birdman:


thanks for the explanation. unlike those who sought to trouble me

The Rockets IMHO actually have a plan, if their young players pan out, by the time the extension for Green who will be the first up kicks in, FVV contract will has just been confirmed that the 3rd yr is a team option. So in 2yrs, they can decline his 3rd year and Brooks will be just 2yrs 40mil. So if their picks hit, it will be a smooth transition

Roland17:
The Spurs should take a shot Dame, they have the cap space, picks and players to make it work.

This IMHO will be a bad idea. Nobody knows what Wemby really is at the moment, let him play as the 1st option year then they can learn both his strengths, weaknesses and limitations. Then you can properly build around him. Trading for Dame who is due 60+mil in the backend of that contract will be be an anchor weighing the franchise down.

PS: It will not surprise me if the trade package for Dame is underwhelming, smart GMs have started to account correctly so for future salary compensation when putting together trade packages.

birdman:


I actually like Brooks game. But boy we overpaid by too much. Makes me worry front office is not savvy

It was a sign and trade, so that plays into it a bit, because the UFA player needs incentives to agree. Also by the time you guys need to pay your young players that contract will be a very tradable contract as a salary filler.

Markswag101:
Halliburton, Melo & Ant getting deserved rookie max extensions $260m

Looking at the 2021Class, not sure anyone is worthy of the rookie max

It's not actually 260mil but 205. The language says it could be up to 260mil. The only way any of them gets 260mil if they earn 1st team all-nba this up coming season

Roland17:
Gave Vincent needs to change agent ASAP

M. Strus a former team mate secured a 4/$63M (15.7M/Year) while Gabe could only secure a 3/$33M (11M/Year). To me, Gabe is a more valuable player on both ends.

It's the small market tax. Role players get paid higher in smaller markets or losing franchises

A40:
This is a funny take considering you're dealing with a guy with a laundry list of misconduct and someone that came to your office and guaranteed changed behavior only to renege less than 2 months later.

The primary purpose of any effective punishment is to serve as deterrent. Anything short of that you're wasting your time and everyone else's

I hope I'm proven wrong but when Ja acts out again I will be here to say I told you so

You say laundry list of misconduct. I say where is the crime that he committed. If someone who committed state and federal crimes get 50 games. How the heck should someone who just broke league conduct rules get 40 games. Please make it make sense.

donlittle25:
I want you to point to where I said JA MORANT is the reason for the increase in Gun violence in my post.

How can you be so obtuse?

You said some kids will see ja and do the same

donlittle25:
My G, Its. A friend of a friend died last week. Them dey fight, Guy took a gun and shot him in the stomach. Died a week later in the hospital.

Buckhead is even worse these days. You hear it everyday in that area.

Even some companies will not hire you if you have weapons all over your media if they find out.

We are dealing with serious gun issues in the states, and these kids are stupid. They are growing faster physically but their brain isn't developing at all. They can't think, They cant filter bad information. They consume everything.

Some kids seeing Ja Morant coming online with guns will think it's good to do the same.

So Ja is now the reason for gun violence in the USA, we have a situation of a country that has more guns than people, a country where like half of their politicians have a campaign advertising with guns featured in it, let's not even talk about ubiquitous nature of guns in video games and movies. But one basketball player waving a gun that he is legally allowed to own on video, is the reason for increased gun violence. Please

birdman:


Arent you in the atl area? Its open season right now, nowhere is exempted, not even buckhead.

I think that is the local effect khanben cannot get. That gun flashing image is a no-no in the NBA. In fact there are corporations and fans that will never touch Morant again, barring some major image cleanup. If Morant were playing in any other city than memphis, they would have released him. I think the grizzlies will try to manage him, because memphis itself may very well be the worst hood in the country right now. So like begets like I guess.

