NBA Offseason Thread: Durant will remain in Brooklyn

[CWood21]

4 hours ago, NYRaider said:

We'd be trading Beverly's expiring deal, Bolmaro, and a 2023 1st to take on Russ salary? We're not giving away 2/3 solid assets to dump Conley, lol.

In this trade we'd be sending out:

• Pat Beverly ($13M expiring) as a guy that should be valued by playoff teams and a valuable asset at the deadline because of his contract/on ball defense.

• Leandro Bolmaro a 21 year old, former 1st round pick wing, on a roster that's extremely thin on the wing with minimal young talent to develop. 

• 2023 1st round pick when we're looking to rebuild our roster and have a ton of flexibility next offseason with 3 picks and like $45-50M in cap space. 

• Mike Conley who has 2 years left on his deal but the final season is only partially guaranteed.

We'd also be trading away three players and only receiving one back so after we signed vet minimum guys to fill out our roster we'd be in the luxury tax again.

That's certainly an interesting take on things, but you do you.

At this point, I honestly don't know what direction the Jazz are going.  Holding onto Donovan Mitchell implies a win-now mentality, but they're trading for Rudy Gobert essentially for draft picks implies they're in a reload/rebuild situation.  If the latter is the case (and I truly do believe it is), I'm not sure Mike Conley is going to be around when the Jazz are relevant again.  Getting out of that deal for expiring contracts and getting pick(s) in return seems like a near ideal situation.

Patrick Beverley isn't an overly valuable asset, especially at $13M.  He turns 34 years old in a few days, and he's on an expiring contract.  The value there is very limited to contenders.  Maybe you get a team with a bad contract and a heavily protected FRP to bite, but that's probably not going to happen.  Honestly, I'm looking at as a potential buyout candidate.

Leandro Balmaro was a throw-in for the Gobert trade, and he'd be a throw-in in this hypothetical trade.  Suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.  He was the 23rd pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, and in this past year he played in 35 games and averaged less then 7 MPG.  He's more likely to not see the end of his rookie contract than he is to be a useful rotation member.

As for the pick situation, I see it as giving up what is almost certainly going to be a bottom 5 FRP for a future pick in a post-LeBron era that might be a top 10 pick.  It could easily be a bottom 5 pick, but let's cut the difference as a middle of the pack pick in 2027 (or 2029).  If you want a late FRP, go right ahead but I'd rather have that distant FRP with limited-to-no protection then a very late FRP next year.

And calling Mike Conley's contract next year unguaranteed is intellectually dishonest.  It's partially guaranteed at $14.32M so any team that acquires and waives him (including the Jazz) are on the hook for his dead money.  So let's say the Jazz waive him, they've essentially payed him $37M for 1 year of production.

[NYRaider]

1 hour ago, CWood21 said:

That's certainly an interesting take on things, but you do you.

At this point, I honestly don't know what direction the Jazz are going.  Holding onto Donovan Mitchell implies a win-now mentality, but they're trading for Rudy Gobert essentially for draft picks implies they're in a reload/rebuild situation.  If the latter is the case (and I truly do believe it is), I'm not sure Mike Conley is going to be around when the Jazz are relevant again.  Getting out of that deal for expiring contracts and getting pick(s) in return seems like a near ideal situation.

Patrick Beverley isn't an overly valuable asset, especially at $13M.  He turns 34 years old in a few days, and he's on an expiring contract.  The value there is very limited to contenders.  Maybe you get a team with a bad contract and a heavily protected FRP to bite, but that's probably not going to happen.  Honestly, I'm looking at as a potential buyout candidate.

Leandro Balmaro was a throw-in for the Gobert trade, and he'd be a throw-in in this hypothetical trade.  Suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.  He was the 23rd pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, and in this past year he played in 35 games and averaged less then 7 MPG.  He's more likely to not see the end of his rookie contract than he is to be a useful rotation member.

As for the pick situation, I see it as giving up what is almost certainly going to be a bottom 5 FRP for a future pick in a post-LeBron era that might be a top 10 pick.  It could easily be a bottom 5 pick, but let's cut the difference as a middle of the pack pick in 2027 (or 2029).  If you want a late FRP, go right ahead but I'd rather have that distant FRP with limited-to-no protection then a very late FRP next year.

And calling Mike Conley's contract next year unguaranteed is intellectually dishonest.  It's partially guaranteed at $14.32M so any team that acquires and waives him (including the Jazz) are on the hook for his dead money.  So let's say the Jazz waive him, they've essentially payed him $37M for 1 year of production.

