niremetal

...games 2, 4, 5, and 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals?

FWIW, I *think* the rule against mid-season contract extensions applies only to players on their rookie scale contracts who are headed for RFA status. Could be wrong. But I swear I remember some veterans signing extensions in the middle of a season, esp after a trade. Sorry if that dampens the sex appeal of that particular type of transaction.

That brings my batting average for predicting behind-the-scenes stuff to approximately .023.

I honestly feel like the US got away with one this time around. This was the first game in the whole Olympics that the team really showed up in the first half...and France still made it close. Nando De Colo is a baller, btw. I gotta think that the only reason he didn't stick in the NBA is that Pop was still committed to a Parker/Ginobili backcourt when he played for the Spurs, and other teams didn't catch onto his level of talent until he went back to Europe and got into a starter's rhythm...by which point he was too old for teams to feel comfortable just bringing him over and handing him lead guard duties. Too bad, really. I think he clearly is an All-Star caliber talent. He's gotta be bitter today that he was denied Gold by Coach Pop as well. Yeah, I wouldn't be too cocky if I were KD. It's not like the US cruised at ALL in this tournament (except against renowned basketball powerhouse Iran). Pop struggled with this team early on, but made the most important adjustment of the Games when he had Draymond play "point center" late in the game (neutralizing France's effective ball pressure because Gobert isn't going to play 94 feet). He doesn't make that adjustment, I think the US might have lost, because, talent notwithstanding, this team never meshed and France nearly pulled this one out.

#nirestradamus

Eh. I don't consider Schröder a pure point guard either. He plays the part because he's not big enough to guard 2s, but his best offensive efficiency numbers have actually come in the past 3 years, when he's played off the ball more. Even in his last two years here, when he was full-time PG playing 31mpg, he topped out at 6.3apg and was clearly shoot-first.

No doubt Wright and Reddish will eat into K'Von and Bogi's minutes somewhat. But I think that'll mainly come at the expense of the minutes that Lou, Rondo, Snell, and Hill took over the course of last season. I think Bogi's minutes will be right around 30--a bit shy of what he was doing late last year, but not a ton less. I think the fact that Nate played him 20+ minutes a night even when his knee totally robbed him of his bounce and first step is about as strong proof as there is that Nate will trust him to play full-time starter minutes. Huerter's a trickier situation, depending on how quickly Reddish develops. But given how well Huerter played down the stretch last year, I definitely don't see his minutes crashing all the way to 20. I think he'll be the first guy off the bench and ahead of Reddish, at least at the start of the year. My guess is 25 minutes or a bit less most nights.

The imbecile who wrote that clearly missed the memo about the Delon Wright trade.

Bear in mind that all of I can't imagine that Bogi will play that few minutes unless there are wear-and-tear concerns with his knees (and even then, the better approach would be to rest him on the 2NB2Bs rather than simply have him play fewer minutes). He averaged 33mpg once Nate made him a starter, and that just happened to coincide with us going 18-7 over that span. We're deeper now, but I still don't see him playing fewer than 28-30 if he's active and the game is close. Same with Huerter. He averaged 31mpg last year. He's not gonna have those minutes cut by a third. Bear in mind that 15 of our 16 regular lineups that had a positive +/- last season featured either Bogi, Huerter, or both (12 of the 16 featured Trae). All 4 of our lineups with a negative +/- had Bogi on the bench. I just don't see Bogi or Huerter having their minutes cut dramatically--certainly not because we want to get Lou minutes or because we'd rather avoid JC or even Gallo having to play the 5. I imagine Dieng will average 8-12ish mpg rather than 15 (with JC playing a good number of minutes at the 5 and Hunter at the 4 sometimes) and that Lou will see a fair number of DNP-CDs now that Wright is aboard. No third-string PG plays every night, much less plays every night while averaging 8 mpg. Young (33)/Wright (13)/Lou (3) Bogi (29)/Huerter (25)/Mays Hunter (28)/Reddish (20)/Hill Collins(33)/Gallo(18)/JJ Capela(28)/Dieng(10)/OO

I think we had Bird rights on him, which would mean no need to use MLE?

