Dolfan in NYC Posted August 14, 2020 Posted August 14, 2020 Once this bubble thing ends, who knows when they'll be playing again. Last I heard was aiming for late November/early December. And the question also remains if we're still going to need a bubble (probably!) or if any fans will get to see any games live (probably not!). Anyway, the news is about to start flowing, so here we go... And we begin with with the Chicago Bulls firing Jim Boylen.
Zimbra Posted August 14, 2020 Posted August 14, 2020 I honestly thought the Bulls would suffer another year of Boylen's totally busted shit instead of paying him a buyout. Good for them. 1
Zimbra Posted August 14, 2020 Posted August 14, 2020 Vlade is out in Sacramento. Joe Dumars will be interim and head up the search for a new GM.
Brian Fowler Posted August 14, 2020 Posted August 14, 2020 (edited) Joey D getting a second chance would be interesting. Edited August 14, 2020 by Brian Fowler 1
Brian Fowler Posted August 15, 2020 Posted August 15, 2020 2020 Hall Of Fame weekend has officially been moved to May 13-15 2021. Which means, I guess, they would like to still do a separate 2021 weekend next August.
RIPPA Posted August 15, 2020 Posted August 15, 2020 The Pelicans have canned Alvin Gentry EDIT Ooof with a list like this its like they are telling Zion "be ready to leave in a few years" Quote Among those coaches expected to be part of the Pelicans search: Lakers assistant Jason Kidd, Clippers assistant Ty Lue and former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson, sources said. The Pelicans are also expected to have an interest in Brooklyn interim coach Jacque Vaughn, should the Nets decide not to retain him, sources said. 1
Zimbra Posted August 15, 2020 Posted August 15, 2020 New Orleans is determined to make all the same mistakes it did with AD, huh?
Dolfan in NYC Posted August 21, 2020 Author Posted August 21, 2020 Minnesota has won the draft lottery. GS moves to 2. Charlotte gets 3. After that it's: 4. Chi, 5. Cleveland, 6. ATL, 7. Detroit, 8. LOL, 9. DC, 10. Phoenix
RIPPA Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 Adam Silver says that the start of the next season will most likely be pushed back beyond Dec 1 as the league really wants to have fans at the arenas. Also the expectation is that the start of free agency will be delayed too
Elsalvajeloco Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 47 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said: Minnesota has won the draft lottery. GS moves to 2. Charlotte gets 3. After that it's: 4. Chi, 5. Cleveland, 6. ATL, 7. Detroit, 8. LOL, 9. DC, 10. Phoenix The highlight of the draft lottery was Steph Curry w/ cornrows looking like a grown up version of one of the kids Prez taught in The Wire's fourth season. 2
Zimbra Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 Karl and Jackson both suck and I wish they would both disappear but TALK THAT SHIT, GEORGE! 1
Jiji Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 Karl doesn't suck. I mean he did at the end of his run but his time in Seattle was good, no? Mark Jackson, conversely, is the absolute dirt worst. I cannot stand false preacher men, he's corny as fuck, he has little to add on commentary. More importantly, Karl is 100% spot on in that Jackson should never talk smack towards any coaches. 1
Contentious C Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 If he felt the burn from that tweet, I bet Jackson said, instinctively, "Mama, there goes that man!"
Brian Fowler Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 So this makes 12 straight seasons for the Pistons without winning a single playoff game or getting a top five pick. It's not even the treadmill of mediocrity. It's the treadmill of "pretty bad but not bad enough" 1
southofheavy Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 It's also the treadmill of not picking Donovan fucking Mitchell. Unless you land in can't miss, slam dunk territory, it's up to scouting and talent evaluation. We haven't had that in eons. At least this is a weird year with no one really leaping off the page in the draft class. If the new front office can make a savvy, sleeper pick move, that bodes well. I don't even wanna know what Van Gundy would get up to this year. 1
Brian Fowler Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 4 minutes ago, southofheavy said: It's also the treadmill of not picking Donovan fucking Mitchell. Unless you land in can't miss, slam dunk territory, it's up to scouting and talent evaluation. We haven't had that in eons. At least this is a weird year with no one really leaping off the page in the draft class. If the new front office can make a savvy, sleeper pick move, that bodes well. I don't even wanna know what Van Gundy would get up to this year. Or drafting Khris Middleton and Spencer Dinwiddie and giving up on both of them almost instantly.... 1
Zimbra Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 10 hours ago, Jiji said: Karl doesn't suck. I mean he did at the end of his run but his time in Seattle was good, no? Mark Jackson, conversely, is the absolute dirt worst. I cannot stand false preacher men, he's corny as fuck, he has little to add on commentary. More importantly, Karl is 100% spot on in that Jackson should never talk smack towards any coaches. Ehhh, Karl is the (much, much) better coach but Jackson is right that he was never a good defensive coach. And while Jackson is a cheesy windbag Karl is known as a world-class asshole. At least we don't have to hear from Karl all the time since he burned all of his bridges in his autobiography.