We literally just traded away two starters to get under the luxury tax. You think that Danny Ainge is going to have a change of heart and decide to go over the line as a repeating tax paying team on a whim? And the kicker is that we're also going to give up a first round pick and be in the same position that we literally just got out of with limited flexibility for in season moves with a player on a supermax contract. 

We have three first round picks next year, $52M in expiring deals (Bojan, Beverly, Beasley, NAW) and an additional $42M in expiring deals the following year. (Gay, Conley, Clarkson) As it stands we're set to start next summer with like $50M in cap space, 3 draft picks, and no long term money tied into anyone outside of Donovan. I trust that Danny Ainge is going to retool quickly, we went from having pretty meh assets and almost no flexibility to like 12 1sts over the next 7 years with basically as much roster flexibility as any team in the NBA.

The Jazz have already said that we're not going to buy him out, there's no reason for us too. Did you miss last season when Beverly was arguably the Wolves most important player and completely changed their culture and set the tone for them defensively? Regardless though keeping him, Beasley, and Bojan as expiring deals give us flexibility to make moves. Trading away smaller expiring deals for a huge one, plus a first round pick this year, for a pick in 7 years does nothing for us.  

The value of Pat Beverly is that you can add a starting veteran PG that's also one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA without any long term commitment to him.

Leandro Bolmaro was a rookie last season and was the MVP of Liga ACB in 2020-2021, which is largely considered the second best professional basketball league in the world. He struggled in Minnesota but I heard a lot of it was a result of him not speaking english and having a hard time assimilating to living in the US. He played well in the G-League though and he's only 21 years old, we have almost 0 young talent so just giving him away for free doesn't really benefit us in any way.  

I'd rather keep our trade assets and try to retool the roster around Donovan Mitchell, if we're taking on Russ huge deal to help the Lakers we'd need at least one first round pick without sending any picks out.

As I said we're already slated to have a ton of cap flexibility with or without Conley's contract. If we don't move him another team could create $10M in space by waiving him after a trade or just take on his $24M in expiring salary. He wasn't good in the playoffs but he played well in the regular season and it was one of the healthiest years of his career. 

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by NYRaider

[NYRaider]

You also said that Donovan Mitchell's trade value was about on par with Ayton. You severely underrate the value of 29 teams assets and overvalue the Lakers doo doo.

[NYRaider]

A more realistic framework that I could see @CWood21

Jazz receive: Jakob Poeltl, Josh Richardson

Spurs receive: Russell Westbrook, Talen Horton-Tucker, 2023 1st (via Jazz), 2027 1st (via Lakers)

Lakers receive: Kyrie Irving, Bojan Bogdanovic

Nets receive: 2029 1st (via Lakers)

If it were another team losing LeBron, not having a ton of great draft capital, etc. those future picks would be worth more. But I just don't think Ainge would value the Lakers picks very highly because we've seen time and time again that the tides can turn for the Lakers almost instantly. Could the Lakers be terrible 5-7 years from now? Sure. But it's just as likely that you're able to lure superstar talent via free agency and are one of the best teams in the league. 

I mean look at this offseason, it looked like you guys would just punt LeBron's final season and now you're on the verge of acquiring Kyrie Irving. For the same package that the Rockets wanted in return John Wall, lol. And when you look at it in the grand scheme, Rob P will have basically turned Kuzma, Harrell, KCP, and a late 1st into Kyrie Irving, a top 20 player in his prime.

Edited July 10, 2022 by NYRaider

[CWood21]

7 hours ago, NYRaider said:

We literally just traded away two starters to get under the luxury tax. You think that Danny Ainge is going to have a change of heart and decide to go over the line as a repeating tax paying team on a whim? And the kicker is that we're also going to give up a first round pick and be in the same position that we literally just got out of with limited flexibility for in season moves with a player on a supermax contract. 

Spotrac has the Jazz about ~$11.3M below the luxury tax, and this deal adds $8.9M.  Add in two minimum salaries for a 4 year veteran, and you're adding about $3.6M which puts them at $12.5M.  If dipping below the luxury tax is that important, just send Rudy Gay to the Lakers since this proposed deal would drop their luxury tax bill.  I believe the deal would work with Malik Beasley included instead of Patrick Beverley if that's preferred.

7 hours ago, NYRaider said:

The Jazz have already said that we're not going to buy him out, there's no reason for us too. Did you miss last season when Beverly was arguably the Wolves most important player and completely changed their culture and set the tone for them defensively? Regardless though keeping him, Beasley, and Bojan as expiring deals give us flexibility to make moves. Trading away smaller expiring deals for a huge one, plus a first round pick this year, for a pick in 7 years does nothing for us.  

