Having DDV in the rotation instead of Deuce is a hugely massive upgrade.

Cosign.
Didn’t we see our bench relatively go to poop against Miami? And could you argue that was one of the factors that lead to our defeat? If DDV means we have another trusted guard who can pass, rebound, defend and SHOOT – sign me up.
And 4/50 is not expensive these days for a bench guy. You’re really not getting upper-level bench/occasional starter play for less than 11mil per anymore.

I do hope the team finds a defensive backup 4 that can bang inside a lil and has a bit of a J.

In the vast, vast majority of North American major sports markets, winning a single playoff series means next to nothing.

You’re saying this as a Detroit Lions’ fan?????
Seriously, my guy?

Context matters… you think Cincinnati Reds fans would agree to this? Pittsburgh Pirates fans? Marlins fans? Timberwolves fans? Kings fans? Magic fans? Hornet fans? Hell, I’m a Giants fan and I was ELATED they beat the Vikes on the road last season in the Wildcard round.

djphan has a point with the fact that he’s probably our 8th or 9th guy but he’s getting the full MLE. But that is more a function of how “underpaid” our first 2-3 guys are as compared with most teams’ first 2-3 guys.

It is true that Brunson and Randle probably will need new contracts for 2025-2026. Brunson possibly will be up for a max, or 30% of the cap. Randle will be eligible for the 35% max but I don’t know that he will justify that number. (I really don’t think it would be a good use of resources to give those two 65% of the cap per year). Even so — the cap is projected to be about $170MM that year — at that point, Divincenzo’s salary will be 7.6% of the cap — eminently movable and probably an asset.

I still imagine there is a consolidation move coming, but even if there isn’t, I think the team is probably better than last year, assuming health. Even if 6’4″ Josh Hart is taking all the Obi minutes, I think that’s probably a net benefit — better rebounder (both O and D) and defender than Obi, and more versatile on offense too.

The big problem comes if Randle gets hurt — there literally are no PF-playable guys that are 6’8″+ on the team that aren’t named Randle. Although maybe this is the FO’s way of forcing Thibs to play small, like when Woodson was forced to play Melo at PF because of injuries — having 4 of RJ/Hart/Donte/Quickley/Brunson/Grimes on the floor would be pretty fun.

I’m still interested to see what Hart’s extension number is. I am not totally sure why we would extend him for 4/80 which is what’s being reported.

Long meandering post but are we allowed to extend Quickley for 5 years? Still think something like 5/110-120 on a descending contract would be a good compromise — IQ has made about $6.5MM in his career so far — I think it would be very hard to imagine he would turn down $110MM of guaranteed money. And he’s just a winning player – that contract would be an asset from the team perspective, and what extensions for non-max players should be — a tradeoff for the player and team –> tons of guaranteed money and the security it implies for the player, but the team gets some level of discount.

The best criticism of the Donte signing I’ve seen is that we have a surplus of players that are the not tall. I think that is fair.

That was my criticism of the roster.

I called the Donte signing “a decent player at market price.”

I don’t think Leon could have solved any of the roster problems with the MLE.

Donte makes sense. I like the Nova connection. He’s just not “a steal.” He’s an expensive backup guard.

Tom Thibodeau’s career is a never-ending loop of regular-season scissor smashing followed up by losing to paper in the playoffs. (*)

(*) Usually punctuated and followed by demanding that the front office get him more rock, or pouting and whining when they make even the smallest lurch toward trying to compete better with paper. Front offices with backbone get sick of him and move on.

He’s not wrong.

I don’t see anything about NBA CBA here.

Z–Man, BenR made a good argument to explain the low take, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that come next year Obi’s going to be worth a good deal more. There’s some world where Obi was held back by his situation (needs regular playing time to get comfortable, see end of year before last — and Thibs does have a record of driving certain player’s worth into paste), and if he gets it he’ll end up a viable NBA starter, or at worst an important rotation player. I hope I’m living in that world.

Prove me wrong in a year. I’ll take the loss and be sad, but I’ll live.

I had no idea…I thought it was just some payroll tax thing…

wow, I see now it restricts the roster moves you can even make…

you know you’re not better than us – you’re one of us too…