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Knicks Morning News (2023.05.29)

  • Sydney Sweeney And Fianc? Jonathan Davino’s Body Language – Women’s Health
    [news.google.com] — Monday, May 29, 2023 6:10:48 AM

    Sydney Sweeney And Fianc? Jonathan Davino’s Body Language  Women’s Health

  • 3 burning questions for the Cleveland Cavaliers this offseason – King James Gospel
    [news.google.com] — Monday, May 29, 2023 6:00:00 AM

    3 burning questions for the Cleveland Cavaliers this offseason  King James Gospel

  • Kenyon Martin apologizes to Julius Randle and his wife for his comments during Knicks-Heat series – “It had everything to do with sport” – Basketball Network
    [news.google.com] — Monday, May 29, 2023 3:29:25 AM

    Kenyon Martin apologizes to Julius Randle and his wife for his comments during Knicks-Heat series – “It had everything to do with sport”  Basketball Network

  • The New York Knicks Made A Big Mistake In The 2018 NBA Draft – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 11:58:13 PM

    The New York Knicks Made A Big Mistake In The 2018 NBA Draft  Sports Illustrated

  • Nets Rumors: Sharpshooter an ‘Ambitious’ Target for Knicks – Heavy.com
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 9:40:00 PM

    Nets Rumors: Sharpshooter an ‘Ambitious’ Target for Knicks  Heavy.com

  • Rate the Trade Idea: Paul George to the Knicks – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 6:51:49 PM

    Rate the Trade Idea: Paul George to the Knicks  Sports Illustrated

  • LeBron James trade speculation couldn’t be more unreasonable for … – Daily Knicks
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 5:00:44 PM

    LeBron James trade speculation couldn’t be more unreasonable for …  Daily Knicks

  • NBA Rumors: ‘Ambitious’ Trade Target For Knicks, Revealed – NBA Analysis Network
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 4:52:32 PM

    NBA Rumors: ‘Ambitious’ Trade Target For Knicks, Revealed  NBA Analysis Network

  • NBA Rumors: Knicks Land Warriors’ Kuminga In This Trade – NBA Analysis Network
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 4:38:26 PM

    NBA Rumors: Knicks Land Warriors’ Kuminga In This Trade  NBA Analysis Network

  • New York Knicks 2022-23 Year in Review: RJ Barrett – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 11:15:40 AM

    New York Knicks 2022-23 Year in Review: RJ Barrett  Sports Illustrated

  • Victor Wembanyama updates: Watch No. 1 Draft prospect in France … – NBA.com
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 11:08:38 AM

    Victor Wembanyama updates: Watch No. 1 Draft prospect in France …  NBA.com

  • 3 Knicks that earned untouchable status in 2022-23, 4 that should be cut loose – Daily Knicks
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 28, 2023 8:00:14 AM

    3 Knicks that earned untouchable status in 2022-23, 4 that should be cut loose  Daily Knicks

  • 120 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.05.29)”

    I’m throwing out topics here and there that I think might make for an interesting discussion. Lately I’ve been thinking about the new CBA. I’m happy there is one because basketball will go on without interruption, but I don’t like some parts of this new one and maybe don’t like many parts of it. From what I’ve read, there are much stricter provisions about minimum payroll than in the old agreement. Apparently, teams will really have to have a payroll that is 90% of the cap or more. This seems to me a sneaky way to destroy free agency as a a way to acquire good players. In the current system teams can decide to build up cap space and then spend it. But if your payroll has to be 90% of the cap then at most you can hire someone for 10% of the cap, or about $13M annually. That doesn’t get you a great player. I guess if you have expiring contracts there might be a window when you are much more under the cap than 10%, but it’s hard to time that. And it will be harder to trade players to create cap space because many fewer teams will have cap space to trade salary into (again, because of the 90%). My personal belief is that players should have some chance to play where they want, but I just don’t see it happening for most players. I’m sure the owners love that.