Brian Fowler Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 Jackson actually did a pretty good job defensively with the Warriors, iirc. It was the offense that was a stagnant mess with him as coach. 1
Infinit Posted August 21, 2020 Posted August 21, 2020 12 hours ago, Brian Fowler said: So this makes 12 straight seasons for the Pistons without winning a single playoff game or getting a top five pick. It's not even the treadmill of mediocrity. It's the treadmill of "pretty bad but not bad enough" Raptors won last year without a top 10 pick on the roster...and look at the Sixers. Top picks don't guarantee success.
southofheavy Posted August 22, 2020 Posted August 22, 2020 (edited) 8 hours ago, Infinit said: Raptors won last year without a top 10 pick on the roster...and look at the Sixers. Top picks don't guarantee success. True, but our organization has been mediocre as hell from top to bottom for over a decade. I'd posit that even if we had gotten a top 5 or top 3 pick, we still would've found a way to not get the most out of that player. We've been completely incapable of doing what the Raptors have done. When the league shifted to 3's and pace-and-space, we doubled down on Andre Drummond. For every move like trading for Tobias Harris, there's a move like overpaying Reggie Jackson and riding with him as our point guard long after the fan base turned on him. I don't even wanna get into the Blake Griffin trade. I like the guy, but it was the wrong move. Ed Stefanski has made some pretty shrewd moves and I'm excited to see what Troy Weaver does. I hope they can turn things around. And if that includes sitting Tom Gores down and relegating him to concentrating on his tan and dye job, even better. Edited August 22, 2020 by southofheavy 1
Greggulator Posted August 26, 2020 Posted August 26, 2020 I just finished reading Tanking To The Top by Yaron Weitzman. It's a tell-all about The Process-era Sixers. It's a really good read. The Sixers are just such a fucking shit show. It's completely baffling that they're actually as good as they are considering all of the nonsense that went on -- and still does. There's an entire chapter on Markelle Fultz and his saga. There's no answers provided about how he forgot how to shoot a basketball. But there's a ton of dirt about his completely batshit stage mother and the jockeying in his inner circle. It reads like he was just a stressed out kid with a lot of people pulling at him and that all got to him. There's also all kinds of really interesting anecdotes about Brett Brown being the most optimistic person in the world to the detriment of holding anyone accountable, Joel Embiid's immaturity, Ben Simmons' entitlement and more. The Hinkie stuff gets the most ink since he created one of the more irritating sports culture wars in memory. Philly sports fandom is littered with Hinkie Cultists and you're now allowed to like the team unless you were cool with all of the tanking. But I thought it was such a waste of time. Throwing together a bunch of players built to lose as many games as possible isn't going to create any sort of winning culture. A lot of the actual players they had were able to just do whatever they wanted and had no vets in place to tell a dude like Nerlens Noel "yeah, don't smoke that much week" or Embiid to not eat garbage food all of the time. What an insane team.
Brian Fowler Posted August 26, 2020 Posted August 26, 2020 I don't have any particular problem with a team tanking, but the Hinkie "do it for half a decade straight" thing is infuriating. Like if you know it's gonna be a bad year anyway, or your team had obviously peaked a bit short of contender, and you don't get a shot at a game changer like Kawhi, or if you are two months into the season and your superstar is hurt and the year is lost... Yeah, go ahead and try to get a top pick. But planning to do nothing but lose for years... I don't think it was the end of sports or an insult to the game, but I also don't think it was a good thing. And, right now, the end results looks to be "not good enough to make the ECF"
SorceressKnight Posted August 26, 2020 Posted August 26, 2020 1 hour ago, Brian Fowler said: I don't have any particular problem with a team tanking, but the Hinkie "do it for half a decade straight" thing is infuriating. Like if you know it's gonna be a bad year anyway, or your team had obviously peaked a bit short of contender, and you don't get a shot at a game changer like Kawhi, or if you are two months into the season and your superstar is hurt and the year is lost... Yeah, go ahead and try to get a top pick. But planning to do nothing but lose for years... I don't think it was the end of sports or an insult to the game, but I also don't think it was a good thing. And, right now, the end results looks to be "not good enough to make the ECF" Honestly, even that was the problem with a team trying to be rebuilt from orbit, since even just tanking "once" is not enough to make a contender. If a team tanks to get a top pick once and lucks into winning the lottery...great. You got ONE All-Star. Doesn't matter since right now in the NBA, One All-Star MIGHT get you to the playoffs, but you need at least two All-Stars to have a chance at a playoff run...and in all likeliness, you'll need at least three to have a chance at a championship. MAYBE one generational talent on your team is enough to get you to the 8 seed in the East and put you in "pretty bad but not bad enough" territory- and in the process, guarantee when they're eligible for free agency, the All-Star is running away from the team and going to a super-team. Hence, your only hope to tank isn't just tanking for one year, but tanking enough years to get the amount of All-Stars to make a super-team (and thus have title hopes and/or make your team a destination for top free agents.)
DangerMark Posted August 26, 2020 Posted August 26, 2020 Yeah, but if you want to watch people playing to lose, then go watch wrestling. It's my understanding that early draft picks for bad teams should be seen as more of a pat on the head and a "thanks for playing, sport" than an actual reward for awful play so for someone to base a medium to long term plan on it is just baffling.
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