Release him in America for owning a gun and having it with him will on a video call on social media. Dude will sue and he will certainly win. Be real this is the USA if the commissioner oversteps it will become a 2nd Amendment issue before anyone can say Jack.
People who were expecting a harsher sentence are just projecting their bias. Again if it was Real madrid or man utd in Europe then a full season suspension might be visible, but in the USA, give me a break

A40:
Typical. They will wait till tragedy happens and will start to cry abamo, had it been I know

Like i said they're free to wait till the matter is out of Adam Silver's hand. If he continues in this trajectory it will get there.

So you are suggesting he should be punished for what might happen in a hypothetical future not for what he has done. This is the issue with talk like this, the commissioner can only punish him for what he has done, nothing more.
When did we as a society start punishing people for what they might do ?

birdman:


its not just the flashing gun on social media. He has waved the same gun in several fights, with bouncers, security guards, high school kids. Anyone of those could have turned deadly. if its just the insta, it would not have this level of play. But Ja is showing up repeatedly at fights with his boys. What could possibly go wrong?

shey they should kuku not suspend him at all?

Nobody is saying they shouldn't punish him, I just have a problem with someone saying the commissioner was being PC that is why he gave him only 25 games. Precedent and the way the rules are written shows that the commissioner went for the harshest punishment he could get

birdman:


That is why the players association was consulted and they agreed to a stricter punishment. Or you think players association is wrong as well.

The stricter punishment was the 25 games without pay. My point is that those calling for him to miss games up until the allstar break are unrealistic, what he is been punished for is for showing a gun on social media. No matter how we want to play it that is a way lesser offense than bringing 4 guns into the locker room, and pointing it at your teammate. If the later punishment which not only broke nba rules but also state and federal laws was 50 games, then Ja's punishment at 25 games is as harsh as it can be.

For those who are interested this is the exact nba bylaws that the commissioner used as a guideline alongside precedent.

PS:
(d) The Commissioner shall have the power to suspend for a definite or indefinite period, or to impose a fine not exceeding $50,000, or inflict both such suspension and fine upon any Player who, in his opinion, (i) shall have made or caused to be made any statement having, or that was designed to have, an effect prejudicial or detrimental to the best interests of basketball or of the Association or of a Member, or (ii) shall have been guilty of conduct that does not conform to standards of morality or fair play, that does not comply at all times with all federal, state, and local laws, or that is prejudicial or detrimental to the Association.

A40:
Didn't Alec Baldwin accidentally kill someone on set? I think it's dangerous the way people try to downplay this issue. From the way Ja is carrying and holding the weapon you can easily tell he has no clue on how to handle firearms

He's being a danger to himself and others. That's what needs to be stressed

Didn't ESPN fire Paul Pierce for partying with strippers and smoking Igbeaux on his day off? Did he break any laws?

We are talking legal stuff here not what we think it should be and because of that the nba is a different legal entity to ESPN

A40:
They're trying to save that boy from tragedy and disaster and people are trying make this a PC situation. I miss commissioner Stern. He don't play that

It's not about the gun alone it's the accumulated bad behavior and stories. This was an important moment to send a message and more importantly get him to understand the privilege of getting paid generational wealth to bounce a basketball.

With what is happening in Chiraq and everywhere else you simply cannot represent a family organization like the NBA and be dealing with guns so irresponsibly. It's not a damn toy (pun intended)

Why do people like to wait for disaster before doing the needful

This punishment is in line with precedent Arenas got 50 games for his gun stuff and in his case it was him and a teammate pulling guns on each other. They not broke nba conduct rules but they also broke star and federal laws, heck arenas plead guilty to felony charges because of that issue.
In Ja's case he flashed a gun on social media, like I said he didn't break any laws, I have heard some people calling the nba PC for denying an American the right to bear arms freely and openly, now I am hearing others calling them PC for not punishing him more severely.
We sometimes forget that punishment like this are subject to pushback from the players association if precedent is not followed, so IMHO if the Arenas case with all the felonies attached to it is 50 games then Ja's punishment is as firm as it could be.

felix00:
BREAKING: The Washington Wizards are trading three-time All-Star Bradley Beal to the Phoenix Suns for Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, a handful of second-round picks, and multiple pick swaps, league sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium.

