NBA 2020-2021 Season

[Maxx]

I mean, they got Victor Oladipo and what is not going to be a great selection of picks.  Brooklyn's first in 2022 and Milwaukees first in 2022 are both going to be towards the end of the first round.  A 2021 pick swap means nothing because the Rockets are absolutely finishing with a worse record.  Will probably be the case in 2023 as well.  So their useful pick swaps won't come into play until 2025, and they won't have a chance at one of those firsts to be a lottery pick pending unforseen injuries until what, 2024?

And they will be absolutely thrilled if any of those picks end up being a player who is as good as Ben Simmons.  Who they could have just traded for straight up, and gotten picks as well.  This to me says there was definitely some truth to the rumor that the Rockets owner didn't want to do a deal with Daryl Morey.

[LL!]

Fucking morons. This will bite them in the ass. I'm sure of it.

[Pooker]

24 minutes ago, LL. said:

Fucking morons. This will bite them in the ass. I'm sure of it.

I love that this comment an go towards both Houston and Brooklyn and I'm not even going to question what one it is.

[LL!]

52 minutes ago, Pooker said:

I love that this comment an go towards both Houston and Brooklyn and I'm not even going to question what one it is.

Yes. Both of them.

[Meacon Keaton]

I can see how the Rockets "won" part of the deal.

I believe Ben Simmons contract is up after...next season?...and he's likely to demand a max contract and I don't know. Some days he feels worth it and some days he doesn't. Them not taking Simmons tells me they're in a complete rebuild, which makes taking on Oladipo kind of confusing. Unless they plan to flip him before the deadline, which I guess is also possible.

I mean, everybody and their sister knew that Harden was going to leave Houston. The fact that Houston got that many picks, however you may view them, is pretty impressive. And just because the picks aren't likely going to be lottery picks, at least not right away, you can still find good players in the middle to late part of the 1st. 

It wasn't a homerun, but it rarely is when you're trading away an All-NBA talent. 

[Maxx]

1 hour ago, Meacon Keaton said:

I can see how the Rockets "won" part of the deal.

I believe Ben Simmons contract is up after...next season?...and he's likely to demand a max contract and I don't know. Some days he feels worth it and some days he doesn't. Them not taking Simmons tells me they're in a complete rebuild, which makes taking on Oladipo kind of confusing. Unless they plan to flip him before the deadline, which I guess is also possible.

I mean, everybody and their sister knew that Harden was going to leave Houston. The fact that Houston got that many picks, however you may view them, is pretty impressive. And just because the picks aren't likely going to be lottery picks, at least not right away, you can still find good players in the middle to late part of the 1st. 

It wasn't a homerun, but it rarely is when you're trading away an All-NBA talent. 

Ben Simmons signed a 5 year max deal last season.  It's just weird they didn't try to get a young All Star for their All-NBA player.  Or even just good young players like LeVert and Allen.  They went crazy for picks and the best they can probably realistically hope those turn into are players like LeVert and Allen.

[The Buscher]

Evan Roberts on WFAN had a pretty legendary on-air freakout when the news dropped.  He wanted nothing to do with Harden, and Jarrett Allen being in the deal pushed him over the edge.

[Your Mom]

So how does this effect Harden's Fantasy stats?

 

I also have Kyrie. I should have named myself Team Drama

[Chris2K]

Well I picked a bad 24 hours not to be up to date with NBA stuff.

I sure hope the Nets are able to score 140 points every game, because they have no defense to speak of.

The Cavs have got a very good player in Allen for very little, I don't even know why the Nets were even putting him into the mix. Wall and Oladipo make for an exciting back court in Houston, but it's the picks that could make them contenders fairly soon.

[Maxx]

I don't think they are going to be contenders again any time soon, especially not in the west.  In fact, its probably in their best interest to tank for a bit so their own picks can be in the top 10.  Their owner is a cheapskate and probably won't re-sign Oladipo even if he decides he wants to stay in Houston.  Wall will happily play out the rest of his ridiculous contract and then go sign with a contender on the cheap, since he just made an absurd amount of money.   I don't think they're done offloading players yet either, they'll see if they can move Eric Gordon's contract by the deadline, I'm sure.