    The agenda of the league is always going to be to serve small market teams. The existing system is to funnel team building through the draft and away from free agency. I don’t think this is that big of a step in that direction though. I think the 90% salary minimum is more about fighting tanking than fighting free agency. The full tear down where you trade all your stars and roster minimum salary nobodies gets a lot of value from using cap room to take on other people’s problems (facilitating trades) at they’re convenience. By not being able to carry cap room into the season, a lot of this advantage is taken away

    The Celtics are celebrating as if it’s over. I take the Heat tonight.

    Latke, you could be right about it being intended to fight tanking. That makes sense. But it still seems to me it is going to make free agency harder for some players. I hope I’m wrong.

    Also, if there aren’t some or alternatively, if there are many fewer teams, that can absorb other team’s salary problems, some capped out teams may be stuck there. I don’t think it’s good for the league if a lot of teams are stuck with over the hill, overpaid stars. As an example, think about the Lakers. They managed to offload Westbrook and enhance the team over the past season and became a more interesting team to watch. In a way, I hated seeing it happen because I don’t like them. But I still admit them becoming ok as a team was good for the league. It wouldn’t have happened if no one could take on Westbrook.

    The Celtics/Heat game is going to come down to who just happens to be hitting their 3s tonight and how much home cooking the refs give the Celtics on foul calls.

    If there is less free agency as result of the new deal, that means the intrinsic value of 1st round picks should rise. The risk that you draft some 18-19 year old that’s just turning into star and then he leaves after the 1st or 2nd contract while he’s just peaking or still peaking is lower. So building via draft gains value.

    My guess is KFINNJ is correct and the small market cartel that runs this league just got another feather in their cap, but I haven’t read too deep into it.

    And btw I have said this a dozen times… they could stop tanking dead in its tracks any time they wanted by basing lottery odds on a three year or even 7 year rolling average. They don’t want to stop it.

    There was already a soft 90% salary floor in place. Does the new CBA make it a hard floor? (Or a harder floor?). I looked it up, but didn’t read much in the subject that I could apply to real life without hurting my head.

    The thing that makes me most angry about this moment in NBA time is that every damn article in every damn newspaper and internet site is either about the Heat or the Celtics.

    Now THAT’S purgatory…

    The salary floor provision shouldn’t make too much of a difference. The only change is teams have to actually meet it rather than just owing to their players whatever the difference is between the floor and their payroll, because they don’t get a luxury tax payroll if they don’t meet it.

    Very few teams don’t meet the floor as is, so all the only implication here is every now and then some random journeyman will get gifted a 1/$15M contract or whatever. Good for that guy.

    The new apron ($17.5M above the LT line) on the other hand will have enormous implications. I can’t believe the players agreed to it. Make no mistake, it is functionally a hard cap. No team is going to subject themselves to those penalties. I mean:

    Penalties for exceeding the second apron include the loss of the mid-level exception, a ban on including cash as part of trades and the inability to accept more salary in a trade than the team sends out. A team in the second apron will also be unable to aggregate salary in trades and cannot trade its first-round pick seven years in the future (ie. its 2030 pick in 2023/24) or sign players on the buyout market.

    Also, if a team exceeds the second apron and remains there in two of the four subsequent years, its frozen draft pick (the one that was initially seven years out) will get moved to the end of the first round, regardless of the team’s record in that season.

    From this article. That is simply a hard cap, full stop.

    The players did get some concessions of their own and I suppose their negotiators would argue that since they’re guaranteed 51% of BRI this won’t actually affect their earnings, just how they’re distributed.

    I guess that’s technically true, but I’m not sure they should view BRI payouts as tantamount to contractual earnings. A few players getting high salaries is probably worth a lot more than all players getting a small payout.

    The long and short of it is teams simply won’t be able to have very high payrolls for multiple years in a row. Some good talent will shake loose, and yes, first-round picks are worth more than ever. There might be a small shift towards drafting players more likely to succeed as opposed to “project” types.