The value of Pat Beverly is that you can add a starting veteran PG that's also one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA without any long term commitment to him.

I'll believe it when I see it.  Somehow I don't see a 34 year old player being fond of playing for a team treading water this year.  And you're wildly overstating Beverley's impact.  Last year, the Wolves were 24th in oPPG at 113.3 PPG.  The year before that, they were 29th at 117.7 PPG.  They went from being god awful to being aggressively mediocre in the one year that Beverley was there.  And the way you pretend that Westbrook isn't expiring is comical.

7 hours ago, NYRaider said:

Leandro Bolmaro was a rookie last season and was the MVP of Liga ACB in 2020-2021, which is largely considered the second best professional basketball league in the world. He struggled in Minnesota but I heard a lot of it was a result of him not speaking english and having a hard time assimilating to living in the US. He played well in the G-League though and he's only 21 years old, we have almost 0 young talent so just giving him away for free doesn't really benefit us in any way.  

I don't buy this for a second, but if you want to go right ahead.

[CWood21]

7 hours ago, NYRaider said:

You also said that Donovan Mitchell's trade value was about on par with Ayton. You severely underrate the value of 29 teams assets and overvalue the Lakers doo doo.

That's categorically false.  That's what you think I said.  I asked what the difference between that rumored return of Simmons/Ayton and Donovan Mitchell.  I don't think DeAndre Ayton is overly valuable by any means.

[CWood21]

7 hours ago, NYRaider said:

A more realistic framework that I could see @CWood21

Jazz receive: Jakob Poeltl, Josh Richardson

Spurs receive: Russell Westbrook, Talen Horton-Tucker, 2023 1st (via Jazz), 2027 1st (via Lakers)

Lakers receive: Kyrie Irving, Bojan Bogdanovic

Nets receive: 2029 1st (via Lakers)

If it were another team losing LeBron, not having a ton of great draft capital, etc. those future picks would be worth more. But I just don't think Ainge would value the Lakers picks very highly because we've seen time and time again that the tides can turn for the Lakers almost instantly. Could the Lakers be terrible 5-7 years from now? Sure. But it's just as likely that you're able to lure superstar talent via free agency and are one of the best teams in the league. 

I mean look at this offseason, it looked like you guys would just punt LeBron's final season and now you're on the verge of acquiring Kyrie Irving. For the same package that the Rockets wanted in return John Wall, lol. And when you look at it in the grand scheme, Rob P will have basically turned Kuzma, Harrell, KCP, and a late 1st into Kyrie Irving, a top 20 player in his prime.

That's a deal that probably works for the Lakers.  They'd probably prefer Richardson, but that's arguing semantics.

The same comment was made at the time of the Anthony Davis trade, and the Lakers just sent the 8th overall pick in this past draft.  There's way too many variables between now and when that pick conveys that you're going to be able to say that pick is going to be late.

[NYRaider]

18 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

Spotrac has the Jazz about ~$11.3M below the luxury tax, and this deal adds $8.9M.  Add in two minimum salaries for a 4 year veteran, and you're adding about $3.6M which puts them at $12.5M.  If dipping below the luxury tax is that important, just send Rudy Gay to the Lakers since this proposed deal would drop their luxury tax bill.  I believe the deal would work with Malik Beasley included instead of Patrick Beverley if that's preferred.

I'll believe it when I see it.  Somehow I don't see a 34 year old player being fond of playing for a team treading water this year.  And you're wildly overstating Beverley's impact.  Last year, the Wolves were 24th in oPPG at 113.3 PPG.  The year before that, they were 29th at 117.7 PPG.  They went from being god awful to being aggressively mediocre in the one year that Beverley was there.  And the way you pretend that Westbrook isn't expiring is comical.

I don't buy this for a second, but if you want to go right ahead.

The only reason we would've potentially stayed in the luxury tax again this season and paid the repeater penalty would be if we kept Rudy and were trying to make a championship push. I don't see any way that going back into the tax while trading away a 2023 1st round pick for a 2027/2029 1st round pick is reasonable or benefits the team. 

