AROUND the NBA:

[DallasMaverick]

LeBron took a deal at $4m per year.

Money wasn’t an issue.

In Philly, he’ll be the third or 4th option on offense.

Primary role wasn’t an issue.

Why didn’t he stay in LA?

He’s got two of the greatest offensive players in the NBA (or at least one) in Luka and AReaves.

Maybe he’s saying that Jaylen Brown and Tyrese Maxey and an occasional appearance by Embiid give him a better shot at winning.

Or maybe he got tired of watching Luka iso’s.

[Tyler]

Easy. The Lakers didn't want him back.

[DallasMaverick]

Easy. The Lakers didn't want him back.

Not even at $4m?

[Smitty]

I suspect you’ll be disappointed with the PT that gets doled out to the development projects.

They will be trying to win.

Top 10/11 regular rotation:

Kyrie - Sergio/Sasser
Max - Klay/ZR
Flagg - Naji
PJW - Aldama/Morez
Gafford - Lively

Martin - Tarik - Cisse

Will be tough to get playing time for the “young guys” when everyone is healthy. The 25 and under crowd will need to earn playing time.

[F Gump]

The W/L question will be determined by how competitive their starters are, imo. Are they good enough to outdo opponents?

Kyrie
Max
Flagg
PJW
Gafford

3 of those are "solid starter" at best, but certainly not dominant. But how good will Flagg and Kyrie be? Good enough to make a difference? Perhaps.

We tend to forget, but when he was hurt, Kyrie was playing great (while Luka was injured for a long time) so that Mavs were winning about half the time, and the starting lineup was basically the same Kyrie, PJW, Gafford, with the other 2 being Klay and Dinwiddie.

Would replacing Klay and Dinwiddie with Max and Flagg make them worse than that .500-or-so lineup from before, or better?

Max (and Klay) should definitely be good enough to match Klay's contribution that year.

That leaves Flagg (and whether he can be as good as Dinwiddie).

My point is that the Mavs relative success is likely to be driven by how improved and good Flagg will be. I see him as the hinge point. His career track record has been that he is a super-fast learner when he plays at a higher level, and it doesnt take him long to level up to being one of the best. If that continues, there will be another jump this season, in which case I think the rest of the crew are good enough to result in a lot of winning, and be a big surprise.

[windjc]

The W/L question will be determined by how competitive their starters are, imo. Are they good enough to outdo opponents?

Kyrie
Max
Flagg
PJW
Gafford

3 of those are "solid starter" at best, but certainly not dominant. But how good will Flagg and Kyrie be? Good enough to make a difference? Perhaps.

We tend to forget, but when he was hurt, Kyrie was playing great (while Luka was injured for a long time) so that Mavs were winning about half the time, and the starting lineup was basically the same Kyrie, PJW, Gafford, with the other 2 being  Klay and Dinwiddie.

Would replacing Klay and Dinwiddie with Max and Flagg make them worse than that .500-or-so lineup from before, or better?

Max (and Klay) should definitely be good enough to match Klay's contribution that year.

That leaves Flagg (and whether he can be as good as Dinwiddie).

My point is that the Mavs relative success is likely to be driven by how improved and good Flagg will be. I see him as the hinge point. His career track record has been that he is a super-fast learner when he plays at a higher level, and it doesnt take him long to level up to being one of the best. If that continues, there will be another jump this season, in which case I think the rest of the crew are good enough to result in a lot of winning, and be a big surprise.

Are we seriously being asked to compare Flagg to Dinwiddie???

Anyway, everything else you broke down is exactly why I think this team can surpass everyone’s recency bias.

[windjc]

General board says:

Look at all this young talent!!!

Overall the team kinda sucks though. Definitely take the under on 37 wins.

Oh and by the way, the young talent won’t play because the starters are too good.


))))))

[F Gump]

Top 10/11 regular rotation:

Kyrie - Sergio/Sasser
Max - Klay/ZR
Flagg - Naji
PJW - Aldama/Morez
Gafford - Lively

Martin - Tarik - Cisse

Will be tough to get playing time for the “young guys” when everyone is healthy. The 25 and under crowd will need to earn playing time.

I think that's a reasonable look at where the Mavs begin the season. 

In that mix, at the outset, I think all of DeLarrea, ZR, Tarik, and perhaps Morez will get fewer minutes than fans are hoping for (at the moment), like you allude to. 

But I also think their path to more minutes will prove to be slower and the hill steeper than we would like it to be. We assume these guys are ready to roll and merely a few games away from being solid NBA pros, because M/M are magic, forgetting what happened with OMax, Hardy, Anderson, and on and on. These raw guys are going to need to be a LOT better, which will take time.

