2016-2017 NBA SEASON: Crab walk vs Chef Wok the Threequel: The Return of the King

[KuroTsuki]

Draymond Green with the triple double without double digit points. 4 pts, 12 reb, 10 ast, 10 stl, 5 blk.

[Krandor]

1st trip dub in NBA history without the points. And he didn't even kick anyone in the balls.

[Dimmauk]

And now Oakley is banned from MSG, AND the head of security for MSG was fired for the incident.

God damn white people are banning errbody round here.

[Moss]

Draymond Green with the triple double without double digit points. 4 pts, 12 reb, 10 ast, 10 stl, 5 blk.

10 steals and 5 blocks holy fuck

[Jem]

Man, we are so fucking awful it's hard to watch now. Like at least with the kids last year we had close losses, not getting blown out by 20-30+ which has happened frequently this year.

Seen there's rumors we are trying to trade Ibaka. Makes sense. I like him but we're nowhere close and he's not the type of guy we can afford to give max in the summer (and that's if he would even say). Rumors say tons of teams interested (Toronto, Washington, Boston, Indiana, Houston, Portland, and San Antonio apparently) so we should be able to get a decent return on him which looked really unlikely even last week. Saw an article say Toronto 1st Rounder, Terrence Ross and Jared Sullinger for Serge. If that is actually on the table we should bite their hand off imo.


Also we should go into full on tank mode. We're not gonna make the playoffs and it's in our interests if the Lakers don't get a top 3 pick so we should try out tank them

[6souls]

KLove possibly out of the All-Star game due to a knee injury during the Nuggets game
http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index....gainst_mi.html

[Andalusian girls]

Nurkic for Plumlee trade, like it for both teams. Plumlee should be a little better skill-fit with Jokic and while Nurkic will never be the passer Plums is i think he projects as the much more serious prospect. also has another year on his rookie contract for Portland to decide if he projects longterm.

also, bummed to hear Embiid has a meniscus tear. hell of a player but so far his body ain't holding up.

[kisada]

embiiiiiid

I think Portland got away with murder, but I understand why Denver thought they had to do the trade

[Moss]

Nurkic for Plumlee trade, like it for both teams. Plumlee should be a little better skill-fit with Jokic and while Nurkic will never be the passer Plums is i think he projects as the much more serious prospect. also has another year on his rookie contract for Portland to decide if he projects longterm.

also, bummed to hear Embiid has a meniscus tear. hell of a player but so far his body ain't holding up.

embiiiiiid

I think Portland got away with murder, but I understand why Denver thought they had to do the trade

Plumlee obviously helps Denver in the short term but a 1st rounder is way too steep for him

Nurkic would be a serious prospect 10 years ago but I fail to see how he fits in the modern NBA as a post up big that can't pass or shoot (or post up)

[Andalusian girls]

though not yet very effective i think his post game is very promising, like his footwork and he has a nice touch around the basket.

but mostly he's potential. kid's only 22 and has never gotten serious runtime in Denver, never averaged even 18 minutes. if he can continue the improvements in offensive efficiency (jumped from 45% to 51% from the field) and develop into a plus defender his size is going to make him into a p serious force down low. and the 5 is still the one NBA position where shooting is not required.

[Andalusian girls]

Ibaka to the Raptors for Terrence Ross and a 1st round pick. Magic have really ballsed their franchise up, Harris + Dipo + Sabonis wind up being Terrence fuckin Ross and a late first rounder? at least the logjam is finally broken and Gordon should get more runtime, Hezonja as well if they've decided they're done breaking him.

great get for Toronto. their starting 4 was their weakest of weak spots and Ibaka fits a win-now timeline.

[kisada]

real good for raps

[Aragon of Odin]

It'll be better if we're able to sign him and not lose him on the open market this summer

[tyven]

man I was hoping wiz would find a way to get their serge on

[Vaspinne]

Desire to buy an Embiid jersey increasing.

