NBA 2013-2014 Season Thread

[gunnar hendershow]

AB looked competent by the end of the year and he's been great at summer league (admittedly: as well he should at summer league).

Otto Porter has been playing great at summer league too and he looked like one of the biggest busts ever during his entire rookie season.

[Plubby]

AB looked competent by the end of the year and he's been great at summer league (admittedly: as well he should at summer league).

Otto Porter has been playing great at summer league too and he looked like one of the biggest busts ever during his entire rookie season.

AB also looked like a gigantic bust during most of his rookie season I'm saying that he's showing encouraging signs of improvement. Summer League is obviously a much lower QoC but it's better than continuing to blow goats.

[Blaze09]

I think the Cavs are ultimately making a mistake (as usual).

I feel like you need to at least see what you have with the Lebron/Wiggins pairing first. We know Kyrie is gonna help take some of the load off on offense, maybe Wiggins can do the same on defense. The Warriors aren't throwing in Klay, so you have til February to make a deal. Plus, waiting til then puts more pressure on Minnesota because Love is going to walk anyway.

While I agree with the notion that bringing Love in makes them the favorites, Lebron is closing in on 40,000 minutes (which he's passing in that first game most likely) and Kevin Love isn't stopping a leaking faucet, let alone someone on defense, keeping more pressure on Lebron.

[HC]

Lionel Hollins compared living to Memphis to living in the Stone Age during an interview. Hope you enjoy NYC the two or some odd years you're there, buddy.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Cavs need another scorer to take the load off LeBron, but of equal if not more importance they need to make sure they're not giving up points in the paint like it's their job. That's the challenge with a Love deal. Wiggins is coming in with a polished defensive game, but suspect offense. We know that Love can score, but he's only valuable on defense after the shot hits the rim and he can get the rebound. You're walking on very thin ice in the playoffs if you sacrifice one of your big men to be an offensive-only player.

[livid]

I don't know it seems simple to me. If given the choice, you go with the proven commodity not the guy that could be something.

[Quom]

Adelman told him not to foul. I would be less worried about his defence and be a lot more worried about his bullshit habit of arguing with refs because he didn't get a call and leaving his team playing 4-5 down the other end, which was far more frequent than being able to single him out as the issue on defence, especially on a team featuring Corey 'I'll just run away from my man hoping to pick a pass, whoops failed and that's a layup' Brewer and Kevin 'just blow by me' Martin.

Stupid rumour from the same guy off the board that broke the Lebron to Cleveland signing that it's going to be Thompson, Wiggins and Waiters for Love and GR III and that it's a done deal to be announced tomorrow. Hard to believe that it's true since we'd be getting one hell of a deal. If it is I hope we move Waiters on.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Quom

[HC]

Jeez, if that happens the T-Wolves did pretty well for themselves. I'd be upset if I were Cleveland about caving on Wiggins so soon, but then again Love does make them the instant title contender.

[HC]

Can you post a link Quom? I can't find anything about it.

Found it. Eh, don't know. It's one dude with like a thousand twitter followers and a basketball as his avatar. He does seem really sure of himself, though.

[Quom]

He apparently reported first on Lebron the day before with details or something.

Like I said it's a massive rumour and I'm not a huge fan of it anyway. I wouldn't want Waiters around developing young guys and would personally prefer draft picks. I'd much prefer Thompson to AB though (we haven't had good luck with undersized PF's) but it's the part that makes the least sense to me as he's meant to be good friends with Lebron. Don't know much about the Cavs so not sure which between them offers better rim protection.

[Mofoticon]

Now the rumor is that the Cavs and TWolves haven't even discussed Wiggins (coming from a Minnesota beat guy) and the Warriors also will not offer Klay Thompson still. Lot's of smoke out there right now.

[HC]

Ole Flip trying to start a bidding war.

[gunnar hendershow]

There are two things Flip is doing, and it's either/or. Legitimately trying to keep Love by appointing himself coach and trying to have a winning season or trying to make it seem like the T-Wolves simply aren't selling and will let him walk for nothing to escalate the bidding. Teams usually don't bite on bidding wars unless they're poorly-run 4-8 playoff squads, at least historically. So I'm not sure if the bidding war strategy is going to work. Contenders are typically very good at only making deals that address a need while shaving off an excess, it's not baseball where you can drain a farm system. You only have so many guys to work with.

The Cavs have been a poorly-run team in spite of LeBron since 2003 though, an anomaly in all of this.

[HC]

So the guy reporting the Love trade was a total hoax. Someone on a basketball forum posted pages of texts lying to him about the deal going down and the dude just believing it no questions asked .

[Quom]

:'(

[Mofoticon]

Reports coming out that Love has requested a trade to Cleveland and Stephen A Smith is reporting he will only resign with Cleveland. If this is the case then Minnesota has lost most of their leverage and Wiggins is probably off the table in trade talks (not sure he was ever on the table despite what Chris Broussard wants you to believe). I'd expect a deal centered on Waiters/Bennett/multiple 1sts (there's also a rumor Waiters ends in in Philly and Thad Young in Minnesota as part of a 3 team deal).

[gunnar hendershow]

And Minnesota has officially waited too long.

Countdown until they move to Seattle is underway.

[HC]

I still think Wiggins might go. The Cavs need Love's Bird Rights to sign him long term, and that only happens if a deal gets done. Thus the Cavs can't play the wait a year card. I do think Minny should've done it by now though.

[DYSI]

The T'wolves waited this long, what's another 25+ days until Wiggins can be officially traded?

[Quom]

They couldn't do it for Wiggins previously, the salaries didn't work out and would have required adding Haywood who is basically a $10.5 million trade exception. I think (hope and pray) that the deal was done before the Wiggins signing, the Cavs trade with the Jazz points to the trade happening.

Cleveland know the situation, we're more than willing to let Love walk, this cripples them. Without a sign and trade (or trade now) Love loses his bird rights and they'd need to gut the team to offer him a max contract, basically they could only keep Wiggins and one other player not on the MLE or minimum.

If Love is happy with that deal after spending the last three years moping that he wasn't offered a full max deal well then fuck him. He can enjoy his time in Cleveland playing with LeBron, Kyrie and minimum players and Cleveland can feel good trading Waiters and Bennett for second round picks (they would have the same leverage as Chicago dealing Deng which they should know since that's what they got Deng for).