OFFICIAL AROUND THE NBA: AUGUST 2024

the Kings stole DeRozan from the Lakers "big summer move". I think Sac-Town is good to go. Wizards already hosed the Suns with the Beal contract. They'll just sit there and laugh at Phoenix. The Nets turned Mikal Bridges into 5 FRP's !! Brooklyn is perfectly fine just chilling through a rebuild.

The Suns are trapped. It's a dead end at every turn. Nobody wants to throw a tow rope. Phoenix either wins a bunch of games, or they'll become a far worse version of the busted Nets "dream team".

 

Skal was someone else's failure, to be fair. Those guys typically bounce around the league as reclamation projects.

 

Not sure Cliff was a failure of ours either, as he went undrafted.

 

He played for us, right?

 

Suns never should’ve traded Ayton and Bridges. They had a good thing going and overreacted to a bad loss against Dallas.

 

we don't know behind the scenes shenanigans. Ayton arguing with the coaches and teammates made viral videos on a few occasions. Once in particular Ayton & Bridges began chirping at the FT line after a missed assignment.

Moving Bridges for Durant isn't a bad move. The iffy moment was clearing the deck for an atrocious Bradley Beal contract.

Only time will tell if the Suns story has a happy ending. They already fired their Coach after 1 season. That's an "uh oh" start to the first chapter.

If Phoenix wanted to create a crazy drama, they're off to a good start. Remember when their "new" owner got into a jump ball skirmish in the front row with Jokic? Like... wtf was that ?!? "I bought this team, it's my money. I want to play the game."

(*.. get that owner a VIP box away from the court if he's going to jock out, and physically try to influence the game.)

PHX overall record wasn't bad, but it was clear as day the team lacked depth after overspending for a Big 3. With 2 of whom share the same SG position. The team doesn't have a true point guard. If they do bring in a point, the lineup will become small ball in a world where the NBA is getting bigger.

The most expensive team in NBA history better bring the ruckus... otherwise the Suns will become Troll snacks for every NBA fan that needs a good laugh.

 

I don't remember him at all. He wasn't my example... But, he was offered up as fitting the pattern of top HS prospects who fell out of favor in college and slid down the draft board, then did little to nothing in the NBA. So, in that respect it doesn't matter that he was un-drafted. He's just a more extreme case of the failure profile.

 

Thomas Robinson, several more...Olshey wasn't much of a talent scout. So he used other people's ratings. He tried many retreads who had been highly drafted then flopped, or highly rated in high school.

 

This big man not panning out talk needs to be quelched now!! Wth you all tryin to jinx the rookie????

 

Some truth to this, but not really true. Olshey recognized RoLo as a starting center, when NO ONE ELSE did, and got him for pennies.

 

that was probably his best move. He followed that up by not even talking to RoLo and his agent when RoLo became UFA. But you're wrong about no other team recognizing Rolo as a starter. He had started 146 consecutive games for Phoenix, then New Orleans, in the two seasons prior to joining Portland

but Olshey did go after players who had been drafted 'high' and had later become bargain basement additions

Lopez - 15th pick
Aminu - 8th pick
Harkless - 15th pick
Plumlee - 22nd pick
Ed Davis - 13th pick
Vonleh - 9th pick
TRob - 5th pick
Evan Turner - 2nd pick
Napier - 24th pick
Kanter - 3rd pick

I think acquisition cost was probably the biggest factor; Olshey loved diving into dumpsters. But he apparently thought eventually the Blazers would rehabilitate a player's initial draft value. They never really did

 

I must constrain my world-class memory to only big men not yet mentioned?

Carmelo, Whiteside, Freedom, Covington, Kaman, Ariza, Vonleh, Zeller, Hezonja, Giles, Afflalo, Hood, Wright, Hollis-Jefferson, Stauskas, Jared Jeffries, Sasha Pavlovic, Papagiannis...And that was in 5 seconds. Now I'll look up some...Oh yeah, how could I forget T.J. Leaf.

Edit: FUCK. SOMEBODY HAS A FASTER MEMORY THAN ME???!!!
I guess I had this page open for an hour before I spent my 5 seconds on an answer...

 

This link has a list of who still has their Non-taxpayer Mid-Level Exception ($12,822,000, maximum) Does this mean they could absorb Thybulle or Williams?

https://hoopshype.com/lists/what-nba-teams-should-do-with-their-open-roster-spots/

• Non-taxpayer Mid-Level Exception ($12,822,000, maximum of four seasons):
  Brooklyn Nets
  Chicago Bulls; only $4,250,571 remaining
  Cleveland Cavaliers
  Dallas Mavericks; only $4,250,571 remaining
  Houston Rockets
  Indiana Pacers
  LA Clippers; only $3,298,190 remaining
  Memphis Grizzlies
  New Orleans Pelicans
  Portland Trail Blazers
  Sacramento Kings
  Utah Jazz
  Washington Wizards; only $6,831,322 remaining(NB: using more than $5,168,000 of this exception in 2024/25 hard-caps a team to the first apron amount of $178,132,000)

 

Shorter Olshey has-beens: Bazemore, Evan Turner, Mo Williams, Maynor, Gerald Henderson, Ronnie Price, McLemore, Watson, Brian Roberts, Snell, Gee

 

Olshey got players on their career downsides, rejected by their NBA teams. A few had temporary resurgences with us, like Harkless, Plumlee, Aminu, Napier, Ed Davis, before resuming a path out of the league with the next team. Others like Lopez stayed in the league, but reverted to substitute status after leaving us.

Olshey wasn't a good talent evaluator, and had to depend upon years-old draft/high school ratings.
examples:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/recruit_rankings_2014.html
https://sites.google.com/site/rscihoops/home/rankings/2017-final
https://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/mcdonalds.html

 

Mark Cuban might have something to say about that.