The Timberwolves won 23 games in 20/21 and were 28th in defensive rating. They improved to 13th this past season and made the playoffs. Say what you want about Beverly, he has been the starting PG on a playoff team in 6/7 years. If you doubt his value to the Timberwolves you should read up on what the guys that cover the team had to say about him. Pat is 34 years old and is on the last and only sizeable contract of his career. I doubt that he's going to want to take less money at this point. Regardless though we're not buying him out and I can see a variety of scenarios where he becomes valuable for a contending team at the ASB. 

https://www.twincities.com/2022/04/11/patrick-beverley-has-been-timberwolves-most-impactful-player-this-season-and-hell-let-you-know-it/

https://zonecoverage.com/2022/timberwolves/the-wolves-respected-patrick-beverley-and-he-delivered/

https://theathletic.com/3243257/2022/04/12/timberwolves-patrick-beverley-meeting/

The fact that you act like moving Beverly, Beasley, Bojan, etc. who all have value for contending teams and are cheaper expiring deals would be difficult enough to rationalize taking back Russ is comical. 

Bolmaro was a rookie last season, he's 21 years old and was the MVP of the second best league in the world, he's one of the few wings we have and on an extremely cheap deal. What benefit do we get from dumping him? We've shown that we can identify and develop unheralded players.  

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by NYRaider

[NYRaider]

13 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

That's a deal that probably works for the Lakers.  They'd probably prefer Richardson, but that's arguing semantics.

The same comment was made at the time of the Anthony Davis trade, and the Lakers just sent the 8th overall pick in this past draft.  There's way too many variables between now and when that pick conveys that you're going to be able to say that pick is going to be late.

If we're taking on Russ salary we're going to need picks, we're not going to give picks away. There is zero chance that Danny Ainge, the puppet master himself, is taking on Russ deal unless he's also fleecing the Lakers.

Edited July 10, 2022 by NYRaider

[NYRaider]

22 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

That's categorically false.  That's what you think I said.  I asked what the difference between that rumored return of Simmons/Ayton and Donovan Mitchell.  I don't think DeAndre Ayton is overly valuable by any means.

Facts and Donovan is one of the most valuable assets in the entire league. 

Edited July 10, 2022 by NYRaider

[NYRaider]

On 7/8/2022 at 11:39 PM, CWood21 said:

I refuse to believe that you're this naive that you're not following the rumors.  Let's recap them, shall we?

FACTS
1.) Lakers want Kyrie Irving.
2.) Nets need to add salary in order to take on Westbrook.

REPORTED
1.) Lakers do NOT have interest in adding Joe Harris, and prefer Seth Curry as the salary ballast as part of the trade.
2.) Nets have ZERO interest in taking on Russell Westbrook and his salary.

There's absolutely NOTHING to suggest that the Lakers aren't willing to include picks in a Westbrook/Irving.  I think the number of picks involved and the protections involved in those picks are probably the bigger hurdle to clear.  The Lakers just handed over the #8 pick in the '22 draft to the Pelicans.  If the Lakers didn't win a championship in 2020, that'd probably be a bigger black eye than they'd care to admit.  The Lakers' cap after this season is remarkably clear.  They've got Anthony Davis and potentially THT and Damion Jones under contract.  That's max FA contract cap space.  But that's also without LeBron James.  They're keeping cap flexibility right now.

So the Lakers essentially have to hope that Pop and the Spurs take the grenade for them. The same team that has refused to help the Lakers in any way shape or form during Pop's whole tenure, they literally haven't been involved in a trade with the Lakers in over three decades. 

[CWood21]

2 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

So the Lakers essentially have to hope that Pop and the Spurs take the grenade for them. The same team that has refused to help the Lakers in any way shape or form during Pop's whole tenure, they literally haven't been involved in a trade with the Lakers in over three decades. 

And Pop will probably want to take a pound of flesh in the process.  LIS, what do the Nets want/need in a Kyrie Irving trade will dictate their return?  They're not getting substantial cap relief AND draft picks in return.  It's one or the other.

[NYRaider]

10 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

And Pop will probably want to take a pound of flesh in the process.  LIS, what do the Nets want/need in a Kyrie Irving trade will dictate their return?  They're not getting substantial cap relief AND draft picks in return.  It's one or the other.

I just don't see how $50M in additional luxury tax penalties for picks or moving Kyrie for relief (when they'll be in the tax anyways) is worth moving Kyrie. Seems like their best option is to just keep him and let him walk next offseason.

I don't think other teams are as desperate to help the Lakers right their terrible decision to trade for Russ so they can acquire Kyrie and compete for a title as you do.

Edited July 10, 2022 by NYRaider

[CWood21]

1 hour ago, NYRaider said:

I just don't see how $50M in additional luxury tax penalties for picks or moving Kyrie for relief (when they'll be in the tax anyways) is worth moving Kyrie. Seems like their best option is to just keep him and let him walk next offseason.

I don't think other teams are as desperate to help the Lakers right their terrible decision to trade for Russ so they can acquire Kyrie and compete for a title as you do.

