NBA 2013-2014 Season Thread

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Lowry headed to the Heat in exchange for Norris Cole.

Can someone tell me if Cole's any good or not?

[Benjamin]

He's shit. If he wasn't, Mario Chalmers wouldn't be starting.

[Rafael]

A solid role player, but he's had a bad year.

[livid]

Yeah, he's not terrible, he's just not a starter.

[Mofoticon]

So annoyed with these guys talking about how LeBron might go to Cleveland. It's like the last team he'd go to.

It's either Miami or Cleveland actually (most likely Miami). No idea what makes you say that about Cleveland because it's completely false. And now Love saying he'd resign in Cleveland with LeBron there puts a Kyrie/Wiggins/LeBron/Love team on the table.

also this

''Ric Bucher ‏@RicBucher 3m

My deepest and sincere apologies. My report on Lowry and a S&T between the Raptors-Heat is wrong. I should've known better. I could not...

Edited June 27, 2014 by Mofoticon

[livid]

If the Cavs get Love there's no way they're keeping Wiggins.

[Mofoticon]

If the Cavs get Love there's no way they're keeping Wiggins.

You'd be surprised.Thompson, Waiters, Bennett and 3-4 1sts is enough to get Love if it comes to it.

[livid]

[gunnar hendershow]

The longer Minny waits the less their getting for him. The few days before this draft were the peak times in his value, everything after will be less.

[HC]

Love has supposedly said he's not going to re-sign in Cleveland unless Lebron is there, and I don't see that happening. Even then, Saunders is going to have to deal Love for something eventually or risk letting him walk for nothing. He should've done it before the draft. I don't think he's going to get a premium value now, especially if the Warriors wouldn't even give them Klay Thompson in a deal. Cleveland would be stupid to include Wiggins in a deal for Love if there's a chance he's not staying.

[Krone]

For some odd reason my favorite pick of the draft was McDermott to Chicago in the trade. I know the guy isn't going to be a Steph Curry (because let's be honest, Creighton/Big East is practically a mid-major after 'Cuse and company left sans the years that Creighton actually was while McBuckets was there) but he will be a great player for the Bulls. I see him being more of a Tayshaun Prince. Someone who can ball and can shoot, but won't be a superstar by any means.

Aside from that, Embid will be good if healthy for the Sixers and god knows with Andrew Bynum fresh in everyone's mind he almost needs to be. Jabari will be a good player for the Bucks, but I can't see him turning them around into a contender whereas Wiggins has the pieces around him in Cleveland with Kyrie, Waiters, and god willing is also one of the few places LeBron could end up if the opt-out was actually for him looking at other places to play.

[Krone]

The longer Minny waits the less their getting for him. The few days before this draft were the peak times in his value, everything after will be less.

The only reason I could see the Wolves waiting is if they truly believed that they are a title contender and hoping this could be the year for them/squeeze something out and give Love hope that they could be turning the corner. Again though, it's the Wolves and I guess they're more worried about the present than the future. Which is more than whoever the hell it was last night that took the guy thats "two years away from being two years away" from playing in the NBA.

[gunnar hendershow]

The longer Minny waits the less their getting for him. The few days before this draft were the peak times in his value, everything after will be less.

The only reason I could see the Wolves waiting is if they truly believed that they are a title contender and hoping this could be the year for them/squeeze something out and give Love hope that they could be turning the corner. Again though, it's the Wolves and I guess they're more worried about the present than the future. Which is more than whoever the hell it was last night that took the guy thats "two years away from being two years away" from playing in the NBA.

Hahahahhaha Flip probably does think this.

And Sixers traded for Saric who isn't playing in the NBA until probably 2017 anyway, if that's what you're thinking.

[Rafael]

If Philly really want him, he's coming in 2016.

[Quom]

The longer Minny waits the less their getting for him. The few days before this draft were the peak times in his value, everything after will be less.

The only reason I could see the Wolves waiting is if they truly believed that they are a title contender and hoping this could be the year for them/squeeze something out and give Love hope that they could be turning the corner. Again though, it's the Wolves and I guess they're more worried about the present than the future. Which is more than whoever the hell it was last night that took the guy thats "two years away from being two years away" from playing in the NBA.

Hahahahhaha Flip probably does think this.

And Sixers traded for Saric who isn't playing in the NBA until probably 2017 anyway, if that's what you're thinking.

No, this is the problem with having a GM that is also your coach. Flip doesn't want to deal Love and leave Flip the coach with a 20 win team. So instead he fucks over the team to make himself look good. Having said that people don't seem to realise the position the Wolves are in. Rubio has stated that he's not rebuilding, Pek and Brewer are 28, Martin is 31. Basically anyone of any value to the Wolves either wants to contend or are at the age where they don't have time for a rebuild. Minnesota have shot themselves in the foot building around Love. When he goes they are left with a bunch of overpaid contracts that still have time on them. We rolled the dice on overpaying pieces to put around Love, that and seemingly gunning for every mediocre 3 in the league.

