2026 NBA Offseason

[Superbone]

Spoiler: show/hide

This gave me a chuckle.

Everybody knows you've got to pre-rip. Come on now.

[Split T]

I want a true PG on this team in the worst way.

But not if it costs trading one of our late 1sts?

[Mori Chu]

I want a true PG on this team in the worst way.

But not if it costs trading one of our late 1sts?

I would listen to any proposal. But I don't generally want to give up future 1sts for mid-tier veteran players, no.

[pickle]

He's shot 30 and 29% from 3 in his 2 brief stints thus far, unless you watched him in college in Japan I don't see what you're talking about other than he's a nice passer. He's basically Tyler Ulis who couldn't hack it because he was too darn small.

Guess my impressions of his three point shooting are more from international play.

[INFORMER]

He's shot 30 and 29% from 3 in his 2 brief stints thus far, unless you watched him in college in Japan I don't see what you're talking about other than he's a nice passer. He's basically Tyler Ulis who couldn't hack it because he was too darn small.

Guess my impressions of his three point shooting are more from international play.

He shot 35% from 3 in the G-League this past season, 41% the previous year.

[Mori Chu]

IMO the CBA needs to be reworked. I don't like the 2nd apron and the effect it is having on teams. I think the new CBA should really prioritize making it possible for teams to retain their players and assets without needing to give them away just to save money or get out of some cap apron penalty.

I get the idea that you don't want to have the cap be too soft, you don't want to let a few rich large-market teams like LA and NY hoard all the players and just overpay. But regardless of market size, if you found and drafted and grew these guys into a great team, you should be able to keep them together at fair market value. Maybe make it so that any player with N years of service on your team and/or drafted by your team counts only 1/2 as much against the cap. Or something.

I also realize that folks do like free agency and trades and that's part of what makes the NBA exciting. So I wouldn't want CBA changes that stifle trades and make it impossible for teams to improve that way. But I want the trades to be made by teams genuinely trying to get better, not just dumping players for cap/$$$ reasons. Some of the latest examples of this are the Jaylen Brown and Dort deals. Brown had some issues in Boston but the biggest one was they didn't want 70% of their cap stuck on two players. Dort was an OKC mainstay; he should get to stay there if they want him there. They just gave the guy away. In their press release all they talk about is how much money they saved, how much "flexibility" this gives them.

And it's the same for us and Booker. We can debate whether Book can be a #1 guy on a title team in the future. We can argue about what kind of return he would get us in a trade, whether we should grab those assets, those picks, etc. But the current CBA may make us feel like we need to trade him in a year or two just so we don't hit the 2nd apron. I really hope it doesn't come to that.

[pickle]

If it weren’t for the second apron we wouldn’t have any players under the age of 30 on this team. So at least I’m thankful for that.

[O_Gardino]

I like the second apron, because I think it contributes a lot to the parity we've had the last several years.

I also don't put higher value on players who were drafted over players who where brought in with trades or free agency. Did NY not build their team "the right way" or whatever?

IMO, every great team has to decide how to manage the roster, and a blank check doesn't make the problem go away. It just makes the numbers bigger before teams face the problem.

[Mori Chu]

I think another big problem with the CBA is the max salary/contract. The max is weirdly both too much of the cap, and too little. Too many guys who are fringe-#1 guys think they deserve the max. There's a ton of pressure on teams to max out their best player, if not their best 2-3 players. And if you do that, you get an extremely top-heavy team that can't fill out the roster (see: Book/KD/Beal Suns).

One solution would be to have a lower max salary, as a percentage of the cap. Then maxing out a guy wouldn't kill your cap situation. But the players probably wouldn't like that, and it'd lead to a situation where tons of players would be maxed out. There would be no salary differentiator between, say, Luka Doncic and Mitchell Robinson. They'd both demand and probably receive the (now lower) max.

