2018-19 NBA Thread

[33anda3rd]

KD might leave but I'm leaning to KD not leaving. The Dubs ownership needs him on that roster when they open their downtown SF arena next year, where if you want season tickets in year one they are requiring you to buy a 20-year season ticket commitment.

[thrill]

if you want season tickets in year one they are requiring you to buy a 20-year season ticket commitment.

That's wild.

[33anda3rd]

It is wild. When I lived there they were torrid. Like 18 wins, 20 wins bad. The Get The Ball To Antawn Jameson And Get Out Of The Way Era. The Oh Crap This Arenas Kid Is Really Good But Then He's Gone A Year Later Era. We used to buy 300 level tickets and the ushers would come ask us to move to the 200s, sometimes the 100s, so the place didn't look empty on TV. They were awful and there was zero fan interest. Also, Oakland wasn't Brooklyn yet and going out there was still a trek.

All the good to great players on the roster will be 29 or older soon. Klay and Dray will be the young ones at 29. It's not hard to imagine 6-7 years from now a pretty bad team with low local interest.

[Socnorb11]

Denver could offer up a package of G. Harris, Will Barton, MPJ and Juancho, and probably not miss a beat. In fact, with Isaiah Thomas due to be healthy any day now, the backcourt depth could become cumbersome very quickly. Jokic dishing to Brow and the Blue Arrow would be damn near unstoppable. It's a Big Three that probably trumps even Golden State's. However, knowing almost for certain that Davis isn't staying in Denver probably makes it not worth it for the Nuggets.

Murray/Davis/Jokic would be stoppable the same as Harden/Paul/Capela are stoppable and Kyrie/LeBron/Love were stoppable and so on. That three is not on the same level as the Dubs Big Three, and it's irrelevant because the Dubs have a Big Five and next year will have a minimum of a Big Four. Plus they'll still have depth next year with Iggy, Jones, Livingston, McKinnie and probably a return of at least one of Cook and Looney.

The Nuggets, without making a single move for next year have a depth chart of:

Blue Arrow / Monte Morris
Harris / Malik
Barton / Craig / Juancho
Porter (if healthy) / Lyles (if they exercise QO) / Lydon / Vanderbilt
Jokic / Plumlee

And they have roughly $20-26MM they can spend. They could exercise Millsap's $30MM team option and make a couple corresponding moves, they could do a lot of stuff. But that amounts to returning a core that has the 2nd best record in the West right now, which is pretty great. Make the trade you're talking about and it becomes:

Blue Arrow / Monte Morris
Malik / ?
Craig / ?
Davis / Lyles (if they exercise QO) / Lydon / Vanderbilt
Jokic / Plumlee

And they have maybe $35-40MM to spend. And they need someone to guard the opponent's playmaking 2s and 3s, because both Beasley and Torrey Craig are not that guy. And those two players also have to be knock-down shooters when the D collapses the lane on Davis and Jokic, because you can't make an NBA team win these days around twin bigs and no awesome perimeter shooting. Basically they need and three-and-D 3 and a shot-creating 2 who can play some D. Can they get those and fill in their depth chart and still field a competitive team around that for under $40MM in cap space? I'm skeptical.

Good post. Really good.

I'd just say that the Rockets have never believed in defense, so the Harden/Capela/Paul thing won't work. Mike Malone has the current Nuggets team committing to defend...... and it's working. As for Lebron/Kyrie/Love, they ran into Golden State at their absolute peak. Draymond Green isn't the player that he was. Igudola isn't who he was. Etc.etc. This year's GS team would probably lose in 5 or 6 games to the 2016-2017 team that beat Lebron/Kyrie/Love. You're right, I probably exaggerated about Davis/Joker/Arrow being "unstoppable". It would be fun to watch though, no doubt!

Personally, as a Nugg fan, I wouldn't want Denver to make the trade anyway. It's fascinating and super exciting to see what they're building there. Arguably the 2nd best team in basketball, and also the 2nd youngest.......... and MPJ has potential to be a superstar, and he hasn't even seen the court yet. If MPJ lives up to expectations, I don't think GS can beat them in 7 in 2019-20. Granted, I'm a homer, but they're legit stacked.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Mirotic and Randle have scrubbed all Pelicans mentions from their social media profiles, so I'd venture a guess trades are incoming.

Our version of Incarcerated Bob also thinks it's likely the Pelicans add a "marketable star" in the next 12 months.

[MrCrowesGarden]

One way or another, he done.

[33anda3rd]

I'd just say that the Rockets have never believed in defense, so the Harden/Capela/Paul thing won't work. Mike Malone has the current Nuggets team committing to defend...... and it's working. As for Lebron/Kyrie/Love, they ran into Golden State at their absolute peak. Draymond Green isn't the player that he was. Igudola isn't who he was. Etc.etc. This year's GS team would probably lose in 5 or 6 games to the 2016-2017 team that beat Lebron/Kyrie/Love. You're right, I probably exaggerated about Davis/Joker/Arrow being "unstoppable". It would be fun to watch though, no doubt!

Personally, as a Nugg fan, I wouldn't want Denver to make the trade anyway. It's fascinating and super exciting to see what they're building there. Arguably the 2nd best team in basketball, and also the 2nd youngest.......... and MPJ has potential to be a superstar, and he hasn't even seen the court yet. If MPJ lives up to expectations, I don't think GS can beat them in 7 in 2019-20. Granted, I'm a homer, but they're legit stacked.

The Rox temporarily believed in D last year. Last year they had the #17 Defensive Rating and had the best record in the NBA, this year their D Rating is 26th, the team is nothing but Harden in full on ball hog mode, and they're mediocre at best. They lost their freaking minds in the last off-season and thought they could make up losing Luc Mbah a Moute and Trevor Ariza--both long two-way players--and Ryan Anderson, a guy who at least put in max effort on D, with Carmelo Anthony. I think that was the inflection point of Morey's theory that he could beat the Dubs in a war of averages.

Consider that in 2017-18:
Ryan Anderson .431 FG / .3863P / .568 eFG / 29 years old
Carmelo: .404 FG / .307 3P / .476 eFG / 33 years old

But the Rox put themselves into a place contractually that they couldn't stomach the $15MM Anderson would cost to bring back on a one-year deal so they had to take Carmelo since ATL had bought him out and he was effectively free. This is another of those instances for baseball discussions about capped systems and why it would be bad for competitive balance in baseball. If HOU could have brought back Anderson, Luc, Ariza to take a shot at the title again they would have been better off this year. Cap constraints restricted that so they have Nene and Marquese Chriss and Brandon Wright.

I'm a name-on-the-back-of-the-shirt fan, but there are a few teams I've really stanned for this year and Denver is the biggest in the bunch. I love watching Denver play. You make some great points: they are young and stacked and effectively add to the roster next year a surplus first-round pick in Porter, who many thought would go 1-1 last year before the injury. They should be fun for at least a couple more years and I really hope they don't do anything crazy like deal away a bunch of depth to get a star.

These two examples go hand-in-hand. Houston--whether due to cap rules or bad decision-making or both--had to give up depth to maintain star power. It should be a cautionary tale to teams like DEN and SAC who are on the upswing with a lot of depth.

[Jocephus]

don't you keep your good players?

[MrCrowesGarden]

LMAO Knicks

[thrill]

don't you keep your good players?

He apparently asked out. Now the knicks will get Zion if Adam Silver has to freeze the lottery balls himself.

And Dallas finds the Dirk to Luka's Nash. They remain the spiritual home of white basketball well into the future.

What a fun trade for everyone who isn't a Knicks fan.