Stephen Curry is the Bionic Shooter.
If they amnesty Kobe, he’ll still get paid whatever he’s due under his contract. But the Lakers will essentially be bidding him adieu, assuming he can play next season. I don’t know what the amnesty rule is if a player sits out an entire season. If he could sit out and come back to the Lakers the following season at a reduced salary, that will give them some cap flexibility to retool the team. But there’s a lot of ‘ifs’ involved.
I always thought Curry would be a Brandon Jennings type at best, but he’s a phenomenal player.
He’s got the best weak hand - dribbling, passing, and shooting - since anyone? Bird? Maravich?
The rule is that if they amnesty him, a player cannot resign with the team he was booted from until the end of his current contract. Kobe’s contract runs to the end of next season, 2013-14, so at the earliest, if they amnesty him, he will not be able to be a Laker again until October/November 2014. That’s waaaay too long for him to sit out. I heard a nightmare scenario in which someone like Mark Cuban will offer him a garbage truck full of money to stick it to his old team.
The Lakers should just pay him, get him healthy, and hope he can return sometime in the 2013-14 season. Since its Kobe, I have no doubt that he will be back earlier than expected. I don’t think there will be that much of a drop off in production unless they focus on him less, which they probably will. He deserves one last chance with the Lakers on a healthy team, then Dwight can have it all to himself
Time to mention again that I saw Curry and Davidson at the Garden in 2008. He had a bad shooting night but made all the important shots down the stretch, and wound up with 27 points, 10 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks. People were going crazy at the end of that game. He’s doing the same thing but even better in the NBA.
Amnesty is just about getting the players’ contract off the books. It doesn’t matter if he plays the next year or not except that if he doesn’t play, nobody else will sign him and the Lakers will have to pay his entire salary. If another team signed him they’d be off the hook for at least a little bit of that salary. Anyway it’s not going to happen. Right now the Lakers have exactly one player under contract for the season after next (Nash), assuming he’s not done. I presume they’ll re-sign Dwight Howard, so that’s two guys. After the 2013-14 season their payroll should come down a lot no matter what they do because Kobe won’t get another $30 million-a-year contract and Gasol will probably leave or be traded. They don’t need to amnesty Kobe to get financial flexibility. If they did it, and I don’t think they will, it’d just be Jim Buss trying to save money.
They’re currently on the books for $78 million for 2013-14. The cap is around $70 million. They could get out of luxury tax territory, which would allow them the mid-level exception for somebody in 2014, as well as avoid repeat offender luxury tax status.
Yes, and they have almost nothing committed after this season. I think it’s more likely they’ll let go of World Peace, which everybody’s been suggesting for at least a year. I don’t know what else they’ll do. Move some other pieces or just pay the tax for one more year before they go under the cap the following year, maybe.
I am so unsurprised by the collapse of the Nuggets. I remember his failure in the playoffs as coach of the Sonics during the playoffs.
Metta is another option. I doubt they care about saving money for the sake of saving money, but they should care about giving themselves cap room for a mini-overhaul and a MLE guy. You know, if they actually want to legitimately compete over the next 2 years, rather than watch Kobe add to his career stats while getting bounced from the 1st round of the playoffs.
Losing Gallinari and having Faried at partial strength didn’t help them very much. I think Karl has done a great job getting the most out of this team. Right now Golden State and Curry especially are just better.
I’m not so sure about that. I also think Jim Buss is an idiot, for whatever that’s worth. If they want to overhaul their cap space they can just as easily do it next year, like I said: they were very deliberate in giving themselves a lot of flexibility in 2014. If they wanted, they could go into that season with just Howard and Nash and some draft picks and tons of cap space. If they tear everything down this offseason, it’s because they’re cheap and have irrationally lost confidence in the team they just put together.
I’m inclined to believe him when he says next year is it for him.
That was before the injury. I say that his time off will have him renewing his itch to play, and he’ll go for one more year unless Kobe comes back at the beginning of next season. If Kobe misses a couple months or even half the season, I bet he’ll try to get a one year deal so he can have a real retirement. Plus, that way, he’ll probably be able to surpass Jordan as the #3 scorer in the NBA
It’s possible that’ll add a year to his timeline, but I think that’s it- and that’d still leave them with a lot of flexibility afterward. And Kobe doesn’t need a full season to pass Jordan’s point total, let alone a season and a half. He’s 617 points behind, and he could get there in half a season in heavily restricted minutes.
This first round has become a lot more interesting the last few days. The Knicks dumped game four against the Celtics after J.R. Smith elbowed Jason Terry and got himself suspended for a game. Then the Celtics won game five on the road to bring the series back to Boston. The Hawks beat the crap out of the Pacers in both Atlanta games but the Pacers took game five. The Rockets have pretty much played Oklahoma City to a draw since the first half of game one, and they won a road game last night. They’re down 3-2 going back to Houston, but they could easily be leading this series. Oklahoma City doesn’t know what to do with its offense right now and Houston is challenging its defense. I think the Thunder will still win the series, but this is going to be a great experience for the Rockets. The Nuggets forced a game six against the Warriors, and anything that makes this series go longer is great. The Bulls and Nets- who knows. The Bulls have lost Kirk Hinrich along with Rose and one of Noah’s feet, and he’d been playing very good defense for them. Oh, and I see Luol Deng and Taj Gibson are sick. I’m also reading unconfirmed reports that Nasi Mohammed has fallen down a mystery hole, Nate Robinson has radiation poisoning from working the night shift in a nuclear power plant, and Jimmy Butler has contracted gigantism from drinking nerve tonic.
