2024 NBA General Offseason News

[Mori Chu]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

[TOO]

I hope they aren't making money available for Shams. Lowe deserves better than that.

[Charlie Smithy!]

It's a sham and a low blow that lowe was laid off

[Kryptonic]

It's a sham and a low blow that lowe was laid off

i thought we're getting fleeced for bad puns? lol

[specialsauce]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

[TOO]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

[Kryptonic]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

That's fair... I always pictured you as more of a Skip Bayless guy j/k

[Cap]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

Is it ESPN, or is it sports journalism in general?

[BKinSJC]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

Is it ESPN, or is it sports journalism in general?

Is it sports journalism, or journalism in general?

[Cap]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

Is it ESPN, or is it sports journalism in general?

Is it sports journalism, or journalism in general?

I’d say sports journalism and political journalism have different kinds of problems, but they’re both on downward trends.

[TOO]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

Is it ESPN, or is it sports journalism in general?

It's journalism as a whole, but ESPN and it's hot take culture definitely led the way. Grew up on SI and the Sporting News, I still subscribe to The hockey news mag since hockey is the only sport that hasn't been ruined by hot take culture. I like news, not blow hards trying to justify why one guy sucks or the other guy is good, bleh.

[Cap]

Zach Lowe laid off by ESPN. Really, really dumb move by them; he is an excellent analyst, one of the very best and brightest. ESPN seems like they would rather keep loudmouthed pundits like Stephen A Smith. Hopefully Lowe gets picked up quickly by another outlet such as The Ringer or Spotify or Yahoo or wherever.

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

Is it ESPN, or is it sports journalism in general?

It's journalism as a whole, but ESPN and it's hot take culture definitely led the way. Grew up on SI and the Sporting News, I still subscribe to The hockey news mag since hockey is the only sport that hasn't been ruined by hot take culture. I like news, not blow hards trying to justify why one guy sucks or the other guy is good, bleh.

I could accept that if the writers trying to justify why one guy sucks or another guy is good knew what they were talking about. But it’s just a bunch of writers stating their opinions with a lot of confidence but no more insight than the average fan.

[Kryptonic]

ESPN just sucks

Yes. It's sucked for some time now, it's definitely not for people like me anymore.

Is it ESPN, or is it sports journalism in general?

It's journalism as a whole, but ESPN and it's hot take culture definitely led the way. Grew up on SI and the Sporting News, I still subscribe to The hockey news mag since hockey is the only sport that hasn't been ruined by hot take culture. I like news, not blow hards trying to justify why one guy sucks or the other guy is good, bleh.

I could accept that if the writers trying to justify why one guy sucks or another guy is good knew what they were talking about. But it’s just a bunch of writers stating their opinions with a lot of confidence but no more insight than the average fan.

I think it’s just our culture as a whole. Everyone’s going for that hot take meme and everyone on social media qualifies as for being a journalist.

Man I’m going to miss Al this year.

[MightyMoog]

ESPN as a platform has been stinking since Bill Simmons left. Lowe will take a short walk to the Ringer, where he will be allowed to be even better.

[Cap]

I’m really worried about our big man situation. We have five bigs on the roster. (I’m ignoring Frank, who shouldn’t be playing in the NBA anymore.) We have Nurk, Plum, KD, Bol and Oso.

Unfortunately Bol, despite his length, plays more like a 3, at least on D. Oso is the #40 pick in the draft and hasn’t played an NBA minute. And we saw Nurk get exposed in the playoffs.

IF Bol can suddenly learn to defend in the paint, IF Oso turns out to be way too good to have lasted as long as he did in the draft, IF we have a relatively healthy season, and IF Nurk doesn’t get exploited in the playoffs again, then we can get through the season with these five. But unless all those stars line up perfectly, this looks to me like an impending disaster.

Am I being a Debbie Downer, or is everyone as concerned as I am?

[In2ition]

Our biggest hole on the roster right now is PF. Durant should be playing the 3, imo. I'm also a little worried about it, and I hope that Oso can possibly play PF, but I'm not holding my breath for it.

[Mori Chu]

Am I being a Debbie Downer, or is everyone as concerned as I am?

I'm much more positive about this team than you seem to be. I think adding Jones as our new starting PG is going to really help. Last year we had such an unpleasant and inefficient offense, and despite having so many talented scorers it felt like every possession we had to work so hard to get a basket. Having an actual floor leader and distributor at PG is going to help so much on that end. I think we're going to be an absolutely crazy offensive team that will blow teams off the court a lot of nights. Book and KD and others are going to get such better looks. Plus I believe in Coach Bud to run a better system and have more overall coaching chops than Vogel did.

As for our defense, depth, big-man rotation, yes there are some concerns. But we weren't all that bad defensively last year. I think an average defense and a superb offense will make us a fun and interesting team that can be a contender if we stay healthy. You say that Nurk got exposed in last year's playoffs, but a lot of that was the specific matchup. If we don't play Minny in the 1st round, I think he'll be better. And I think I like Bol more than you as a backup big. I think we have a lot of good defenders on the bench who can hold the leads built by the starters. Plus we'll have some scoring punch like Morris and O'Neale along with it.

To me the real #1 key will be if we can get to a place where we can move Beal to the bench. I think that would be the most important piece to making this team a real nightmare matchup. Having Beal out there with the starters will mostly minimize his impact but letting him cook with the 2nd unit and dominate other teams' benches would be a really wise move. If Beal and Coach Bud and the rest of the team can get there, I think it's the right thing to do. Otherwise we are too small out of the gate and will get bullied by teams like New Orleans, OKC, and Minny.

[Cap]

You say that Nurk got exposed in last year's playoffs, but a lot of that was the specific matchup. If we don't play Minny in the 1st round, I think he'll be better.

Even if we don’t play them in the first round, it’s likely we’ll have to play them eventually, unless we lose first.

And I think I like Bol more than you as a backup big.

I like Bol too, but I wonder about his position. His strength is using his length and agility to harass opponents on the perimeter. He’s much less effective defending in the paint. (Even on offense he’s more about ball handling and shooting than bullying his way through the paint, but that’s something you can work with in the modern NBA.)

Plus we'll have some scoring punch like Morris and O'Neale along with it.

I don’t really think of those guys as scoring punch. Both of the, are below league average in points per 36.

Besides, if you don’t want to play O’Neale at power forward, he’s going to be stuck at wing behind Book, Beal, Allen, and maybe Dunn.

[specialsauce]

Tyus changes everything for me.

As for the lack of front court help, I'm holding out hope that can be a trade deadline acquisition.

But the vision is there now and we really are just 1 piece away from a complete team. Tyus fills a lot of needs there (ball security, facilitator, floor spacer) that I was worried about from last year.

The fact we somehow got him on the minimum is hilarious.

[Split T]

I have 2 main concerns

1. Does Nurkic work in the playoffs and what is our backup plan if he doesn’t. Same concern as Cap it seems.

2. Roster imbalance in our top 8. If you assume 2 bigs will play, the other 8 are 1 PF(Bol), 2 SF(KD, Royce), 3 SG(Beal, Booker, Allen), and 2 PG(Jones, Morris). And Royce is kinda undersized as a 3. It’s compounded by the fact that if you made that a top 6, all 5(or at least 4)guards are in the top 6. We will either have to cut minutes or play 3 guards most of the time.

Not sure there is a realistic external solution. We probably just need to be elite offensively and hope the defense holds and that Nurkic finds a way to be more effective in the post season.