    It’s hard to say just how this will affect the Knicks. I think it’s slightly more negative than positive, because we’re one of the few teams that could theoretically sustain very high payrolls given Dolan’s personal wealth and the team itself always being profitable.

    Of course, we haven’t really done that lately because we haven’t had a team even close to justifying it. We’re also in a decent position pick wise, and that might help–those protected picks might gain a little value.

    I guess at some point in the article they make a reference to the Knicks. Welcome to the new age of writing news on the web, Alan. There’s lots of media outlets that try to add as much “searchable words” as they can to their articles. And “knicks” is probably one of the most searched words.

    The bot is a 23 year old cis man. Who did you expect him to be interested in?

    they could stop tanking dead in its tracks any time they wanted by basing lottery odds on a three year or even 7 year rolling average.

    Hubert,

    This is one of the best ideas I’ve seen. That would solve also the issue of injuries allowing what was otherwise a very good team from taking advantage of the system with a 1 year tank.

    Sorry I missed your previous comments on this. I can’t read everything. I wish this was my idea.

    Up in the morning before the break of day
    I don’t like it, no way
    Eat my breakfast too damn soon
    Hungry as hell, before noon
    Went to the mess sergeant on my knees
    I said: mess sergeant, mess sergeant feed me please
    Mess sergeant looked at me with a grin
    Said if you wanna be airborne, you gotta be thin

    Happy Memorial Day everyone 🙂

    one of my very favorite holidays of the year, very low expectations for activity during the day…

    one of the cooler things about being in the army – out of 14 years in uniform, half of them were spent in school/training…

    probably the most interesting – this nuclear, biological, chemical warfare course over in Germany, around Nuremberg I think it was, beautiful old place…weird subject matter…

    second favorite maybe, Fort Benjamin Harrison around Indianapolis I think…it was for some Fitness trainer course…they had a great NCO club there at the time…

    The bot is a 23 year old cis man. Who did you expect him to be interested in?

    Forget my explanation, Alan, this one is a lot better! 😀

    There’s lots of media outlets that try to add as much “searchable words” as they can to their articles.

    Yeah, this really kills the quality of writing almost everywhere, it’s insufferable. ChatGPT is not yet corrupted by SEO, but otoh it invents stuff left and right.

    Any team can create as much cap space as they want by having multiple player contracts expiring in the same year. Teams only have to meet the salary floor by the start of the following season. TNFH is right in that we now have essentially a hard cap. I think it will eliminate super teams and promote competitive balance. I think it will be good for the league.

    Based on TNFH’s summation, it doesn’t sound like a hard cap to me at all. It seems precisely targeted at superstars who want to quit in their teams and go play with other superstars. Most NBA players won’t be impacted much*, just the next guy who wants to be a little bitch like James Harden.

    * the most impact I can see on the average NBA player is there might be one or two less mid-level exceptions available every year.

    Re the ECF: just hurry up and let Jokic destroy one of these teams.

    The penalties such as losing the mle and not being able to use the mle or mini mle, as well as the financial penalties are so punitive that I don’t see teams being willing to go over the second apron except in very rare cases.

    Based on TNFH’s summation, it doesn’t sound like a hard cap to me at all. It seems precisely targeted at superstars who want to quit in their teams and go play with other superstars. Most NBA players won’t be impacted much*, just the next guy who wants to be a little bitch like James Harden.

    * the most impact I can see on the average NBA player is there might be one or two less mid-level exceptions available every year.

    It’s essentially saying teams like the Warriors can no longer exist. You can’t sign a player off of the buyout market? I mean, come the heck on, that’s actively trying to be as petty as possible. So I think it basically is a hard cap.

    Nurse chooses Philly! Wow, that’s shocking. Maybe Phoenix wouldn’t commit to him, while Philly wanted to get it done now? Perhaps this means Harden is more likely to return? I don’t know why Nurse would want that gig if he didn’t have assurances that either Harden was coming back, or that Morey had something in the works to replace Harden.

