Twitter Mailbag: Trade Deadline, Inside The NBA, Pizza Preferences & Vegemite
The trade deadline nears. Readers had their last chance to fire in any questions before it passes.
This week’s Twitter Mailbag was fun. I can’t wait to dive into it, now that we have a little time to do so. The All-Star Break is a welcome one, but make no mistake, the trade deadline is going to be wild.
League executives and sources around the NBA have indicated with the new CBA protecting teams from losing their players, more than ever, trades are the way forward for teams to improve. Their may be no “godfather offers”, but there will be movement.
Woj season lives. Let’s not waste any time and get into this week’s questions.
Food questions first!
Vegemite stinks. Make no mistake about it people, I don’t care about your spreading amount (too much is a sin, I am told), what you have with it or anything of the sort. It is terrible and as an Australian it’s incredibly annoying to be attached to such a poor spread. It’s Nutella or it’s nothing.
I would be remiss though not to add fellow Sixteener Adam Howes’ contribution:
I stand by my stance though Eric Fawcett — Vegemite sucks. I am against it.
I voted for deep dish! All damn day, people. Whoever voted for thin crust is a spawn of satan. Deep dish is one of God’s gifts to the people. Experiencing New York thin crust was special, I lived on $1 slices with my brother and girlfriend when we spent a week in New York in 2015, but the deep dish at the Bulls game we went to in Chicago was All-Time. We tried other places around Chicago and nothing came close.
Look, I don’t blame choosers of thin crust. It’s great, but I’m a deep dish guy born and raised. I’ll go to war for that any day.
Sadly, no. They might get the #1 pick though! Let’s run the RealGM lottery simulator right now and see what comes up:
Milwaukee! The NBA Gods want the Bucks to have their pick of the draft litter to unify an already stunning core. The Suns get the fourth pick and another chance to add an important piece to a really impressive set of assets. In fact, just last week I wrote about how Eric Bledsoe’s brilliant play for Phoenix warranted them to think about whether they really want to deal him, and by all accounts they’re indicating they want him to stay.
The Suns aren’t winning a ring anytime soon, but they are putting the pieces in place for them to get back into a very good winning position sooner rather than later.
I was actually asked KAT or Porzingis on the last mailbag, damn these questions are hard. But Jackson Posey did say it’s assuming health, and that makes it very, very difficult.
See how hard this decision is! I’m taking The Process by a finger nail. Why? Because can you imagine him on the Timberwolves compared to Towns on the Sixers? Embiid has proved unstoppable offensively as a rookie. That is insanity.
Embiid is more of a force defensively than Towns, because Embiid holds down a Sixers defense that becomes bottom 10 without him. It’s a similar case on offense. Towns has an All-NBA and perhaps MVP future in Minnesota, no doubt. But health permitting, book me in for a career of Joel Embiid.
Jackson asked two questions, that made me happy. The Indiana Pacers are absolutely not considering their franchise player, and Larry Bird is determined to use his first round pick in 2017 to get George help. But what exactly are they going to acquire with their first rounder that pushes the needle? It’s not in the lottery, and while it is a deep draft can you get enough with it to make George think “hey, I undoubtedly want to stay in Indiana because of this trade”… probably not.
George’s comments publicly are also concerning. Alluding to locker room tension and outright dislike are pretty damning — no matter how quickly you cover your tracks afterwards. It’s also not too promising in terms of George’s qualities as a leader. As Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade taught us recently, keep your issues in house.
So to come back to the question; despite fun artwork’s being made of George in a Lakers uniform or Celtics one — he’ll be a Pacer, at least for now anyway.
Nobody of value, sorry to say. Trades and the deadline itself are sexy as hell, it’s like free agency and draft picks; the idea of it is sometimes better than the reality.
The Wizards have Ian Mahinmi coming back into the rotation as he steadily gets back to full health, but their bench stinks. Their starting five is incredible though, as our guy Keith P. Smith noted recently:
Sixteen Columnist Colby Giacubeno also recently wrote similar to what I said above, trades are cool, but they come at a cost:
There’s no rush for the Wizards, they are on a .711 winning pace (32–13) ignoring their bizarre 2–8 start. Scott Brooks’ time off has paid dividends. Washington are running sets incorporated from Brooks’ time off studying aboard and watching games around the NBA and particularly in Europe.
Washington fans are starved of success and they have their best team in a long time, naturally creating the need for reassurance via the trade market. Make no mistake though, there’s no need. The Wiz will be just fine. They’re awesome.
Oh this is easy, don’t hate me, don’t judge me, but this is by far the best trade I can come up with (with an explanation to come).
I’ll find something better I promise but I don’t pretend to be a Trade Machine expert, but I’ll work it on it I assure you. This reunites the greatest drafting a man has ever done — Sam Presti’s beautiful work in Oklahoma City.
It gives the Thunder a starting five of Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka (who takes a discount of sorts to stay in the summer), Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook, who put aside all of their past differences in search of eternal glory and multiple titles in OKC.
