If the Tanks Succeed, then Victory Follows ····· · · · NBA Offseason 2026

Indiana Pacers
Washington Wizards
Brooklyn Nets
Chicago Bulls
Utah Jazz
Sacramento Kings
Memphis Grizzlies
New Orleans Pelicans
Dallas Mavericks

Welcome to the offseason.

Shams Charania @ShamsCharania

BREAKING: The Chicago Bulls have dismissed executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley, sources tell ESPN.

gotta give em a lil more time

fascinated to find out how they'll hire someone even worse

this draft is funny theres the consensus top 3 then its possible that 6 of the next 7 picks will be guards and what order theyll go in i dont think anyone knows

even though the atl pick isnt gonna be amazing for sa this year (probably #20) im kinda fascinated by what the sopurs will do bc theyve always committed to best player available and now that seems kinda stupid this year bc they really do not need another guard but desperately need a guy with size who can shoot and rebound, and there might be some options there at that pick if they keep it.

cameron carr could be nice for them hes not the big wing/pf that they really need but he is a wing who can shoot which they need, crazy athlete too

i could see it, spurs play a pretty small lineup anyway (usually two guards, two small wings, and a big), harrison barnes might be the only guy who is a true pf although that is almost exclusively where 6'6" carter bryant plays too

at some point theyre prob going to need to back the truck up for a big wing who can play the 4 rebound shoot and so forth, those guys are in demand

they may already have that guy in carter. he plays bigger than his height would suggest. super strong, very defensively active, and has put together a few pretty nice games in recent weeks. if he turns a corner and becomes a consistent day in day out guy, he’s gonna be a really really good role player for them.

yeah could be he is quite robust hes pretty raw tho and youd like him to be a lil bigger for the 4

the madison square surveillance state

On May 5, 2021, the Rangers were playing the Washington Capitals. The game started out nuts, with 14 players fighting in the first five minutes. But Eversole's crew was more concerned with policing the fans when the Capitals took a commanding lead into the third period.

“Just heard a sell the team. Any idea who screamed it,” Eversole asked a Signal group chat of MSG security staff reviewed by WIRED. Two minutes later, he added: “Now Dolan sucks. Where is it.”

https://www.wired.com/story/madison-square-garden-jim-dolan-surveillance-machine/

lol

MSG Entertainment declined to specifically comment on WIRED's reporting about Dolan and the activities of his security teams. A company spokesperson said in a statement that “this story is built on false, misleading and unverified allegations, including claims drawn from lawsuits filed by rapacious litigators. We categorically reject such reckless reporting and are actively evaluating our legal options against WIRED.”

embarrassing.

i'm sure we talked about this at the time but here's an article from a few years ago about MSG using facial recognition as a tool in their valiant mission to eliminate any mindcrimes against James Dolan happening on their property

WIRED exposing all the psy ops this week

i wonder if zohran & lina kahn will take an interest in this…

hornets shameful quarter

oops

no it's correct because the hornets will be in the offseason shortly

that is true

sad way to go out but one would think theyve got a nice shot at making the real playoffs next year

yeah we'll see, i think they're still a very high-variance team given their youth and style of play

think if they can stay healthy theyll prob be good ball and miller are kinda injury prone tho

i dont really understand miller as a player he puts up good numbers but he seems pretty passive a lot of the time, they dont really use him as a ball handler seems like hes mostly either hanging out in the corner or coming off of screens cutting etc, is he not good the with the ball

ball balls, miller mills

ha nice

the roles they were mfin born to play

billy donovan exiting the bulls, apparently being the most important person in their basketball op was not compelling enough

one could see how coaching the bulls might get tiring after a while

pretty funny for the guy who runs the bulls to be like "if a candidate doesn't think billy donovan is one of the best coaches in the nba then he isn't right for this job!" and then like a week later billy donovan quits. great franchise

kudos to the bulls for developing a new kind of worst team the always slightly below average worst team, it doesnt seem like a team thats slightly below average can be a worst team how can they compete with the wizards or kings who are frequently very bad but after a while of watching them put up 39 wins a year it starts to seem somehow worse than being really bad

pretty funny for the guy who runs the bulls to be like "if a candidate doesn't think billy donovan is one of the best coaches in the nba then he isn't right for this job!" and then like a week later billy donovan quits. great franchise

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, April 21, 2026 1:21 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is it possible the guy who runs the Bulls was having difficulty finding candidates who thought Billy Donovan was one of the best coaches in the NBA so he went to Billy Donovan and suggested he quit before he was fired. I'm probably assigning to much logic to the guy who runs the Bulls.

kudos to the bulls for developing a new kind of worst team the always slightly below average worst team, it doesnt seem like a team thats slightly below average can be a worst team how can they compete with the wizards or kings who are frequently very bad but after a while of watching them put up 39 wins a year it starts to seem somehow worse than being really bad

This was m/l the warriors for a decade straight before curry’s first good year (‘13). It’s real painful to go through.

I think I’m becoming a big Darius Acuff Jr guy

not saying it cant work, jalen brunson, but taking a small guard who cant defend is just so dicey, trae young

these six guards who are going to go somewhere soon after the top three is kind of a crazy sitch which one of them is best which is worst who is to say

think im gonna go

mikel brown
kingston flemmings
labaron philon
keaton wagler
darius acuff
brayden burries

i have absolutely no confidence in this it could be perfectly wrong

think brown and flemmings are the only guys of the group who have legit nba size athleticism and creation ability, philon and wagler are unathletic and weak acuff is small and burries is prob more of a complimentary player in the league

not saying it cant work, jalen brunson, but taking a small guard who cant defend is just so dicey, trae young

― lag∞n, Thursday, April 23, 2026 4:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is bad real bad michael jackson

i will say that ultimately the teams have to decide who they like, size athleticism etc are all just heuristics so far as projecting being good at nba goes, for instance steph curry does not have elite nba physical gifts and yet he is still very good at basketball, and draft history is littered with athletic freak busts

^ all of which are good arguments against tanking as a surefire way to accelerate a rebuild. it only works as well as your scouting team and general manager's abilities allow. it also helps a lot if the owner doesn't get involved in making the final decision.

even if you have good decision makers a full teardown tank is pretty risky okc did it, celtics traded away their aging stars then started building towards being a winning team almost immediately, spurs just kinda had a bad team and then tanked for wemby, nugs didnt tank, minny was bad for a couple years dont remember what they did as far as tanking to get ant, cavs tanked for a few years post bron i think, indy tanked this year but didnt really tank to get their finals team last year

so the only top team that really did the full on multi year bottom out plan was the thunder, most of the others did some lesser spot tanking, denver drafted the best basketball player in the world at the end of the second round during a taco bell commercial

tbf cleve mightve been a full teardown and then they just moved their acquired assets for a quick return to form dont really remember the exact circumstances other than lebron wasnt on the team anymore

that last year of cleveland lebron was a bizarre roster https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CLE/2018.html

cleveland thought they were setting themselves up for life post-lebron better than they had the first go around but they didn't count on kyrie being a weirdo and requesting a trade, then getting fleeced by danny ainge as one does when they actually traded him

OKC only bottomed out for a couple of seasons - they were in the 2020 playoffs, and back in the play-ins in 2023. They fast tracked their rebuild with the lopsided Clippers trade, but haven't had many high draft picks. Chet was #2, the next highest pick in their squad is Cason Wallace (#10).

In comparison, Rockets got four consecutive top 4 picks, while Spurs got three top 4 picks, including a generational big man at #1. Not sure why the Thunder are the poster boys for tanking...

because teams want to believe that they can just throw in the towel and not try to win and it will lead to becoming the thunder

so crazy it just might work

tho it is true the thunder rebuild was really more like the celtics than it was the process

Taylor Jenkins new Bux coach. Ja / Giannis pairing loading

Welcome to the offseason Blazers, Hawks & Nuggets.

