason. The Nets had three options: keep Humphries and Wallace and likely finish no better than last year (lost to Rose-less Bulls in the first round), make the trade they did and swap those guys and picks for Garnett and Pierce, or try to dump their salaries (costing picks) and signing upgrades through free agency. A glance at the FAs available and the guys I see as viable impact pieces who were actually attainable are Josh Smith, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, and David West. Digging a little deeper, not a one of those guys was available when the Boston trade was made on 7/12. I'm pretty sure the Nets kicked the tires on at least a few of those guys and found out it wouldn't work for one reason or another, be it lack of interest or inability to spend more without trades.

At what point would you have pulled the plug? Success in the NBA is mostly luck. Chris Paul does not join the Clips without Blake, a #1 pick they were third in line for behind Sacramento and Washington. How lucky were the Lakers with Kobe? Portland passed on Durant and OKC reached for Westbrook and he worked out. The Spurs tanked for Duncan.

I dunno. Didn't we see the Nets' approach succeed a few years back? BOS had a couple pieces, Pierce and a very young Rondo. They made a couple trades for old, good players and won a championship that same season. This sh*t's too complicated to explain in two lines.

Someone once agreed with me about there not really being better options that offseason for Brooklyn.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I dunno. Didn't we see the Nets' approach succeed a few years back? BOS had a couple pieces, Pierce and a very young Rondo. They made a couple trades for old, good players and won a championship that same season. This sh*t's too complicated to explain in two lines.

That analogy doesn't pass the smell test for me.

One: the 2008 Celtics were very, very fortunate. They had health and consistent good performances. The C's had okay depth, but any serious injury would have made that whole thing not happen; you can see that through the rest of their window, where serious injuries did derail pretty much everything. The Nets have considerably less depth for considerably more injury risk; they're older and way more brittle than the 2008 Celtics were.

Two: the 2008 Celtics (who achieved close to best-case performance, itself unlikely) were probably better than the 2014 Nets's best case. The 2008 Celtics had a disgusting surfeit of options; they had three first-option scorers[1] plus Gumby the Magic Point Guard who at least had to be guarded on the drive. That Nets team, even in the all-systems-go best case, is a three second-option team (Deron, Johnson, and Lopez) and none are at the positions that are optimal for scorers. The new guys aren't sufficient: KG showed what happened when you leaned on him for scoring last year: he gets gassed, 'cause he's old. I love Pierce like no other athlete except Patrice Bergeron, but his bag of tricks is getting close to empty; there were games last year that made me really sad to watch. Johnson is not as bad a player as his reputation says, of course, but he's very trick-or-treat and I think it's fairly easy to take him out of his game if you have the opportunity to focus on him. Williams is the wrong kind of scoring point guard (more below) and Lopez, while a fine player, makes you run sets to really make the most of his offensive talents--in a league where transition offense is the best offense.

Three: the 2008 Celtics didn't have to play the 2014 Miami Heat to get out of the East (and they still had to contend with a not-yet-Superman LeBron in Cleveland, with a worse team, and they almost lost that one). The NBA is such an all-or-nothing league (unless you're Daryl Morey) that, when there is such a dominant power, I feel very strongly that for Eastern Conference teams the risk/reward calculus[2] needs to heavily over-weight risk for any given reward. (I think we're seeing some of this realization actually punch through some front offices this year--helped surely by injuries--as you see everybody in the East seemingly pretty willing to join the Power Tankings.) Even at my highest point I didn't consider this Nets team more than maybe-get-to-the-ECF, and I kind of feel like an NBA GM should probably be better at this than me.

--

Williams is the kind of player that I am 100% convinced everyone loves for the wrong reasons. The trade was not terrible as a change-of-scenery move and a low-risk-high-reward player, and I can't blame them for making it, but re-signing him? Yeah, that's not a good move. Williams proved pre-big-contract that he was the wrong kind of scoring point guard to make me worried if I have to deal with his team. If I'm setting up a defense, Williams's shooting tendencies don't scare me. I don't feel like I have to double him much to keep his point totals reasonable and that keeps me from having to deal with open perimeter players. He's a point guard, and in almost every case I'm putting my smallest defender (often a minus help defender) on him. This will open up a little room inside, but I will give Brook Lopez the ball twenty times out of twenty if the alternative is an uncontested Williams 3PA. If they run a pick and my defense has to switch a 4 or even a 5 onto Williams, I'm not that worried; Williams is a pretty average inside finisher and I'll even under-help when he goes inside because it means his perimeter three-point shooters can't get the ball. And any time he's in the corner hoping somebody else gets him a corner 3PA I am happy because it means he isn't playmaking and that makes his teammates worse.