    Jimmy Harden coming back to play defense seems unlikely to me but Harden is not the easy guy to get a read on

    Herro to play tonight. Wow.

    send pritchard in to hit him hard on the hand when he makes his first move…

    Out of curiosity, mostly based on his fashion choices, I looked up Herro to see what his background is. The internet reports, simultaneously, that he is white; that he is part black; that he is part asian; and that he is part native american. None of this explains the bucket hats of course. Except that he is also from Wisconsin.

    Herro isn’t playing, a fake account duped a lot of people. What joy people get out of doing this shit, I will never understand.

    a fake account duped a lot of people. What joy people get out of doing this shit, I will never understand.

    It must be the same person who said he was half-asian.

    There was already a soft 90% salary floor in place. Does the new CBA make it a hard floor? (Or a harder floor?). I looked it up, but didn’t read much in the subject that I could apply to real life without hurting my head.

    I heard it in a podcast as one of the most underrated impacts of the new CBA. Apparently, the new CBA does have penalties if you are under it and you can’t avoid the penalties by waiting until the trade deadline to fix things. I looked for a link in writing but can’t find anything mentioning it.

    It is true, you can probably arrange to have key contracts expire that get you more than 10% under the cap during the off season but that may not be easy to do since you need to make sure those expiring contracts don’t have a big cap hold. I’m not good enough with the details to know how easy that will be.

    If you don’t want to re-sign an expiring contract you can renounce his rights and the cap hold disappears.

    Things I learned from Scottie Pippen today:

    1) Anybody who has ever seen Michael Jordan play knows he was a terrible basketball player.

    2) Jordan was a terrible teammate because he took bad shots.

    3) Jordan’s son is fucking Pippen’s wife.

    KFINJ, it’s extraordinarily easy to reach the salary floor if you’re one of the rare teams that hasn’t done so naturally. The night before the season begins, you call up your favorite free agent and offer him 1/$XM with X being the difference between your current payroll and the floor. Making teams actually meet it as opposed to just distributing the difference among all their players will not have much of an impact.

    I’m gonna watch the game tonight, but if the Celtics go up big I won’t be able to turn the TV off fast enough.

    How many teams have actually been so far under the cap they had to overpay some random free agent just to reach the floor?

    Most teams reach the floor and wish they had more space.

    Even when a team is blowing itself up it usually has a leftover bad contract or two for a couple of years or it takes a couple on to add 1st rounders etc…

    The rest of the teams are at various stages of trying to get better and are looking to add good players but don’t have any space or enough space. I never thought the floor was much of a factor to think about.

    This new harder cap definitely IS.

    Melo 62 point game is being replayed on MSG right now if anyone can’t stomach game 7

    Can imagine if this was the Knicks going into Boston after being up 3-0?

    I might have developed a serious drug problem by now.

    Strat how were you in 2013 during the 4th quarter of Game 6 in Boston when they were on that crazy comeback trying to force Game 7! Granted Game 7 would’ve been at MSG.

    Yes, the harder floor will do very little. The second apron will do a lot, as I discussed above.

    Tatum looks pretty gimpy after that twist…

    How many teams have actually been so far under the cap they had to overpay some random free agent just to reach the floor?

    None, because the floor was soft. The Hinkie Sixers were $36,000,000 under the floor one year. They didn’t have to overpay a random free agent, but they did have to overpay all their random players as a result. And though it wasn’t to reach the floor, Brian Cardinal did get rich playing professional basketball. Bizarre financial maneuvering has been a part of the game for a long time. It’s kind of charming.

    Just read that these Celtics are the 4th team ever to play 4 Game 7’s over a 2 year span, the first team to do so were the Knicks in 1994 and 1995. Mixed emotions about those seasons..

    It’s essentially saying teams like the Warriors can no longer exist.

    Exactly! That team was the worst thing that happened to the NBA this century. Bravo Silver, and Bravo PA for fixing that.

    That’s not a hard cap, though.

