It also makes Stevens look better than if he had just jumped ship to a better college gig. I'm interested to see how his system translates, as he only really ever had one NBA-level athlete in his whole time at Butler.
Well its no lose situation no matter how you spin it. The guy has a TON of leeway. The Celtics have been talking about blowing it up the entire off season. The only way he fails is unless he gets them enough wins to get OUT of the Wiggins Sweepstakes. He gets to learn here and there, but they are trying to go for a high draft pick. The Celtics have done everything but put a massive banner on the Garden that says "Pardon Our Dust" to let the people know "THIS IS A REBUILDING YEAR."
That was basically happening anyway. The Celtics aren't going to be good, but they aren't going to be bad enough to challenge for the worst record. Unless they surprise us with a good signing, Toronto, Philly, Sac-Town and Phoenix look like they're going to be really bad. Throw in Charlotte, Utah, Orlando... it's crowded at the bottom. A lot of these teams are doing promising things, but their rosters now are pretty awful.
Well if Dwight Howard doesn't go to Houston it'll be interesting. He told the Lakers and Maverick's he's out. Now its up to Houston and the Warriors. The Hawks still technically has a chance, but he'd be fucking retarded. Also Iggy is going to the Warriors. It'll be interesting to see how he fits in there, they needed an aggressive wingman. Now he needs to get more into it. I think Iggy will do great their since their fans bring it so loudly.
It's an odd decision, because they ahve two promisng young players at the 2 and the 3 that they are hoping to develop more in Thompson and Barnes. I like Iggy a lot, I'm just not sure that he fits an actual need. Presumably his minutes come largely at the expense of the departed Richard Jefferson and Jarrett Jack, who was actually really productive last year. He's a Mark Jackson kind of guy, though: versatile, can D up when needed, makes smart decisions with the ball. Iggy must have has a real lack of confidence in the Nuggets and/or been really mad at the decision to fire Karl, because rumor is that he turned down a front-loaded $60M over 5 years to take $48M over 4. And that's after opting out of a $16M option year. I think the Nuggets short run as a title contender might be largely over.
Can you blame him? The GM of the year and the coach of the year are both gone, what does that say about ownership? He must be mad as fuck because I currently live in NH and if some company offered me the same job at 80% of the pay but I got to move back to Denver, I would be there within 24 hours. Also, after a bunch of oh he's going to Houston, oh it's 50/50 now, now its Houston again, can Dwight Howard go fuck himself already? Pretty much every media source I've seen has said that he's coming to Houston with the understanding that they will try to get Josh Smith (as a max player). Super idea Dwight, lets get 2 max players that can't play the 4th quarter because they are awful at FT's, but as a bonus Mr. Howard, lets make sure one of them is awful at shooting the 3 but will throw up 4 of them each game.
I think that most of that was the media, and that he actually handled it pretty well. He only took five days to decide, and he told teams when he decided to exclude them. The worst part of Lebron leaving was the way he made up his mind early on, then hung Cleveland out to dry and didn't announce it until nearly everyone else worth a damn had already signed. People weren't all that mad about him preening on camera. It was about the way he fucked the team over so that he could do it. Dwight didn't do that. The only team that's fucked is Dallas, but that's mostly their fault for having no assets and their best player playing the same position as the only max guy left on the market. The lakers are going to have a shitty, expensive year, but they'll be fine. This was bound to happen when one guy makes more than half the salary cap. If Houston gets Smith they're going to have a pretty imposing defensive frontcourt. Harden's going to have the ball in his hands down the stretch anyway, and that pick and roll is going to be great.
The whole 50/50 thing was an agent manipulates media move to make sure Houston threw whole house at Dwight and milked them for everything, probably a few extra clauses in the contract just in case Dwight doesn't stay healthy. Also that IS 30 million dollars on the table, let's not act like someone wouldn't hesitate on on 30 mil in your face. But he did really make up his mind on LA months ago. The only thing that would have kept him there is Phil Jackson. For basketball sake, and a little fondness for Omer when he was on the Bench Mob, I hope he doesn't end up in the shit swirl that are the Atlanta Hawks. I unfortunately don't know what the fuck is going on with the Bulls. Something is going on with Thibs and our GM. The GM up and fired Thibs top assistant coach. We're losing Marco Bellineli who gave us one of the greatest NBA gifs of 2013, but alas, I have no emotional ties to him and he wasn't amazing.
Because Texas doesn't have state income tax, I read that this deal will cost Howard "only" $9.3M, instead of $30M. Assuming that he'll win a lot more with Houston than he would if he stayed with the current mess in LA, he can very easily make up that money in (more) endorsement deals. If not, I have full faith in his ability to collect that money via trade kickers when he demands one in 3 weeks.
The $30 million was also just an easy number for people to throw out, even though it's not really how much the difference is. He only signed a four year contract, so unless no one is signing him the year after that is done (when he is 31) to another deal, where he will probably be making over $15 million that number really drops closer to $6 or $7 million, before taxes. Plus, there was some talk that a 3 year deal would actually be more beneficial to him financially because then he would be more likely to get another max deal after that would take him until he is about 36 or 37. Although at that point you start getting a little too far into hypotheticals and what if's to get anything useful out of it.
Howard and Smith may not be able to shoot free throws well, but along with Harden, the shoot a lot of them. Those three players attempted more free throws than most NBA teams last year. Houston will likely lead the league in FTA, which could make fourth quarters interesting.
Well this isn't even a thing to talk about. The Piston just threw 4 years 56m at Josh Smith. It was fun thinking about it though.
Howard and Harden will still be a good combination, from a FT perspective. Howard might only get like 1.1 points per possession he gets fouled, but that gets teams into the penalty early which is incredibly valuable for players like Harden and Lin. Houston also seems pretty able to play uptempo, and penalty + uptempo = bunches of points.
People throw out the lack of state income tax in Florida and Texas like the states aren't making up for that with other taxes.
Probably because professional athletes don't spend like most Americans do, so the alternative taxing arrangements those states have in place to make up the lost income tax doesn't affect them in the same way.
They say that because it's true in practice, not just as a matter of mere income tax. California state revenue per dollar of GDP generated (so overall average state tax burden) is more than 50% greater than that of Texas, and more than 30% greater than that of Florida. Even when you add everything together, some states simply collect more taxes than others, largely because Texas and Florida are 48th and 49th in per-capita spending.
Can somebody explain to me how Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings are gonna work together? The NBA is gonna need a new metric - "Bad Shots".
With shooting guard Rodney Stuckey and backup power forward Charlie Villanueva. When Monroe is on the bench, it's possible that the Pistons will have the lowest basketball IQ lineup in the history of the NBA: Jennings-Stuckey-Villanueva-Smith-Drummond. This is the sort of team one might put together in NBA 2K13, but I'm shocked that a real NBA GM is doing it. Sure, it probably makes them better on paper, but in a 35-wins-is-more-than-30 kind of way. On the other hand, that's three young developing players with Jennings, Monroe, and Drummond. And given how the Pistons did last year, maybe it was worth saying "Fuck it, why not?"
To give up Knight is the kicker too. He has to be the happiest man in the Great Lakes region to jump off that sinking abortion ship. Mo Cheeks is the Mike Redmond (Marlins manager) of the NBA. Wait...you traded who for what?