I'm not even going to compare him to Chris Paul, because that's unfair. Let's compare him to Rajon Rondo, who isn't considered a "scoring" point guard. Rondo can't shoot outside. He's just no good at it. Not bad around the foul line, very good in the paint. But he's harder for me to defend. Rondo can burn a switched defender on the pick-and-roll as well (if not better) than Williams, but he's got that crazy array of interior shots and no fear of contact (hence "Gumby the Magic Point Guard"). I have to commit help defense and I'm opening up perimeter shooters. Rondo has a lower eFG% for his individual performance but his style of play makes his teammates more efficient because he attracts that help; he will probably put up fewer points per shot but he's likely to make the rest of his team better. (An even more dangerous not-Paul/Rose/Parker might be a guy like Ty Lawson, who can shoot a little bit as well as finish inside. Not as good a playmaker, but more individually dangerous. I don't know how much worse a playmaker Lawson would have to be to make him less valuable than Rondo, though--this parenthetical is just off the top of my head.)

This isn't to say that Williams is a bad player, mind--he's just not a first option scorer out of the 1 even when healthy and his tendency to inefficiently live on . Lopez isn't The Guy either, for all the reasons that non-pre-back-ouchie-Dwight bigs aren't The Guy in the current NBA. So who is the guy on the Nets? Nobody, and you don't have the assets to bring in young, good talent around Williams because you're the 2011 Nets and you're a mess, so trade him or let him walk and hit the "rebuild" button. But you can't, because you're a big ol' hype machine moving to BROOKLYN, so...oops.

As far as "well, what else could you do this offseason": I would hope this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: you can contend[3] (in the "win a round, maybe win two, get your gentleman's 4-2 series loss against the Heat") without giving up every pick you're allowed to give up on old guys! I watched almost every Celtics game last year and Garnett looked cooked by the end--a lot of people (myself included) hoped it was fatigue, but it's looking like maybeprobablynot and a GM has gotta know when it's "gassed" and when it's "buried". Pierce's game is a little more resistant to the precipitous cliff drop, I think, but he's still no longer a great player so you're adding another middling option to a team entirely composed of them. And they traded three firsts for them. Three! Tres! That's insane value for extremely high-risk-moderate-reward players. This isn't a "take a risk to get over the top", this is "all in on 00 and there are big magnets hanging over the wheel".

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad they did it. I love Paul and KG, but the haul that Ainge got for their busted corpses was utterly insane. He is a pirate.

[1] - The 2014 Heat are in this stratum, too. James is obviously the top dog, but I've been told by folks with insight into the game that Bosh would be a max contract guy, largely based on offensive value, in most other places; Wade isn't quite that guy anymore, but he's still very good.

[2] - The NBA risk/reward system is broken and unhealthy for all the reasons everyone's heard before, of course, but it still surprises even me that it's as bad as it is. The incentive structure of the league is aligned such that you either go the Morey route or you blow it up, but most owners (and thus, the GMs they hire) don't feel safe doing either.

[3] - The Pacers are not contending. The Pacers are CONTENDING. And they're doing so with a sub-cap roster that's been constructed well by smart management. They have also not traded multiple first-round picks for players in recent memory.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Someone once agreed with me about there not really being better options that offseason for Brooklyn.

:P

I did. And I don't exactly think that way any longer. Watching the Blazers successfully rebuild to at least be an interesting team has been instructive. Especially as it was done largely by resigning their own players and making good picks in the draft (not just guys like Lillard, but guys like Freeland). Watching the Spurs rebuild in flight, changing the wheels on the plane while it was in the air through the draft has been instructive. Watching the Celtics blow up their team has been instructive.

I still think the NBA is in this weird place where more often than not blowing a team up is a better option. That's not good, but it's looking like it's reality. More importantly, though, when I said what I said I was referring to teams who have promise. The Nets team never had promise. There was no reason to double-down on building around Deron Williams. The way in which I've shifted my opinion the most is that I think teams with youth, cheap contracts and promising young players is what you double-down around. Unless you have someone special like Kobe Bryant and even then you hit a point where blowing up the team is really the only option that makes sense.

Stele wrote:

Interesting. Bulls took down the Heat easy tonight.

Boozer and Noah looked pretty dominant.

DSGamer wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

Why's Prokhorov a bad owner? The pundits and fans all thought this Nets team would contend. I certainly didn't expect this mess.

Because he overpays for old players?

I would have said the Jason Kidd hiring.

But, hey, I'm a Bobcats fan. What do I know about (good) coaching hires?

Well, you've got Clifford now. He's got a lot of potential.

Ed Ropple wrote:

Well, you've got Clifford now. He's got a lot of potential.

Well, yeah. Clifford's been able to make a few s'mores over the smoldering dumpster fire that is the Bobcats. I like what I've seen so far.

But I figured someone who's smart enough to put together the Nets roster would have been smart enough to find someone who had least coached a middle school basketball team somewhere. Guess I was wrong.

The Bobcats aren't bad, honestly. That might be a problem, actually: they're not bad enough.

If the Nets were really in win-now mode I don't know how you can defend hiring a first time coach with zero coaching experience at any level.

Really I just feel bad for Pierce. Not how I wanted to see him end his career and I bet he didn't either.

LeapingGnome wrote:

If the Nets were really in win-now mode I don't know how you can defend hiring a first time coach with zero coaching experience at any level.

