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Diesel, my friend. A prediction is... a prediction. Yes, it's a guess, but scholars and mere mortals will agree, as you should yourself, that it's one thing to represent something as having happened, and another as could happen. I would think that that would be the easy piece of what I wrote for you to acknowledge. But when you get in a defensive posture, it's my experience, you dig in rather than listening for what you can agree with. Granted, you have a lot of company in having that routine reaction, but not all of us are in that room with you. They/we do, but not in something they/we publish. And to call a person a scholar just because s/he says s/he has been granted a graduate degree may be proper professional etiquette... but few of us are ignorant that there are, indeed, degrees for sale out there... and while my suspicion is that this person more likely than not gained the one he alleges somewhere else, that's still the case even within the borders of the US. Um. Diesel, I clicked twice. If that's aggressive (???), I would urge you to consider whether the better criticism is that you may be to easily duped into believing whatever shows up on the internet written by someone you don't know who makes whatever claims s/he makes. At what age. Bill Gates did not gain his acumen and knowledge as a matter of genetics or supernatural thunder striking him to invent MS-DOS. Right? You think you're making your point, but you're actually making mine... we assign to people expertise as we understand reason to believe they hold expertise. It doesn't come by merely claiming a graduate degree in whatever discipline. We acclaim Bill Gates on the basis of what we know about the man , not some letters after his name. I'll agree with you. Absolutely. Focus on the substance the messenger is conveying, not the messenger him/herself. My exploration of this person and finding reason to doubt his credibility as the expert he presents himself as? That falls completely flat and meaningless... if ... if we then examine the substance and find it presents facts that are well-grounded and logic that is well-reasoned. But in fact, I did look at the substance as well. And what did we find? Largely a mix of Coon's information at cbafaq.com, and numbers we have no actual clue where they came from, since he... this supposed "scholar"... didn't know how scholars cite their sources. That's where your criticism falls flat.

Thanks for the link. (You may have said something somewhere, but wherever that was, it wasn't a post I read... or, naturally, I wouldn't ask). Next question. Why do you call it a "prediction?" The author of the write-up you're citing says flat out... That line alone in my book, Dies, should compel any ordinarily intelligent person to wonder about the confidence one should place in the author... and the reliability of his information. And when I looked, I found a young man (by virtue of his graduation photo) who claims to have an MBA... from where, he doesn't choose to say. Pardon my skepticism, but when I was in grad school, we spoke routinely about drawing inferences from other information available. And we spelled publicly without the A and extra L. Perhaps the claim to having an MBA is valid. But to wonder about the reputation of the institution that granted the degree is altogether reasonable. Junaid goes on to say... ... which is different from what you said, that it was a prediction... not sure where you got that idea, but whatever. Then, as for his source for asserting the numbers he asserted... the main thing I was trying to decipher all this time... here's what young Junaid Waqar points to... Big problem. (But only if one bothers to go there and look for that, of course. Not a problem at all if you're the kind of person who subscribes to the premise "if it's on the internet, it must be true.") There is no such "team turn over" information on statista.com. (At least, none that I could uncover, but feel free to have at it.) So did our young blogger just make up numbers? Well, for now, that's as good of a theory as any. My general preference is to give people a benefit of a doubt until they prove they're not worthy of that benefit. So, maybe just maybe he found some other numbers that he used to try to deduce a number. I'd like to think he, at least, had that much integrity, so I'm going to be satisfied with it. But the point remains. We have no clue where these numbers came from, and no reason to presume they hold up to scrutiny... especially since he misled readers to believe that he was providing the explicit source for his numbers, when he did not. (What does he even mean by "team turn over?" I'm assuming he means the amount that teams turn over to the league, but not 100% on that.) Let's use your analogy... that's fine. At the end of the year, you're trying to have brought home more than you spent... actually, more than that... to profit as much as you can profit. Can we agree? So. The gas bill may be mostly a constant, sure. And thus, if you see a decrease in takehome pay (revenue), there's not a lot you can do to impact that bottom line by cutting back on that. Even the budget for eating isn't terribly flexible, though there may be some wiggle room there, especially if you've been eating out a lot. The significant issue, if your income is down year over year, is to reduce the most significant discretionary numbers in the household budget. For that, you're going to consider the practicalities of downsizing. The house? Probably not, but maybe. More analogous to this situation you and I are discussing, though, are the 15 cars you have in your driveway... sure you need them all to run your business, but do you really need all those sports cars... can your business survive better if your monthly payments were for less valuable cars but ones that would get the job done? And here's the rub, then. How much you're going to profit under a situation when income has decreased is most dependent on how you're dealing with the biggest numbers in that expense column. I'm not really sure why we even are having to have this conversation, just candidly. This is pretty simple stuff once you agree... and you and I appear to agree... that the owner's paramount concern is maximizing profits... and that, even the pursuit of winning is somewhat driven by ego but also largely driven by what he understands winning does to drive revenue, and related, maximize profit. So, yes, it isn't difficult to figure out APR's allergy to the LT. But where this current situation is concerned, that's like talking about paying the state big-ticket taxes on the cars he's never bought yet. It's not relevant. He's never paid that anyhow, even when his revenues were better. What he has to think about right here and now is how to downsize, period. And downsizing salaries is the logical area to look for that... thus, the reported interest to move DJM, and perhaps others like Bogi.