It's a tough call, but I went with Millsap, mainly because (assuming the Delon Wright deal goes through) I see a more plausible path to Millsap playing meaningful minutes and doing something with them. But really, at this point, neither of those guys should be playing meaningful minutes. Millsap's defense has been pretty bad for the past couple years, and his 3P% last season was worryingly low. As with Lou, I question how much he actually has left in the tank. And unlike Lou, I don't see him as being the type of player anymore who will ever have a night good enough to tilt games in our favor. I feel like with either guy, what we're really paying for is a veteran presence and mentor. Lou clearly embraced that role last season with Trae and OO (and others), and his calls to our draft picks on draft night (which both mentioned in their press conference) suggests that he's up for continuing it. I think it benefitted Trae and OO a lot last year, which in turn benefited the team. I have no doubt that Millsap will have the same positive impact on many of the guys in the locker room. But going forward, I still think having a veteran presence that Trae (specifically) respects is important. So I'll Trust In Travis Schlenk (and Coach Nate). If they think Millsap will have positively impact Trae and the team in the way Lou did--and that he'll be okay with a good number of DNP-CDs, which he didn't have to contend with in Denver--I'd definitely bring him in over Lou. If they think Lou has a unique rapport with Trae that we'll lose with Millsap, it becomes a tough call.

You've basically got it. If we decide to keep him in 2022-23, we'll owe him the full $21M. But we waive him at the end of next season (which I fully expect us to, unless he totally balls out and wins the Sixth Man Award), we only pay him $5M. That $5M will essentially be dead cap space and he will become a free agent. BUT (and this is the good news) if/when another team signs him, the amount of that $5M cap hit will essentially be reduced by however much his new team pays him. So if a team signs him next summer for the ~$4M BAE, our dead cap hit for him will only be ~$1M. This is why Gallo is all but a non-factor when it comes to figuring out who gets paid in future seasons.

Gallo is only guaranteed $5M next season, so I don't think that will have any bearing on whether we extend Huerter. I suspect Schlenk structured Gallo's contract that way precisely so it wouldn't kill us when Trae and Huerter were due to get paid.

To me that's the only plus...maybe we could flip him at the deadline to Chicago for Vucevic once the Bulls' whole front office gets fired mid-season and they start rebuilding...

Et tu, Supes? I remain utterly baffled by the notion that we should want Beal. The only role I could see him filling on this team that would be a good fit is as a sixth man, basically a supercharged version of Lou. But there's no way he'd want that role, and there's no way we'd want to pay $35M for him to play that role. So assuming he'd be coming in as a starter, serious question--how would that not be a disaster? He is one of the few players in the league who is more ball-dominating than Trae. He's been a mediocre three-point shooter for the past several seasons, so he won't be as good as Bogi (or even Huerter) playing a catch-and-shoot role alongside Trae. In fact, Bogi was a more effective offensive player than Beal has been in any of the past 4 seasons by virtually every metric except raw ppg (which, considering that he took more than 23 FGAs per game last year, ain't exactly a . And that's even if you include the time Bogi was mis-utilized by LP. Maybe Beal circa 2016 would make sense, but the 35% from deep/ballhog model that he is today... And that's just on the offensive end. On the defensive end (as I've said), he's become of the very worst defenders in the entire league--and one of his few competitors is Trae. We'd be left with an undersized, historically bad backcourt on the defensive end. So again--why on earth would we be interested in Beal, especially given that he makes $35M per year? I just don't get it.

Huh? Gallo's contract will be 100% off the books by the time Cam and Hunter would get paid (summer of 2023 is when their extensions would kick in). There's literally no way trading him would create cap space for Cam or Hunter.

@NBASupes seems convinced it's because Cam's on the trading block. Hoping he's wrong, you're right, and that it's just a realization that the risk of injury / benefits of low-impact offseason training outweighed the reps he'd get from playing 100 minutes of summer league ball...

Boo. Ascending

Why you hatin' on my boy?

This is important. Solo led the team in games played last season (71 of 72) and was actually fifth on the team in total minutes played last season. He played more minutes than Bogi or Gallo, and more than he'd played since his first year with the Pelicans in '16-'17. That only came out to an average of 21.3 mpg, but given how condensed the season's schedule was and how hard Solo plays, that probably felt like 30 minutes per game on his legs. It also meant that any bruises and tweaks he suffered never got the chance to heal. That seemed to bear out when his shooting averages dipped in April and May and then plummeted in the playoffs. Solo shot 37% from deep in 2019-20. I don't doubt he can get back to that level if he gets the chance to rest his legs, which he just never got this year. But even if that doesn't happen, like @sillent and others have said--we're not bringing him here to shoot. We're bringing him here because he's a tough veteran who knows his role, plays solid D on opposing forwards, and is a great locker room presence. I'm damn glad he's back in the fold.

They have a pile of first-round picks lying around...including their own that we own lottery-protected for next year.

To be sure, that approach would be considered fair play in most businesses / cities. But by no means all. And I have no idea what the NBA's unwritten rules for this stuff are.

What's Priest Lauderdale up to these days?

I have no doubt that if Schlenk did that, he'd sign the QO and make himself a UFA next summer, and poison our relationship with him in the interim. That would mean we lose him next summer for nothing, barring a trade.