Workin' out for Mark Jackson! A quick googling also tells me Don Nelson and Lenny Wilkens were hired with no prior coaching experience. Those guys did okay (not all hires in that manner did). But I never defended that hiring.

Regarding the above posts, we're getting away from what I originally argued against. Yes, the Nets seem pretty screwed (however if they finish with fewer wins than the Bobcats I'd be pretty surprised). I just said I didn't see Mikhail Prokhorov as a terrible owner. When I think "terrible owner" I think of Donald Sterling, who has had legal action taken against him for discriminatory practices on multiple occasions and often called his own point guard a fatty from the stands. I think of Robert Sarver, who traded many, many draft picks to keep from spending his own money. I think of the Maloofs, who held the city of Sacramento hostage for so long.

Billy King is a bad GM and has made some bad decisions. Prokhorov acts as I certainly wish my teams' owners would act: write blank checks and provide a little bravado.

Every team can't blow it up at once, you know?

Prokhorov is not the worst owner in the league, sure. He's still a bad owner. He hired Billy King as a reflection of what he wants his ownership to look like. Front office selections (at any position you hear about in the news) do not happen without ownership approval. They aren't the Maloofs or Dolan but they're not doing right by their fans.

Ujiri has done it again and swindled a team. This isn't as genius as the Carmelo, Bargnani, or Igudola trades but is still great.

Offloaded Gay, Gray, and Acy to the Kings for Vazquez, Hayes, Patterson, and Salmons. Only Hayes has a guaranteed deal for next season. Frees up around 20m and rids the Raptors of an absolutely terrible team player.

I don't get this for the Kings. They have a terrible record, are in a difficult conference, and already have a guy who gets a lot of points but doesn't actually help the team in Cousins.

Look for Lowry to be traded next. Maybe even Derozan.

Vector wrote:

Ujiri has done it again and swindled a team. This isn't as genius as the Carmelo, Bargnani, or Igudola trades but is still great.

Offloaded Gay, Gray, and Acy to the Kings for Vazquez, Hayes, Patterson, and Salmons. Only Hayes has a guaranteed deal for next season. Frees up around 20m and rids the Raptors of an absolutely terrible team player.

I don't get this for the Kings. They have a terrible record, are in a difficult conference, and already have a guy who gets a lot of points but doesn't actually help the team in Cousins.

Look for Lowry to be traded next. Maybe even Derozan.

The Kings are under new ownership. It's fairly common for new owners to try to stir things up to show fans that they want to do exciting things for them. I don't see this being a big boon for the Kings but imagine the entertainment value every time of Boogie giving Gay the stink-eye for every terrible shot decision in crunch time.

The deal is better for the Kings if you're convinced (and I am) that Gay will opt out to try for a longer deal with a big-market team. (Not that I think he's worth it, but he'll make more money over the long term if he can get a team to lock him up for four years even if he leaves a little on the table today.)

I'd be worried that the Kings think he's the guy they should be locking up.

I don't think even the Kings are that stupid.

I hope the Kings aren't that stupid.

I think the Cavaliers are that stupid.

I don't recall who, but someone pointed out on Twitter that Ujiri and the Kings' GM worked together in Denver. It sounds like they both know what's going on here.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I don't recall who, but someone pointed out on Twitter that Ujiri and the Kings' GM worked together in Denver. It sounds like they both know what's going on here.

The King's GM was Ujiri's assistant GM with the Nuggets. Ujiri was the Raptors assistant GM with before the Nuggets brought him in.

This is incredible. I especially like the title.

Nick Young, making decisions

https://vine.co/v/hQnKw67J5TZ

Nick Young, sports god.

I love gunners.

Steph Curry scores a season-high 43, the Warriors hang 111 on the Bobcats ...

... and the Bobcats win by four.

The aforementioned Bobcats had Anthony Tolliver in their starting lineup and got 12 points in 14 mins from Ben Gordon.

Buy gold and bury it in the backyard. These are end times, people!

Heat @Pacers tonight!

Your Eastern Conference Final preview.

Enix wrote:

Steph Curry scores a season-high 43, the Warriors hang 111 on the Bobcats ...

... and the Bobcats win by four.

The aforementioned Bobcats had Anthony Tolliver in their starting lineup and got 12 points in 14 mins from Ben Gordon.

Buy gold and bury it in the backyard. These are end times, people!

Don't laugh but as of last week, the Bobcats somehow had a top 3 defense. Despite a terrible offense, the east is so bad that they could actually do some damage this year.

They have a top three defense with Al Jefferson.

That's amazing.

I think in Al's case no one had ever asked.

I really like what I've seen out of Clifford. Mike Dunlap had pretty much the same team last year, and he couldn't do much at all with it.

Clifford comes in, sees absolutely no offense and says on Day 1, "Gentlemen, you're going to learn to play defense."

I mean, really, what other choice did he have?

Nice to see Kemba Walker scoring 30+. Guy was in The Zone last night in the 4thQ.