Nba offseason off to a hot start.

birdman:


Its part of the contract. All the talking heads and pro athletes know this. Even the amateur athletes have rules, things that are legal, but you cannot participate in. And its for good reason - how would the headline NBA superstar murdered father of four in clold blood play out? The press would be all over the court proceedings, corporate sales of tickets would tank and NBA would absorb a billion dollar loss easily. So its not out of the ordinary to have conduct codes on things that others can do freely.

I get that it's part of the code of conduct, but if we are going through a list of agregious things a nba player can be accused of flashing a gun in an ig post in way down the list especially since it's the USA. My point is I heard some people say the 25 games without pay was too light a sentence and IMHO the nba actually got it right.

birdman:
Ja is getting only 25 games suspension. So by December guy man will be back in the league. I hope the behavioral requirements are stricter this time.

I think many folks will be dissappointed as they were expecting like a 40+ game suspension at least. But Im ok with it, even though I think its a little light. Lets hope the young man grows up quick and gets back to good things. even though I know his family is partly the reason he is in this situation, and those guys will likely not change

https://www.nba.com/news/ja-morant-suspended-25-games

When people where talking 40+ games it surprised me a bit, yes he broke rules but this is the USA, owning a gun is not a crime. This is the country where politicians use guns in election campaign adverts.

Nba finals ratings best in 5 years.

A40:
As a rule of thumb I always blame the man before involving woman. If na your wife influence you na you dey at fault for not using your God given leadership. E follow for wetin God take punish Adam.

IMO it was probably Melo's dream to put on Knicks uniform. I don't really understand the allure of the Knicks but I guess I'm not a New Yorker so I don't really know. All I see is another overpriced capitalist hellhole city but what do I know

With Melo I think the fit, finding a fit might not have been easy. I think they paired him with Stoudemire for a bit but it didn't work. The Knicks didn't build or couldn't construct a roster of matching parts to complement Melo. Neither did Melo evolve as a player to be able to get the best from his teams sometimes

There are just people whose personalities are just Homer's, I once knew a guy who had the opportunity to stay in Abuja who turned it down to stay in one small village in Taraba of all places. When I heard his decision I couldn't fathom it at all but that was him.
So it is possible that Melo has that type of personality, although on the business side after basketball the move paid off for him though, if you observe during this playoffs some of his products were been advertised up and down. Good for him

PS: By the time Amarie came to NY his knees were gone, he was another player the Knicks overpaid to come and do squat.

A40:
He wanted to fight KG for her honor as well

She's the mother of his kid sha so I can respect it.

Moving in with a woman or leaving your city to her city only makes sense if you don't have your own agenda and at that point the question now becomes why do you not have your own agenda and how quickly can you rectify it.

He did go to Syracuse so I understand his familiarity with NY. Plus he was born there. I won't put it all on her

Lol. It's a no brainer. The only 15 retired would be Jokic's and that's if they don't build him a statue outside the arena as well

That's the thing, the whole New York move was not all on his wife, did she prefer NY yes, it was closer to her place of business. but we are forgetting that Melo also was from that area and he on his own without his wife would have made the same decision.
His one failure IMHO is that he didn't want Denver to get nothing in return for him. If he had kept his mouth shut and left in FA, the Knicks might have had the pieces to build a real contender around him

A40:
Butler will fight you when he sees you're not serious about winning. In my dealings I've come to realize I would rather deal with someone like Butler who let's me know how he really feels about me than the passive aggressive teammate that will smile in my face and go behind my back telling people how he really feel about me and try to get me traded

Does Noah seem like a serious individual?

Isn't this what we praised Jordan and Kobe for??