No bench you say? Hell, they don’t need one but I made plans anyway. Kendrick Perkins signs on a minimum deal, Eric Maynor comes back too. Daequan Cook signs, and Thabo Sefolosha is bought out of the last year of his contract in Atlanta to join a contender in the Thunder.
Nick Collison makes his last, incredible sacrifice for Oklahoma City by allowing them to trade him (something considered blasphemy at present) as he retires on arrival in Toronto, joining the Thunder front office afterwards. I’ll let Sam fill out the rest of the bench, but Dakari Johnson has been incredible in the D-League and he’d be a nice addition from the Oklahoma City Blue.
No I haven’t been drinking, but I’m not beyond my pride either. I miss my guys in Oklahoma City, and I’m not afraid to say it. The greatest what-if of All-Time, that instead of being talked about as a fun exercise is ripped to shreds by people who dwell in negativity for the sake of attention. It’s annoying, enough already!
This is a fascinating question. If you aren’t familiar with both players numbers, let’s take a look:
Barton is really showing glimpses of growing into what Williams is now as a scorer, but doesn’t score with the volume that Sweet Lou does. Williams (despite declining percentages) is having a career year with the Lakers, but doesn’t fit into their long term plan. He has a decent contract at $7 million, whilst Barton at half of that is the bargain contract of guards around the NBA.
If you’re a contender with limited room to move, Barton is your guy. If you can push the boat out a little more in terms of money and have massive needs for scoring punch off the bench (most contenders, realistically), Williams.
I’d probably take Barton because of his age and I like his all-round game better, but I think the field takes Williams. I guess I’m a Basketball Hipster?
Kevin Garnett has been the best addition and his segment with Rasheed Wallace was one of the great moments of Inside the NBA history. Charles Barkley was one of my favorite players, but one of my least favorite analysts, the Jet is great but can be questionable, Shaq is just funny and I love Ernie Johnson. But Garnett takes the cake slightly ahead of Ernie.
They should trade Dennis Schröder if they can, to be honest. But, that’s not going to happen, his stock is low with an extension kicking in this summer. I think keeping Paul Millsap is a premium option if he has given indication that he’s planning to stay long term, but I think even though they are overachieving compared to expectations of some they are fairly stuck as far as moves go.
They have first round picks in the bank from the Cavs in 2019 (top 10 protected for two years) and the Wolves in 2018 (lottery protected for three years) that they can use in a trade, but they don’t have the contracts to trade that are of interest as filler and that means not much is likely to happen.
It might be quiet in the ATL at the deadline, but you never know.
No! No, no, no, no, no! Too many assets is never a bad thing. Sure, the Celtics have had more picks than they can handle in last year’s draft. But how is that a bad problem to have? The Nuggets are in an understatedly brilliant position, and the Suns have a bright future, which I’ve already spoken about.
Somebody wrote about how having too many assets can be a bad thing earlier this week, I can’t remember who. That doesn’t make sense to me though. I think as outsiders we want endless trades with assets utilized to bring in big, awesome hauls. It doesn’t always work that way!
Trades and particularly winning trades is about being opportunistic. That’s what team executives are banking on when they have those assets. It’s about time and patience, but sometimes it’s us who don’t have that.
THE DRAGON IS BALLING RIGHT NOW! Dragic is shooting 50 percent from the perimeter in February, and the Heat have often run good or badly based on the pulse of how Dragic has played.
He’s been sensational, and alongside Bradley Beal was unlucky not to take Kevin Love’s spot on the All-Star team in the Eastern Conference. I’d write about him, but Allana Tachauer wrote an ode to him last week, and it was awesome:
In a point guard/floor general heavy league, it’s questionable how much trade value he has except for teams who are dying for a PG such as the Magic, who are going crazy before the deadline in search of help in all spots.
The Heat are starting to find their groove, and have a roster well positioned to either move forwards or backwards. I doubt Pat Riley or Erik Spoelstra (who is coaching the hell out of that team) is planning on it being the latter, so let’s assume the Dragon is staying in South Beach.
No, absolutely not. Isaiah Thomas is playing like an outside MVP candidate, despite the qualms about his defense. Smart is an All-World defender this season, probably good enough for the second team in All-Defensive selection come award time.
I think Avery Bradley is the guy who gets sacrificed. His bargain contract in the $8 million range is winding down with a year to run. If Danny Ainge does move one of his Brooklyn picks for a superstar, I’d expect Bradley to be involved in that mega trade. Smart, Thomas and a future pick who could be another guard is a nice guard rotation if Bradley does get shipped out of town, if you ask me.
Thomas is due a big pay day in 2018, and so is Bradley. I think it’s Thomas getting paid by the Celtics, and not Bradley.
Austin Rivers has become a reasonable NBA player, I know people still deny it, but it’s becoming true. If he was shipped for Carmelo Anthony by the Clippers he shapes as the key piece in that deal if you jump on the Trade Machine (though any trade likely requires a third team, which changes the dynamic).
No, a trade for a soon to be 33 year old Anthony does not vindicate Doc Rivers shortcoming as an executive. He should stick to coaching, where’s he already on somewhat thin ice in Los Angeles.
The Clippers are approaching some serious questions if they can’t get it together before the season is out.