Hence the reason why we were talking about the inclusion of Seth Curry or Joe Harris in order to make the deal more palatable in terms of money, but then the Nets weren't interested in giving up Seth Curry and the Nets making Joe Harris untouchable.  LIS, we have no idea what exactly Brooklyn's motivation in a potential Kyrie Irving deal.  Is it to maximize their draft capital returns?  Is it to maximize their cap savings?  Or is it some combination of the two?  There's been enough iterations of the three types of trades that could yield Kyrie Irving to the Lakers.  As I've mentioned before, if cap relief is a pretty substantial part of an Irving trade than I wouldn't expect much in terms of draft capital.  And vice versa.  There's just no market for Kyrie Irving.

And let's go into hypothetical trade scenarios for other teams, despite the fact that no other team has shown a willingness or interest in acquiring Kyrie Irving.

Miami - A package would need to be built around Kyle Lowry (2 years, $58 remaining) and a salary filler plus whatever pick(s) they're willing to offer.  They can offer their 2023 FRP and their '27 FRP assuming their pick is conveyed in 2025 to OKC.  A projected late FRP plus a bad contract seems like a dealbreaker for me.
Dallas - A package would likely be headlined with either THJ or Spencer Dinwiddie along with a cap filler like Dwight Powell.  As far as picks go, they can't trade a FRP until 2025 at the earliest.
LA Clippers - They just signed John Wall, so I'd be surprised if they're interested but they've got cap filler contracts, but Reggie Jackson is the only expiring one.  Clippers can't deal any FRP until 2028, so I think it's safe to say they're out.
Philadelphia - Any deal has to start with Tobias Harris (2 years, $77M remaining) to make it work financially, which is probably a non-starter for Brooklyn.  And to make matters worse, the only pick they can trade is their 2029 FRP.
New York - They just signed Jalen Brunson, so I'd put them in a similar territory as the Clippers, but with picks.  Don't think the Knicks have any significant cap space to utilize, so they'd need to build an offer around Evan Fournier (2 years, $36.9M remaining) and Derrick Rose.  They've got picks to utilize.

Any team outside of those 6 are probably trading for Kyrie's expiring contract, not for the player himself which means they'd be looking to unload long-term money onto Brooklyn.

[NYRaider]

22 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

Hence the reason why we were talking about the inclusion of Seth Curry or Joe Harris in order to make the deal more palatable in terms of money, but then the Nets weren't interested in giving up Seth Curry and the Nets making Joe Harris untouchable.  LIS, we have no idea what exactly Brooklyn's motivation in a potential Kyrie Irving deal.  Is it to maximize their draft capital returns?  Is it to maximize their cap savings?  Or is it some combination of the two?  There's been enough iterations of the three types of trades that could yield Kyrie Irving to the Lakers.  As I've mentioned before, if cap relief is a pretty substantial part of an Irving trade than I wouldn't expect much in terms of draft capital.  And vice versa.  There's just no market for Kyrie Irving.

And let's go into hypothetical trade scenarios for other teams, despite the fact that no other team has shown a willingness or interest in acquiring Kyrie Irving.

Miami - A package would need to be built around Kyle Lowry (2 years, $58 remaining) and a salary filler plus whatever pick(s) they're willing to offer.  They can offer their 2023 FRP and their '27 FRP assuming their pick is conveyed in 2025 to OKC.  A projected late FRP plus a bad contract seems like a dealbreaker for me.
Dallas - A package would likely be headlined with either THJ or Spencer Dinwiddie along with a cap filler like Dwight Powell.  As far as picks go, they can't trade a FRP until 2025 at the earliest.
LA Clippers - They just signed John Wall, so I'd be surprised if they're interested but they've got cap filler contracts, but Reggie Jackson is the only expiring one.  Clippers can't deal any FRP until 2028, so I think it's safe to say they're out.
Philadelphia - Any deal has to start with Tobias Harris (2 years, $77M remaining) to make it work financially, which is probably a non-starter for Brooklyn.  And to make matters worse, the only pick they can trade is their 2029 FRP.
New York - They just signed Jalen Brunson, so I'd put them in a similar territory as the Clippers, but with picks.  Don't think the Knicks have any significant cap space to utilize, so they'd need to build an offer around Evan Fournier (2 years, $36.9M remaining) and Derrick Rose.  They've got picks to utilize.

Any team outside of those 6 are probably trading for Kyrie's expiring contract, not for the player himself which means they'd be looking to unload long-term money onto Brooklyn.

Even in a hypothetical situation where they trade Kyrie for 0 salary coming back they’re still likely going to be in the tax after they fill out their roster.