NBA Season 2015/16

[Jay]

Down 23 on the road vs one of the best teams in the west, and they comeback to win by 7. And the crazy thing is that that doesn't even surprise me anymore..

[RiOtChEsS]

Down 23 on the road vs one of the best teams in the west, and they comeback to win by 7. And the crazy thing is that that doesn't even surprise me anymore..

so much this ::) ;D 8)

[Mat0369]

Apparently Dion Waiters has said he wants to go to Philly from now.

He is a bit of a moron for multiple reasons, the first is he thinks they will give him a big deal, good luck with that. The 2nd is he is a restricted FA so if Philly give him a reasonable deal OKC will match.

He is from Philly so he wants to play for his hometown team which a lot of guys have done, but he is a shooting guard that can't shoot..... He has been better this season, but he ain't going to get the money he thinks he is worth, Hinkie doesn't work like that.

This sums him up pretty well

https://cdn.streamable.com/video/mp4/98xe.mp4

[Jay]

Apparently Dion Waiters has said he wants to go to Philly from now.

He is a bit of a moron for multiple reasons, the first is he thinks they will give him a big deal, good luck with that. The 2nd is he is a restricted FA so if Philly give him a reasonable deal OKC will match.

He is from Philly so he wants to play for his hometown team which a lot of guys have done, but he is a shooting guard that can't shoot..... He has been better this season, but he ain't going to get the money he thinks he is worth, Hinkie doesn't work like that.

This sums him up pretty well

https://cdn.streamable.com/video/mp4/98xe.mp4

He's delusional, Philly are as cheap as it gets. See: http://www.si.com/nba/2015/02/19/nba-trade-deadline-kj-mcdaniels-rockets-sixers-isaiah-canaan

[Mat0369]

My thoughts exactly. Hinkie is all about numbers, he will only accept a bad contract if a team is giving him something of extremely high value in return, that ain't Waiters. They have Saric coming over, a heap of firsts and cap space coming out their ass, they aren't going to pay over market value for Dion Waiters......

[RiOtChEsS]

[Jay]

My thoughts exactly. Hinkie is all about numbers, he will only accept a bad contract if a team is giving him something of extremely high value in return, that ain't Waiters. They have Saric coming over, a heap of firsts and cap space coming out their ass, they aren't going to pay over market value for Dion Waiters......

So did he think paying McDaniels like $3 million a year would be a bad contract? That's like benchwarmer money considering how far the salary cap is increasing.

And cap space isn't very useful if no one good wants to play there. Especially seeing as every team in the league will have cap space this off-season: http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/10/16/9529643/nba-free-agency-2016-salary-cap-space-billions

Not sure I see the 'process' working out for Philly unless they can find that transcendent player in the draft - something they've tried to do each of the past two years and failed. How much time do they really have left?

[Mat0369]

@Riot, if they can score Ben Simmons I don't think any of the fans really cares what their record is. A quality wing that can play as a point forward to go with the 3 man rotation of big guys. Saric is also able to pass the ball and he will be joining the 6'ers this offseason as they can finally get him out of Europe.

So did he think paying McDaniels like $3 million a year would be a bad contract? That's like benchwarmer money considering how far the salary cap is increasing.

And cap space isn't very useful if no one good wants to play there. Especially seeing as every team in the league will have cap space this off-season: http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/10/16/9529643/nba-free-agency-2016-salary-cap-space-billions

Not sure I see the 'process' working out for Philly unless they can find that transcendent player in the draft - something they've tried to do each of the past two years and failed. How much time do they really have left?

The reason KJ isn't there is two fold, one he isn't worth the money he wanted (it was more then 3 mill he was requesting after half a season) and two, his mother is a headcase that was causing issues at games.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/k-j--mcdaniels-entertains-us-with-her-heckles--probably-embarrasses-her-rookie-son-155513326.html

While teams might be freeing up some space you are still going to have guys on bad contracts, the amount of space Philly has will result in them being a dumping ground come trade deadline again, Hinkie will pull something out of his ass and people will be thinking 'what the F just happened?'

In terms of the process they are in year 3 of a full rebuild. Year 1 was basically blowing up the team and they are about 12 months behind where they thought they would be with the Embiid setback and them not being able to buy out Saric from Europe.

