Around the League: Week 1 (10/23 - 10/29)

[Superbone]

Nationally Televised Games (All times ET)

Tuesday, October 24th
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Denver Nuggets, 7:30 PM on TNT
Phoenix Suns vs. Golden State Warriors, 10:00 PM on TNT

Wednesday, October 25th
Boston Celtics vs New York Knicks, 7:00 p.m. on ESPN
Dallas Mavericks vs San Antonio Spurs, 9:30 p.m. on ESPN (Victor Wembanyama debut)

Thursday, October 26th
Philadelphia 76ers vs. Milwaukee Bucks, 7:30 PM on TNT
Phoenix Suns vs. Los Angeles Lakers, 10:00 PM on TNT

Friday, October 27th
Miami Heat vs Boston Celtics, 7:30 p.m. on ESPN
Golden State Warriors vs Sacramento Kings, 10:00 p.m. on ESPN

League News

2023-24 NBA season tipoff: Your ultimate guide of all 30 teams
https://www.nba.com/news/2023-24-nba-se ... mate-guide

2023-24 NBA season preview: Rankings, predictions, odds
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/385 ... -odds-more

The Four Biggest Questions That Need Answering This NBA Season
https://www.si.com/nba/2023/10/20/big-q ... ns-nuggets

[Wally_West]

[ShelC]

I just don't get that money unless they're trading KAT at some point to break up his deal.

[TOO]

That's a terrible contract man, just unbelievably bad.

[Shabazz]

I like McDaniels. Very good player. That's a lot of money for him.

I guess it's similar to Jerami Grant money, and I'd rather have JM, but still a lot of scratch.

[JeremyG]

Shams trying to justify it for them by saying he's gonna be a DPOY candidate lol:

[Shabazz]

Funny thread.

[Kryptonic]

Funny thread.

Had to scroll to get to the Suns to make sure this isn't some joke... Holy cow there's some really bad ones in there. The Kings one is decent but not as nice as he's making it out to be and the Suns one isn't as bad as he's making it out to be. Still, pretty funny and agree on most. I question the amount of effort that went into some of them and have seen better created jersey's in 2K.

[TOO]

I like McDaniels. Very good player. That's a lot of money for him.

I guess it's similar to Jerami Grant money, and I'd rather have JM, but still a lot of scratch.

This isn't far off what the other guy was making that was a huge problem. These are absurd.

[Split T]

27 million a year isn’t as crazy to me as some think. Cap is going up. I’d take McDaniels over a lot of people who are on similar salaries. By the end of it it’ll probably be a great contract.

[specialsauce]

Jesus that’s a bad deal. Good player, AWFUL contract.

You don’t overpay role players.

You overpay stars and roll through role players for the fit

The Suns killed it with this in the off-season, what I’ve been preaching for a while.

I loved Cam J, but no way I’m Paying Cam that money if I’m serious about a championship, I’d go 3 heavy and find the right pieces to fill out

[Split T]

I think they envision McDaniels in their top 3. He’s only 23 years old. They are paying him for his age 24-28 years. That’s probably going to be the best of him. It starts next season at probably 25 million and the cap will be 150 million. So it’s only 17% of the cap. And that number will go down as the cap goes up. I just don’t see the problem some of you guys do.

It’s the same thing we always go through. New deals are evaluated on the salary cap of yesterday. Unless McDaniels turns into a bad player, I don’t think anyone will look at the deal as a negative.

[MightyMoog]

It’s not nearly as bad as the deal he who shall not be named received from us.

[Flagrant Fowl]

The Wolves had better envision McDaniels doing more with the ball in the near future because that's a lot of money for 30mpg of glue guy.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Spoiler: show/hide

Funny thread.

I don't think most of these are bad at all. Too much dark grey across the board is my only gripe. There are some dumb designs like Denver and the Lakers, some I'm clueless about like Brooklyn and Washington. And then there's Heat Culture, which is just..

There are more clean and creative designs than not, but you know, everyone on the Internet is an expert so OMG these are so terrible!!!!11

[Wally_West]

I just don't get that money unless they're trading KAT at some point to break up his deal.

Since the season is about to start, time for my dumbass trade ideas

Let me set the scene…

It’s near trade deadline, warriors are pretty mid and clearly gonna lose Klay at the end of the season.

Twolves are also pretty mid. Their offense just can’t be efficient with Gobert and KAT on the court at the same time, with a big tax bill coming next season and no one wanting to touch Gobert’s contract, it make sense to trade KAT.


The nets are also pretty mid but they’re young and fun. They clearly need another star next to Mikal if they want to make noise in the playoffs tho.

Here’s the trade

Nets- KAT, Mike Conely

GS- Cam Johnson, Nic Claxton, Royce O’Neal, 2nds from nets

TWolves- Klay Thompson, Spencer Dinwiddie, Moses Moody, Tom of 1st round picks via the Nets.

Nets get a second star to pair with Mikal, while defense will take a hit due to losing Claxton, their offense becomes exponentially better with 2 young starts to build around.

End of an era with loosing Klay but getting something for him is better than losing him for nothing and ultimately I think they get better. They get even more depth with Royce and CamJ while still getting elite shooting from Cam, Claxton and Draymond will be a menace defensively.

While the TWolves probably could get a more interesting package for KAT, I think this is still a good trade for them. Klay and Dinwiddie are a really good fit next Ant, who’s probably gonna take another big leap this year. A lineup of Dinwiddie-Ant-Klay-McDaniels-Naz to end games would be pretty fun to watch, there’s enough playmaker and shooting, things that will only help make Ant better. Twolves would probably be okay with giving Klay the deal he want but if that doesn’t work out, between him and Dinwiddie, that’s about 60+ million off the cap and bunch of picks from the nets that should help after giving them all away for fucking Gobert. What a dumb fucking trade that was. Ugh.

[Superbone]

Harrell anyone?

[Split T]

No

[TOO]

The Wolves had better envision McDaniels doing more with the ball in the near future because that's a lot of money for 30mpg of glue guy.

He's gotta go full Mikal. No other way that this is a good deal.
Especially as the Hawks just locked up Okongwu for 60m.

[Split T]

I don’t know…I still think you guys are evaluating this on past numbers…it’s an absolute steal if he goes full Mikal. He’s getting 27 million a year…not 40 million. It’s an overpay if he just stays the same player, but if he makes some improvements, he’s already a great, versatile wing defender, with good size who shoots near 40% from 3.

He’s basically getting the deal Mikal signed with us(with a slight bump after a couple years of inflation).