The Warriors close out the Nuggets in another thriller - they tried very hard to give that game away in the last few minutes, but Curry and Bogut were both great. David Lee even got into the game for about a minute and a half. He didn’t do much, but it put a big charge into the crowd.
That was a great game between the Warriors and Nuggets last night. GS is one of those teams that exemplify the motto of living and dying by the jump shot. I think they’ll have a lot of trouble against the Spurs, especially since they apparently have a 29 game losing streak in San Antonio dating back to 1997 :eek:
I really love the Chicago/Brooklyn series. I missed how the Nets took the 3 seed because they were so up and down this year. Its nice to get to watch some of these teams a lot now that they’re in the playoffs. But game 7, anything can happen.
With the Hawks, they’ve kind of been doing the same thing they’ve done in the playoffs the last few years. They are terrific at home but barely an NBA-caliber team on the road. So far this year in the first round, they are 0-3 on the road but 2-0 on the road. In 2012, 0-3 road, 2-1 home. 2011, 1-2 road, 3-0 home. 2010, 1-2 road, 3-1 home. This team has some kind of a weird Jekyll and Hyde thing when it comes to playing location. Maybe its the weather.
I hope the Clippers pull this out tonight but I fear the Grizzlies have them figured out. Plus Blake is out. Damn these injury playoffs!!
I can’t believe the Bulls made that series competitive, I can’t believe they won that game, and I can’t believe they won the series. Short of winning a championship I could not be prouder of this team, but in that situation I’d be less amazed. Noah was outstanding the last couple of games and his game seven performance was historic, and it’s a credit to the team that every time somebody got hurt, someone else stepped up. They still won’t have Deng for game one, although at least he’s out of the hospital. (I’ve never had a spinal tap but I know they’re supposed to be awful.) Hinrich probably won’t play either. Maybe Rose will play later in the series, but I’m not counting on it. I wouldn’t expect them to beat Miami in this situation regardless, but they’ve more than done themselves proud.
I can’t believe we had 4 game 6’s on Friday and none went to a game 7!
Good job to the Rockets and Hawks, I thought they were doomed from the start but they put up great efforts. Of course, Hawks have that mystery homecourt thing that transforms them into an entirely different team vs. a road game, and Westbrook’s injury completely changed the dynamics of his series. Still, I gave Houston no shot at all and they were pretty close to forcing a game 7. I listen to Colin Cowherd in the morning and he was ripping on Harden after a few bad games. Damn it, he’s interesting sometimes but he judges people way too quickly. Sometimes I get mad listening to that guy and just wish he would shut the hell up.
I’m glad I sorta picked the Bulls as upset winners over the Nets. They did terrific and without Rose. That was a gutsy win. In fact, with all of the injuries, the whole team might as well just be a bunch of guts held together by tendons and ligaments. Now hopefully they’ll rough up the Heat a little bit, knock some heads around, and soften them up, but I think that series took too much out of the Bulls. Plus the Heat are too good. I’d be surprised if this series goes 6 games with the problems they have with scoring. Speaking of which, why the hell are they holding the door open to Rose coming back? When even he says he won’t be back, they should just shut him down and be done with it.
Poor Clippers. Poor LA. It seems that no matter what happens, we’re not going to be getting an LA vs. LA series anytime soon, nevermind in the Western Conference Finals. Of course its injuries again, but if Blake was healthy and didn’t sprain his ankle, I think this team would have given OKC a run for its money. That said, I really like the Grizzlies chances against OKC without Westbrook. I don’t think they’ll win, but I think the games will be fairly close and it will be a good series that will last 6 or 7.
I’m both excited and afraid to see the Spurs/Warriors series. I just hope the Warriors will still stay exciting and steal a game or two, but the Spurs might slow it down to be unwatchable. Stupid Spurs, be flashy!!
I don’t know who I’m rooting for between the Knicks and Pacers. On one hand, I think the Pacers will give the Heat a better series, and maybe knock them around a bit. But on the other hand, I only give the Knicks a shot at winning because if they get hot from the outside, they can actually win the series.
I don’t follow the NBA except for a couple games in the playoffs, but I was impressed as hell at Noah’s showing in Game 7. Helluva game.
I also think I concluded that the Nets are a joke. With Deron Williams, Brook Lopez, and Joe Johnson, they should have crushed the short on talent and sick Bulls, but they are pathetically soft and Williams was a horrible letdown. So kudos to Tibs for beating a better team with a MASH unit of retreads.
The Bulls should be proud. Except for D. Rose. He should be ashamed of himself.
While Noah is playing on two bad feet, Deng is hospitalized getting a fucking spinal tap, Hingrich is held together by spit and tape, and Nate Robinson is puking during games, D. Rose is sitting on the bench eating candy and watching his teammates. He’s been medically cleared to play for over two months, is practicing at full speed, and needs to play to finish his rehab. But he’s mentally weak and pampered and unwilling to actually do something hard, despite being paid millions to do it, while his teammates are playing themselves to shreds. He’s absolutely pathetic.
On Friday someone on ESPN or TNT said the Bulls showed everybody the template for beating the Heat back in March, which was to get physical with them. He did not bother to mention that the Heat have only lost one time since the Bulls beat them, or that they’ve won 44 out of their last 45 games including the first round or some ridiculous number like that. So… yeah. Template. It’s interesting to note that the Heat’s last three losses - the only games they have lost since the end of January - were against the Pacers, Bulls, and Knicks. But that’s one game each, which is very different than beating them four times. It’d be a stiff challenge for a healthy Bulls team.