Lee is a fine player but signing him for more than 2 years was always stupid

Heck, even at 2 years, what was the best case scenario? Probably the same offers they got this year, which weren’t much. He just never made sense here. And I agree that he’s a fine player. I like Courtney Lee as a player a lot. Always have. But his signing was always a mistake.

Nothing against the guy, but every franchise he’s been a part of had no issues shipping him in the first 3 or 4 teamer available to them.

I’d argue the biggest market inefficiency in today’s game is collegiate upperclassmen. Guys like Kyle Kuzma and Donovan Mitchell got overlooked because they weren’t hyped as freshmen. I’m looking at Chandler Hutchinson, Jevon Carter, and Allonzo Trier this year as guys who can come in and play really well. Jock Landale probably has the highest PAWS40 in the class and then there are some other guys who could have a shot in the NBA. I hope the Knicks use whatever resources we have in the second round to draft an NCAA senior.

What if the front office had taken this absurd approach with Melo? Who says we’ll ever get an opportunity to trade Lee again? What fucking purpose does Courtney Lee serve on this team? No one is giving us a first rounder for him–that’s the cost for Blake Griffin and Larry Nance. We’d be incredibly lucky to get a mediocre 32 year old owed $25m for the next two years off our books.

When you have this sort of talent locked until the end of 2020 you just can’t trade it, I dont care what’s the return, it would be franchise suicide. The sad thing is that they really fucked up every possible avenue to build around him, and the Cousins injury even took away the best possible one (utilize the fact that Cousins is widely overrated around the league to trade him for better fitting pieces).

New Orleans just put themselves in an impossible situation to solve, with a player you will never be able to get even near equal value for in a trade and no way to properly build around him. They pretty much need a miracle to happen.

In other news, AD scored 42 points on 18 shots and 11 free throws. Not since Garnett has talent been wasted like this.

I’m starting to really believe these Rockets are good enough to take down Golden State.

Should be two great conference finals: Houston v GSW and Raptors v Cavs. Raptors-Cavs might be like Pistons vs prime Kobe/Shaq. Does Toronto have enough offense in 4th quarter to topple Bron?

Would NO consider trading the Brow this summer when his trade value would be at its highest? If Raptors lose, Ibaka plus a bunch of their young players might be there. If Cavs lose, would Brow for Nance/Nets pick/Osman/Hood be enough for NO to pull the trigger and enough to keep Bron in Cleveland? And then there’s Boston as a possible destination.

I’m starting to really believe these Rockets are good enough to take down Golden State. They’re incredibly deep and there’s just no way to properly guard Paul + Harden + Capela.

I saw a stat today that Harden and Paul combine for 14.8 ISO possesions per game and score 1.24 ppp on those. How can anyone stop that when they have baby Tyson Chandler rolling to the rim and Ariza + Anderson shooting 39% from 3 open in the perimeter? Unless they have injury issues or go incredibly cold shooting for 4 games, I think they can do it.