Bennedict Mathurin signs with the Pelicans. He's never been my favorite player (bit of a ball stopper, not great 3pt shooter) but he has undeniably improved. I liked him a lot for Indiana a season ago. Not sure if he's exactly what the Pels need, but they are in a bad place and probably just need an infusion of young talent.
Very surprised that the clippers didn’t try to keep him. He may be flawed but he was instrumental in that massive comeback win against the Knicks two years ago.
I like the Kuminga move for the wolves. That's a super athletic trio in their starting lineup around Lamelo (and then Gobert).
This may be a shocking take, but I'd much rather pay Kuminga $6.5M a year than surrender an unprotected FRP for the right to pay Miles Bridges $23M/year and lock ourselves into needing to extend him to justify that cost.
I like the Kuminga move for the wolves. That's a super athletic trio in their starting lineup around Lamelo (and then Gobert).
This may be a shocking take, but I'd much rather pay Kuminga $6.5M a year than surrender an unprotected FRP for the right to pay Miles Bridges $23M/year and lock ourselves into needing to extend him to justify that cost.
No… I’d say that’s smart. Our teams out here playing “52 pick up” while every other team plays chess.
This may be a shocking take, but I'd much rather pay Kuminga $6.5M a year than surrender an unprotected FRP for the right to pay Miles Bridges $23M/year and lock ourselves into needing to extend him to justify that cost.
Nodding. I don't even really like Kuminga, but that's a better allocation of assets and cap space.
Whatever you think about Markieff, that was an undeniably dirty play by Jokic.
I think maybe we all need to align on the definition of dirty. My guess is everyone has a different interpretation for the word, just like many years ago I realized not all people had the same definition for homerism.
For me, there are definitely several tiers to being dirty and Jokic isn’t near the top of that list.
That’s fair…I don’t think he’s Draymond or Dort…he’s just got a bit of a temper it seems. It also just bugs me that he plays up this persona that he doesn’t care about basketball when he very clearly cares.
Whatever you think about Markieff, that was an undeniably dirty play by Jokic.
I think maybe we all need to align on the definition of dirty. My guess is everyone has a different interpretation for the word, just like many years ago I realized not all people had the same definition for homerism.
For me, there are definitely several tiers to being dirty and Jokic isn’t near the top of that list.
That’s fair…I don’t think he’s Draymond or Dort…he’s just got a bit of a temper it seems. It also just bugs me that he plays up this persona that he doesn’t care about basketball when he very clearly cares.
Yeah. Everyone has different preferences. Me, I am quite ok with his persona. I think I’m more annoyed by the LeBron type, always trying to twist the narrative. But that’s neither here nor there.
Found this interesting. About the Clips' negotiations with Brad Beal vs Mathurin. "[John Hollinger & Nate Duncan] Breaking down how the Clippers clearly circumvented the NBA salary cap with Bradley Beal (similar to the Gary Trent situation) and lost Ben Mathurin as a result"
There were warning signs with his health…but there was also a question that he was just sitting because Washington was tanking and could’ve played…i think he could’ve been fairly useful if healthy, but his body was clearly done and can’t handle an nba season anymore
Just for fun: Bleacher Report just gave their rankings for the best NBA player at every age. Did they get any wrong? (They have Donovan Mitchell as the league's best 29-year-old, beating out Devin Booker. boo!) Here's the list:
19. Cooper Flagg
20. Dylan Harper
21. Kon Knueppel
22. Victor Wembanyama
23. Amen Thompson
24. Cade Cunningham
25. Anthony Edwards
26. Tyrese Haliburton
27. Luka Doncic
28. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
29. Donovan Mitchell
30. Jalen Brunson
31. Nikola Jokic
32. Joel Embiid
33. Anthony Davis
34. Kyrie Irving
35. Kawhi Leonard
36. Jrue Holiday
37. Kevin Durant
38. Steph Curry
40. Al Horford
41. LeBron James
The NBA has issued a ruling in the Clippers / Kawhi case. I'm reading that they are stripping the team of five future 1st round picks and fining them $30m, and suspending Ballmer and Lawrence Frank. It sounds like Kawhi himself is not being very heavily punished, only being given a $700k fine. Wow. (Should we make a new thread just for this? Not sure.)
The NBA has ruled on the Los Angeles Clippers in for salary cap circumvention investigations on Kawhi Leonard after yearlong probe -- stripping the franchise of 5 first-round picks, issuing a $30 million fine to owner Steve Ballmer and suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank
That's a pretty stiff penalty, and it'll hopefully curb and ideas any other teams looking to circumvent the cap might have.
I would have liked to have included some sort of ban on Leonard's uncle having any involvement in future dealings with the league (if that wasn't part of the penalty, we don't know all the details yet). Leonard comes away with a little more than a slap on the wrist as $700,000 is a fraction of what he made during his time with the Clippers.
Author of The Basketball Draft Fact Book: A History of Professional Basketball's College Drafts
Available from Scarecrow Press at - https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810890695
A friend of mine brought up a good point.... if the Clips had won a championship, would it have been worth it? I know I'd trade 5 first rounders for a championship, but I also don't want a Suns championship to have any sort of asterisk by it.
Honestly, the mistake the Clips made was letting Kawhi not do ANYTHING for the extra money. If he had done some commercials, some stuff for the different brands, I think they could have maybe thought they found a loophole in "introducing" athletes to marketing opportunities.
I think it was the other way around, the clippers lose the pacers pick they acquired. The pacers didn’t acquire any picks…They did mention that the pacers don’t get the pick back though, it just disappears…but they had no claim on it anymore.