One exception. With Lively not expected to be ready on day 1, and his ongoing health a question mark, I think Cisse will be getting minutes on a semi-regular basis. 

But I think we will see a LOT of last year's regulars. Where might we get team improvements? Return of Kyrie (HUGE addition), addition of Aldama (stretch big) and Sasser (legit backup PG), and (hopefully) internal improvement by Flagg and Max.

[HoosierDaddyKid]

At least with the Trail Blazers, Everett suspected something was afoot. After all, the notoriously frugal Tom Dundon bought the NBA franchise in March for $4.25 billion. When Dundon previously took over the NHL’s Hurricanes, he immediately overhauled the broadcast team and installed other belt-tightening measures. After being offered an 80% pay cut, veteran Canes play-by-play announcer Chuck Kaiton left after 39 seasons. Right on cue, Dundon wasted no time pinching pennies in Portland, earning him the nickname “El Cheapo” from Bill Simmons. Dumping a club’s existing broadcasters to cut costs seems to be the billionaire owner’s “modus operandi,” notes Everett. Hearing the revised contract for Trail Blazers radio play-by-play voice Travis Demers offered by new owner Tom Dundon included a 60-plus percent pay cut, no benefits, no travel, and no analyst. Demers did not accept the offer. Longtime television play-by-play man Kevin Calabro turned down an offer to return while analyst Michael Holton was released from his contract.
Former SportsCenter anchor Neil Everett is a TV legend. But when the ex-ESPNer lost his hosting job with the Trail Blazers this week, he didn’t even get an email or phone call. Instead, he learned about his departure in a Maury Brown sports media column. “I read about it in Forbes,” Everett tells Front Office Sports. That’s no way to treat a talent like Everett, who gave five seasons to the Trail Blazers broadcasting team. But a cold-blooded approach seems to be the order of the day when it comes to sports media layoffs this week.


FrontOfficeSports

[HoosierDaddyKid]

Mike Vorkunov on Trail Blazers: My question has always been where would they go, right? If they were to leave, and I think the probably the place that off the top of my head jumps out is Raleigh, North Carolina, right, which is where the Carolina Hurricanes, the hockey team that Tom Dundon owns and currently reside. And Portland is the 23rd largest media market in the country. Raleigh, on the list I saw this morning, is number 22. Portland probably has a larger population in its metro area, but he has an arena there. I think they just refurbished it, so that's ready to move in.

YouTube

[michaeltex]

Mike Vorkunov on Trail Blazers: My question has always been where would they go, right? If they were to leave, and I think the probably the place that off the top of my head jumps out is Raleigh, North Carolina, right, which is where the Carolina Hurricanes, the hockey team that Tom Dundon owns and currently reside. And Portland is the 23rd largest media market in the country. Raleigh, on the list I saw this morning, is number 22. Portland probably has a larger population in its metro area, but he has an arena there. I think they just refurbished it, so that's ready to move in.

YouTube

Yeah, but is "El Cheapo" willing to pay the NBA relocation fee, which will be a nine-figure number? To move to a market without any team ties and is arguably the heart of NCAA basketball? Plus all the associated moving costs? It's more than just bagging up the balls and heading east. The broadcast team savings is a pittance to that cost and the payback will be measured in years.

[mvossman]

The W/L question will be determined by how competitive their starters are, imo. Are they good enough to outdo opponents?

Kyrie
Max
Flagg
PJW
Gafford

3 of those are "solid starter" at best, but certainly not dominant. But how good will Flagg and Kyrie be? Good enough to make a difference? Perhaps.

We tend to forget, but when he was hurt, Kyrie was playing great (while Luka was injured for a long time) so that Mavs were winning about half the time, and the starting lineup was basically the same Kyrie, PJW, Gafford, with the other 2 being  Klay and Dinwiddie.

Would replacing Klay and Dinwiddie with Max and Flagg make them worse than that .500-or-so lineup from before, or better?

Max (and Klay) should definitely be good enough to match Klay's contribution that year.

That leaves Flagg (and whether he can be as good as Dinwiddie).

My point is that the Mavs relative success is likely to be driven by how improved and good Flagg will be. I see him as the hinge point. His career track record has been that he is a super-fast learner when he plays at a higher level, and it doesnt take him long to level up to being one of the best. If that continues, there will be another jump this season, in which case I think the rest of the crew are good enough to result in a lot of winning, and be a big surprise.

Just to play devil's advocate:

That lineup played a total of 81 minutes together.  Not sure how much we can read from such a small sample.
Kyrie was 32 when he got injured and will be turning 35 next season.  Not sure we can count on him being the same player.
PJ and Gafford were brought in for Luka and have not looked the same since Luka was traded.
This team is still too light on creation and will be depending too much on Kyrie
We have a new coach with zero NBA experience (which historically has had dicey results).
Wins will be harder to come by with less tanking.
You made similar predictions last summer.