I forgot to add the Suns to that list, but they're easily forgettable.

sorry the season is over for the nugs kev, i feel like gordon is maybe the most valuable player in the league in a way?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, May 1, 2026 8:16 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah. I’ve been ruefully noting this team’s parallels to milwaukee’s post-championship era, and gordon’s importance and lack of availability is pretty reminiscent of middleton’s role. they’ve been better overall and jokic has been more available than giannis, but the overall trend is pretty unmistakable.

that game was so frustrating. minnesota had 19 offensive rebounds, and it felt like they all came on shots where the nuggets played good defense for 20 seconds and forced a tough shot. some of those were bad bounces, but minnesota clearly wanted this more and fought for those rebounds. and mcdaniels just owns jamal. brutal way to go out

moving my nuggets talk over here because they don’t deserve to be in the offs

on the other, denver’s depth was really exposed — minnesota was missing their three best guards but still had mcdaniels, randle & naz to facilitate some sort of offense. meanwhile denver was mostly healthy but was running out guys who were basically useless — braun & spencer jones played 63 minutes combined and took 8 shots, bruce brown was kinda just running around out there… cam johnson had a good game but he’s still just a spot up shooter. one of the two teams just had a flat out better roster

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Friday, May 1, 2026 8:52 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

have to stick up for a couple of these guys here. spencer jones was on a two-way contract this year, he wasn’t supposed to have to play this sort of role. being a league-average level player is a huge find for them and he helped keep them afloat in the regular season. but he’s obviously not the kind of guy you’d want to have to start a playoff series since AG and watson were out, but that’s not on him

cam johnson was great last night and it wasn’t just his outside shooting. his shot was off in the beginning of the year and that got a lot of attention, but I thought he was a solid defender all year and he finished the season really strong. he shot 79% at the rim this series and was pretty much the only nugget to get there consistently. his contract is super reasonable. they do miss MPJ’s rebounding though

braun…yeah. totally a lost year for him. his contract has the potential to be a huge albatross. that said he had a bad ankle injury in november, took forever to come back, and wasn’t really the same after. he shot almost 40% from 3 last year and was closer to 30% this year and didn’t have the same presence at the rim, in transition, or on defense. there’s no way they’ll be able to trade him so we’re just going to have to hope for a bounce back. he does play really well with jokic

bruce just isn’t a rotation quality player on most teams any more. he’d be fine getting 10-12 minutes but (again) due to the injuries he had to scale up, and he just doesn’t really have that in him over a large sample. still, for a guy on a minimum contract he gave good value, just had to play too much. I also think he played too much in the regular season when the team was healthy, but the coaches seem to love him. don’t really see it tbh

what they gonna do about peyton? they have space to sign him?

well, with the kroenkes the question isn’t space itself but how far into the tax/aprons they’re willing to go. I’m sure there will be some good articles breaking this down soon but my basic understanding of the cap situation is that they’d have to decline valanciunas’s option and then find a team for braun or cam to have the room to sign watson

k3v my point wasn't really about those players per se. i'm more saying that this series really exposed a contrast in skill level across the two rosters. the nuggets had their two best offensive players on the floor and were still in need of offensive help and basically had zero role players who were able to provide any sort of offensive creation, get their own shot in any way, seriously alleviate the burden from jokic and murray to generate every point vs two of the best defensive players in the league etc. minnesota meanwhile was being able to continually provide solutions to the problem of needing offensive creation, and even in last night's game where their backcourt was completely decimated, they still had two guys in mcdaniels and randle who could facilitate/generate offense, a third player in naz who is a skilled offensive player, and shannon (in a friendly home environment) able to pitch in as well. to me that was the massive gap in these rosters that tipped the scale in minnesota's favor. the wolves had two great defensive players play great but they were able to almost win just off the strength of that because denver had ultimately zero other players who could seriously test other members of the wolves

yeah I think your analysis is sound. I do think cam’s been good but they need to make some major changes starting with finding some more athletes and defensive players. jokic is good for a top 5 offense probably in perpetuity

just in time…haberstroh with three potential murray trades

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/trade-jamal-murray-3-deals-for-the-nuggets-to-get-help-for-nikola-jokic-143353603.html

lol

"That's not my decision, to be honest. Definitely, if we were in Serbia, we would all get fired."

not loving these trades nuggs are in a tough spot, doubt toronto is too keen to move kmb either but murray is canadian so maybe they would do it

feel like trading gordon might be better prob wouldnt be hard to find a team thatd think hed put them over the top

they would get much more for murray who’s younger and just had a career year and isn’t injured

I wouldn’t do the KD trade just because of the injury risk and his age. I kind of love the pistons deal and could be talked into the raptors deal. nuggets are in a tough spot you’re going to be losing your best ball handler and the best non-steph shooter in the league but think they have to take calls since he’s the only player on the team with actual trade value

feel like trading gordon might be better prob wouldnt be hard to find a team thatd think hed put them over the top

― lag∞n, Saturday, May 2, 2026 8:16 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

spurs

I’m listening

On a recent lowe post zach couldn’t help himself from floating not only some murray trades but joker too. he’s completely simmons-brained in that way but sad that’s even a thing to enter people’s minds. def hope that whatever happens we don’t have to see ugliness like how the giannis situation has been playing out

nvm, just saw his contract extension kick in for next year
xp

he's the ideal archetype for what the spurs need at 4, though

btw, welcome to the offseason, Rockets. You'll soon have more company coming.

they would get much more for murray who’s younger and just had a career year and isn’t injured

― comrade jhøsh (k3vin k.), Saturday, May 2, 2026 9:36 AM (three hours ago)

idk about much more gordon is a star in his role type guy who fits in anywhere where murray is a low end star who a lot of teams already have a guy him or hes just not a great fit, but i think the main thing is they really need murrays creation and are unlikely to replace it if they trade him where with gordon they can maybe cover his duties with some other hopefully younger guys

gordon hasn’t played 16 straight games in three years. I love the guy and think he’s perfect for the team when healthy, but I have to be realistic. if they were able to find a haul for him I would be very surprised

murray’s defense is a huge issue and is just becoming untenable alongside jokic, even considering their chemistry on offense. I never wanted to get to the point of advocating trading him, but the truth is the nuggets will be a top 5 offense with jokic and any 4 other players. they need athleticism and defense

gordon hasn’t played 16 straight games in three years. I love the guy and think he’s perfect for the team when healthy, but I have to be realistic. if they were able to find a haul for him I would be very surprised

murray’s defense is a huge issue and is just becoming untenable alongside jokic, even considering their chemistry on offense. I never wanted to get to the point of advocating trading him, but the truth is the nuggets will be a top 5 offense with jokic and any 4 other players. they need athleticism and defense

i dont think denver HAS to trade anyone big bc theyre still a really good, competitive team in this form, and could improve on the margins to get even closer to championship caliber, but theyre expensive for what they are which is a step below the young worldbeaters of the west (okc and sa)

that said, a really interesting trade could be done with murray and...franz wagner as the centerpiece?

franz+suggs for murray+cam johnson feels like a trade that helps both teams address their shortcomings

was thinking of some magic ones too but with suggs involved

murray for franz would be great for orl and maybe good for denver idk theyd be losing a lot of shooting but getting bigger franz and gordon kinda play the same position

dont think you could add on suggs and cam cause at that point den is just taking on orls terrible shooting

I can’t get any murray to orlando trades to work on the trade machines but Im sure there would have to be other cap shenanigans or extra teams etc

i would like a murray for franz swap just to see what happens

dont think you could add on suggs and cam cause at that point den is just taking on orls terrible shooting

― lag∞n, Saturday, May 2, 2026 3:52 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they would but they would also shore up one of their biggest weaknesses (point of attack defense), gotta give something up get something

*to get something

trade would also get denver younger, orlando less pants shitty in the playoffs

its just too much non shooting for me im going to have to decline

damn, i guess u rly do need to know when to hold em and when to fold em

murray is a $55m-$60m a year player for 3 more years and if he went to a new team he would def try and extort them for a new deal the minute he's extension eligible so tack that on too. i'm a believer in the reality of playoff murray insofar as i think his scoring ability plays up in the playoffs when scoring becomes a lot harder in general, so i'm only taking on that contract if i think i'm one of the 3 or 4 most likely teams in my conference to end up in the conference finals *and* i have a roster that can accentuate his strengths (a big who is comfortable facilitating off hand offs and screens) and cover up his deficiencies (adequate rim protection and perimeter defense around him)

are the rockets one of those teams?

