The NBA Offseason Thread

[Golgo 13 0]

ESPN has a more complete list.

 

JR Smith is due up, but he looks to be coming back.

 

Anthony Carter, Yakhouba Diawara, Bobby Jones, Eduardo Najera

 

Jones could be very good off the bench, the problem is playing time. Carter and Diawara are good for bricking shots and if there's any hope for Diawara to improve, it's not here. Najera is the only important piece, but I'm not sure the Nuggets can pay and Kleiza basically fits the same mold.

 

It's come to the point where we should trade Camby, Nene or Martin, if a good deal can be had and Camby would bring the best one. Provided we don't re-sign Green or Carter, we'd need another point who can hopefully defend or is, at least, a better threat offensively, another inside enforcer, and a quality center if we trade Camby. I know AI wants to stay, but if he does opt out and we can't piece together a back court that would keep us competitive, we should probably deal Camby and re-stock. And there's the George Karl, who should, should, should be gone if the Nuggets don't show against LA.

 

Truthfully, I've long wanted Andersen and Boykins to find their way back, but that's doubtful.

[alfdogg 0]

Larry Brown is the new coach of the Bobcats.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Hahaha. For what, 15 months, maybe?

[Ripper 0]

Larry Brown is the new coach of the Bobcats.

 

 

GOOOOOD.

 

I was worried about him getting the job in Atlanta.

 

Now get ready Charlotte. Time to trade Gerald Wallace for Calvin booth and Jason Richardson for Brian Scalabrine!!!

[Guest I swallowed a Q-Tip.]

Haha. The Bobcats not only have bad ideas, they were a bad idea.

[Kinetic 0]

Even years after they were established, I would still talk to casual sports fans in Asheville--which is about a two hour drive from Charlotte--who didn't even realize that the Bobcats existed. The team is just this weird non-entity.

[Guest I swallowed a Q-Tip.]

I think one of the Bobcats' problems was that they tried to start their own television network right out of the gate, but no cable or satellite providers carried it. They've fixed that by moving their some of their coverage to one of the FSNs, but they still have the problem of Michael Jordan running the team. Man, I will be forever grateful for him as a Bull, but I don't think he's very smart.

 

Also, I think Larry Brown lasts a year AT MOST. He's probably going to get frustrated with management/players by mid-February and start doing what Pat Riley had been doing the last few years, where he just sort of disappears for days at a time with mysterious ailments like "misaligned ribs" or "knuckle cancer" until he's phased out for good.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

I'm going to go on record with saying that Larry Brown will be good for Charlotte. I predict that they will respond well to his coaching (unlike New York, all the kids in Charlotte are pretty good character guys, and all the core guys except for Wallace played at least two years at a major program, and are coachable), and I predict that, within two years, they will be in the playoffs.

 

And, if I'm wrong... what the hell? It's only Charlotte...

[teke184 0]

I'm going to go on record with saying that Larry Brown will be good for Charlotte. I predict that they will respond well to his coaching (unlike New York, all the kids in Charlotte are pretty good character guys, and all the core guys except for Wallace played at least two years at a major program, and are coachable), and I predict that, within two years, they will be in the playoffs.

 

And, if I'm wrong... what the hell? It's only Charlotte...

I see that happening as well, with Larry sticking around for about two years to turn Okafor and that bunch into a decent contender for the 7th or 8th slot in the East playoffs.

 

He won't get a world-beater out of that team, but he'll at least pull them out of the East basement. (Chicago and/or Indiana will take their place there soon.)

[Precious Roy 0]

I also think he'll do well with Charlotte. This isn't like New York where the media turned it into a circus from day one, and created deep divisions within the organization by trying to create another Larry Brown/Allen Iverson story. Raymond Felton v. Larry Brown isn't going to be frontpage news. Plus there's a big difference between Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan. I doubt Jordan will undermine Brown the way Thomas did, and todays players have infinitely more respect for Jordan than they do Thomas, Jordan is the GOAT, Thomas is a guy who retired in 93, whose teams had to play dirty to beat Jordan. And there's the whole UNC connection. They'll play for Brown knowing that Jordan is looking over their shoulders.

[Ripper 0]

THOMAS undermined BROWN?

 

What the heck is this? Thats the second time people are pretending Thomas screwed over Brown.

 

BROWN was trying to make trades behind the GM back. Then he requested the GM to make a trade that he knew was horrible, then asked to cut the guys that got traded after the trade was made.

 

his entire goal when he came to the Knicks was to get Isaiah fired so he could get the GM position and it was obvious that he was puropsely tanking games, never believing that he would get fired with that contract after one season.

 

And claiming playing dirty was the only way the Pistons could beat Jordan screams "I started watching basketball in 1990". Come on Roy, you are better than that.

[Precious Roy 0]

I'm not claiming that the only reason those Pistons teams beat those Chicago teams was their dirty play/mindgames, what I'm saying is that to today's young players Isiah Thomas is nothing compared to Jordan, he's a footnote in Jordan's career, and that there isn't near the same level of respect.

 

As far as Brown/Thomas go, between those two, Dolan and Marbury there's more than enough blame to go around. Brown did a terrible coaching job with his million different starting lineups and rotation changes and so forth, and yes, he did go over Isiah's head when it came to the roster. I'm not taking sides, just saying that Thomas undermined Brown's relationship with the players, beginning with Marbury. If the team captain is feuding with the coach and Isiah is playing good cop, justifying Marbury, and ultimately adding fuel to the fire, why should any of the players respect Brown? Maybe this was done unwittingly, but that's what happened. Marbury probably would have been a bitch either way, but Thomas could have lessened the damage to the team and he didn't, thusly we got a 23 win season that year, and we got a Marbury that Thomas couldn't control once he became the coach.