They now have Jah who is showing some skills as a post threat, he has some deficiencies but is a rookie big man without a real PG feeding him. Embiid still has the most potential of his entire draft class and is rehabbing with Big Z who went through the same procedure and returned to have a successful career. They also have a shower load of lottery tickets for the Ben Simmons sweepstakes and he fits a need perfectly. There is no point loitering around and pulling a Brooklyn or some other ishy team that has always loitered around the 6-8 seed for multiple years while having no assets to rebuild with. Next year is the one to start judging them on because they should have Saric, Embiid, Noel, Jah and maybe 4 first rounders.

[RiOtChEsS]

yeah if, this tanking is going on for ever, not equating to getting better, Celtics bottomed out and become a top 4 East contender already

[Jay]

@Riot, if they can score Ben Simmons I don't think any of the fans really cares what their record is. A quality wing that can play as a point forward to go with the 3 man rotation of big guys. Saric is also able to pass the ball and he will be joining the 6'ers this offseason as they can finally get him out of Europe.

So did he think paying McDaniels like $3 million a year would be a bad contract? That's like benchwarmer money considering how far the salary cap is increasing.

And cap space isn't very useful if no one good wants to play there. Especially seeing as every team in the league will have cap space this off-season: http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/10/16/9529643/nba-free-agency-2016-salary-cap-space-billions

Not sure I see the 'process' working out for Philly unless they can find that transcendent player in the draft - something they've tried to do each of the past two years and failed. How much time do they really have left?

The reason KJ isn't there is two fold, one he isn't worth the money he wanted (it was more then 3 mill he was requesting after half a season) and two, his mother is a headcase that was causing issues at games.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/k-j--mcdaniels-entertains-us-with-her-heckles--probably-embarrasses-her-rookie-son-155513326.html

While teams might be freeing up some space you are still going to have guys on bad contracts, the amount of space Philly has will result in them being a dumping ground come trade deadline again, Hinkie will pull something out of his ass and people will be thinking 'what the F just happened?'

In terms of the process they are in year 3 of a full rebuild. Year 1 was basically blowing up the team and they are about 12 months behind where they thought they would be with the Embiid setback and them not being able to buy out Saric from Europe.

They now have Jah who is showing some skills as a post threat, he has some deficiencies but is a rookie big man without a real PG feeding him. Embiid still has the most potential of his entire draft class and is rehabbing with Big Z who went through the same procedure and returned to have a successful career. They also have a shower load of lottery tickets for the Ben Simmons sweepstakes and he fits a need perfectly. There is no point loitering around and pulling a Brooklyn or some other ishy team that has always loitered around the 6-8 seed for multiple years while having no assets to rebuild with. Next year is the one to start judging them on because they should have Saric, Embiid, Noel, Jah and maybe 4 first rounders.

Funny that the #1 ranked prospect on DraftExpress isn't Simmons, it's another centre - will be interesting to see what Philly do there if the big man does in fact look like the best prospect.

I completely disagree that McDaniels isn't worth what he was asking. Even if he was asking for $6 mill, I'd say that would still be a reasonable contract for him - especially considering Jeremy freaking Lamb got $7mill per year and people were saying that was still a good contract. KJ is a dude who has the potential to be a functional offensive player, and can defend 4 positions on the other end. Yet Philly gave him away for nothing. Let's say they gave him a $5 million per season deal, that's only approximately 5% of the projected salary cap come 2017-18. In other words, it's benchwarmer money. But if you think the mother thing was a legitimate issue and they had to move him, then that's a different story - seems quite silly though.

I couldn't disagree more on the point that Embiid has the highest potential of his draft class. There is a dude called Andrew Wiggins who has been balling on both ends of the court this season and last season - his ceiling and floor are both way higher than Embiid, who mightn't even ever play. After the Bynum disaster, why would the Philly medical staff get any benefit of the doubt?

Oh and this

yeah if, this tanking is going on for ever, not equating to getting better, Celtics bottomed out and become a top 4 East contender already

Plus Boston still have assets too. If the season ended today, they'd have picks 3, 16, 26, 31, 37, 43, 54, 58 in the draft.

[elephants]

Presumably its not real tanking, there's rules against that yeah?

Anyway, GSW, flowering champs!

[Mat0369]

yeah if, this tanking is going on for ever, not equating to getting better, Celtics bottomed out and become a top 4 East contender already

They have had two seasons of bottoming. The first losing season was based on the team collapsing due to going all in on Bynum and then Jrue being injured. They have also had less in terms of starting assets to part with. Their only tradeable commodity was Jrue Holiday which they managed to turn into MCW and Noel which they have then parlayed into Noel and the Lakers pick which is top 3 protected.....

