NBA OFF/OPT OUT SEASON 2016: THIS IS FOR YOU CLEVE LAND!

[Valisk]

Mavs trying to remain competitive for Dirk's final years by becoming the Golden State Rejects. Bogut, Barnes, Curry (Seth), have verbally agreed to terms. Deron Williams and Dirk have resigned. All we need is David Lee to return and we are Golden State Lite 2014!

[Kibble]

Signs for the 3.5m mmle. Gets 50m role in Space Jam 2.

[Gredival]

what in the fuck are the Lakers thinking though. do they have anything even resembling a plan

I mean Jim Buss also thought that Mike Brown and Mike D'Antoni were better coaching hires than Phil Jackson.

Mozgof is far from the worst thing he's done.

[Moss]

I have never seen so many hot takes in such a short span. Unfortunately AG beat me to it:

the salt is real and there are some crazy dumb things being said in this thread. Durant is a dominant two-way star and one of the three best players in the league and he's running off to play with another one of the three best players in the league and a 73 win team. they are the odds on title favorites and the death lineup just got a whole lot deathier replacing Harrison fucking Barnes with Kevin fucking Durant.

losing Bogut + Ezeli hurts defensively but they'll have a 5 millionish trade exception to pick up a center who wants to win a ring, and Durant gives much better rim protection at the 3/4 than Barnes did. halfcourt chemistry will likely be an issue early, Durant has played in an iso offense for his entire career while the Warriors live for passing and movement, and they'll have to figure out how to share shots with so many mouths to feed. but that's one of those good problems.

I don't think it will take long for Durant to integrate. He'll have some ball-stopping habits to break but the spacing will be soooo much better than he's used to playing with so many non-shooters in OKC.

Zaza is worse though. in every conceivable facet of defense Zaza is worse. GS will remain outstanding on the perimeter but when stronger players smash into the paint there's not gonna be much to overcome.

Zaza is definitely worse than Bogut defensively, but he's still a strong positional defender that takes a ton of charges. Rebounding is part of defense too and he is very strong in that aspect. Getting him as a cheap Bogut replacement was a coup.

The Warriors gladly traded depth for star power, which won't be as important anyway in the playoffs when the rotation shortens. They are also better protected against a Curry injury since they have another MVP to take the playmaking burden.

I'm happy for Durant and don't fault him at all for the decision. As a fan it sucks since that OKC-GS series was so good and now we likely don't have much to look forward to until the finals. Not a good time to be a second-tier contender (read: any playoff team that isn't GS/CLE) with GS hitting such a high peak. Teams like the T-Wolves are well-positioned to start peaking as the GS-CLE teams start to weaken.

[Moss]

My irrelevant Hawkthoughts: Dwight doesn't fit the system but hey, rim protection and rebounding! Haven't seen that on the Hawk team in a while.

Horford has been the best Hawk for a long time and one of my favorites, but it isn't like we're losing him in the middle of his prime. He's 30 now and will be 34-35 at the end of his contract. At the 11th hour, he and the Hawks were $6m apart from an agreement, which tells me the Hawks ownership wasn't desperate to keep him. They had contingencies in place (signing Howard/keeping Millsap, who was on the block) to soften the blow.

[tyven]

GD (btw GS is now GD, it stands for golden dumpster) have signed David West

[Krandor]

For the league minimum too.

Edit : lol people already shitting on him too for a quote 2 years ago "I'm not going to be one of those guys that's just out here chasing that (ring)"

[kisada]

nothing as fun as an nba offseason

[kisada]

oh man i don't think i ever cried harder in childhood

the Russ react as Uncle Phil tho dead

speaking of Russ OKC cannot let him hit the free market a year after seeing Durant walk. if he doesn't sign an extension money is on him getting traded.

that ep and series finale

russ react the best tho for sure

[Krandor]

nothing as fun as an nba offseason

Nothing will ever compete with DeAndre last year.

Potentially the greatest offseason moment of any sport ever.

[tyven]

What will it take for the Timberwolves to land Russy?

[Krandor]

Unnamed sources in the twittersphere think the Celtics might be trying to put together a package to get Westbrook.

[kisada]

i absolutely 100% would if i were boston. 100% smart and logical.

okc obviously has to be reeling and it's not like they have some diamonds in the rough who might keep them championship competitive after a couple years of development. presti is smart and i think a rebuild/restructure now is a good move, especially since they aren't gonna be beating GS in the playoffs.

[Krandor]

The big problem going forward for OKC though is that it's not an appealing place to play. The only real draw they've had is "You get to play with Durant and Westbrook!" Remove one or both of those and it's just not very interesting.

Of course, that's a big problem for alot of the NBA as a whole with max contracts being a thing. When everyone can offer the same amount of money it limits the appeal of teams that aren't immediate contenders.

[Andalusian girls]

For the league minimum too.

Edit : lol people already shitting on him too for a quote 2 years ago "I'm not going to be one of those guys that's just out here chasing that (ring)"

West is a good pickup for them but you gotta admit it's hilarious he said that immediately before leaving for the Spurs then leaving the Spurs for super charged GS

[Krandor]

As someone who grew up a Sonics fan, and later took up cheering for the team sharing geographic location with the Niners/Giants this entire situation is beautiful to me.

But I definitely understand every single piece of hate they're getting.

[kisada]

The big problem going forward for OKC though is that it's not an appealing place to play. The only real draw they've had is "You get to play with Durant and Westbrook!" Remove one or both of those and it's just not very interesting.

Of course, that's a big problem for alot of the NBA as a whole with max contracts being a thing. When everyone can offer the same amount of money it limits the appeal of teams that aren't immediate contenders.

fwiw if okc begins their rebuild now, they will be in very good position to reap the benefits of having clear cap space. next year the cap is projected to go up again, but after that it's projected to go down. and after that nobody knows, so a lot of teams handing out big money contracts in the next couple years will be absolutely hammered on space, leaving okc as one of the only teams able to offer max space. but that's if they start tearing it down now.

[Byrd]

The big problem going forward for OKC though is that it's not an appealing place to play. The only real draw they've had is "You get to play with Durant and Westbrook!" Remove one or both of those and it's just not very interesting.

Yup. I think we're going to see OKC suffer from the same problem that Portland, Utah, and others do - an inability to draw big name free agents due to lack of night life, a sexy lifestyle, and ethnic diversity. Although OKC is almost assuredly more diverse than either of those cities, I think it's going to have a lot to overcome in order to draw big named free agents; i.e. a Westbrook and Durant already in the fold. The only way those small market teams have traditionally been title contenders is to draft well and supplement with role players.

It will also be interesting to see how well OKC does supporting a team that's not either brand new or a title contender; they've never had to do that before. My gut feeling is they'll do fine, similar to Utah and Portland, but they could have problems. OKC is the 45th largest TV market and the 47th largest metro area - those numbers don't bode particularly well. If you include the whole state, though, they're just below Oregon and right above Utah, so it's certainly possible the team could be viable; states with only one major pro team tend to support that team fairly unilaterally.

[Krandor]

Boris Diaw traded to the Jazz

[Moss]

long article with some nuggets of insight into Durant's decision

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/16...a-city-thunder