 

The Knicks under Dolan have been such a mess, there's so many threads to pull, it's not like there's just one thing that went wrong at any given time.

[MFer 0]

Kevin Durant is Rookie of the Year.

 

Meh.

[Damaramu 0]

Kevin Durant is Rookie of the Year.

 

Meh.

 

I don't see how people can deny it to Horford after the Boston series.

[Ripper 0]

Oh fucking BOOOOOO

[Guest Smues]

Kevin Durant is Rookie of the Year.

 

Meh.

 

I don't see how people can deny it to Horford after the Boston series.

 

AFAIK playoff performance isn't factored into award voting.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Horford was a much better/more consistent/more important contributor all year, but I think everyone who actually follows any basketball beyond the criterion of "who scored the most points?" knows that. Durant's great, but pretty much anyone "lucky" enough to be made the #1 option on a miserably empty Seattle team would put up 18 or 20 merely by process of elimination.

[Ripper 0]

Yeah, Horford was easily the best rookie for the majority of the year. Durant was a monster in at the end, but that doesn't hide the fact that for most of the season he was shooting 38 percent from the field and averaing 20 points while playing bad defense. He is going to be amazing, because kinda figured some things out towards the end of the year, but Horford was clearly the better rookie.

[alfdogg 0]

Avery Johnson is out in Dallas, according to ESPN.com.

[teke184 0]

Avery Johnson is out in Dallas, according to ESPN.com.

Not a big surprise there... Avery's coaching acumen was questionable at best, which contributed to the Mavs getting the shit knocked out of them by the 8th-seeded Warriors last year and not being particularly competitive against the Hornets this year.

 

 

 

I'm wondering what else Cuban will do, though, since most of the roster was ineffectual during this series, with only Dirk and Brandon Bass showing any significant success.

 

With half the roster, including Devean George and Juwan Howard, scheduled for free agency this year and Jason Kidd having only one remaining year on his contract, they're capable of doing a significant turnover of the roster in a short period of time, should they find talent to replace them.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Jeez, what does it take to keep your job? I guess losing in the 1st round two years running sucks, but but there are oodles of teams out there that would kill to make the finals and get back to the playoffs the next two years. Presumably this is a move to try to find a different coach who can win during the limited timeline they might have given themselves with the Kidd trade, right? I didn't follow the Mavs too closely this year, so I didn't get a sense of whether Johnson had lost the team or something like that.

 

I mean, they canned him after 3 seasons and his brief stint as head guy for the end of 04-05. The team's winning percentage under Johnson was over .700! The hell do you want, Cuban?

[Ripper 0]

In other news, confirmation tha Karl Malone is a fucking dick hole grows even more.

 

Demetrius Bell, the 7th round pick of the Bills in the last draft is Karl Malones son(who of course he doesn't acknowledge and told him he has to make his own money since it is too late to be his father) and his mother was...

 

THIRTEEN MUTHERFUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN SHE HAD HIM.

 

Malone was in COLLEGE. And impregnated a 13 year girl. After impregnating a girl while he was in High School with twins and not acknowledging them until one of them became a basketball star.

 

FUCK that fucking guy.

[Broward83 0]

No love for Scola? Meh.

[teke184 0]

Jeez, what does it take to keep your job? I guess losing in the 1st round two years running sucks, but but there are oodles of teams out there that would kill to make the finals and get back to the playoffs the next two years. Presumably this is a move to try to find a different coach who can win during the limited timeline they might have given themselves with the Kidd trade, right? I didn't follow the Mavs too closely this year, so I didn't get a sense of whether Johnson had lost the team or something like that.

 

I mean, they canned him after 3 seasons and his brief stint as head guy for the end of 04-05. The team's winning percentage under Johnson was over .700! The hell do you want, Cuban?

In Avery's case, there had been friction between him and the front office throughout the year and there had been an incident in the past week showing he'd lost the team.

 

 

In the case of Avery and Cuban's tension, at least part of it was over Cuban wanting Brandon Bass to get more minutes (which worked out well when Bass got in during the playoffs) and I think another part of it was over the failures of the team to achieve after the Kidd trade.

[Steviekick 0]

In other news, confirmation tha Karl Malone is a fucking dick hole grows even more.

 

Demetrius Bell, the 7th round pick of the Bills in the last draft is Karl Malones son(who of course he doesn't acknowledge and told him he has to make his own money since it is too late to be his father) and his mother was...

 

THIRTEEN MUTHERFUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN SHE HAD HIM.

 

Malone was in COLLEGE. And impregnated a 13 year girl. After impregnating a girl while he was in High School with twins and not acknowledging them until one of them became a basketball star.

 

FUCK that fucking guy.

 

Yeah...I'm a lifer Jazz fan and today I completely reevaluated my opinion of Malone.

[teke184 0]

What, like there was anything ELSE to do in Ruston, LA, on a Saturday night in the early 80s... [/sarc]

[Steviekick 0]

Well, karma wise this explains Malone's lack of success in the Finals.

[teke184 0]

Well, karma wise this explains Malone's lack of success in the Finals.

What did Stockton do, then, to deserve his lack of Finals success? Deal smack while at Gonzaga?

[Damaramu 0]

Well, karma wise this explains Malone's lack of success in the Finals.

What did Stockton do, then, to deserve his lack of Finals success? Deal smack while at Gonzaga?

 

Guilty by association?

[Steviekick 0]

Well, karma wise this explains Malone's lack of success in the Finals.

What did Stockton do, then, to deserve his lack of Finals success? Deal smack while at Gonzaga?

 

Now that made me laugh and spit water our.