There are just so many variables going into this season.  It's not just how big of a jump will Flagg make (I think it will be a big jump).  What will we get from Kyrie, and can he stay healthy?  Can we get anything from Livey?  Will PJ and Gafford bounce back (if they are even still here)?  What will we get from all the new additions?  How will May adapt to the NBA?  Given the lack of talent and all of the changes, its hard to see predicting this team any higher than the play-in.

[windjc]

Just to play devil's advocate:

That lineup played a total of 81 minutes together.  Not sure how much we can read from such a small sample.
Kyrie was 32 when he got injured and will be turning 35 next season.  Not sure we can count on him being the same player.
PJ and Gafford were brought in for Luka and have not looked the same since Luka was traded.
This team is still too light on creation and will be depending too much on Kyrie
We have a new coach with zero NBA experience (which historically has had dicey results).
Wins will be harder to come by with less tanking.
You made similar predictions last summer.

There are just so many variables going into this season.  It's not just how big of a jump will Flagg make (I think it will be a big jump).  What will we get from Kyrie, and can he stay healthy?  Can we get anything from Livey?  Will PJ and Gafford bounce back (if they are even still here)?  What will we get from all the new additions?  How will May adapt to the NBA?  Given the lack of talent and all of the changes, its hard to see predicting this team any higher than the play-in.

Thats the core thing. You say the team lacks talent. I think they are very talented.,

[Chicagojk]

Mike Vorkunov on Trail Blazers: My question has always been where would they go, right? If they were to leave, and I think the probably the place that off the top of my head jumps out is Raleigh, North Carolina, right, which is where the Carolina Hurricanes, the hockey team that Tom Dundon owns and currently reside. And Portland is the 23rd largest media market in the country. Raleigh, on the list I saw this morning, is number 22. Portland probably has a larger population in its metro area, but he has an arena there. I think they just refurbished it, so that's ready to move in.

YouTube

I will be pissed if the NBA screws this up.    Portland is a loyal fanbase....a good fanbase.    

A lot of bad mojo with this new owner.  He is clearly offering existing employees contract deals they can't accept, so they will leave and he can hire lower priced and younger people.    He did win the Stanley Cup so he can point to that and you can't really come back at him.    It just feels like it is going to go up in fire before he figures things out....and it sounds like he may want that to be outside of Portland.

I think Mike Schmitz got out at the right time.   Not sure there is room for an expensive assistant GM in Portland with El Cheapo running things.

[Mavs2021]

I will be pissed if the NBA screws this up.    Portland is a loyal fanbase....a good fanbase.    

A lot of bad mojo with this new owner.  He is clearly offering existing employees contract deals they can't accept, so they will leave and he can hire lower priced and younger people.    He did win the Stanley Cup so he can point to that and you can't really come back at him.    It just feels like it is going to go up in fire before he figures things out....and it sounds like he may want that to be outside of Portland.

I think Mike Schmitz got out at the right time.   Not sure there is room for an expensive assistant GM in Portland with El Cheapo running things.

Problem is not the owner. It´s the labour laws in America, if it´s that easy to simply fire people that worked for you for 30 years. They are obviously not moving. Just another billionaire asking for a re-developmental grant from the state or as it is labelled when it concerns poor people COMMUNISM.

[F Gump]

Two contract-related notes on RFA players that I really don't understand:
1 Watson - The report all along is that DEN really wants him. THEN the contract they offered is reported (The Athletic) to be 5/70M, which computes to be starting at 12M. Wait what? Either my understanding of salaries is way off (which is possible, because the sinking NBA revenues are a MAJOR factor across the NBA and seem to have GMs scared), or he's way less value than we have been led to believe, or they just want him for a year (pushing him to take the 6.5M QO so they can have him for cheap for a year before he walks). If he's only worth 12M, are the contracts of much worse players such as Jovic, Braun, Sharpe, etc going to be way way more problematic and strangling in the future than we have considered? Or is Watson a much worse player than we've been thinking?
2 Duren - He is eligible with DET to get up to a 30% supermax for a player coming off rookie scale. He demanded it. But by all accounts they "only" offered him all of the normal max of 25%, right up front, which matches or exceeds the most any other team could possibly offer (depending on whether they included 5% or 8% raises). I say "only" because I didn't think he was really worth even that, and it seemed too generous to me. Not to him. He didn't like the DET max offer, so he (weirdly) went looking for a more desirable offer from another team (which makes no sense, since it would AT BEST be the same or less money than the Pistons had already offered, and then DET would just match it anyhow). So now he's supposedly threatening to take the QO of only 9.6M (vs the 25% max of 41.2M) so that he can be a FA next summer and sign for no more than the 25% max that he is refusing from DET. What's going on here? Is he just an idiot with counting numbers? It makes no sense.