I have also heard people argue that there shouldn't BE a max salary, that a team should be allowed to spend 100% of the cap on one player if they really want to. (Or something close to that, such as, let a player have 80-90% of the cap as their max salary.) In general I have been against this idea, because I was worried that some stupid teams would give marginal stars huge money and cripple themselves for a generation, like say giving Trae Young $120m / year or something stupid like that. But lately I have kind of come around on this idea. I think the lack of any real "max" value would mean that every contract is always a negotiation. Nobody can just say, "Give me the max." It is always going to be a dance, a discussion, a negotiation, to try to find a fair value for the player. And IMO removing that max value from the discussion means you're more likely to land on a number that represents the player's actual value to the team. My guess is that removing the max salary would actually lower top-end salaries around the league because teams would actually have to do the work of figuring out what a player is worth to them, and players would actually have to negotiate and come up with an argument about how much they are worth.

Anyway the current max is in the worst possible spot IMO: low enough that too many guys demand (and get) it, and high enough that it cripples a team to give it out as much as teams give it out. Needs to be rethought or reformed.

[Superbone]

Speaking of the smartest guy in the room. Sheesh!

[Superbone]

I'm glad to see that some teams value playmaking.

[Superbone]

Psst. You heard it here first. Word on the street is that LeBron is going to the Sixers.

[Bucktastic365]

Cool.
He can rot there with the rest.


This is a young man's league

[Mori Chu]

The Lebron situation is interesting. I don't really think there's a team out there that is "one Lebron away" from winning a title. The Sixers? Heat? Cavs? I don't like any of them to win the title even if they get Lebron. Heat probably make the most sense to me basketball-wise because they need his playmaking (to which Riley is not-so-subtly alluding in that clip). But they also don't have enough shooting; the roster feels incomplete to me despite the nice core they have around Giannis. The Cavs make some sense, but I don't see the fit there with both Harden and Lebron. The Sixers, I'm not sure why he would want to play there with broken ass Embiid and with Jaylen Brown who will think of himself as the alpha dog on the roster.

If he really wants to make another title run, why not just go to the Knicks? Sure, it would (correctly) be seen as ring-chasing because he'd be joining the defending champs. But he could actually help them, and they don't really "need" him to cover up a major deficiency. For that matter, why not join the Thunder or Spurs? They were both close to a title this year, and he could push them back over the hump. Who cares if it's ring-chasing? If it gets you a ring, that's all that matters at this point. Lebron's legacy would look much nicer if it had 1-2 more rings on it. Harder to defend MJ over Lebron if LBJ racks up 5-6 titles instead of 4.

[Superbone]

Screw LeBron getting more rings!

[SunsRIt]

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he should go to a place like Phoenix or somebody else that has never won a title and help them get their first. That would help his legacy the most.

[O_Gardino]

LeBron should go to the Lakers and help Luka win one.

[Superbone]

We love you LeBron. Come to Phoenix!

.
.
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Otherwise, screw you!

[Shabazz]

He would instantly solve three of the biggest problems in our starting lineup (size, playmaking, Book needing to play on the ball).

[Mori Chu]

LOL have you guys seen this? The Miami Heat Youtube account accidentally posted a scheduled video for July 27 titled, "LeBron James Introductory Press Conference." People noticed it and then the social account quickly deleted the link. The team says it was posted in error. But ... isn't this a pretty strong signal that Lebron is going to announce that he's going to Miami? Why in the world would you prepare such a video announcement on an official team account if you had no idea whether he was going to sign there?

I guess the most charitable explanation I can think of is that maybe they set up a placeholder ahead of time just in case he does sign there, kind of like how newspapers will preemptively write obituary columns for old celebrities so they have something nearly ready to publish the instant the person actually dies. But I just don't see why you would do that in a case like this; getting the Youtube link ready saves you almost no time, and having it on that 7/27 date seems too specific and precise.

I think they F'ed up big time and spoiled his announcement, and that he's going there. Big news if true. I do think he'd make a positive impact there, but they will still need guards and shooting to fill out their roster, which is pretty top-heavy at the moment.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/494 ... ed-mistake