Either we needed to move Love for pieces that would have kept us competitive, the problem is that the teams that would have made us competitive pulled out in the hopes of signing Lebron or Melo, otherwise my hope is that we would have taken the Bulls trade. I'm not big on the GSW trade, whilst I see Love becoming a slightly better version of Lee on a competitive team I don't like Lee either, we won in spite of having a no defence front court, not because of it. It makes no sense to take on another no defence 4. Klay is Klay, he looks smelly, he does play good defence but I don't think he's a player that makes the team substantially better, like Gibson and Butler as a combo do. As far as I'm aware if Melo and Lebron don't go to Chicago that trade might still be on the table and is one I'd much prefer. The other option was a quick rebuild where you get a lot of great picks in a short space of time (like Philly), the Celtics trade was always dead in the water unless we could shed a ton of bad contracts with Love. What we got in return made no sense, either as a rebuild or keeping us competitive.

Having said all that, the Wolves are a mess. We were with Khan and I think we are even worse with Flip 'I won't hire anyone because clearly I'm the best at everything' Saunders, it wouldn't surprise me if he lets Love walk and decides to give himself a max contract to be their new 4.

I put a lot of the blame on Love. He's not a leader, he isn't a winner and keeps going on about how much he doesn't want to play for the Wolves, yet when trades are discussed there are only 3-4 teams he's willing to play for. At the end of the day this is what's eliminating all value in trades. Otherwise we would have been picking first like Cleveland offered before he refused to play there, or we would have Faried and Gallinari from Denver.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Quom

[HC]

The Wolves need a total rebuild anyway. They should've dealt Love for a bundle of picks when they had a chance. Getting back established players isn't really going to help them. They'll just continue to wallow in mediocrity in an over-crowded Western Conference. Who cares if Rubio doesn't want that? Trade him. I'm sure his 9 points a game and atrocious shooting percentage will be missed. I realize his passes are pretty and he gets assists but he's hardly what I'd call a superstar.

I should probably add that I'm predisposed to hate Rubio. He's a turd that pretty much said he wouldn't play for Memphis if they picked him and his agent tried to dictate him going to New York or LA.

[Quom]

The Wolves need a total rebuild anyway. They should've dealt Love for a bundle of picks when they had a chance. Getting back established players isn't really going to help them. They'll just continue to wallow in mediocrity in an over-crowded Western Conference. Who cares if Rubio doesn't want that? Trade him. I'm sure his 9 points a game and atrocious shooting percentage will be missed. I realize his passes are pretty and he gets assists but he's hardly what I'd call a superstar.

I should probably add that I'm predisposed to hate Rubio. He's a turd that pretty much said he wouldn't play for Memphis if they picked him and his agent tried to dictate him going to New York or LA.

I wondered if there wasn't more to it. His box score sucks but he's been more valuable to me than Love. I think if you put Love on any contending team all of his stats take a substantial dip except rebounding (although they took a dip when Dieng was starting, so that would probably go down too). You put Rubio on a contending team and nothing drops, but his assists would go up (since presumably people can either dunk or shoot) and he plays with emotion and feeds of his team mates and crowd, he'd improve if his team mates and crowd were fired up rather than looking like they'd rather be at home.

To be honest, I think it was probably in the best interests of Memphis that he didn't go there, you have the premier passing centre and play a grinding slow style, it would show up all Rubio's weaknesses and offer none of his strengths. It would be a terrible fit. At least he did that straight out of the gate rather than acting as if he wasn't offered the wrong type of extension, saying he'd stay if the team was in the playoffs and then refusing to sign with any but a small number of teams.

Edit. Also the point is that they can't do a total rebuild. To do a total rebuild you need teams willing to trade picks or take on salaries. The Wolves have hardly any expiring contracts to trade and nobody is going to give picks or take on the salaries of the players we have. Unless they waived most of the team the Wolves have signed themselves into a corner (in an effort to keep a player that was never staying). And most of the teams Love wants to go to have worthless draft picks.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Quom

[HC]

Oh yeah I'm not saying Rubio would've been a good fit or anything. I don't even know if he would've fit given Conley was already there, but he was still regarded as the second best prospect and I think he played the same card on OKC as well. Z-Bo wouldn't land here until a month after the draft and that's when the whole Grit n' Grind mantra really got started though.The only reason I'm still bitter about it is because it lead to the drafting of one of the worst busts ever, Hasheem Thabeet.

[Rafael]

Rubio is an underrated scorer, in my opinion. I do remember that when Love didn't play he did put up about 15 points. He even scored 21 once!

[Benjamin]

So Wade has opted out. He's now a free agent. Weird, I thought he'd be the one to stay.

EDIT: Actually, he'll probably just resign for a paycut, what am I talking about. I R dumb.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Benkid