    A hard cap impacts all players. This only impacts players trying to join superteams.

    And it makes complete sense that the player would agree to it. The league gave them something (the floor) and they gave him something back (the end of ring chasers and super teams).

    If anything, Silver overpaid to eliminate superteams. There’s gonna be union members who would have gotten shitty contracts now getting a one year $12mm deal to reach the floor.

    This a shrewd move that benefits nearly everyone, fans especially.

    Adebayo is altering alot of shots…he’s playing good dee so far…

    I don’t think it’s accurate to say it only affects “superteams,” at least not how the term is normally used i.e. multiple high-profile players intentionally teaming up.

    The Bucks for example would be above the second apron if it were implemented today (there’s a two-year phase in) because they happened to have acquired a bunch of players who all commanded high salaries after joining the team.

    It will definitely prevent some “superteams,” but teams that draft really well and/or make savvy trades will be affected too. It basically just stops all accumulation of a lot of talent.

    Strat how were you in 2013 during the 4th quarter of Game 6 in Boston when they were on that crazy comeback trying to force Game 7! Granted Game 7 would’ve been at MSG.

    I must have been pretty drunk because I don’t remember much. 🙂

    Yeah, game 7 in NY would have been insane. Maybe next year we can get to this round or further! I hope we do something we all love this off season.

    Apparently it’s pretty tough for mortals to make 3s under this kind of pressure, at least so far.

    Maybe the “the Josh Hart trade was bad” contingent exists because they know that Caleb Martins exist beneath every rock outside the association.

    I’m not sure I agree with you all that the new rules on minimum payroll don’t have much impact. I think almost every team is going to be close to the cap or above it and many, like the current Knicks, will be close to the tax line. Teams will have to draft well, develop players well, and or trade well in order to get better. Free agency will just be to fill in roster holes with relatively low paid players.

    The espn win probability thingy has miami at 68.8% right now….I guess the 30% loss happens if they don’t shoot 50% from three in the 2nd half…

    Jaylen Brown playing some extremely low IQ basketball. These celts lose the series I would be surprised to see him traded. Celts need a real point guard to run their offense and complement Tatum , who is clearly injured

    Maybe the “the Josh Hart trade was bad” contingent exists because they know that Caleb Martins exist beneath every rock outside the association.

    I did mention Caleb Martin (& Max Strus) specifically when I noted that the Josh Hart trade was a suboptimal use of resources for a team at our point in the win curve.

    (That’s really the better terminology; it wasn’t a “bad” trade, it just wasn’t a smart decision.)

    I’m not sure I agree with you all that the new rules on minimum payroll don’t have much impact. I think almost every team is going to be close to the cap or above it and many, like the current Knicks, will be close to the tax line.

    This would mean the minimum payroll rules would have no impact.

    But Martin and Strus weren’t available. You’d need to turn over the rocks yourself to find them. But, yeah, clearly it’s possible, if you know what you are looking for.

    Hart beats Martin and Strus in every metric. EPM, BPM, you name it.

    They’re both better shooters than Hart and that obviously sticks out to us because the Knicks’ lack of shooting was exposed, but that doesn’t mean they’re better players. It means the Knicks need to get some more shooters.

    I don’t think it’s accurate to say it only affects “superteams,” at least not how the term is normally used i.e. multiple high-profile players intentionally teaming up.

    A team above the apron can still trade for a player. They just can’t aggregate three overpaid bums to get a superstar. They have to trade one of their superstars.

    That is surgical precision. The Republicans in North Carolina who pass laws to suppress votes are impressed.

    Bottom line: a hard cap decreases the amount of money all the teams combined spend on players. With the floor, this likely increases that amount.

    It’s a very smart deal. The league and the NBAPA seem to have actually helped each other.

    Hart beats Martin and Strus in every metric. EPM, BPM, you name it.

    Yeah, but Martin plus Strus plus a first round pick plus $16mm in cap space beats Hart. Like, by a lot.