Someone might have to mediate. I'm evidently really bad at this communication thing. I'm agreeing that Ressler doesn't want to take a LT hit. I'm agreeing that Ressler's profits is his paramount concern. (Honestly, wasn't I the first one to conclude that and lay out the evidence here... to a point of ad nauseum as far as some were concerned?) The LT is one part of the equation. See Coon FAQ question/answer #21. It's an important part. It's not the only part. And so, it's not the bottom line. What is this? And what is the source for this? Dunno.

Weird. I may never have read a response in all my years that was more divorced from the (vivid, or so I'd thought) point of the post it was supposedly responding to.... hehe. You appear to think I'm saying something, Dies, that I'm absolutely not saying. Whatever you took from the "point made a few times"... it somehow wasn't the point intended in any of those few times. Is it financially responsible, yes. But it's not avoiding the LT for the sake of avoiding the LT... as was mentioned in another thread, that's one part of a larger equation... a bigger picture... ie, avoiding going into the red, and to the contrary, working the NBA revenue sharing equation in every facet of that complicated equation (including but not limited to the LT) to maximize profit. I propose that conventional wisdom would suggest that 2023 revenues are more likely than not, down... and so, even avoiding the LT isn't, on its own, meaningful to the bigger picture. And that means, it may not be enough to have already shed two contracts in consecutive years with no on-court benefit. More spreadsheet decisions may be necessary even still. Plausibly. We can't know that for a fact, but if you're not winning at some level that inspires post season hope, it's unlikely that revenues from tix, merch and anything else is going to be inspiring, either... and perhaps even more depressing... the plan for the next season almost has to be affected as well. Eat drink and be merry, folks. Savor every win in the time you get to savor it. This owner isn't going away unless he comes to believe it's a drag on his overall portfolio.

Hold out for Tide, Landry!!! None of that cheap stuff! The equipment manager is beggin ya.

The difference in these two takes? The first recognizes this thing is only a consumer entertainment choice... enjoy what you can while you can and don't apologize for that... even revel in it. The second knows better with the frontal cortex, but the limbic system intervenes, and implicit in those words, wants so desperately for there to be some greater plan that actually holds winning... this season, next season, or some season someday... paramount. But alas... lucidity reminds... it's all about the spreadsheet

(Tragically, Gray, I suspect it does not sound familiar to very many of the congregation gathered here in 2024.... hehehe.)

