James Donaldson

I like how the Trail Blazers ineptitude provides some symmetry on this graph. Someone had to balance out Boston.

Yeah, seems like he could save himself a lot of effort by just announcing it:
"knock it off, Utah, it's going to be Brooklyn this year"

I just assumed this already happened, and all the hand-wringing is because they don't want certain teams to keep trying to get a good pick when the league has already determined they're not getting the good ones.

Players aren't getting called for fouls just standing there. They're getting called for moving and hacking at players driving to the hoop. Most of the time they get away with it, and when they actually get called for it, they whine.

Since it was 6 - 3, it's important to remember that the Supreme Court still has 3 dipshits who love to carry water for Trump.

"They tanked when they fell" is the point. Yeah, they suffered injuries, which was the original premise of why not to add the conference finals provision. Teams that are going to get hall-of-famers back from injury tanking for top picks SHOULD be discouraged.

It's a tricky one, because you end up with teams like the Warriors tanking, knowing they were in short-term down years. Granted, they ended up making bad picks when they did it, but feels like there's a strategic, short-term tanking strategy loophole there that absolutely will get used.

big if true

What are the bigger problems it creates?

Why? There's already a provision to guarantee a % of revenues. Anything not paid in guarantees can be distributed to the rest of the league. It really only hurts players that are being overpaid, and teams want to get off their contracts because they're locking up capspace.

There is already close to a hard cap, which is driving parity, but reducing movement in free agency. To open it back up, you have to remove the fully guaranteed contracts so teams can retool themselves faster. Current state has overly incentivized the draft as the only way to "fix" a team.

The answer is straightforward, but it will never happen: implement a hard cap and get rid of fully guaranteed contracts.

I've thought about this, but does it matter when it comes to the draft? It feels like it might matter once a player hits free agency, but considering how long teams have control over players, that feels a little remote. But maybe there's an angle I'm missing here.

Gotta figure they'll waive Mathisse, who basically doesn't ever seem to be able to stay healthy now.

That's a great observation. There are several pharmaceutical options I can recommend to help with that. Would you like me to list them out with each of their trade-offs, or do you want to take a chance and just let me choose one?

It would definitely be more concerning if the Bucks got an impressive haul for Giannis and their prospects for rapid improvement looked good and we were still holding onto the picks/pick swaps.

Without Deni, it doesn't feel like it's going to happen.

Not sure they can sustain the 3pt shooting that got them the lead. which is troubling unless they can start getting more consistent stops.

They either need to tank hard or get out of the lottery. Nobody needs to be handing OKC a late lottery pick.

Shaking my head at the kick-ball call. I just don't understand that rule.

I speak for the rest of the league in stating that the Jazz need to tank harder.

Not even sure what we're supposed to think about calls like that. Turned it off before I lose my shit.

Schedule will get easier, so it probably comes down to health of Deni.

it should be a priority for all teams save OKC, to facilitate the Clippers getting themselves out of the lottery, so I hope the current trend continues for them

Deni was in a car accident?

One of my favorites to watch during that era.

"We want to foul him and not get called for it" is an interesting angle.

I think it would have been different if he had possession before the contact. He tipped the ball, shoved him in the back, then. got possession. The shove gave him a clear advantage. The replay ruling was "incidental contact", and that's simply rubbish.

Shoving Love in the back? That's not incidental contact.

really curious how anyone interprets what happened there as "incidental contact"