well, it seems, earl clark and jarrett jack and the possibility of bynum is worth 2.5 wins.

wonder how much the line jumps if bynum signs. seems doubtful, as he woulda already agreed if he wanted to come here. still, it also seems that cavs have the most enticing situation.

Smarter FO's have access to information that we just don't whether it be an issue of access or just straight up money. The dumber ones are absolutely going to be like "Uhh gotta put asses in seats, AlJeff averaged 18/10 last year ship that dude $50 million."

Ok probably not that bad, but I don't doubt that there are many people in executive level spots in the NBA who don't go beyond that by much.

I just imagine the average intern even at these places are probably on boards similar to this one and have access to even more information than is publicly available. I can imagine the one who calls the final shot might be a dumbass and just pick some random deal, but I can't really imagine there not being tons of conversations similar to this one on who is a best fit, who isn't worth an extra 3mil for no productivity bump, etc going on in the organization. Ironically, the lower on the ladder you go, the more knowledgeable the people may be on pure nba theorycraft.

the putting asses in seats isn't necessarily a dumb move when your job security is directly correlated to the asses in seats. it's a tough rope to walk, because not all owners can afford/want to sit around and tank for 3 years with exciting youth or good small contracts while accumulating assets. the nba is a biz and it's all about $$ at the end of the day. there are a very small and shrinking number of owners who are about this life, cuban and arison are probably the only two that directly come to mind.

gilbert just let the cavs tank for 3 straight yrs and still allowed grant to refrain from breaking the bank this offseason.

Earl Clark is worthless but Jarrett Jack is definitely worth a few wins to a team that lacks depth.

Exactly what I was thinking. Job security and the goals of your superiors have to be taken into consideration, so terrible moves might be made simply because The Big Guy didn't want to tank for 3 years and have a 20 win team and then a shot at the championship, but instead is willing to spend some money for a decent team that might grow a market (Brooklyn comes to mind) but no shot at a championship for the next 10 years.

grunch

The "average intern" at these places is not very bright; even if they had all publicly available information accessible they would probably be (a) too lazy to read it; and/or (b) not capable of assimilating it well enough to say enough of substance.

Brooklyn did that, but they think they have a shot at a championship.

I used to think that most GMs were smart and privvy to tons of information that we have, and had to operate under more strict ideals wrt fan bases, etc... But after seeing this off season and watching guys like Connelly torpedo a franchise, I'm beginning to think that a lot of them are just pure morons who interview well.

Brooklyn did the right thing imo.

At first I thought the Pistons picking up Smoove (a PF) was a bad idea because their two best players are a PF and C. But just looked and Drum played 20min/gm last year and Monroe 33. Even if they both play 33, that leaves 30 minutes for Smoove to play PF with one of them at center.

So not bad at all really. I guess if they were building a contender, I'd prefer a shooting wing, but they can sign a max player next year.

It wouldn't be the worst thing for DET to trot out

Knight/KCP/Smoove/Monroe/Drum in the 4th Q with a lead. That team would be strong defensively and very strong on the glass.

detroit signed some sharpshooting euro from italy today (gigi) so some competition for the singler spot cant be half bad

I apologize in advance (not much of an apology, eh?) for the snide comments, but I've spent the morning dealing with an organization, SoCal Gas Company, that puts even TZ's wildest caricatures of incompetent front offices to shame, so I'm a tad surly right now...

Would I rather discuss basketball with Michael Jordan or TZ? Is that a joke? Of course it would be Jordan. You can learn things from people even when they're "wrong", and Jordan has a trove of NBA experience to draw from that is literally irreplaceable. And the same goes to a lesser (and greater) extent to a whole bunch of other NBA characters.

I think a whole bunch of us in TZ could benefit from toning down the dismissive attitude towards ex-players and coaches, and not just because of how much it makes one come across as somebody lacking a serious amount of self-awareness, to say the least; you might actually find that you learn something!

confirmed twd hacking of keith's account.

Jordan's forgotten more about basketball than we'll ever know. Unfortunately he currently knows very little.

Obviously one would rather to talk to Jordan about basketball, because it's not something you get to do everyday (unlike this) and he's an icon. But you don't necessarily learn more about how to rob banks by interviewing the guys that got caught sticking up a 7-11.

we get to listen to players' perception of the game regularly through their positions in the media, it's normally not enlightening in the least.

kbfc's mentality is healthy if you're trying to do something like become bff's w/ rudy gay, but since none of that have that opportunity i don't think we're missing out w/ dismissiveness.

edit- i do think it would be fun to hear old stories from jordan but anything theoretical would be brutal imo.

I don't think anyone here aside from Dean would ever say they would rather talk basketball in general with people here or Jordan, but I don't even think that's really what he meant. I took that more that he would rather discuss better ways to build a successful NBA franchise here than with someone like Jordan who is busy running his into the ground, but I don't necessarily agree with that even if that is an accurate characterization since Jordan could obviously speak to many aspects of ownership that we know little about.

The balance between making money and winning, and how much less of one you're willing to swallow in order to achieve the other, is something I would love to talk to with just about anyone who would know in any NBA office, even ones that I may not exactly respect the team-building aptitude of.

In general though, we're all fans. We view owning a sports team as somewhat of a public trust, and when someone who is phenomenally rich runs a team in an incredibly sub-optimal manner due to money it pisses us off. Doesn't mean I wouldn't sit and discuss that with anyone in that position.

But still, when we're talking about players evaluating talent, I'm probably going to take most of what ex-players say with a massive grain of salt until that particular person actually shows a solid reasoning behind it. Go check out that NFL 100 voted on by the players sometime. It's terrible.

well said raids, Jordan would obviously have tons of awesome stories, but I highly doubt he could teach me anything that I actually care about learning

I just found out Denver offered Iggy 5/60 with 4 million guaranteed the final year, so 4/52 + a partially guaranteed 8.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that going be pretty much the same money he gets at GSW? Figuring his last contract will be at 33 vs. 34 years old.

Seems like a lowball to me.

Denver has had a good offseason iyam. Only bad move was the Koufos trade. They'll be better next year than most people think.

I wouldn't mind encouraging people to do a series of posts in a month or so going over best-case and worst-case scenarios with concrete records for both plus predicted record for their teams once the last few major FA dominoes drop.

But yeah kbfc confirmed going soft after his locker room access. Future journalist up in here.