Look at Timberwolves, you can see how soft KAT still is since he left 5 seasons ago

Oya look at Sixers. 4 years since he left they can't pass second round while Butler with less talent has made multiple Finals. Butler even beat them to boot

Look at the Embiid now, I'm sure if he was still in Philly he would fight Embiid too for his bad conditioning. And is he not justified for the Tobias Harris comment? With time it is abundantly clear they made the wrong choice

So you see. I don't agree that he's some villain. In Butler I see a guy desperate to win and maximizing his limited talents and squeezing the most from it. I pick one or two lessons from it as well

Thank you for this, I did not see this before writing my own epistle about the situation. Can Jimmy sometimes be a hard head yes, but so was a lot of other players with winning mentality. Have we forgotten when kobe told Shaq, if I miss grab the rebound and Phil had to reel him in.

Roland17:


From what we have seen Butler has a unique personality and thrives ONLY in certain situations that is catered towards that personality. He has the tendency to be disruptive in the locker room in certain situations

Chicago Bulls
He wasn't regarded as a good locker room guy in Chicago, he had issues with Rose and Noah which ultimately led to him being traded to the Sixers. He tried to usurp the leadership of Rose and Noah causing disruption and a divided locker room. Infact, he asked that players not interact around certain members of the coaching staff/ leadership.

Sixers
The same issue plagued him in Philly. He couldn't get along with other players except Embiid and had several disrespectful arguments with coach Bret Brown. Remember the 'Tobias over me" comment? while legitimate, buttresses the point about him being disruptive in the locker room.

His issues with the bulls was not with Noah and Rose it was with the new coach Fred Hoiberg, who had a more laid back approach than Tom's fiery style which Jimmy preferred, add the bulls cap situation and the fact that at that time he was not even a perennial all-nba caliber player, management chose the coach over him.
As for Philly he was right, they should have paid him instead of Tobias, they should have fired Bret Brown for coddling Simmons, the 6ers would be in a better position now if they had Embiid and Butler instead of who they have right now.

Butler has spoken endlessly about how his nba personality was developed. He came into a Bulls team where the leaders Rose, Noah and co were outspoken and held each other accountable with a coach who not only coached hard but also policed any and all laid back behavior.
Every team that has claimed he was a problem all have the same issues, they lack toughness. We have seen him have loud and aggressive bust off with Spoelstra but you know what they still are tight.

birdman:


When I mentioned this 2 or 3 weeks back, you were arguing with me tho. These cats have regressed this season big time. Tatum plays like he did year 3, year 4. Jaylen is essentially a streaky jumpshooter. Udoka really brought out the diamond in those two

We only talked about Tatum and there was clear improvement in his game. Jaylen on the other hand I did not see any, that is why I asked incase someone noticed what I did not

chic2pimp:


The greatest offensive Big in NBA history. Duncan, Shaq,Hakeem,Wilt,Russell,Dirk better watch out. He is coming for the throne of Best Big Man in NBA history.

IMHO he his already the greatest offensive big man in nba history. Offensive ability is in 2 categories for me scoring and playmaking.
He his as great a scorer as all of them especially if you add his shooting. His playmaking blows away any big man that has ever played. No big man is grabbing a rebound and pushing it full court to run a set, no big man ever is the primary playmaker on their team.
The more complex conversation is where he ranks on the greatest playmaker rankings irrespective of positions. Now legit arguments can be made that for and against this

A40:
A part of me wonders if the Celtics can go for a guy like CP3. Just someone to run that offense the proper way.

I don't know that Brown is going to develop a handle overnight and Tatum has committed to 3pt spamming. The reason I hate 3pt spamming so much is because of how much it hurts the rest of your game.

Just like the death of tiki taka the league is slowly moving away from 3pt spamming.

Can you imagine if the Nuggets had relied on 3pt shooting this series? They would lose

Just look at Tatum and MAGA Mike as you said. These are guys that are big but cannot post, no footwork. All they do is jump and shoot, catch and shoot. Once their 3s don't fall they cannot do anything else.

