Robbie Gower

I don’t make a ton of bets because gambling is mostly stupid but I did bet $1 on Detroit to finish with the best record in the league before the season started… 150-to-1! $150 if I win! WOOT WOOT

As we witness Indiana on the verge of winning in Madison Square Garden while other bad teams bench their best players in the fourth quarter or simply don’t play them at all, it’s worth pointing out that the Clippers’ trade with Indiana was largely a bet on the great Rick Carlisle refusing to tank

Always bizarre imo how every year at this time NBA fans get themselves all psyched up in favor of signing some guy who was good 3-4 years ago but who just go waived because he sucks

Brooklyn apparently offered him a multiyear contract starting at more than the full MLE, he foolishly turned it down

Meaning he would not have signed a full MLE offer sheet from Portland, or anybody

Plus if he had, Brooklyn would have matched

And of course thank god Portland didn’t sign this guy

I looked it up, you had Cam Thomas on a list of full non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception possibilities for Portland, I said no way would he accept the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception, he wants more than that

Which technically was true, he wouldn’t have accepted it

Poor decision on his part

Might have! Don’t think so but I say a lot of stuff that turns out to be dumb

Hopefully Scoot continues to play well, just pointing out that Memphis’ lineup yesterday was as bad as NBA lineups get

I mean I am rooting for the guy but they are playing a Grizzlies team whose best player tonight is maybe G.G. Jackson

Oh well there you go

If Brad Stevens still wants to avoid the luxury tax this season, I am very confident someone would claim Jordan Walsh if Boston were to waive Walsh

Less confident someone would claim Luka Garza

Very confident no one would claim Xavier Tillman

My take here is that teams are just sick and tired of certain organizations/front offices running circles around everyone

Note the refusal to do business with Danny Ainge after Ainge hosed Cleveland and Minnesota with the Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert trades

Why help Stevens dodge the tax?

Surely they traded Xavier Tillman Jr + a 2nd to someone and it just hasn’t been reported yet

Next steps imo:

1) shut Morant down
2) last ditch effort to trade him before draft
3) when unsuccessful, waive him before free agency begins
4) some team wastes $12M or so on him like the Clippers did with Bradley Beal
5) dude eats shit for this team
6) dude’s NBA career then effectively over

Next for Memphis is to shut him down for the season, try one last time to trade him on or before this June’s draft, if (when) unsuccessful, waive him

At which point we will get more inane NBA chatter about which team will get Ja Morant like we saw this past offseason with the terrible Bradley Beal

As expected (by me), there were no takers for Ja Morant despite the incessant blabbering about which team might trade for him

Pretty confident Memphis was willing to accept only expiring contracts, no draft picks, but couldn’t find a taker

Good example of NBA trade chatter vs reality

to paraphrase Led Zeppelin, “Hats off to Ron Harper, Jr.”

Big name/big salaries who might still get traded in the next couple of hours imo:

L. Ball
Miles Bridges
N. Claxton
D. DeRozan
J. Grant
T. Herro
J. Holiday
Z. LaVine
B. Mathurin
J. Morant
D. Murray
M. Porter Jr
N. Powell
D. Sabonis
K. Towns
M. Turner
A. Wiggins
Z. Williamson

I completely expect Boston to get themselves below the luxury tax line today, also expect Boston to avoid the luxury tax next season, too

Very unusual for any NBA team to only be ~$3M or so above the tax line (Boston presently ~$3.6M over) and not move to get below the tax line

Phoenix was extremely motivated to avoid the luxury tax and Nick Richards is pretty mediocre, a good front office would have been able to extract at least one 2nd round pick here

Dumping Garza rather than Minott gives them an extra $82,593 to split between these three dirt cheap guys (Amari Williams, Max Shulga, third guy)

Boston can get below the tax by dumping Tillman + either Garza or Minott and then signing three dirt cheap guys (e.g., Amari Williams, Max Shulga, someone else) to rest of season contracts totaling no more than $1,415,012

gives them 14 players on standard contracts

So I expect Boston to do that

don’t think this is happening at this point but I think this was or would have been the offer, appears that Giannis said “I don’t want to go to Portland” which resulted in Portland moving on

now the question for me is if Jrue Holiday + Jerami Grant are still on the roster three hours from now

to be fair, the indecisiveness and ultimately incompetence of the Bucks organization here is truly baffling

should have sold high on Giannis two years ago

Lakers sold high on Anthony Davis (boy did they sell high), look at what Dallas got for Davis a year later

Will be the same with Giannis

Windhorst’s reputation among NBA media as some sort of Nostradamus has always been more of a commentary (imo) on the state of NBA media generally (unable or incapable of explaining to readers/viewers/fans what teams are doing and why they are doing it) than on Windhorst himself

Agreed… for example, the Knicks sure haven’t been liking Karl Towns lately and Chicago can send them some (non-lottery) draft pick compensation for Towns + say Guerschon Yabusele; Knicks can then swap some or all of what they receive from Chicago for a couple of rotation players they really like

Or Brooklyn packages some of these guys I just listed with some draft picks (non-lottery, maybe all 2nds) for a legitimately good player

Brooklyn has a lot of options although trade deadline is less than 24 hours away

Don’t think Agbaji plays a game for Toronto

I am expecting Agbaji to be packaged with either Cam Thomas, Day’Ron Sharpe, Ziaire Williams, or Haywood Highsmith for a player who makes ~$20M (e.g., Nikola Vucevic) + draft pick compensation

more like 50 cents on the dollar

Alternatively, assuming Boston views Day’Ron Sharpe as a viable starting C in their system:

Vucevic + a 1st round pick to Brooklyn

Sharpe + either Cam Thomas, Ziaire Williams, or Haywood Highsmith to Boston

also gets Boston below the tax line AND gets them their C AND Brooklyn gets a 1st

Another thing Brooklyn can do over the next ~40 hours is:

Nikola Vucevic + one or two 2nd round picks to Brooklyn

Cam Thomas + Haywood Highsmith to Boston

This gets Boston below this year’s tax line, gets Brooklyn not only the best player in the deal (Vucevic) but one or two 2nd round picks

Because Gobert is owed a ton of money through 2027-28

$36.5M in 2026-27

$38.0M in 2027-28

Again I am just speculating but if Minnesota is trying to find a third team here it’s definitely because Milwaukee doesn’t want Rudy Gobert’s contract