    Hart beats Martin and Strus in every metric.

    That’s not the point, though. The point is that Martin has risen to Hart-like levels in the playoffs, and he makes $500,000 and required no draft picks to acquire.

    I don’t think anyone views it as imperative to stop the big bad Milwaukee Bucks, but the new apron will significantly constrain their ability to keep their current core. Not being able to aggregate salaries is just one of many penalties that make it nearly untenable–the rule putting your draft picks 7 years from now at the bottom of the draft if you’re above the second apron twice in four years is essentially a death penalty.

    This would mean the minimum payroll rules would have no impact.

    This is confusing cause and effect.

    Martin got the Heat’s taxpayer MLE this year. He’s on a 3/$20M contract.

    Strus makes the minimum…but that’s about to change. He might get a contract similar to Hart’s.

    Hart only made $12M AAV this year for the Knicks, so there’s actually not a huge difference in opportunity cost here.

    Celtics traded a 1st rd pick at last year’s trade deadline for White.

    Sorry, bbr had Martin making $500k, but I see now that was in 2021. My bad.

    But, the point still stands that IF you know where to find these guys, you don’t need to trade for them. The trick, though, is to know where to find them…

    Tatum getting injured 1 min into this game made it a whole lot less interesting

    Brown has been horrific. I haven’t seen anything worth blowing up a roster for from him

    The Heat are undoubtedly great at finding useful players on the waiver wire, as UDFAs, etc. I said a few weeks ago it’s something I wish the Knicks would take more seriously.

    I just don’t think Hart is the right comparison impact wise. I mean Strus made the Heat 9 PTS/100 worse this year. We should replace the Daquan Jeffries and Ryan Arcidiaconos of the world with our versions of these guys, not Hart.

    you can see them all squirming in their seats…making sure they got all the shit they brought with them tonight to the game…

    waiting for the people next to them to get up first…

    the last couple of minutes it’ll be ghost town time in that arena…

    The Heat are undoubtedly great at finding useful players on the waiver wire, as UDFAs, etc. I said a few weeks ago it’s something I wish the Knicks would take more seriously.

    They are going to have to given that they have no draft pick this year.

    This has to drop the asking price for Brown if the Celtics decide to move him, right?

    Just a pathetic performance.

    I will repeat that I want absolutely nothing to do with Jaylen Brown at anything close what he’s likely to fetch. He has benefitted immensely from playing with the Celtics. I’m not sure I would trade Julius Randle for him.

    In the real world, you don’t get to compare a terrific trade you made to some theoretical move you could have made that might have worked out even better and then conclude your move was bad. Everything is easy after the fact. Everyone is a genius GM after the fact.

    Tatum getting injured 1 min into this game made it a whole lot less interesting

    There’s no way to know what would have happened if he didn’t get hurt, but that sure didn’t help them. Over and above the impact of him playing both sides at less than 100%, it hurt the team psyche.

    This is confusing cause and effect.

    Very, very few teams have ever distributed the difference between their payroll and the floor to their players. Off the top of my head, it was a few of the Process Sixers teams and one OKC team in recent memory. This is just not going to come up very often, and it won’t matter when it does. It will be the odd lucky free agent getting more money than he should every now and then.

    “Crowd filing out of the arena…”

    No “Staying until the bitter end and a standing ovation for a great season…”

    This is your moment, Geo…

    Kind of beautiful that Miami gave all the Boston fans false hope, only to stamp it out so thoroughly on the parquet floor.

    I have to say, Thibs would never have put the bench in with two minutes to go even if he was down by twenty points.

    Spoelstra leaves starters in up 21, doesn’t care what armchair internet critics say. #istandwiththibs

    Strat said

    The Celtics/Heat game is going to come down to who just happens to be hitting their 3s tonight and how much home cooking the refs give the Celtics on foul calls.