Jaylen did not improve anywhere either. This dude cannot go left. You just wonder what new wrinkle he can add to his game this late, maybe they just get a proper PG so there's less scenarios where Brown is forced to handle the ball and make things happen.

CP3 to the Celtics will make sense if he is ready to take a huge paycut and the coach understands he his there only for the playoffs and load manages him accordingly. If CP3 wants huge money for 1 year the 2 teams who should be interested are Spurs because of Wemby and Houston because Green and co just play losing basketball

A40:
Some of it is also mentality. He's more skilled than Bam and yet he's been outperformed by Bam and most other bigs he faces. I think he gets coddled getting all those whistles in the regular season that come playoff time he doesn't know how to act when calls don't go his way.

He's also low on accountability which makes it hard for him to do better and stop taking those dumbass jump shots. I see he talks a good game but when it's crunch time he folds

The only positive for Philly fans is that maybe seeing someone who people say you used to be better than not only surpass you but also lead his team all the way can light a fire within him. If I am the 6ers front office, I will set the table again for him next year if he doesn't step up, they should target a draft with a generational talent and hit reset

A40:
He's not serious. Someone that wrote off the Nuggets all year and worse kept questioning Jokic's ability. For someone that prides themselves on being smart and a basketball kinikankinikan how could you not tell that Jokic was an incoming HOFer.

From the first day I saw him 16/17 he was can't miss. The talent was unmistakable. Even if I was a pundit paid to talk badly about him I wouldn't cos you would be phuckin up my credibility when he easily proves me wrong

The one popular pundit that was on the Denver and Jokic hype train for like 4 years now is Jalen Rose. I remember always watching him on Jalen &Jacoby talking about the Nuggets winning it all.
Jokic is that dude

A40:



40stradamus

Embiid needs to learn what it means to have a mismatch. If you are playing against guys like Jokic, Lopez and Gorbert I have no issues with you taking 10 jump shots. But if a team is leaving AL or Bam on you 1v1, dude get your ass into the post and eat

A40:




I want to hear what that charlatan Nick Wright has to say later on

He already said if he wins he automatically dethrone Giannis as the best player in the league

A40:

That's on offense. Me I know the drill. Any big that can even stand in the middle and can make smart decisions with the ball will easily crush the zone

What of defense? You could see apart from Game 2 in this Nuggets series they had really few uncontested 3s. I struggle to remember any point the Heat had any transition buckets.

On paper the Celtics have the better defense than Denver and yet in 5 games they were held under 100 4 times.

The Jaylen and Jayson dynamic IMO was a bigger problem. Especially with Jaylen's school boy handles.

Now on paper you would think two big two way wings the perfect scenario but the more I look the more I have to ask if it's a Kawhi and PG scenario. Two guys that basically do the same thing and cannot play off each other. Jokic and Murray had more assists to each other in Game 3 than Tatum and Brown did to each other the entire series. That was another huge problem

Tatum and Brown have a lot of growing to do, Brown needs either develop a tighter handle or if he cannot learn how to score with less dribbles. As for Tatum this is the 2nd year in a row the team has struggled in zone coverage, if non of the big men can do the inside work, he has no choice but to learn how to post up, he needs to take one for the team.
Watching that Heat vs Celtics series I truly believe if you switch Luka and Tatum the Celtics will win in 5, because you are not deploying that zone with such success against Luka


PS: can you see anywhere Jalen improved from last finals appearance to this season, I cannot see any? He had the same handling issues in the conference and nba finals last year

A40:
They have that Watson kid on the bench. Super athletic, not sure he's as good a ball handler as Brown but he has really really good potential. Brown is a second rounder I wouldn't fault him for maximising his earnings now that he has championship pedigree he will be hot cake

That pick from OKC might not be ready immediately. It's a late rounder but then again it's the Nuggets

It's number 30, but with what Braun and those undrafted guys in the Heat have shown this playoffs. I see a return of teams picking 3-4 year college starters late in the 1st round