George really fills all the needs they had. 2nd scorer, elite defender, guy who can carry the offense when Russ is out which killed them last year.

And I think the George/Roberson/Adams core gives them a ton of upside defensively. Probably not going to be better than the Spurs during the regular season on D but their best 5 man unit should be better than the Spurs.

Losing Taj was a legit loss though. I'd like them a lot more if Taj stayed and they got rid of Kanter who is useless vs Hou/GS.

The cap was going up a ton though. Even if Hayward doesn't get much better, locking him up in the 16-17m range for another 2 years in a cap of 100M is probably the right move. Especially when you consider Utah's lack of ability to sign FA's.

Yeah it would've taken some foresight and savvy, but that's what GMing is.

If you think he is worth paying 16m a year when the cap is 63-68m then you should really think he is worth that when the cap is 100m. Joe Ingles is getting 13m in this market, Hayward would've had to flame pretty bad to not be worth the 2014 max in 2017-2018.

The cap going up to 100m is an information that filtered the season after hayward signed and Hayward being a max player is only true since this season

Thats why it was much easier to give Klay and Draymond 5 years max

That's why I said *almost*.

Compared to teams like the Magic, Pacers, Kings etc etc Utah is an extremely well org but one misstep a few years ago and now what can they do...

It was known it was going to be in the 80-90 range atleast though.

Wasn't fully known it would be 100 but it was something teams were planning for.

Because giving a max contract straight after rookie contract, locks your player for the next 10 years .... OKC did correctly and still lost Durant

Utah are the victims of superteam full of betas All Stars, not the victims of a bad contract management 3 years ago

Utah isn't really a victim. They brought it on themselves moving an NBA team to Utah.

This is also correct, but I don't get the hate towards Utah. Is it only because mormons and full white state ?

Because if we talk about quality of life the following ranking seems accurate to me

City with Sun and beach > NY > City next to the Mountain >>>>>> all those awful town in the middle of nowhere like Atlanta, Houston, San Antonio, Milwaulkee .......

You gotta put it in the context of where would a 20 something NBA player would want to be. Utah is behind places like Hou/ATL/etc for that ranking.

We're not talking where to raise a family. We're talking where to find hookups on the gram at 3AM. Utah too wholesome.

Never been to Utah it's probably decent enough for you or me, but for NBA stars probably not great.

And thus we can conclude Gallo = Kevin Martin.

Knicks interested in Waiters. Of course they are.

its beautiful but the alcohol laws are completely absurd

You forgot thread fav George Hill's KANGZ!

Hope he doesn't expect his meeting with James Dolan to be anything like his meeting with Pat Riley

Thought the same. Read closely for trolling, and found none. Just wrongness.

I think PatPat >>> not having a PF isn't that hot of a take.

But agree this isn't a gigantic coup or anything.

I mean ppl were saying that okc could now compete with gsw.

guivre1408 you're talking about revisionist history while trying to revise history. Every team knew the cap was about to spike, hell it's all we talked about during the year where Lebron went back home, which happens to be the same year Gordon Hayward was extended. **** there are articles you can google if you don't believe me.

You're right that the market probably has to do with most of it, but they could have avoided this by locking him up for at least a year more. Hell all he was asking for as an extension the year prior, after 3 straight years of improvement, was 4/51 and Utah didn't budge at 4/48. They lost a year over $1million that they didn't want to pay annually, and they ended up paying almost four more after a down season. Everyone knew he was getting the max /year extension because of the cap spike.

It was botched, there isn't any way around it. What ended up happening the next three years was a slew of win-now moves in order to prepare for the day GH hit free agency--something that could have been avoided if they'd just had the foresight or ... you know.. NOT be haggling over 1M when your team is in Utah?

lol haralabob as often

Yeah I mean come on let's pump the brakes here on OKC. They were a 43 win pythag team last year, trading Dipo/Sabonis/Taj for George/PatPat is nice for them, but how many wins does that actually add? 7 wins seems about right. Factor in the fact that they were extremely healthy last year in as well.

I think 50 is an expected outcome for them.

given their cap situation and what other free agent could do something similar, it's a huge signing. maybe it doesnt move the needle in your eyes, but it upgrades their roster a lot compared to whatever else was available on the market.

http://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/

not exactly a treasure trove at power forward.

if they can't afford patpat, idk where else they go. george has been long adamant about not wanting to play the 4. i'm not even sure they could afford james johnson. they probably have to pray that jerami grant makes a huge leap. or they roll westbrook/abrines/roberson/george/adams and pray george doesnt ***** about it.

idk how you define competing vs giving them a sweat, but i like this roster's chances more than cavs. easy to just say lol westbrook but if you had to build a roster that could guard the GSW monster under the current cap, this is a pretty good attempt.

westbrook guards curry, PG guards durant, roberson guards klay, patpat guards draymond, adams guards iguodala.

These types of charts were contentious when they've been posted before, but this at least means something



The guy did note that most teams will decrease as they fill out the ends of their benches

So Memphis rumors is they are letting Green walk due to going in a different direction, now Marc gasol rumors appearing. Wonder if they are gonna blow it up?

Moving Parsons to Portland for Crabbe should be relatively easy to save Portland some cash but then there's conleys massive deal that'll be hard to move/swallow.

Memphis destined for mediocrity at best as it is this year.

Conley's deal wouldn't be hard to move at all, he is 1 of the best PG's in the NBA.

Maybe Gasol for Adams and future picks?

Seems like it would be a good gamble by Memph that OKC bottoms out in a few years.