Watched the 10 min highlight reel last night on YouTube for the first time since sometime before Christmas. Didn't even realize Nurkic plays for the Suns now... how bout that. One takeaway I had is how funny... and that is the term, funny... it would be to see this team go on a roll right ahead of the deadline. Another takeaway is that virtually all of the Hawks highlights involved a backcourt player. Not that I'm super surprised, but I am a little. Of course, it's just one game, but I've read the comments here about the need for another big man in the rotation, and those highlights did nothing to dispute that.

Well, if they're top 10 profitability, what else really needs to be said... the list starts and ends there, no? But I do want, seriously, to know where you saw that was the case. I've never seen that info made public, or I didn't think I had.

The amount a non-taxpaying team will receive from this (optional, variable... see "may be... no requirement") component to the system is only one half of the equation, if you bother reading what Coon writes. In other words, you may end up being owed some number as a non-taxpaying team, but the fact remains, that may be offset by how much you owe the league anyhow, based on the factors in that other half of the equation. It's not simple. That's my point... my non-passive aggressive point.

Hold up... where are you getting that intel? I don't think that's published anywhere, or at least, if it is, my Google skills appear to be on the decline. That would be an interesting list to see, so I'm actually hoping it's true, my skills are on the decline. And/but yes, to the point of the conversation... Count me as super skeptical that Tony's calm cool and collected about his spreadsheet for this season and his projected spreadsheets for future seasons... which is what drives his decisions today, of course.

Ummm... yes and no... you may already know this, but just so we're on the same page, it's significantly more complicated than that. Complicated enough that I can appreciate how hard Peter Antony must work to try to optimize his investment, truly. http://cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q21

It's expensive to buy in to a company that has complete autonomy in the market, controlling the whole enchilada... aka, a monopoly... but if you can get in, it's proven to far outperform the S&P 500, for sure. And here's the thing that sets it even farther apart... There is practically no industry in the US economy that has zero federal government regulations imposing on its capacity to generate income. Professional sports, as far as I'm aware, stands alone. Most trouble you'll ever have is the occasional need to show up in DC every decade or two for a show where you have to tell a House committee how it happened that you let a rogue ref gamble, or a few players take some PEDs.

There truly had/has been a pattern all along. He's thrown his basketball people under the bus every time, and in the aftermath, he's consistently claimed he's learned something new that he hadn't understood before. Budcox supposedly weren't playing well together, and APR had been forced to intervene... not something he wanted to do, but their conflict forced it. Then supposedly Bud wasn't the cooperative spirit as the demoted-to-head-coach-only employee that APR had envisioned... and we had that mini-drama as Bud exited. Schlenk supposedly wasn't democratic enough in his decision-making, and APR had been forced to intervene... not something he wanted to do, but based on reports from Nick the Mole (aka, the Principal Advisor to the Governor... what a title, right?), something that was totally necessary. Make no mistake, I'm not even suggesting (here, anyways) APR was wrong to make any move he's made... I'm rather pointing precisely, as I understand Jay doing, at APR's pattern. He sets up the organizational chart in a way that will only naturally lead to conflict that "I alone can fix"... giving him excuse to continually be in the middle of conversations he, by virtue of the evidence, wants to be in the middle of... yet sets it up this way so he has some plausible ground to claim "I'm not meddling."

Diesel, that had been the case previously. I think you should modify the assertion to accommodate a wider view of the spreadsheet, though. His intention is to make sure the team is in the black, not the red. Why that's important, of course, is that staying out of the LT may not be enough if your revenues aren't what you'd projected them to be for the current season... and that, in turn, obviously, also raises concerns about the budget for the next season. Iow, he might very well avoid the LT in a given season, but that may not be sufficient to avoid expenses greater than income.

Practically every year of my life has been characterized to some degree by what I'm reading today... the feeling of utter futility, but wanting something/anything within some realm of reason to maybe make things just a little better... and being powerless, though, and resigned to just babble and complain and, in my case especially, come up with plausible solutions after all kinds of research on basketball-reference. Pardon the observation, but just if it's reassuring to anyone on the fence, trying to decide whether to pull out that one last lock of hair on their head while muddling through another completely unsatisfying trade deadline, or taking a break... I promise, the water is warm. C'mon in. It's like... well, at least from what I've been told, not that I ever did this myself... suffering the desperation of your dire circumstances, then realizing you can simply relieve yourself in the warm, highly-chlorinated swimming pool.

