Around the League: Preseason

[carey]

Bo McCalebb (and Nate Robinson) signed with the Pels. He's a hometown kid that went to UNO. I'm excited for him.

[Mori Chu]

I wasn't sure that the Pelicans would be very good this year because I had doubts about their 3-point shooting. But I may have been wrong about that. Ryan Anderson is a bomber, and they have some other good shooters on the roster like Q. Pondexter, Eric Gordon, Luke Babbitt, Jrue Holiday, etc. Plus they added Alvin Gentry who will be INFINITELY BETTER than that clown Monty Williams and will have those guys running up and down the floor.

I am now starting to feel like the Pelicans will be scary good this year. Top-4 in the West, maybe. Have I gone nuts?

[carey]

Monty Williams wasn't a great coach but he's a fantastic human being. Just thought I'd throw that out there. But yeah... you need to make the playoffs with a top--3 player. They did have a lot of injuries though.

[SDC]

anthony davis is injury prone though, chu. if he misses more than 30 games, no playoffs.

[pickle]

i think that team has had some serious chemistry issues, but maybe running will make things better, coz it would help space things out and hide ryan anderson's defensive weaknesses somewhat so that they could keep him on the floor. asik is a large man but that is the one that's injury prone and highly limited offensively who gives them issues scoring points. he's useful against the behemoths in the league which there aren't many of... and davis and anderson need to be unleashed. but ... tyreke is tyreke. he's great when jrue is out, but when jrue is back in, his efficiency numbers leave something to be desired. i see them as a 6-8 seed, more or less a lock for the tail end of the playoffs. but they need to prove themselves before i'd be willing to label them top four...

[Mori Chu]

Gentry is a great players' coach and will help that team a lot just by keeping them loose and letting them run. He did great things his first few years in Phoenix. I don't think he should have been let go here.

[ShelC]

Spurs waived Jimmer.

[carey]

Welp. Guess I was wrong.

[Mori Chu]

Interesting article about the Lamar Odom situation and his connection with the Kardashians.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-lam ... olumn.html

[Superbone]

I refuse to read anything about the Kardashians.

[carey]

TT got 5/$82M http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/13942 ... llion-deal

[Mori Chu]

I know the economics of the NBA are changing with the higher max/cap stuff coming next year. But I still think Thompson is lucky to get that deal. He is a talented player, but his skillset doesn't strike me as being very "2015". He can't shoot from the outside and is kind of 4/5 tweener. If you put him next to a traditional 5, your lineup doesn't have enough shooting. If you put him at the 5 himself, your team may be too small and not have enough defense and rebounding. He doesn't score all that many points, and he will probably never be the #1 or maybe even #2 guy on a healthy title team. The Cavs now have a weird collection of big men with Mozgov, Kevin Love, Thompson, Varejao, and others.

He's "worth" that salary in the sense that somebody else surely would have paid him that if he'd left Cleveland. But it's separate from the question of, would I actually want this guy on my team as one of my higher-paid players who I depend on to be a pillar of the roster? Another thing is, if he had left for more money, he might have had to go to a team that wasn't nearly as good. Enjoy your max contract on the Knicks or Lakers, and enjoy winning 27 games.

In the end I think the deal is a reasonable compromise from both sides, where the Cavs don't have to max out a guy who is not a "max guy", and he gets to keep playing on a Finals team that should go far again for the next several years.

[JCSunsfan]

Isn't that virtually max?

[Superbone]

So, all the holding out for an extra $2M?

[Superbone]

Thompson is the modern era Dennis Rodman minus the theatrics.

[ShelC]

I hope he shows up fat and out of shape.

[Cap]

Fivethirtyeight estimates that, over the next five years, he will be worth $36.1 million.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/tris ... 4-million/

[The Bobster]

we're going to see a lot of bloated contracts over the next couple of years.

[pickle]

tristan thompson is a younger varejao... with a better track record of health. would that be a fair statement?

[Ring_Wanted]

Welp. Guess I was wrong.

Utah should take a flyer on him.