Bankingitbig

I don't think the Cavs were over the cap while LeBron was gone, but I could be wrong. Basketball Reference shows their 2013-2014 salary at $47M when the cap was ~$59M.

I believe Scott's contract guarantees on July 10th. I would definitely keep him unless we needed the cap space for a significant FA signing, which is unlikely. $3.3M is great value for what Scott provides on offense/spacing off the bench.

I honestly don't know if JUST Teague will get it done for Noel or Okafor. I personally don't think it will, but I was merely pointing out that Philly has shown a lot of interest in our PGs, which is something Boston doesn't have. At the same time... I think Budcox is still really high on Teague and they might also think that a straight swap of Teague for Noel or Okafor isn't fair. So lol who knows.

I think Philly is pretty high on Teague and getting a competent PG to run the offense, which is something that Boston doesn't have despite all their assets.

First of all.... There is no way Teague nets you Jabari Parker. Second of all, yes we need size at the SF, but we need that size for defense so that we can actually defend LeBron. Jabari Parker is a poor defender and we would still be better off putting an undersized Bazemore on someone like LeBron.

Whoever voted for Scott must have been drunk or did so accidently..

I guess you could say Toronto has a third big in Biyombo, but is that really support for having a third big when in reality they have only been playing him and Patrick Patterson (is he even classified as a "big"?) due to JV's injury. OKC is killing GSW and it's not because of Kanter. In fact he is only averaging something like 14mins in the series and only played 8mins last game. I think Bud just needs to do a better job of tightening his rotations in the playoffs. There is no reason that Millsap should not be playing 40+ mins and Al should AT LEAST be playing over 35 mins.

@hawksfanatic Is THJ Bird rights transferred to us through the trade? Or do they reset once he changes teams? Will we have full Bird rights when he is a RFA in 2017 (if we sign the qualifying offer)?

Again I am not saying that THJ will ever become Harden. But I think a case can be made for how Harden developed from those first two season to his third and how THJ can develop with somewhat competent development coaching like what Harden got with OKC.

Yea agreed. I think we should have adjusted more and not just starting Thabo. Thought we should of had more of Millsap guarding LeBron 1-on-1 because I think he is strong enough to prevent his drives and then have the other defenders sticking to their man to prevent the open threes. I do agree that Al Horford is soft when comes to rebounding (and just about everything else). In fact, I even question if he was playing his hardest or playing to not get injured and get his last contract. But I don't think we should go out there focused only on DRB and paying guys only to rebound.

I agree that they are not in the same conversation, especially now. But I think you can still compare their first 2 seasons somewhat (though I agree THJ is still inferior). I believe win shares is calculated based on the team wins and performance and then trying to attribute it to the individual players, but I could be wrong. Thus, I don't think its fair to compared Harden's WS on OKC's team to THJ's on the Knicks. Also, as I said I believe THJ's third year is a wash, as Bud was more focused on developing him and making him learn the system than playing him. I felt like he had a pretty short leash.

We had an average DRB% of 69% vs. their 78% for the series. That doesn't seem too bad to me considering: 1) we do not focus on getting ORB at all, 2) CLE does focus on getting ORB and 3) we do not have the luxury of paying a guy like TT $15M to do nothing but rebound because we do not have a player like LeBron. We need offense and defense from all our players. I think an absolute difference of 13% 3pt shooting % (our 37% vs. their 51%) had more of the difference and the volume of 3's they made compared to only a 10% difference in DRB% (volume wise we had 120 DRBs to their 129 for the whole series).

You have game 1 swapped... We had 15 ORB to their 10 and still lost according to BRef. The game that they blew us out they only had 12 Oreb. In game 4 we had 9 ORB to their 14. That doesn't seem to far off for a team that is designed on not going for ORBs. Like I said.. I think it had way more to do with them just being completely hot behind the arc. They shot 77 three's for the whole series out of 152 (51% - that's insane for a team percentage). Compared to our 47 out of 126 (37%).. You're never going to win a series if they are shooting like that.

Off the bench, but still playing starter's level minutes (30+). THJ's per 36 numbers his first two seasons are pretty comparable to Harden's first two. I think this last year was a wash for THJ as Bud wanted to develop him and make him learn our system before playing him. Now, I don't think THJ will become Harden (nor do I think anyone will in our system), but I see quite a bit of potential in him.

I believe we can pay Baze quite a bit more than $12M. If we renounce Kirk and Baze's cap hold, then we will have close to $15M in space (including the $1.2M allocated to 1st round pick). If we need more, then we have the option of not taking Muscala, Patterson or Mike Scott's team option. We could also renounce Humph. This is based on a $92M estimated cap. Just like with Al, I think it will come down to Budcox and whether or not they want Baze with that amount of $.

I disagree that second chance rebounds were a big part of the reason that Cleveland swept us. I think it had more to do with the fact that all their shooters were shooting lights out. Our defense relied on packing the paint and forcing the Cavs to make the hard/extra pass. They were able to do this and their shooters were able to hit the shot.

We could actually really use someone like Deng and his size/versatility to play the 3 or 4. I actually thought he had a pretty decent season for the Heat. But there is no way he is getting less than his $10M that he got this year and I think the $40M/3year is more realistic with this cap. I would rather use that $ on Baze.

It would be interesting if we just offered him the same max as other teams - 4 years with 4.5% raises. I'm sure those % raises, 5th year and no trade clause will be huge negotiating points.

Why would Al sign that though? That's basically him playing an extra year for $0. I agree that I don't think we should offer him the full Birds Rights max, but should offer him the max that other teams can offer plus the 5th year with a 4.5% raise from the 4th year.

I don't necessarily agree about the rebounding. We outrebounded Cleveland and had more OReb in Game 1 (still lost). Game 2 was pretty close in terms of rebounding. Game 3 they killed us, but also blew us out. Game 4 we outrebounded them, but they got more ORebs. Furthermore, you can play a guy like Tristan Thompson who has no presence offensively (except ORebs) because you have a player like LeBron who can pretty much space the floor himself by sucking in the defense to him. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury.

Just wait until Teague is a FA.

Hate to break it to you, but Al will be getting a lot more than that. His max is 30% of the salary cap, which is estimated to be $92M (first year salary of ~$27.6M). The max we can offer is 30% of the salary cap with 7.5% raises each year for 5 years. Other team's max is 30% of the salary cap with only 4.5% raises each year for only 4 years. Thus, I could see the Hawks just matching the max that other teams can give except making it a 5-year deal.

I think it also has to do with how we played our defense vs. the Raptors. I haven't fully watched all of the Raptors/Cavs games, but from what I have seen is that they are allowing the Cavs into the paint, whereas our defensive priority was to not allow anything in the paint and force them to make the difficult passes and make their threes (which they did).

Sounds like he has pretty sizable offers from his old Maccabi Tel Aviv team and other Euroleague teams, but is holding out in anticipation of getting a HC offer in the NBA.

Yea it looks like Charlotte will be keeping Batum. Everything I have read seems to show that Batum wants to stay in Charlotte and Charlotte has him as their #1 priority.