[tyven]

if BG wants to hit their fundraising goal they need an Embiid jersey in the prize pool

[Moss]

though not yet very effective i think his post game is very promising, like his footwork and he has a nice touch around the basket.

but mostly he's potential. kid's only 22 and has never gotten serious runtime in Denver, never averaged even 18 minutes. if he can continue the improvements in offensive efficiency (jumped from 45% to 51% from the field) and develop into a plus defender his size is going to make him into a p serious force down low. and the 5 is still the one NBA position where shooting is not required.

that's a lot of "ifs" but yeah, makes sense to take a flier on him and see if he can develop

I'm still curious to see if pure post-up bigs have a place (or exist at all) in the coming years

[Jem]

Ibaka to the Raptors for Terrence Ross and a 1st round pick. Magic have really ballsed their franchise up, Harris + Dipo + Sabonis wind up being Terrence fuckin Ross and a late first rounder? at least the logjam is finally broken and Gordon should get more runtime, Hezonja as well if they've decided they're done breaking him.

great get for Toronto. their starting 4 was their weakest of weak spots and Ibaka fits a win-now timeline.

Honestly whilst we are looking far worse now than we did a year ago, I don't blame the GM. The deals haven't worked out but it's not like they looked awful at the time

Harris for Ilyasova + Jennings - This effectively became 'gave Harris away for nothing' so in hindsight looks fucking preposterous. However, at the time it actually looked really good. Harris was severely blocking the minutes of the younger players and wasn't offering much on our team. He was a ballhog who slowed down the play and we looked a waaaaay better team when he was out injured just before the trade. It made sense and everyone here applauded the deal at the time. Cleared up the logjam and gave us money to play with in the summer.

Oladipo/Ilyasova/Sabonis for Ibaka - I hated this deal because I liked Oladipo but it looked like solid business at the time albeit overpaying. Ibaka looked like exactly the sort of player Orlando needed. It hasn't been Ibaka's fault that the team inexplicably opts to just not play defense whatsoever for long periods of the time. Ibaka hasn't been the issue, it's the chemistry and lack of effort/hustle from so many other players. And whilst losing Oladipo sucked, you couldn't pay both Fournier and Oladipo. They opted to pay Fournier so had to trade Oladipo, maybe because Oladipo held more trade value than Fournier.

Ibaka for Ross/1st Rounder - Not ideal losing Ibaka but there was a very real risk of losing him for nothing in the summer. And even if we didn't, paying Ibaka 100m is not going to help us out longterm. He's a good player who I liked but is not the player you build your franchise around, he's that '3rd piece' kind of guy that compliments 2 great players that we don't have. Given the circumstances I think we did well to get what we did, I mean I literally posted a few posts up saying I'd bite their hand off if we got that sort of deal. Ross is locked up on a cheapish contract and the 1st rounder at least gives you more flexibility with cap space too. The other positive is that we will fucking finally be able to get Gordon some damn minutes at the 4 instead of forcing him into the 3 position which he clearly isn't suited to.


So yeah we look a lot worse than we did roster wise at the start of last season but I'm not upset about it. The deals weren't stupid, they mostly made sense, it just didn't work out. And at least we have salvaged something from it instead of ending up with absolutely nothing.

I expect we'll start lining up as Payton/Fournier/Ross/Gordon/Vucevic whilst tossing Hezonja some solid minutes. And that's not awful, I mean it really isn't much worse than Payton/Fournier/Harris/Frye/Vucevic which is how we were lining up pre-Harris trade. Really the downside is that last year we had upside on the bench (Oladipo, Hezonja, Gordon) whereas now we only have Hezonja/Biyombo plus guys who you already know what they are.

I'd have preferred we stuck with the youngsters but either way, neither of the options were going to develop into playoff contenders without drafting someone amazing or getting a great free agent pick-up. And money wise I think we're probably about the same, the Biyombo contract is the only horrible looking contract right now

[Jem]

tl;dr summary of a Magic fan

Our overall roster status isn't great but that trade is pretty damn good for us and a net positive compared to keeping Ibaka to the end of the season. It's way more than I hoped we'd get and better than Ibaka walking for free or Ibaka getting 100m+ from us to stay

[kisada]

if BG wants to hit their fundraising goal they need an Embiid jersey in the prize pool

i'd be so down for that shit