Or, they'll rally around their collective hatred of James Harden and sneak into the playoffs.

[gunnar hendershow]

I think the picks are more assets than anything else. They'll rely on their own drafting for sure and use some of the picks they've acquired to bring in complementary players to who they draft. It's a long-term view where they probably don't plan on having a window start until 2023-24.

[gunnar hendershow]

 

[DYSI]

37 minutes ago, damshow said:

 

The one going around with just an empty jersey instead of Kyrie got me. 

[DYSI]

 

[Twist]

The more I think about Brooklyn’s Big 3 the more I am convinced it is going to be an absolutely dumpster fire.

I keep seeing this 3 are more talented than KD, Klay and Steph. And well, yeah, they probably are. But they aren’t as talented a unit - by a long way.

[DYSI]

I say offensively, yes.

 

But Klay can defend better than Kyrie and Harden combined. 

[JasonM]

2 hours ago, Twist said:

The more I think about Brooklyn’s Big 3 the more I am convinced it is going to be an absolutely dumpster fire.

I keep seeing this 3 are more talented than KD, Klay and Steph. And well, yeah, they probably are. But they aren’t as talented a unit - by a long way.

The wildest thing is that Kevin Durant, who made alt accounts to fluff himself up on social media. Is now the biggest adult of the three, and what you'd assume would have to be the locker room leader.

Harden won't be it, because by all accounts he never stood up during his Rockets tenure where he became a perennial MVP candidate and the bonafide #1 of the team bar none. So if he never did it then, why'd he pick up the slack on the Nets where there are other stars to play with.

Kyrie Irving, jesus christ that kid is a dumpster fire and you really wonder if he'll even be in the league this time next year. After all the effort of wanting to leave Cleveland and become a 'star' and a 'leader' on the Celtics, he ends up angling a trade to the Nets so he could play in his hometown AND with Kevin Durant. And now he's decided that all that effort ain't worth it and can't even be bothered to show up, at all.

Klay and Steph have something that Kyrie and Harden don't seem to have, and that is the ability to step up and take responsibility for a team and be an actual leader amongst men. Harden and Kyrie, for all their insane talent and MVP ability, can't be bothered to get out of bed to simply play basketball.

If these guys can somehow come together and learn to become people they've to this date haven't been, they might become great and get results.

But the way I see it, the Nets just bungled away their entire future on a pipe dream. Because whoever wins the west will steamroll them, and the moment cracks will form the team will destroy themselves in their inability to accept collective responsibility.

Lebron and AD would annihilate them.

[Benjamin]

It honestly feels the same as when the Nets got Truth and KG in that insanely dumb trade. These guys are much better and slightly younger though, it's true, but my god.

It's actually insane that the Seattle Supersonics / OKC Thunder drafted three future MVPs back-to-back-to-back, but all three are probably the least mature MVPs in the past twenty years. Not one of them can hold a candle in terms of team leadership to a LeBron, Steph, Dirk, fuck even D Rose was a better leader in his MVP season.

Saying all that, the performance KD and Harden put up last night was phenomenal. 

[DYSI]

14 hours ago, Jingle Benjamin said:

It honestly feels the same as when the Nets got Truth and KG in that insanely dumb trade. These guys are much better and slightly younger though, it's true, but my god.

It's actually insane that the Seattle Supersonics / OKC Thunder drafted three future MVPs back-to-back-to-back, but all three are probably the least mature MVPs in the past twenty years. Not one of them can hold a candle in terms of team leadership to a LeBron, Steph, Dirk, fuck even D Rose was a better leader in his MVP season.

Saying all that, the performance KD and Harden put up last night was phenomenal. 

We weren't title contenders prior to that trade, and at that time, we were barely contenders after that deal. 

 

Harden is still in his prime, where as KG and Pierce were about 2 seasons away from retiring. Either way the swaps and all that did give me flashbacks.. 

 

But that 30-point triple double debut was a thing of beauty. >_>

[LL!]

It took just one game for Stephen A. Smith to crown the Nets kings of the East.