the rockets would say no but I’m salivating over a murray/watson for amen/sheppard trade. ime hates sheppard anyway and maybe they’re worried about amen’s extension number

theyre not trading amen, tari eason tho

Easons value is in the tank atm

kind of love it short term for both teams, denver could throw in their 2031 first rounder too since the rockets are getting older

hi

welcome to hell

jamhal mosley already fired, surprised they even let him on the plane back from detroit.

rip bigman

ime still standing tho

now that it's officially the boston celtics offseason i want to return to one thing about the tatum injury that has been stuck in my head for the last 11 months -- the theory behind tatum speeding back from his achilles injury was that he got the surgery done the night of the injury, which isn't standard procedure, and because of getting the surgery so soon it was going to allow him to come back faster than anyone else has before. my question is this: is that really how muscles work? is that how surgery works? i'm no doctor but i feel like "if you get the surgery faster you come back faster" was a real thing we may have heard about it or seen it happen before in sports... do k3v or any of our other medical experts want to weigh in? this has been bothering me for a year but i was just like "i'm sure they know what they're talking about!" but now that tatum wasn't able to make it thru 6 playoff games before blowing out i'm back to questioning whether that logic was actually sound

i dont think that was ever really the primary explanation for why he was able to come back so soon fwiw but it did get thrown into every article, and imo a minor injury isnt much evidence that it was a bad idea for him to come back i mean people get injured all the time in the nba

his playoff injury was soreness in the knee on the other leg from the repaired achilles, why would that be indicative of anything?

it could be a over compensating thing or lack of conditioning but ultimately who knows he was listed as day to day so one can assume it was very minor and they were just being careful unless they were lying about the severity which is possible

i will say one bad thing about this whole situation is my dad is trying out his maybe they should trade tatum takes on me

there's been several athletes over the last few days who have come out and said the number one issue when you come back from a severe leg injury such as an achilles is injuries to the other leg because of overcompensation. also frankly tatum's quotes after the game were puzzling to me, the fact that he was like "you know something was inevitably gonna happen to me" which on the one hand sure it's the playoffs everyone gets banged up. however....

dru smith came back on the same timeline as tatum but w/o the night of surgery so i feel like that whole idea was always kinda specious and as is typical w/ injuries the medical community figures out over the span of decades how to get players to recover faster and tatum was just benefitting from that. however i did want to tie a bow on that whole notion because it was something that was repeated a lot

yeah im sure ultimately there were a bunch of factors that contributed to his fast recovery and the quick surgery is maybe one of them, would for sure be cool if achilles ruptures are getting figured out and wont be career killers going forward

well the stated reason was that the quick turnaround on the surgery meant less time for the muscle to atrophy. i am not a kevin k. so have no idea if that’s true but it was grounded in something beyond just “he had surgery faster”

anyway an opposite knee injury could be overcompensation! we have no idea. there have been a lot of injuries in the playoffs already and the most obvious reason is the level of intensity and exertion is way up from where it had been for the last two months.

the mavs are hiring masai urjiri to run stuff

the stated reason was that the quick turnaround on the surgery meant less time for the muscle to atrophy. i am not a kevin k. so have no idea if that’s true

same! and i had never in my life heard this before until jayson tatum tore his achilles so i've always wondered whether it was true or not

breaking Mavericks hire Masai Ujiri as president https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48676414/sources-mavericks-hire-ujiri-president-alternate-governor

xp

who knows if masai still has his fastball but i am positive he knows how to impress a rube like patrick dumont

very weird tenure in toronto

from what i can tell from consuming jayson tatum injury media theres one major achilles surgeon who has made himself available to the media and is pushing the faster surgery thing and theres been a study that backs it up too but it doesnt seem like a universally accepted idea in the achilles worker community

macmahon let it slip last week on hoop collective pod that the mavs were trying to poach tim connelly, so they -- i would say smartly... -- were targeting very experienced GMs who can get dumont tf out of the picture

from what i can tell from consuming jayson tatum injury media theres one major achilles surgeon who has made himself available to the media and is pushing the faster surgery thing and theres been a study that backs it up too but it doesnt seem like a universally accepted idea in the achilles worker community

― lag∞n, Monday, May 4, 2026 12:59 PM (forty-nine seconds ago)

cheers sir

masai shd convince dumont to trade cooper flagg to the lakers

will say that I’m not a surgeon or a sports medicine physician, but my basic understanding is in line with what CAD says. the involved muscles will start to atrophy once they lose their normal attachments, and the rupture will also trigger inflammation in the area, both of which complicate the repair work that needs to be done. I dont work with patients with achilles or ACLs but I do take care of a lot of patients immediately after a hip fracture, and the goal is usually surgery within 24 hours for similar reasons

im not achilles or his mother but when my tooth got knocked out the dentist wanted to put it back in straight away (it still died though)

bulls new GM is some guy whose claim to fame is working for the pelicans for 20 years... i'm sure it will go great

He knows what not to do!

pelicans to bulls pipeline. sacramento is next up

are the celtics going to trade jaylen for giannis kinda feel like they might

can't think of many better realistic scenarios for the Bucks

if i were the bucks id be looking for a picks and young guys type deal since their cupboard is so bare i dont see how swapping giannis for jaylen and whatever is going to make them better but they might see it differently

not a fan of any of this

xpost I feel like the Bucks are going to want a big name back

also somewhere Giannis actually wants to go

the bucks have basically only made extremely short sighted decisions in the last 5 years, and though you could view that w/in the context of "do anything to keep giannis" it's more so the GM trying to save his job, and so i don't see why he would suddenly put himself on a 5 year rebuilding plan that involves a bunch of losing, even if that's the most prudent longterm decision for the franchise. also keep in mind the bucks owner is the guy who directed his GM to trade for deshaun watson and give him the most insane contract in NFL history, this is not someone who has previously displayed measured, longterm planning

yeah it is true that we cant rely on the bucks to have a good long term plan

not a fan of any of this

― call all destroyer, Thursday, May 7, 2026 1:59 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah id prefer they upgrade the roster around the jays which is prob most likely they have the assets to make a big trade without including a jay but the way brad was talking in that press conference idk, also getting the feeling jaylen liked being the man this season and might be ok with moving on

also might be the case that even if both teams want to do this trade that the bucks might want so much back along with jaylen that it ends up just not making sense for the celtics, like if they have to give up jaylen and two firsts does it make more sense to just keep jaylen and use the two firsts on a different deal

answer: yes

fun fact jaylen is only 2 yrs younger than giannis, but the 2 yrs from age 29 to 31 are a pretty significant couple of years

i'd be pretty spooked by how poorly the dame thing went if i was trying to pair giannis w/ another ballhandler scorer. tatum now is obv better than old dame, but the bucks were at their best w/ an extremely defined role player situation around giannis & flopped when they tried to upgrade by pairing him w/ another scorer. tatum in theory could really work as an extremely overqualified version of khris middleton but why would you want to trade a bunch of stuff in order to turn jayson tatum into that?

i don't necessarily love the idea of the heat trading for giannis but at least in that arrangement you basically place bam in the brook lopez/chris bosh role that he has kinda spent two years training to become

i think the celtics could make it work tatum is so versatile and boston is a smart org with good coaching itd be interesting to see what they come up with, and taking a little primary creation off of tatums plate wouldnt be the worst thing

i think it could work i would just find it to be an unnecessary risk for where they are as a franchise

yeah all things considered particularly giannis injury sitch its prob too risky

thing brad said in his press conference that made me think about this is that the celtics rim pressure just wasnt good enough, now he did say thats a team not individual responsibility but still when you think rim pressure you think giannis

its also not something thats easy to upgrade due to it being prob the most valuable skill in the league, now you could try to add a norm powell level good but not great player who is good at getting to the basket but a lot of those guys are flawed players which is why they arent stars, maybe they shd try to get norm powell not sure its possible but would be pretty cool

lagoon can I interest you in a deal centering around jamal murray for white/pritchard

murray isnt the most rim pressuring guy out there but he is generally good at basketball so yeah might be worth talking about

the situation with derrick is distressing he was so bad at offense this year what happened is he going to get good again