[Knutsen]

Two contract-related notes on RFA players that I really don't understand:
1 Watson - The report all along is that DEN really wants him. THEN the contract they offered is reported (The Athletic) to be 5/70M, which computes to be starting at 12M. Wait what? Either my understanding of salaries is way off (which is possible, because the sinking NBA revenues are a MAJOR factor across the NBA and seem to have GMs scared), or he's way less value than we have been led to believe, or they just want him for a year (pushing him to take the 6.5M QO so they can have him for cheap for a year before he walks). If he's only worth 12M, are the contracts of much worse players such as Jovic, Braun, Sharpe, etc going to be way way more problematic and strangling in the future than we have considered? Or is Watson a much worse player than we've been thinking?
2 Duren - He is eligible with DET to get up to a 30% supermax for a player coming off rookie scale. He demanded it. But by all accounts they "only" offered him all of the normal max of 25%, right up front, which matches or exceeds the most any other team could possibly offer (depending on whether they included 5% or 8% raises). I say "only" because I didn't think he was really worth even that, and it seemed too generous to me. Not to him. He didn't like the DET max offer, so he (weirdly) went looking for a more desirable offer from another team (which makes no sense, since it would AT BEST be the same or less money than the Pistons had already offered, and then DET would just match it anyhow). So now he's supposedly threatening to take the QO of only 9.6M (vs the 25% max of 41.2M) so that he can be a FA next summer and sign for no more than the 25% max that he is refusing from DET. What's going on here? Is he just an idiot with counting numbers? It makes no sense.

I think the business is definitely getting harder and the sugar coating your own players part is being pushed back, out of tougher financial rules in general and maybe also reduced revenue.

With restricted free agents you have all the power as a team contract wise - especially if you read the market correctly. Let them find a deal from another team they like, and you either just match it and have a great value, or match and later trade for assets or find a sign-and-trade and get value back immediately.

If now a player like Duren isn’t a „business man“, but emotionally driven, so that he rather goes to a team that pays him their max next year, because he feels valued then - even if he loses a lot of money doing so - you lost your bet. But probably that won’t happen too often. 

I mean this stand-offs with late „happy ends“ are almost the norm in the NFL, so it’s just kind of new in the NBA, isn’t it?

[DanSchwartzgan]

Either my understanding of salaries is way off (which is possible, because the sinking NBA revenues are a MAJOR factor across the NBA and seem to have GMs scared), or he's way less value than we have been led to believe, or they just want him for a year (pushing him to take the 6.5M QO so they can have him for cheap for a year before he walks). If he's only worth 12M, are the contracts of much worse players such as Jovic, Braun, Sharpe, etc going to be way way more problematic and strangling in the future than we have considered?  

If this is the case, then it also applies to PJ and Gafford.  More established at less money than your examples, yes.  But also older with less upside.  That makes the idea of getting compensation for them challenging.

[Scott41theMavs]

I think the business is definitely getting harder and the sugar coating your own players part is being pushed back, out of tougher financial rules in general and maybe also reduced revenue.

With restricted free agents you have all the power as a team contract wise - especially if you read the market correctly. Let them find a deal from another team they like, and you either just match it and have a great value, or match and later trade for assets or find a sign-and-trade and get value back immediately.

If now a player like Duren isn’t a „business man“, but emotionally driven, so that he rather goes to a team that pays him their max next year, because he feels valued then - even if he loses a lot of money doing so - you lost your bet. But probably that won’t happen too often. 

I mean this stand-offs with late „happy ends“ are almost the norm in the NFL, so it’s just kind of new in the NBA, isn’t it?

With Denver, I think it’s pretty obvious. They tried to offer Watson what they considered themselves able to offer - not his outright worth, but what they might conceivably be able to pay him in their current dire situation. Of course they’re thinking in terms of his actual cost with the tax. He, his agent, and his bank account just see a profoundly lowball offer. In any event, nothing confusing about it imho.

[Scott41theMavs]

Duren, meanwhile, is simply living in the pre-summer-of-‘26 in which teams handed out 100% undeserved max contracts to players because that was the expectation to avoid insulting them. He’s the surprising-to-him casualty of this new world in which most teams are smart enough to pay you no more than either what you’re really worth or (gasp) the market value (which is slightly inflated, especially for RFAs). Duren is fuming about that fraction of the millions he’s losing out on, and feels disrespected. Too bad. Not one iota of leverage. Suck it up, buttercup. Not the Pistons’ problem you’re a brat on PCP.