I'm, of course, not paying attention and on extended hiatus pending some change in ownership... But... just to the general idea presented, and not to pick on Bonkers... Let's not pretend that Luka hasn't had some nights vs. Hawks over the years that made us all extremely satisfied with the decision to trade for Trae. We'll have to see, of course, if that up and down, win-some-lose-some course continues through the rest of their careers.

(Preface: Don't shoot me. I'm only responding to what's been observable and reasonable to conclude from public observations.)

That's assuming, of course, conventional wisdom that the tax threshold is the threshold of interest. How's that revenue side of the sheet this year, Tony? You satisfied that current revenue justifies projected expenses? I know that sounds gross. But, well, you know.

Wrong forum, I know, but I'm sure the mods will move it in time... Not a Falcons fan. I think I do, too, though. I mean, it's always a crap shoot to some degree, and there's just so much that has to go right that a head coach doesn't even control. But Morris fits the profile of someone who, seems to me, is poised to be the man, not unlike I thought Dan Campbell was that when he took the DET job... I got that one right, at least. Now go get an ace OC and trade for Dak... I kid, of course, but that QB situation obviously is glaring... and you've got yourself some really good reasons for confidence in success.

So... another 2nd round pick from Utah, rite?... we all good, then? Define "have to"... it might be a different definition for a fan versus for a person whose boss is APR.... rite? I'm only half joking. There's every reason to believe that the owner has it in his mind at this point to trade a contract he doesn't want to pay earlier instead of later.

Jury is out on the front office until they get to work for someone who isn't - "Frequently" (his term) talking with them about basketball things (2022 interview w/ Kirschner) - Openly and consciously per his own words sending mixed and/or cloudy signals as to his attitude about paying tax (2022 interview w/ Kirschner) - More "impatient" (his term) than anyone else among team leadership (2022 interview w/ Kirschner) - So impatient that he confesses embarrassment to have only learned what he learned in the 18 months between promoting his former GM to VPoBo and firing him (2023 interview w/ Schultz) - Predisposed to lying as he feels led to tamp down the real story in favor of one that puts things in a light he prefers (2023 interview w/ Schultz) - Predisposed to invite criticism of the front office's leadership (2023 interview with Schultz) and to intervene if the top basketball decision-maker isn't satisfactorily bowing to others' preferences (2023 interview w/ Schultz) - Challenging his front office's ideas (2023 interview w/ Schlutz) - Injecting into the war room the owner's son--how weird to have an eyes-wide-open mole--and, related, who isn't - So self-UNaware as to believe that everyone loves the mole's presence while in the sentences just before (s'helpme) indicating that anyone who said otherwise isn't with the team any longer (2023 interview w/ Schultz) - Fickle (both interviews) - Duplicitous, words that claim one priority, and actions that are consistent with a different priority (interviews combined with reality of the facts of what decisions were made) Landry and Kyle may be great. They may be average. They may be piss poor. Hard to tell... after all, they've been commissioned to sail a ship under that kind of boss. Sad, truly, because the boss really does want to win, I believe... he's not lost at very much in his professional life if his wealth is any indication, and that's clearly a plus for any front office. But bottom line and based on the indisputable evidence of recent years, that highest priority isn't winning on the court, but winning on the spreadsheet.

(I'm guessing you may have read too fast... as I am a chief offender, history will show.) Pretty sure no matter how we would settle on a line of demarcation between high-visibility and everyone else, the Lakers would never come down on that side of everyone else. And so, by "everyone else" having that additional lever to push/pull, the theory is it gives them one more way of persuading a player beyond salary and playing time. (Sorry if I didn't make that clear.)