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/trade-machine/_/year/2026/team1/bos/team2/den

ok it’s a deal

oh that’s annoying it doesn’t save the trade but it’s murray for pritch/white/garza

hmm i dont you can have both white and pritchard

looking at the celtics salaries its difficult for them to put together a big trade without including one of tatum brown white, maybe they can extend vooch and that would help idk

suspect unless theyre doing a blockbuster that theyd rather send out young guys and picks

I forgot the Celtics had Luka Garza, Wolves Reddit would be upset that Mazzulla is continuing Chris Finch's campaign to stop the progress of this sure thing NBA superstar

he was actually good for them this year, obvs a limited player but he played with crazy high energy and hit a lot of shots cant complain, i went into the season thinking i was going to hate him but he won me over

I like Garza, fun player like you said he can be good in stretches, defense I don't think will ever be good enough to be more than that. I dunno, I suppose every fanbase gets these weird fascinations with bench guys they think are not being given a fair shot.

ha yeah harboring underground faves

Harden another more-turnovers-than-made-fg playoff game. It’s quite weird how he turns into a pumpkin

draft lottery imminent

theyve got a bunch of top prospects there with their families like its draft night

pacers lost their pick zubac gambit failed

yeah i think thats gonna come back and bite them pretty bad

clippers getting a top 5 pick feels bad to me, like cheat all you want with kawhi nothing matters

gotta say that most of the top 4 seem like teams that could use some fresh blood, bulls might be respectable in a couple of years. if the jazz get dybantsa out of all this this was officially rigged.

1 wizz
2 jazz
3 grizz
4 bullzz

I can't believe this. Bulls will screw it up. I can believe that.

avery bradley and danny ainge are sitting at a table together apparently bradley is the jazz vp of player development

peterson feels like a very wiz player, dybantsa obvs jazz guy, and boozer seems like an exact grizz guy, leaving the bulls with i guess wilson

wonder if washington will bait ainge into trading up

have to say I love the results, reasonably spread east/west and the worst franchises mostly got the best picks. might be the last time we see this

nah danny ainge will never pay retail xp

Jazz could be pretty good now, with JJJ, Markkanen, Ace Bailey, Keyonte George, Kyle Filipowski, and a #2 pick?

what a horrific turn of events for the pacers sheesh

only way they can salvage the zubac move is to sign precious achiuwa and officially become the most alphabetically diverse team in the league

shoulda protected that pick some more, top 4 too light, top 5 just right

Jazz could be pretty good now, with JJJ, Markkanen, Ace Bailey, Keyonte George, Kyle Filipowski, and a #2 pick?

― aphoristical, Sunday, May 10, 2026 3:31 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this could get really interesting real fast, not necessarily a contender but a solid playoff team in a year or two. how did jjj + markky markk play together after the trade deadline? kinda wonder if they can coexist defensively (is lauri too slow to defend dynamic wings? is jjj good at the 5?)

I don’t think they did. Don’t think either of them played at all lol Jazz got fined for tanking

lol forgot about that, yeah

it worked jazz victorious over nba

jj can play some center and lauri can play some 3 bet well see a mix of lineups from them ace can prob play the 2

dats a big lineup

the big guys

the hugh jazz

uh i totally spaced that the wiz have Interesting Guys as well. ad, trae, and the #1 pick! if ad is even a little healthy, thats at least a kinda fun team???

tanking is good is what im getting at

the jazz getting the second pick after acquiring JJJ and thus making them a horrible fit for boozer jr and the grizz getting the third pick with a PF sized hole on their roster is pretty crazy

that is an interesting twist

every mock draft has the same first 7 picks...

top four does seem like it has an obvious order in dybantsa peterson boozer and wilson just due to team needs but then after that theres all those guards and who knows which order they go in plus what if someone doesnt want a guard

like are we really thinking the nets are going to take another guard after drafting three of them in the first round last year

i mean there’s no one there you’re seeing as a future centerpiece

yeah not likely

feel like ada marra could find his way past some of those guards

cameron carr also dont understand why hes always so low hyper athletic movement shooter seems like a guy who could be useful to a lot of teams

the two flies in the ointment w/ the top 5 that i could potentially see are

1. peterson is such a clean fit for utah's roster that it feels preordained, however do the ainges have caleb wilson no 2 on their board? boozer doesn't seem like the type of prospect that ainge can dream on, wilson however...

2. everyone is penciling in wagler as no 5, and i get it bcuz garland might nudge them away from all the point guards, however wagler is a non athlete who wasn't a top 150 recruit last year and wasn't even considered to be draftable heading into the season. totally normal for a player like that to end up in the first round, to end up in the top 5 of a draft that is considered to be absolutely loaded, however, is a different story

having wilson in the top tier with those other three guys seems insane to me the skill gap is so wide but some people do seem to think he should be considered with them

i get having him fourth cause hes such an athletic freak but i dont think hes any sort of sure fire star i dont think itd be crazy to take one of the guards in front of him hes shown basically no ability to create his own shot in the half court youd think being this extremely high level athlete hed get a couple few easy baskets every game just taking a dribble and dunking over some college rando but it almost never happened and he cant shoot either, he will be an absolute beast in transition and has all the tools to be an elite defender, its possible he could get to being a dece shooter too he showed a little bit in the midrange and shot 70% from the line so its not like hes starting out from hopeless there, but idk taking a guy whos just not a offensive creator that high everything else really has to work out to justify it

Also he went to UNC, a place for terrible things.

12mins of scoring highlights and he only faces up and gets to the rim a couple times, there are a lot of post baskets tho, taken together it points to him just having no handle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0VYfYNzUjs

everything works out hes what aaron gordon

thanks to the nba combine, we can now confirm that aday mara is very tall

was worried he would only grade out at quite tall

breaking cam boozer 7-2 wingspan center length arms

acuff 6-7 wingspan very nice for him at 6-2 hes maybe not undersized anymore hes strong too

flemmings shorter than reported with short arms

stop the presses quaintance 6-9 with a 7-5 wingspan he could be just an absolutely dominant defender

mikel brown 6-4 6-8 wingspan i think this is the guy as far as the pack of guards go he had a very up and down season but the up part was extremely good

cameron carr 6-5 7-1 wingspan those are jaylen brown numbers folks why dont people like cameron carr i dont understand

ebuka okorie 6-1 with a 6-8 wingspan is there some reason he cant be in with all those other guard now he had an insanely good year and apprently his arms are freakishly long so hes not really short anymore justice for okorie

those are aaron holiday numbers

Mara huge

i didnt even post his numbers because theyre too high

25-2 start to the half lol

oops

I get that the hawks traded Trae and need a lead guard but some rim protection would be cool too. Is MBJ’s upside that much higher than Mara?

who knows really

mara doesnt fit the hawks style of play very well tho hes very slow and the hawks are fast

they could take brown jr and try to trade for a second pick to take quaintance

They have the 23rd pick as well so could be a good combo

oh yeah quaintance might still be there

just listened to some espn draft analyst describe darryn peterson as "like a fine violinist string it up and let her rip"

love 2 see more concertmasters in the league

morey out, nurse survives

wonder who shams source is

Head coach Nick Nurse will continue in his role into a fourth season with the 76ers, sources tell ESPN. Four-time NBA championship architect Bob Myers, the president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, will be tasked to lead the search for the new head executive for the 76ers and he will oversee the franchise's basketball department in the interim.

morey pinned the best years of embiid’s career to james harden, if i was a sixers fan i’d hate the man

morey is a bad gm who doesnt understand risk nba media being in thrall to him for a decade plus is embarrassing

The funniest part might be that Harden hates him, too.

morey undeniably made some shrewd moves but things you do on the margins only matter so much when you screw the big stuff up

best move was getting harden from okc, worst was getting harden from brooklyn

but the real problem with his whole thing is he was just recklessly all in all the time the quote from him that if you have a five percent chance of winning a title then you need to just go for it put all yr resources behind it is just wrong because youre killing your chances to win a championship in future years as born out by the ruined teams hes left behind, and its just a bummer experience for the fans to have to root for some weird super team then watch it all fall apart

