One more year in Cleveland means BK 2019

https://twitter.com/JoelEmbiid/statu...65022200680448 Don't know how to embed tweets.

Embid with the slight earlier in the night, damn.

JR Smith is like the VD that's amoxicillin resistant.

if sexton is their 2nd/3rd best player then lebron is def gone

LeBron's bags are packed.

He's...

Going going back back to Cali Cali.

Wrong thread

A buyout is effectively an agreement between the player and team to reduce the guarantee on a contract, so it counts against the cap the same way it would if you waive a player with a partially guaranteed contract.

Money actually paid out, minus any setoff, but setoff is usually negotiated away in a buyout, I think.

I'm actually rooting for Dwight to the Warriors.

He'll be sure to find a way to **** up their team composure.

His decline is why I'm surprised he didn't opt out. Seems like he could get something like full MLE from a team this year and not sure opportunities like that will be there next offseason.

green is getting oldish i guess so the decline is prob somewhat real, but the spurs were not a great offensive environment for him last year. think he prob looks closer to what he did 2-3 years ago than last year if he's playing his role on a team with more spacing and better perimeter play on offense

I wonder if the Mavs will go hard after Cousins.

I think they could be pretty good adding him with Doncic.

When is he supposed to be playing again?

Don't think I'd want much to do with him after that achilles injury

Cuban is a gambler. I expect him to go har har hard after Boogie.

Its being reported that the Spurs wont trade Kawhi to the West. I think its just a bluff to build leverage, but anyways its news thats somewhat related to what Im about to post.

The Spurs actually have a lot of leverage over the Lakers in a Kawhi trade. It not only gives them another year of Kawhi, but also makes its so much easier on the Lakers if they trade for Kawhi now.

If Kawhi was off the table and signed his 5 year extension with the Spurs the Lakers plan to get LeBron and PG becomes pretty easy. You can just stretch Deng and then have about 5 million in space and the mini mid level to help around them.

If your plan is to sign PG and LeBron now to max deals and then sign Kawhi next summer then you no longer have the option to stretch Deng. If you cant stretch Deng, then you either have to dump him now attaching aseets, or dump Lonzo now, or dump Ingram plus 2 of Hart/Kuzma/their 25th pick this year to get enough space to sign LeBron and PG to maxes. And everyone you dont dump now you need to dump by next summer. LeBron and PG at their maxes with 5% raises, plus Kawhi at his max next summer, plus 9 minimum roster charges still puts you 2 million over next years projected cap on a fully bare bones team.

If you tell LeBron to sign without PG this summer with the hopes of being able to get Kawhi next summer LeBron probably doesn't come and waste what will probably be the best season he has left in him on the chance that Kawhi signs the next season.

Or the Lakers could suck it up trade Deng and whatever it takes to get Kawhi this summer and sign LeBron and PG to go with him. Option 3 is so much better than the first 2 options that I think the Spurs actually have a lot of leverage over the Lakers.

If you swap CP3 in for PG in these talks it complicates it even more since CP3s max starts at 5 million more.

melo opting in; not a shock...lol OKC.

Time to convince him on a trade to Brooklyn.

"I'm coming home" Part Deux!

Imagine Howard and Melo getting bought out and signing with the same team.

FYP

Zach Lowe mentioned on a pod a few weeks ago that he felt like the Warriors FO signed Swaggy P as a 'heat check'... signing Dwight would be whatever is beyond a heat check. Which is probably whatever Austin Rivers has in his head after he makes two 18 footers in a row.

Damn it must be nice to operate with a giant margin for error.

The CP3 contract is defiantly going to be interesting. I can't see them giving him the super max he's looking for.

and I expect him to react defiantly.

Seems like 3 or 4 years from now there are going to be a lot of former stars on really bad contracts. Wall, Harden, Westbrook, maybe Paul, probably LeBron, maybe PG, maybe Leonard, probably others that I'm not thinking of and/or are going to sign in the next year.

I get why the NBA did the Designated Player / supermax / etc, but there's a real winners curse attached to it unless you're talking about a top, top guy in his prime. First, the whole max allocation is backwards, with needing 10 years to get the 35%, which almost by definition results in bad money at the end (except for LeBron and maybe 1-2 other guys). A 26 year old superstar would generally be more suited to a 5 year/35% contract than a 29 year old.

Then those Designated player extensions just kill the cap. Seems like an easy-ish fix would have been to give a cap discount for the team that drafted/signed the guy. Like keeping Wall in DC has some value for the league and the franchise as a 1-team prime guy. But that contract is going to crush the Wiz. Same with a theoretical DeMarcus in SAC or PG13 in Indy. Let them sign for 35% (or whatever the biggest # is) and then count 30% against the cap. Otherwise those guys become anchors real quick which was not the spirit of the rule.

Easy (and generally correct) response is to have smarter GMs. But a team like this iteration of Wiz with their assets and stature basically wants to have a competitive team with possible upside if things break awesomely for them. Very, very hard for them to play chicken with Wall and possibly lose him.

Yeah, we talked this during the playoffs.

Unless you are like GS or Boston and your team is already built, it is almost impossible to pay a guy 42mill a year and then build a team around him.

But what's the alternative? Small market teams just have no chance? Your idea to give a cap discount to teams signing a guy is probably the best move. Like 20% of the guys contract doesn't count against the cap but owners probably want to keep every contract "on the books" as something like that would set a bad precedent.

I wonder if an adjusting salary cap based on last year's performance coukd work