Right. There is such a thriving market for Evan Fournier. As there was for Alec Burks.

“It would’ve been very stupid to lose Mitch for nothing for this reason—he’s clearly sought after by other teams, and color me skeptical that would change even if he made $20M AAV.”

This is also silly. Mitch at $20M AAV on a 4-year guaranteed deal is not a plus asset. Sure, you can include him in a trade, but so what? As it turned out, you saved $20M in cap space, and even better if you look at the terms of his contract…you saved $7M in cap space in the final year, and because you took the risk of losing him, as it turns out, he has immensely more value than he did.

So risking losing him was incredibly smart. When you do that, of course, there’s a chance you will lose him! Seems like you clearly wouldn’t have done that, and as such, would have restricted the team’s cap space out of fear of doing something “stupid.” It’s almost Steve Mills-level thinking. Just pay guys what they want, because if you don’t you might lose him for nothing!”

Any thoughts on the Post’s Story on Kevin Porter jr?
https://nypost.com/2023/10/17/rockets-guard-kevin-porter-jr-s-girlfriend-denies-he-strangled-punched-her-in-nyc-hotel/
Apparently the fracture was due to a congenital issue and she is saying he didn’t hit her with a closed fist. She doesn’t seem to say he didn’t choke or slap her though… Also this is the Post. Not exactly sure what to make of it.

Weird story. “I have a congenital defect, that’s why my neck is broken” sounds like the worst excuse ever, blowing “I fell down the stairs” out of the water. But I guess she did. The congenital defect doesn’t seem to explain the blood or bruising.

It’s possible she doesn’t want to be seen as a victim of abuse, which is a common reaction, especially with the publicity the case is getting. I guess we’ll see what happens next.

Good NBA players are just too scarce of a commodity for most contenders to look at them and say “well I’d like [X good player], but he’s paid too much.” This is why D’Angelo Russell keeps getting traded for value on contracts people think suck.

So yeah, whether it’s Mitch or Quickley, I’d much sooner “overpay” to keep a good player than lose him for nothing. It would’ve been very stupid to lose Mitch for nothing for this reason—he’s clearly sought after by other teams, and color me skeptical that would change even if he made $20M AAV.

It’s really hard to shine on offense in EL and this was an ugly, very low scoring game which Iggy did joyfully contribute (2-9 FG).

He can’t do what he does in this iso heavy offense and PnR with shoot first ask questions last chuckers like IQ and Brunson. He’s job on offense last year was to set screens and rebound.

Barely got any touches in spots where he could assist or attack the rim. Like Mitch says, “got some good cardio in tonight”

I just totally at random came across two pieces of information about iHart from last season that I found surprising, almost confounding:

1. He played in all 82 games. With so few players doing that anymore these days, I’m surprised that we didn’t seem to make a bigger deal of it. (Maybe we did, and maybe I missed it.)
2. He only averaged 5.0 points per game. Didn’t it seem like he did more than that?

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed in Hartenstein’s offense last year. We rarely saw him flex his passing skills, his career pts/36 was over 15 and last season he was under 10, and his career .637 TS% was replaced with a .567 TS%.

He had played 2200 minutes prior to this year, so it’s not that small of a sample.

Hopefully we see more of Clippers Hartenstein who was a monster on both sides of the ball.