Is the Harden deal really that bad? Getting Simmons the heck out of there was a worthy concept. They didn't give the Nets much of anything except the remaining pick that might convey. They got a few picks from the Clippers. The Paul George deal seems a lot worse to me.

they gave up two first for harden and it blew up in their faces spectacularly, paul george was a free agent signing and it blew up in their face mundanely

more like darryl moray the way i eel like he sucks ass

nate duncan has repeatedly made this argument about the harden trade, that on the basis of asset accounting it was a home run for the sixers to dump simmons and get back a player as good as harden. but i just think that’s the wrong lens thru which to look at it — he acquired the worst playoff performer in NBA history when he had a team whose only goal was to make it to the conference finals and beyond, and when the sixers were up 3-2 with the opportunity to make that a reality harden choked spectacularly. and none of this is hindsight bcuz we all knew who harden was by that point. the sixers had a guy who was no worse than the third best player in the league for like 5 years, so that they managed to win 50+ games with harden around isn’t very meaningful to me. it’s almost literally the least they could have done.

its not like there was no reason why harden was available for ben simmons and two firsts

ben simmons, whatever happened to that guy

Big fishing guy now

My favorite comment on Sixers’ post thanking Daryl Morey:

“Like Abe Lincoln thanking John Wilkes Booth.”

oof

Just hung out with my kids teacher who’s a big grizz fan and he’s trying to talk himself into Caleb Wilson over Boozer smh

best freshman season ever vs guy who can jump high

Also a perfect dude to build around. This same guy tried to convince our pickup game that Cedric Coward was off to one of the greatest rookie seasons ever after lime 5 games

gotta get those takes off

It was funny to watch this one guy try reason with him. I was like dude let him cook

lol

thinkin bout booz potential at center with his arms measuring out at long enough and him being super strong i think its safe to assume he can play some center, thing that might prevent him from being a good center is hes not a great jumper or that tall and so will prob not offer much rim protection which obvs is a huge deal for centers, however he does seem to be a great reader of the game so he can prob compensate some by playing well positionally, also averaged 1.4 steals last year which is pretty nuts for a big man whos not a great athlete which shows that he has good hands and anticipation, anyway if he can play full time center in the nba thatd be very sick

kinda crazy that no ones talking about him for #1

i still see a dead ringer for kevin love/julius randle type role in the NBA, yeah those guys can play some 5 and they do/did add real value to their teams from a flexibility perspective but if you want to win anything serious you’re gonna need to find a real center

the other issue with boozer is not just the rim protection but that he was getting abused by mid major guards trying to defend in space in the tournament, he does not have quick feet. pursuant to our convo recently about wemby & randle there are some match ups where boozer’s body type might help out at the 5 i.e. a skinny big like chet but there would be other match ups especially in a playoff format where boozer would have zero hope playing 5

i don’t think he has fatal flaws or anything but i just think the ideas of him being a full time 5 in the NBA are fanciful if you watch him play vs college athletes and his team will need to find a real rim protecting center to mix and match, the good news for him is that the top 3 teams in this draft all have young centers that are true 5s

julius randle with plus-plus skill and without the effort issue is a pretty darn good player tho

for sure. if you re-did the love and randle drafts they’re both clearly the third best players in their drafts but you wouldn’t consider them for no 1

its crazy in this day and age where everything is gambling that theres no outlet for betting against jordans player comps

i feel pretty good about those

what is the boozer comp i’m missing or is he just like a mold breaking superstar the likes of which have yet to walk this planet (as some have argued)

comparing julius randle a famously low iq basketball player to a guy who was seeing the game so well he often looked like a dad playing with his kids is maybe missing something, and thats not even mentioning that he put up statistically prob the best freshman season in history while being the youngest guy out there

the kevin love one in particular feels pretty bulls eye to me. squat 4/5 tweener who profiles as a box score filler and an incredible connective role player on a team with a star ball handler. no shame in that!

yeah i mean we’ll see how the college efficiency stats end up bearing out, idk what to say in response to that. i just don’t see the best prospect in college basketball history when i watch him, so idk. but i can’t argue that the math is wrong on the math

kevin love put up huge numbers in adlemans system but there was always some empty calories with him, boozer is whatever the opposite of empty calories is leafy greens idk, it also should be mentioned that he had statistically prob the best freshman season in history while being the youngest guy out there

those stats dont mean hell be the best player ever but it does mean hell be much better than julius randle and kevin love is prob more of a floor

also high feel players are generally worth betting on, and you have to factor in the second generation bonus

my point was less about the quality of those players and more about the role they play on a good NBA basketball team, i will def believe that boozer will be better than julius randle and maybe even kevin love however much like those players i do think his future lies in playing on a team with players who are better than him

chris bosh is another one. i see boozer as a big in that mold — if he is your best player i’m not sure you’re getting past round 1 of the playoffs. if he is your second best player you could probably win a title (bosh & love were third best players on title teams but i don’t think that model of team building will really exist going forward)

i’m naming all guys who were top 10 picks, bosh and love were top 5 and randle should have been top 5 in that draft, multiple hall of famers, title winners etc. it’s possible i’m underrating him enough ppl think so but i also don’t think it’s insulting to place him in this bucket

keep in mind in november i was comping boozer to angel reese, ive come a long way here

if youre better than young kevin love then youre good enough to be the best player on a team, but yeah boozer might be better suited as a number 2 scoring option which doesnt mean yr not the best player but also he easily could be a top scoring option, last year we were having the same convo about cooper flagg another very young freshman who put up crazy numbers and it was quickly obvious he had #1 stuff despite the flaws people saw in his game still being there

obvs nothing is guaranteed in the nba but between the historic rookie season and the obvious very high feel for the game i gotta pencil booz in for a perennial all nba type career

also his arms are good and long

hes a very physical player too gotta love that

i think it would be fair to say that he’s the safest bet to make multiple all NBA seasons in this draft class, i think if you’re lower on him it’s because you think his chances of being an MVP caliber player is lower in comparison to some of the others in this class. balancing the risk/reward of that equation is the nut to crack, thankfully it’s not my job to figure it out

i personally have petersen number 1 w/ a bullet, i could see putting boozer over AJ tho, AJ could have that kinda wiggins-ish career, i’d probably still take him number 2 but i don’t think it’s as clear cut

im an admirer of aj dybantsa think id prob have him over booz tho its a tough call his movement skills combined with scoring touch and just old fashioned nose for the basket are im not sure are something weve seen at his size before hes just an absolute freak and menace, he looked like roger rabbit out there playing with a bunch of bob hoskins, he plays with tremendous gusto for getting buckets, now the non scoring parts of his game are questions passing defense reading the game its all unclear but if hes willing to put in the work considering his ridiculous talents one would think he can get there or at least get good enough, seems like he has all defense level potential tho unlikely hell ever get there considering hell be expending all his energy scoring 30 points a game but would be very cool if he could get to being a plus defender who can dial it up to elite when needed

peterson could be the most talented of the three but all the weird stuff has got to drop him to third theres red flags falling out of his pockets with every step, he just described himself as an anti social loner at the draft combine man youre not making this easier lol, its def tempting to overlook the flags but combined with the one other piece of bad info his crazy lack of assists the whole situation is just too weird, i will say that theres a non zero chance that he becomes the best shooter in the history of the game he shot 38% from three while taking many of the most insane shots imaginable he does this quick release thing to get a shot off while hes not at all open that looks like what guys do when the shot clock is running out just flinging it up there except he just takes it all the time its normal shot for him i guess, anyway crazy top three they could easily all be stars for years to come

his movement skills combined with scoring touch and just old fashioned nose for the basket are im not sure are something weve seen at his size before hes just an absolute freak and menace

