We talk the Game of Thrones finale, and all of the rumblings of NBA free agency.
Hosts
- Andres Alvarez (@nerdnumbers)
- Produced by Brian Foster (@boxscorebrian)
Sources
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Video Show
Show Notes
We geek out about Game of Thrones for quite a bit this episode. If you're not a fan, or don't want spoilers, skip to 18:43 for the NBA talk. If you want to hear a lot of Game of Thrones talk and a tangent about the Empire Strikes Back though? Tune in!
We talk "the process" and how teams clearing cap by getting rid of their good players in the hopes of future good players is silly. In particular, the Knicks getting rid of their two best players (Robin Lopez and Jose Calderon) for Derrick Rose is an absurdly bad move. I argue it's bad planning. Brian argues they're just bad at talent evaluation. We argue about which is worse.
The book I reference is Ron Clark's "The Essential 55." Also, a correction, I was thinking of the Harlem Children Zone, which expelled entire classes to make scores. As far as I know, this had no relation to Ron Clark's classes.
My final note on "the process" is that team's like the 76ers don't get to forget the past three seasons. A team deciding "not to try" for a season does not count as good planning, it counts as a loss they need to come back from.
As Brian notes, you can just pay cash for undervalued draft picks, you don't need to cost yourself a shot at the playoffs.
As an example of sometimes bad methods working, five of the top ten scorers in the NBA last season were awesome, whereas the other five were either average or even below average. It's possible to use bad metrics to still get good players.
We talk Harrison Barnes' value to the Warriors. Snottie "Meet me in Temecula" Drippen has our thoughts summed up perfectly.
@CTowersCBS @AlexKennedyNBA well...more accurately, "HB at 20+ mil is worse than nothing".
— Tweetgood Mac (@SnottieDrippen) June 29, 2016
Also, we fully accept that Harrison Barnes could bounce back to star level and make all of this hate seem very silly in a few months.
We talk players' max salaries. It's 25% to 35% of the cap depending on seniority. For a $90+ million salary cap, that'll have some high paid players.
Joakim Noah getting a big deal seems odd. Did his agent may have helped stoke the flames of some offseason rumors.
I think Kevin Durant would do best to stay with OKC. No, he and Westbrook aren't in a prisoners' dilemma ... yet! If they both decide to stay in OKC, I argue they're the favorites for a title. I will be baffled if Durant picks the Knicks as a destination.
The Spurs tendered their qualifying offer to Boban Marjanovic. However, they're also targeting Pau Gasol. Tim Duncan is back, and Manu Ginobili doesn't want to retire. How old can the Spurs go?
Shout Outs
I shout out LeBron James for his quote about Andre Iguodala.
We shout out Wade, master of words!
Thanks to twitch.tv/nerdnumbers commenters: Above_the_gods and unmove, as well as last week's guest host Andrew Sutton.
Because i like to smell good.. https://t.co/52n0117pcj
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) June 28, 2016