The 1986 Celtics had Bird, McHale, Ainge, and Walton.
The 1980s Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy.
The Bulls had Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman
NBA “Superteams” have been around for a while, it seems. The only difference is this time the players create the superteams and not the owners. Which is not a bad thing, imho.
Yeah, the Pelicans got the better end of that deal, but they did give up a lot of their backcourt in Evans (a stud when healthy), Hield and Galloway. I guess Vlade decided to go into rebuild mode. Just two weeks ago he said Boogie would be staying in Sacramento.
In other news, Kyrie Irving thinks the earth is flat, among other oddball things, and now every NBA player has to comment on their thoughts regarding the shape of the planet. Adam Siver says Kyrie was just trying to be provocative. But it sure sounded like Kyrie really, actually believes the earth is flat.
The Pelicans/Kings trade is possibly worse (for the Kings) than you might think-- the Philadelphia 76ers have the right to trade first-round draft picks with the Kings this year. So the pick that Sacramento just acquired may be headed elsewhere.
Sure, but look at what they didn’t have to give up. They get an elite player without having to give up their own top-5 elite player AND they even get to keep their best backcourt player in Jrue Holiday.
While it’s true that frontcourts are no longer the dominating force they used to be in the NBA, we’ve not seen a pair with this much talent teamed up since, I don’t know, Tim Duncan and David Robinson? And unlike those Spurs, these two are both in their prime. I don’t really know much about the Pelicans aside from Anthony Davis, but this could be scary, maybe not this year, but certainly in the years to come (assuming Cousins signs an extension, of course).
Really. I mean Cousins is a thin-skinned headcase, but we’re talking about a genuine superstar here. One they’ve arguably been catering to for years. As 180 turns goes, this one is a real head-spinner. If Cousins can somehow figure out a way to work with Davis ( or vice versa ), that is a monster pair to build around.
Brian Windhorst just said that Sacramento was trying to dump Cousins, but his agent was telling every team in the league not to trade for him because he will not sign an extension. He loses something like $30M from the trade. Vlade indicated a better offer was pulled due to that message and I guess he thought he had to pull the trigger now.
New Orleans is 10 games under .500 but only 2.5 games out of the 8th spot for the playoffs. Maybe they can make a run at that, but even if they do they’ll just get their doors blown off by Golden State.
There is a chance that Demarcus is a cancer and refuses to defer to Davis. There is also a chance that he recognizes this as an opportunity and the two of them mesh well. Personally, I really think this could work. They are both pretty flexible big men with a ton of range (for a big). They have to be the favorites to get the 8th seed at this point.
As far as a Golden state matchup goes, while it’s true that Golden State would and should be an overwhelming favorite and that Steph, Klay, and Durant are going to be nearly impossible for New Orleans to defend, but Golden state can’t really match up with the New Orleans bigs, either. Golden State would likely win in 4 or 5, but it would at least be a fun series, I think…
At the very least it will be interesting to see how Cousins performs with some semblance of a respectable team around him, although compared to the wasteland that is the Sacramento Kings, nearly anywhere would be an improvement.
I wouldn’t say Cousins will have a good team around him in New Orleans. Davis is a beast, obviously, and Holiday is a serviceable-to-decent point guard. But other than that, they are downright terrible. Davis and Boogie might be the best shooters on the team. They’ll be starting guys that would only see mop-up duty on a lot of teams.
I haven’t seen mention of the Lakers shake-up. Magic Johnson is the new president of basketball ops. And Kobe’s agent, Rob Pelinka, will be the new GM. Are there any other agents turned GM in other sports? Seems like it would make sense with Magic as a talent evaluator and Pelinka as a contract/cap watcher. And right away Magic traded Lou Williams to Houston for Corey Brewer and a 1st round pick. Houston’s pick won’t be great, but I’d say that’s a nice haul for Williams.
Why is the NBA all star break so ridiculously long? Most of these guys will not have played in a week or more.
As a fan of one of the teams whose sole purpose is to give other teams wins, I must say I no longer watch. Among other things, the lack of parity makes it pointless to watch. The finals are going to be the LeBron Cavaliers and GSW. Yawn. They’ll flip a coin to see who wins this year.
The Suns have no plans to even compete in the near future, let alone ever have a winning season. I think the team’s average age is like 17.
Yeah, the Suns are bad. But Devin Booker is a good looking player. I think every one of their guards went to UK. Booker, Bledsoe, Knight, Ulis.
The NBA is for sure the only sport where you can be a playoff contender and also in “rebuilding” mode, which I’m hearing a lot about the Bulls. “They need to rebuild!” Um, they’re also probably going to the playoffs, unless they do actually trade Butler.
Don’t worry - they’ll trade him soon enough. No Arizona team can keep the good, fan-favorite players. I think it is in the state constitution or something. I keep expecting my Loser-backs to send Paul Goldschmidt to a better life any day now.
There’s a rumor out there that Damian Lillard may be on the auction block. Blazers fans would be in an uproar, but analytically speaking, the guy is really just a good player, not a great one. He adds very little to the teams defense, runs hot and cold on offense, and his leadership has waned. He has seemed distracted this year, possibly because he has way too many irons in the fire as far as his music ‘career’, product endorsements, etc.
Looking at my own post, it strikes me that “auction block” sounds perilously close to being racist. But really, most of the language in discussions about trades in the paper, and the buying and selling of players really does smack of modern day slave trade, the difference being the amount of money involved, and that those being bought and sold are usually willing participants and beneficiaries.
Orlando Magic fan here, just seeing the title of this thread depresses me.
So in game one of the Boogie/AD experiment the Pelicans got blown out by 30. Boogie and AD combined for 56 while the rest of the starters combined for 15.
Meanwhile, Sacramento achieves ultimate schadenfreude by beating my Nuggets 116-100 with 6 guys scoring in double digits.
Yeah, if Portland can beat them, they’re in trouble.
Aaannnnd…the Suns traded P J Tucker. Must have gotten too popular.
Sounds like the Cavs are adding Deron Williams and possibly Andrew Bogut. Not bad additions for Cleveland, especially Williams as a backup PG is a tremendous improvement over what they’ve got now.
Kevin Durant will be out at least 4 weeks with a sprained MCL. As good as he is, I don’t think his absence will greatly limit the Warriors ability to win. Even if he were done for the season, they’d be the favorite to win the West, I think.