― lag∞n, Wednesday, May 13, 2026 12:28 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean lebron i guess theyre stylistically different and obvs bron is the all time freak of the nba but dybantsa is looking vaguely bronesque out there in his size and getting to the basketness

dybansta has a 42 inch vert apparently this site gives him a 99.5 out of 100 combine score not sure what that means but it does sound good https://tawnyparkmetrics.com/nba-combine-score

boozer rates an 84 as a pf but only 74 as a center, likewise his physical score (also dont know what that means) goes from 63 to 27 yikes, theyre actually not loving his wingspan for a center, he did put up a 35 inch vert tho which is pretty nice

peterson registered good but not elite numbers on pretty much everything except weight he is too skinny apparently

mara not much of a leaper but can touch the rim without jumping, also scored good in the lane agility test but very slow in the sprint, all pretty much what youd expect from watching him a very tall man who moves his feet surprisingly well but does not run fast, not sure how reliable the lane agility test is but being in the 99th percentile for standing reach and 73rd in lane agility amongst centers seems pretty nice

flemmings 99 combine 52 physical arms short but can jump very high

my declared sleeper cameron carr a cool 100 in combine and a 70 in physical which got hurt by being in the 11th percentile in weight guy is very skinny

lots of body shaming going on itt

thats right we shame in this draft combine

Due to the way my iPhone is situated part of my offseason will include being reminded that the hawks lost by 51 to the Knicks if I swipe right too far. I assume this will continue until October and no I’m not going into the settings

lol

boozer rates an 84 as a pf but only 74 as a center, likewise his physical score (also dont know what that means) goes from 63 to 27 yikes, theyre actually not loving his wingspan for a center, he did put up a 35 inch vert tho which is pretty nice

― lag∞n, Wednesday, May 13, 2026 7:54 PM (yesterday)

the more i think about it the more i've come around on the idea of boozer having real small ball 5 capabilities bcuz i do think he will have to be guarded out by the 3 point line, he projects to be too good of a playmaker and shooter to just be fully unguarded out there. so i do think there is a future for him as a PJ tucker esque small ball 5 in spurts vs the right match ups, just using his stoutness in the post and playing 5 out w/ the goal of outscoring the other team. he could def be good enough as an offensive hub to make that work -- even in the worst case scenario where his shooting isn't real, i feel like he still would have enough playmaking ability to operate as like a draymond or joakim noah type point center from the high post. but it does seem like his shooting is pretty real. i don't think he'll ever be good enough on defense at 5 to offer, like, chet holmgren or porzingis level permanent 5 out spacing w/ real rim protection, but i do think there is a role for him at center

maybe he is the real baby jokic

well i do think even tho jokic can be pretty crappy on defense, the fact that he's 6' 11" 285 does matter

thats why hes adult jokic

as if Bucks vibes weren't bad enough during the regular season

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25428372-myles-turner-reveals-giannis-habit-being-late-bucks-players-skipping-meetings-under-doc-rivers

myles taking the opportunity to fuck with giannis while hes trying to get traded

Seems like he burned his bridges in Indy too.

welcome to the offseason Minnesota Timberwolves

a lot going on here!

https://nypost.com/2026/05/11/us-news/how-billionaire-wesley-edens-chinese-divorcee-hooked-up-before-alleged-blackmail/

1.2 billion seems a little steep

Pistons have some things to work out. How much to pay Jalen duren is #1. He just completely folded when they needed a 2nd option. If they overpay and this is who he is then their ceiling is prob what they did this year.

on one hand, teams usually hand out pretty generous extensions to their own drafted guys esp if they make the all-star team otoh he has some structural flaws in his game that just got majorly exposed some of which may be unfixable? (hes young, he could figure some stuff out, but he'll never spread the floor and they need that bad). last year, paolo, chet, and jwill all got 5/240 max deals, keegan murray 5/140 (jesus), christian braun 5/125 (lol JESUS). gotta think he'll get something between murray and maxed.

he was a non entity this playoffs gotta be one of the most inconsequential postseasons by an allstar ever, like there have been plenty of bad ones where guys couldnt buy a shot or whatever but he played like an absolute role player just out there not doing much

pistons in a tough spot

I don’t really get Brooklyn’s plan but they seem ripe for picking off a young player. Too many kids

https://bsky.app/profile/keerthikau.bsky.social/post/3mm3vzehmbs2l

Jalen Duren averaged 9.3 fewer points in the playoffs than he did in the regular season, the biggest drop off in an All-Star season since Elgin Baylor in 1969.

damn

what happened to duren this postseason is essentially what happened to jarrett allen in his first postseason, i believe when he was an all star, and now he's out here putting up 21-17 in elimination games. duren has already shown enough growth as a player that i'm def not ruling out a similar arc for him, it's not like he has to become some totally new player to become useful in the playoffs. if we're sitting here in two or three years talking about how duren is dominating an overwhelmed alex sarr or whatever in round 2 i won't be shocked

i think the issue for them is how they build a team with both duren and ausar as key members when neither of them are going to be guarded beyond 3 feet from the rim in the playoffs. that's an equation that doesn't math out. and for as much as i can see an allen like narrative for duren, allen was also not paid a max and is the fourth best player on his team, so as everyone knows that seems kinda like the rub w/ duren at this juncture

i feel like the major existential team building question for them is basically: if duren is part of your core, then you're building your team as a fairly traditional 1-5 pick and roll offense w/ shooters + secondary playmakers spacing the floor, keeping the lane clear for cade-duren two man game as the foundational pillar of everything you're doing. i think duren has shown enough so far that building your team this way makes sense

*OR*

ausar is part of your core and you're committing to a totally different style of basketball in which ausar is your one non-shooter on offense, you're finding a rim protecting/floor spacing myles turner type of 5, and are committing to a very new school, 5 out, amorphous positionless kind of situation where cade is running more of a pick and pop game and the lane is clear for cade, ausar and others to make plays that way

i'm not sure that they can attempt to mash all this together. tho my guess will be that they hope to put a bit more shooting on the roster, that and that ausar improves his shooting somehow, and it all still works out

shams reported that they're gonna go after trey murphy or lauri markannen. i think they shoot their shot for devin booker first

i like markannen for them and murphy a lot for them, booker is interesting kinda doubt him and the suns are ready to break up but guess you never know, might not be as good of a fit you get the cleveland thing where your two best players are both ball dominant guards plus he doesnt have great size athleticism etc and is getting a little old, tho on the other hand he is very good at basketball

re pistons and duren/ausar sitch in that series they started playing random guys such as daniss jenkins and marcus sasser just to juice the offense and those guys arent even that good at offense then predictably their defense which is what they built their whole wildly successful season on fell apart

they very obviously need a lot more offensive talent. you can draw a direct line from the jaden ivey pick to playing jenkins and sasser, and since that was a different front office regime you can't fault the current guys too much however it is now their jobs to fix that mistake

the need a real number 2 and they also need other rotation guys who can score

murphy would fit in seamlessly, exactly the kind of guy they need. new orleans will probably demand a lot in return, but probably not more than ainge would for lauri haha

yeah this is the classic sitch where you just have to back up the truck, you get one of these trades at this stage of building a contender and you gotta get it right

problem for the pistons is it should be a final piece trade but they dont actually have all the other pieces in place

it is also hard to see how they get one of those guys without giving up ausar

might just have to give up ausar

hes basically a defensive specialist and im not sure what his path to being a positive half court offensive player is

he shot 57% from the line this year, thats firmly in will never learn to shoot territory

that's Gobert territory

i think i'm less convinced that the pistons are in some sort of bad spot -- they control all their future firsts, they have at least two young players who are likely tradable for value, and they probably have one of the three best players in the conference. they have to nail their moves but that's true for every team

i dont think its a bad spot but they have a lot of work to do

i think they're progressing pretty steadily the way good to great teams typically do. this was a weird year in the east where you had a very clear tier of 4 teams at the top, and of those teams two had their regular season ceilings capped by injuries (boston and cleveland) and the other (new york) made a coaching change explicitly aimed at emphasizing the playoffs over the regular season. so the 1 seed was a mirage and the idea of them being "contenders" or whatever was not real, but they learned a lot about their team w/o falling on their faces or anything, they obv got some key players consistently stressful playoff minutes where their flaws were laid bare, giving clear areas of improvement for the offseason. obv per this entire convo they have stuff to figure out but idk, to me all of this going basically how you would plan it out

i dont think they would plan on duran and ausar having such unclear futures are they even good do the pistons even have any long term keepers besides cade has the pistons drafting been very bad, now i do think duran and ausar have value but its not out of the question that they both end up kind of decent and you have to move one of them because of the bad fit, on the bright side they have a lot of draft picks and ability to make moves but theyve relied on tobias harris a lot are they kind of looking at constructing a whole new team around cade, lot of work to do

whats up with ron holland barely touched the court in the playoffs which isnt a huge deal since hes only 20 but he seems pretty far away from being a contributor, its crazy that the pistons have two top ten picks this decade who are out the league

did not realize ron holland was quite as bad a shooter as he is, shot 24% and 25% from 3 his first 2 years in the league yikes

so in other words in him and ausar they have drafted 2 of the worst shooters in the league to be cade's ostensible 3&D wings

so in other words in him and ausar they have drafted 2 of the worst shooters in the league to be cade's ostensible 3&D wings

no 3 just d

def dont think its doom n gloom for the pistons. they are young, all their core has more levels to rise to, and they have flexibility. just need to be careful with this duren contract and make a solid move for a secondary scorer. no one is untouchable besides cade i'd imagine.