Funny that the #1 ranked prospect on DraftExpress isn't Simmons, it's another centre - will be interesting to see what Philly do there if the big man does in fact look like the best prospect.

I completely disagree that McDaniels isn't worth what he was asking. Even if he was asking for $6 mill, I'd say that would still be a reasonable contract for him - especially considering Jeremy freaking Lamb got $7mill per year and people were saying that was still a good contract. KJ is a dude who has the potential to be a functional offensive player, and can defend 4 positions on the other end. Yet Philly gave him away for nothing. Let's say they gave him a $5 million per season deal, that's only approximately 5% of the projected salary cap come 2017-18. In other words, it's benchwarmer money. But if you think the mother thing was a legitimate issue and they had to move him, then that's a different story - seems quite silly though.

I couldn't disagree more on the point that Embiid has the highest potential of his draft class. There is a dude called Andrew Wiggins who has been balling on both ends of the court this season and last season - his ceiling and floor are both way higher than Embiid, who mightn't even ever play. After the Bynum disaster, why would the Philly medical staff get any benefit of the doubt?

Oh and this
Plus Boston still have assets too. If the season ended today, they'd have picks 3, 16, 26, 31, 37, 43, 54, 58 in the draft.

The top NCAA prospect coming out of HS and into college this year is Simmons, they were talking about it the other day when they released the top player rankings and he is number 1 on the list. Word is Skal isn't overly impressing his last couple of games while Simmons has been super impressive with his passing. Ingram is the other guy that is looking like a top 2 pick and he is looking like a poor mans KD. Both fit exactly what Philly are after, the only thing that might F them over is they somehow end up with pick 3 again while the Lakers end up with 1 or 2.....

Basically the deal with KJ is he wanted X amount of money and guys that play his position tend to get ridiculously overpaid based on their talent and production levels. Rudy Gay is the prime example. Yes KJ was a good defender, but he needed to develop an offensive game (which he still can). As I mentioned he comes with the baggage of his mother, as ridiculous as it sounds, that link wasn't an isolated incident. Unless the dude has LBJ talent make him someone else's problem.

If we are talking 'potential' and that is the key word, Wiggins will be a great player, but Embiid is a generational talent. The dude is constantly compared to the Dream and when you watch him you can see he just oozes class. Wiggins floor is higher and it is probably Brickadala level, his ceiling is probably Scottie Pippen who was an excellent player, but he ain't the level of Olajuwon.

In regards to the medical department, the whole place was basically cleaned out since Doug Collins was fired and Brown/Hinkie were brought in. Bynum wasn't on Philly's end that was the Lakers lying through their teeth prior to the trade. They are not taking any risk with Embiid, while the initial diagnosis was disappointing about him needing surgery again, word is the reason he was so frustrated is because he felt 100% and didn't want the surgery because he thought he could play. They have gone a different route with this surgery and it looks positive, if it comes back in the offseason that he has had another setback I would start to worry but I guess big Z also went through 3 surgeries and came back pretty well. It can go one of two ways and the kid is a beast.

Presumably its not real tanking, there's rules against that yeah?

Anyway, GSW, flowering champs!

Oh it's a pretty full on tank but they have done it smartly with draft stashes and their talented kids sitting out full seasons and not rushing back from injury.

[RiOtChEsS]

looks smart on paper but that isnt factoring in team chemistry and the durability once playing, point blank they stink and will continue to

[Jay]

Embiid was a generational talent coming out of college, I agree. And if he was injury-free he should have gone no lower than pick 2. But who's to say he's even the same player anymore? He didn't play a second of his rookie year, and won't play a second of his sophomore year - it's a bit scary if you're relying on him to come in and change the franchise. Yes it was probably the right pick in terms of upside, but there's a risk in choosing injury-prone big men - and so far all Embiid has done is show us why that's true.

Wiggins' floor is waayyy higher than Igoudala man. Even right now he's almost as good as prime Iggy. The kid is a generational wing talent, on both ends of the court. Point is, if Philly had ended up with him instead of Embiid, they'd be in a much better position than they are right now - no matter Embiid's upside.

[Mat0369]

No one is saying they are going to be good next year, this year was supposed to be the season where they started to get some chemistry together much like the T-Wolves are doing this season. That has been pushed until next year because of Embiid/Saric and that is when I would expect to see improvement in the group as a collective. Once they get the core of young guys they can then look at adding FA's or trading some of these assets for a superstar the same way Hinkie orchestrated the Harden trade.