    Celtics 9 for 42

    Heat 14 for 28

    I said the other day that as the superior team the dumbest thing Boston could do was start jacking up a lot of 3s. Jacking up 3s increases the randomness. That’s not what you want when you are the better team. That’s what the Heat want. The Celtics should have run and attacked. When you are the better team you want as many possessions as possible and you want to shoot higher quality 2s, try to draw fouls, and only take the wide open 3s. I guess you have to give the Heat defense some credit, but the Celtic game plan was wrong.

    I hope Boston fans don’t try and blame this on Tatum’s ankle, he was playing when they put themselves in a 3-0 hole and there’s no excuse for getting smoked on your home floor in a game 7.

    I guess it’s kind of hard to win four straight games in the playoffs, unless you’re playing the 2023 Lakers. 🙂

    I suppose Miami “culture” will be getting its raves, but I’m just glad the Celtics are out.

    I think Mazzulla could stick around. He’s a rookie coach without any senior guys as assistant coaches. Management may give him another chance

    I think the better coached (by light years) team with the best player and the biggest hearts beat a very talented but overly-cocky and poorly coached bunch who played with fire in the first 2 games.

    “I think Mazzulla could stick around. He’s a rookie coach without any senior guys as assistant coaches. Management may give him another chance”

    They might, but they shouldn’t. It was telling a couple of weeks ago when Marcus Smart remarked that Mazzulla was “learning.” Learning?! What is that code for?

    When you are competing for a championship with a veteran team that has been together, you have to have the leaders on the team believing in you, or you have to have coaches on the floor, which the Celts don’t really have. Smart has some of that, but if it isn’t one of your top 2 players it just doesn’t work. Udoka had a dimension that Mazzulla didn’t have, and Joe did lots of weird shit with substitutions and TOs, not to mention being overly-reliant on 3’s, which he just adamantly defended in the post game presser.

    “I hope Boston fans don’t try and blame this on Tatum’s ankle, he was playing when they put themselves in a 3-0 hole and there’s no excuse for getting smoked on your home floor in a game 7.”

    Not to mention that the Heat have been banged up as well. They lost fair and square, and really should have lost in 6 were it not for a lucky bounce and a missed box-out.

    I agree they might do better with, say, Vogel, but I still think it’s 50:50 Boston will keep Mazzulla.

    Knicks were 5-1 in the regular season vs the teams in the NBA Finals.

    They are going to have to shake up something in Boston. I don’t think they can stand pat. Horford is 36. He’s going to run out of steam eventually. There’s not a lot of internal upside given the ages of the players and the fact that they are already seasoned playoff team. Maybe Tatum can get more consistent, but there aren’t a lot of players you can look at and say, “I can see him taking the another step next year”.

    “Aaron Judge is underpaid.”

    Yeah, but he’s no Pete Alonso…

    How sure are we that Arcidiacano & DaQuan Jeffries are that much worse than these guys?

    Arcidiacano put up 10/4/4 per 36 during his last 3 seasons with Chicago for a -2.3 BPM. He played 3300min during that span.

    Is it that much worse than Vincent’s 13/3/3 per 36 and -3.4 BPM this year? In the playoffs he’s up to a -1.4 BPM.

    Jeffries played a total of 5min for us. We have no idea if he’s useful or not.

    Not to mention the Heat use a roster spot on 42yo Udonis Haslem, I can’t imagine him being any better than Arcidiacano at this point.

    but the new apron will significantly constrain their ability to keep their current core.

    Can you explain how?

    Because the two examples you gave (the draft picks, the aggregate salaries) have no impact on keeping their core intact.

    It seems like they can continue paying every single player on the roster as long as they want. They just can’t keep adding to it.

    The new CBA makes it easier to retain players because the luxury tax thresholds are increased, resulting in lower tax bills.

    It will make it extremely difficult for them to improve if they lose someone or if, for instance, Horford goes into rapid decline.

    But yeah, they can absolutely keep their core.

    darulessays:
    May 29, 2023 at 10:36
    The Celtics are celebrating as if it’s over. I take the Heat tonight.

    Rules of the game.

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