holland and beef stew out of the rotation when it mattered was telling. i bet they could get some pretty good return on beef stew, solid contract, brings some stuff a lot of teams need (elite shot blocking, psychopathic behavior, etc).

teams making calls trying to figure out just how insane he is

"is he rodman insane or oakley insane?"

think if I were the pistons I’d roll with duren assuming you can get him on a sub-max and look to move ausar. cade is good enough on defense that having a wing defender like that (and one that rarely is the primary defender on guys bigger than him, something nate duncan is fond of pointing out) is a luxury that might not be necessary and you can still get a lot of value for him

they should trade Ausar to Houston, why bcz it would look cool

i dont think they would plan on duran and ausar having such unclear futures are they even good

idk i guess i see the duren thing differently. sure how good he will ultimately become is unclear, but when he was drafted nobody was sure he was even an NBA player, so getting to the point where he looks to be a perennial all star candidate in the east represents the kind of meaningful growth from a young player where you expect the player to continue to get better. whether that's the second or third best player on a good team or whatever is needs to be answered, but i don't think the question is whether duren is even good. he had a really bad playoffs but i think the pistons would be justified to assume continued improvement of his skillset

ausar i think is a different story bcuz he has been exactly what people expected him to be and hasn't really improved his game much, if anything his offense went backwards this year, so how much improvement can you realistically project w/o getting into fantasy land?

I think the max should be less in the east than it is in the west

all time goofy vibe guy and HOF level inbound passer Joe Ingles is retiring from the NBA 🫡🦘🇦🇺🪃

masai fired kidd

shams: Kidd had four years and well over $40 million left on his Mavericks contract, sources said. Ujiri and Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont reached the decision this week to move on.

that’s wild but kind of had to be done if they were gonna be serious about building around flagg

jerry engelmann posted his spreadsheet of best and worst coaches and while there were many expected placements and a couple of unexpected ones (it had pop rated as averagish for ex), kidd rated pretty poorly which I think the gut tests supports

wow

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:diyz5m2uuqob3lhxlwemtrui/bafkreiajzwpbrmhbkjsylr7bvokekgqr277zfqmeollcw6wsq4uvv5nb3m

yeah I don’t think he’s super highly regarded lol

cleaning out anyone involved in the luka trade seems like the logical step number 1 if you’re trying to rebuild and be a serious franchise. getting ownership to sign off on eating 40+M is impressive tbf

lolll

I covered Jason Kidd when he played for the Nets. I know one of his childhood friends. I've been to his house, met his kids, then-wife, and Pilates Instructor. And I have insight from many people who worked with him in his coaching years. This is a great firing.

— Henry Abbott (@TrueHoop) May 20, 2026

i’ve always said, to really know the true nature of a man get to know his pilates instructor

idk if abbott has been trashing kidd for a long time but itd be funny if after 20+ years he was like today is the day

i think he was a pretty decent coach in dallas, when they went to the finals i def don’t remember thinking he was a hindrance. he’s not one of the best coaches in the league but i think he showed he is a capable coach of a playoff team. but that’s not what the mavs are so i think this makes sense. you wouldn’t put him in the tier of coaches who are like real advantages but i don’t think he’s scott brooks or jamal mosley or something. like i don’t think he’d be doing a worse job than kenny atkinson right now. but he needs to be coaching vets and stars, that feels like his lane

missed the playoffs in 3 of his 5 seasons

well two of those three seasons involved trading luka doncic and handing the team over to a rookie with your two best players injured and never on the floor so idk if your statement is very meaningful. and two of the five seasons were conference finals and nba finals so…

like i said i don’t think he’s a fit for every roster, i wouldn’t want him developing my young team, but if mike brown is getting the knicks job then i think kidd’s track record qualifies him to get a job coaching a playoff roster

like — i would not have wanted jason kidd coaching the rockets two years ago however if i was the rockets now i would fire ime and be fine if my coaching search ended up on kidd

he was real shitty with Milwaukee even I could tell exactly what he was doing wrong

yeah hes bad imo also is a weird dude

once you get your first job as an nba head coach, you're almost guaranteed at least one more shot at it after they fire you, if you want that. imo, terry stotts did a good enough job with the blazers he probably could have wangled another HC job, but he was one of the exceptions who felt OK with sliding back to assistant coach under Kerr at GSW.

no one really understands coaching that much but the general read on him from the people who know ball is he’s bad, not really sure there’s any reason to go against the grain here

he was the coach of the bucks a decade ago and i already said i wouldn’t hire him to coach a young team, so i don’t think that’s relevant

i mean when you look at the fact that guys like billy donavan and mike brown are getting some of the better job openings in the league. quinn snyder, kenny atkinson etc. you’re just not gonna convince me kidd is worse than those guys given that he’s had multiple teams accomplish as much or better than any of those guys have across like 30 combined seasons

Terry Stotts was a head coach with the hawks before the blazers

now whether he’s weird or unpleasant idk and that’s a reason not to hire someone but i just never watched the mavs and thought they were one of the 10 or 12 worst coached teams in the NBA or whatever you guys are trying to say. again, i just watched ime udoka coach a team in the playoffs

what i know for sure is j-kidd will coach the kings in our lifetime

that mavs run to the finals was weird they were prob a second round team on talent but no one could solve the luka-center pick and roll until they met the celtics who solved it easily, tho tbf they really only beat okc on shooting variance, anyway i dont think a lone playoff run with an unstoppable offensive force on board can really be used as proof of coaching competence, tho if i had to give kidd credit for something i do think he gets his teams to over perform on defense via high effort play which certainly isnt nothing, he does seem to posses persuasive talents not just for players but also owners, seems like one of those weird guys who most people find repellent but can convince people who are highly desirous of some particular thing in this case nba success that he holds the keys to it, in conclusion jason kidd falls somewhere on the con man cult leader continuum

anyway i dont think a lone playoff run with an unstoppable offensive force on board can really be used as proof of coaching competence, tho if i had to give kidd credit for something i do think he gets his teams to over perform on defense via high effort play which certainly isnt nothing

yeah i mean, the guy got to coach luka doncic; however he has been the best, so far, at coaching luka doncic, at least in terms of team success. the idea of kidd being competent is more just from watching those playoff runs and not remember feeling like i was watching someone who was incompetent.

i'm here scrolling twitter today seeing all these posts about how james harden was put in iso 37 straight possessions or whatever as the cavs blew the biggest 4th q lead in nba history w/ their best player never touching the ball in overtime and their coach was named coach of the year last year, and i think what kidd showed in dallas certainly clears whatever that bar is

anyway i dont think a lone playoff run with an unstoppable offensive force on board can really be used as proof of coaching competence, tho if i had to give kidd credit for something i do think he gets his teams to over perform on defense via high effort play which certainly isnt nothing

yeah i mean, the guy got to coach luka doncic; however he has been the best, so far, at coaching luka doncic, at least in terms of team success. the idea of kidd being competent is more just from watching those playoff runs and not remember feeling like i was watching someone who was incompetent.

i'm here scrolling twitter today seeing all these posts about how james harden was put in iso 37 straight possessions or whatever as the cavs blew the biggest 4th q lead in nba history w/ their best player never touching the ball in overtime and their coach was named coach of the year last year, and i think what kidd showed in dallas certainly clears whatever that bar is

i mean no one coaches luka you just give him the ball which does make life easier in some ways

is kidd a better coach than carlise of course not, did luka play identically under both to similar results yeah he did

now has jason kidd over the course of his career left a lot of people saying this guy is a bad coach and sucks yeah he has, did he just get fired with $40m left on his contract yeah

nobody coaches luka tactically but there's obv other aspects of like... parenting him basically? which carlisle who is a better tactical coach than kidd failed at, to some degree, but kidd seemed better at? also kyrie went from the most drama inducing player in the nba to basically a nun in dallas, maybe that was partly his relationship w/ nico or realizations about himself, however i think kidd is just one of these coaches who knows how to wrangle these kinds of players and personalities, which in the NBA, in certain situations, is a necessary skill set

kidd having simpatico with kyrie does make a lot of sense because they are both weird dudes, carlise made the conf finals with luka kidd made the finals but couldve been out in the second round if one shot fell differently their success was about the same

will kidd be able to mindfuck another sociopathic owner into hiring him almost certainly, will that be his last coaching job probably yes unless he can get on a team who has a guy like luka or giannis you can just give the ball to, this has been the jason kidd faq

currently employed coaches i would say are definitively better than jason kidd

daignault, spoelstra, mazzulla, kerr, carlisle, finch, ... will hardy? ty lue?

i just think there is a handful of great coaches and there are bad coaches and then there's a huge glut in the middle of guys who might be good or bad depending on the situation and i think kidd falls squarely in that middle group. again if anyone can articulate the reasons why guys like atkinson, donavan, snyder, nick nurse etc are definitively better coaches than kidd i'm all ears but i don't think one exists bcuz they're all mostly the same guy

kidd has the stink of being part of luka trade on him, plus he's an asshole, i think those are the reasons.

i understand why the mavs fired him bcuz he shouldn't be coaching a team w/ a bunch of 22 year olds on it but that's not really what we're talking about

i just think there is a handful of great coaches and there are bad coaches and then there's a huge glut in the middle of guys who might be good or bad depending on the situation and i think kidd falls squarely in that middle group. again if anyone can articulate the reasons why guys like atkinson, donavan, snyder, nick nurse etc are definitively better coaches than kidd i'm all ears but i don't think one exists bcuz they're all mostly the same guy

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, May 20, 2026 9:56 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this is basically right but also if you’re “just a guy” you’re expendable especially if the team is looking to start a new chapter with a presumably younger whiz kid like some of the ones you mentioned. if your owner is willing to eat 40M then really no sense keeping him around

i just think there is a handful of great coaches and there are bad coaches and then there's a huge glut in the middle of guys who might be good or bad depending on the situation and i think kidd falls squarely in that middle group. again if anyone can articulate the reasons why guys like atkinson, donavan, snyder, nick nurse etc are definitively better coaches than kidd i'm all ears but i don't think one exists bcuz they're all mostly the same guy

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, May 20, 2026 9:56 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this is basically right but also if you’re “just a guy” you’re expendable especially if the team is looking to start a new chapter with a presumably younger whiz kid like some of the ones you mentioned. if your owner is willing to eat 40M then really no sense keeping him around

nick nurse won a title w/ one of the greatest players of all time at the peak of his powers, subsequently has never made it past round 2, missed the playoffs in half those seasons, and the sixers fanbase has been trying to fire him for 2 straight years

quinn snyder coached one of the best teams in the west for 5+ years, never made it past round 2, lost in the first round as the higher seed numerous times, got the franchise blown up, got hired to save the hawks, missed the playoffs in his first two seasons

kenny atkinson won coach of the year, his team flamed out in round 2 while straight quitting on the season, they came back the next year as the only team in the nba paying into the second apron, then finished fourth in the worse conference, and just blew the biggest lead in nba history

most of these guys can have good or bad resumes depending on how you want to look at it

i support teams taking shots on guys who haven't coached before -- jordan ott, charles lee etc these guys might be great coaches and better than jason kidd

but my point is more like coach bud, taylor jenkins, the guys i've mentioned above -- those kinda retread hires are obv in demand in the league, there are teams who seek out these kinds of coaches, for better or worse, i just find it hard to be convinced that kidd is like, somehow below this level of coach

i think kidd is bad at the tactical part of coaching and would prob be worse than all the mediocre coaches in their positions mentioned above, will be interesting to see what transpires in his next role, i will say tho that im open to the kidd approach of keeping it simple and playing hard could actually be better than the coaching a of supposed basketball deep thinker like atkinson, worth noting too that coaches who rely on their teams playing hard tend to have short shelf lives since players get tired of that shit

kidd playing flagg at pg right out of the gate was such weird dumb guy who needs attention behavior he was coaching so steven a smith notices him, just not a cool or normal guy

coaches who rely on their teams playing hard tend to have short shelf lives since players get tired of that shit

Being crafty is a super valuable basketball skill. Paul Pierce never ran when he could walk and get the same result.

kidd playing flagg at pg right out of the gate was such weird dumb guy who needs attention behavior

maybe. on the other hand the PGs on their roster at the beginning of the season were d'angelo russell, brandon williams, and ryan nembhard

yeah play one of the point guards at point guard not the 18 year old rookie forward, should also be noted that they got much better as soon as they did just that, and as a bonus youre not torturing the future of your franchise

masai was like get this freak away from my baby the minute he walked in the door

this is one of those “mutual partings” that i believe was actually mutual. i think when they went to kidd and were like “we’re gonna pay you $40 million to not coach one of the worst teams in the league for one of the most reviled and least competent owners in the league” im sure he was like “ok”

dallas job with masai and flagg has gotta be the best open position pretty easily, worth noting too that mavs ownership group is the second richest in the league

a ROCKET SCIENTIST is coming to save the Lakers

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48845975/sources-lakers-hire-rohan-ramadas-assistant-general-manager

Everyone knows the Pelicans have the best analytics.

lol that was a great punchline

it seems good that the cavs keep on having to announce to audible groans that their guys are returning next year

harden should think hard about retiring, or just taking vet min and going back to a role as a 6th man.

theyre saying giannis wants to go to boston or miami

source: Jordan S. Lagoon

one of the sources is bill simmons lol but also marc stein

wouldn't touch giannis with a ten foot pole tbh

hasn't played a full playoff series in what, 4 years?

now if he'd sign for 30 million, sure

i've been telling locals not to bother with giannis pipe dreams when they bring him up as a longshot trade target. he's 32 in december, his game is all athleticism and he's hurt more and more, making 63 mil in 27-28...

he's due for a good year I think a team with a lot of draft picks should make an offer

so giannis wants to crash out to miami. dame wanted to crash out to miami. a trend? maybe not. jimmy wanted to crash out of miami. the real trend here is superstars not waiting out their contracts and entering UFA status as a method to switch teams any more. too many golden handcuffs.

all the injuries this year seemed fake idk

injuries are worrying but giannis still plays at mvp level when healthy

hard to get guys that good

yeah i think hes got some good years left

also maybe if he goes to a team where he isnt the entire offense that could reduce the strain on his body

it’s funny how injuries in the NBA are treated like embiid was seen as a real guy until recently, giannis seems like he’s seen as a guy, no one in baseball thinks of say mike trout this way…sometimes father time just comes

wouldn't touch giannis with a ten foot pole tbh

― k3vin k., Tuesday, May 26, 2026 7:01 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is where i am

can the pole hoop? might be a better option

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJwESRWWkAApxfM?format=jpg&name=large

this is his version of 9/11 and the target is lebron's house

wouldn't touch giannis with a ten foot pole tbh

― k3vin k., Tuesday, May 26, 2026 7:01 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is where i am

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, May 26, 2026 7:34 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

can the pole hoop? might be a better option

― ciderpress, Tuesday, May 26, 2026 9:10 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

can't teach size

The Rehearsal Season 2 xp

RIP Rick Adelman

rip great coach who never really got his due even tho his teams played fun ball