Everything Nick Nurse

[golden]

Tampering (directly and indirectly) happens every day. The point is Masai supposedly had personal and inside track to The Alphabet plus his family if Giannis were to leave. You don't think, in the last 6 months, Masai or proxy had occasion to get a little better sense of whether Giannis would still be in play this next off-season? Come on.

And Dan I get what you're saying but Masai and Bobby could have also known that if they got Serge back for one year or even 2 at 12 per, they could move him if necessary. But you could be right they wanted to move on regardless because in any event, even if Giannis was still on the potential-market, we were going forward without Marc and Serge anyways. Which is strange to me since it would have made it even less likely for Giannis to turn his gaze towards us with a weaker team this year. Serge/Baynes/Boucher or Serge/Len/Boucher would both have been better than Baynes/Boucher/Len

Yeah, it still doesn't make sense to "move on from Serge" by letting him walk for nothing this year, if you could still have cap-space open next year. And even if we gave him a 2-year contract, a 3 & D center is a valuable trade asset in the NBA these days. It's the final evolution of pace & space. Just watching the Clippers, Serge is a way better fit than Harrell or Zubac. He opens the floor and allows them to play 5-out. That's huge and something a lot of teams could use.

Plus Serge is a great teammate and battle-tested champion with a sh*t ton of clutch playoff experience under his belt. I'm kind of believing your theory that maybe we got hoodwinked by Giannis. Those 'inside channels' might have been feeding Masai false information.

Then again, maybe Nurse just didn't like Serge. He's not the highest BBIQ player around and Nurse really values that.

[DanH]

Are you sure about the $20M? You would know, but I think luxury tax was important to them.. but they also needed to replace both Marc and RHJ and wanted to keep some of that mid-level around but also not go into the tax to make it work. The $12M was probably the ceiling so that they can still make moves elsewhere and still avoid the tax.

Serge would be a pretty good trade asset if kept. Even if they didn't want him long term.

Yep. They spent 15M on the C position in Baynes and Boucher and have a few million in wiggle room left. The Ibaka offer could have been pretty close to 20M, still spend a couple million on Len, and fill out the roster with minimum deals.

The 12M was the ceiling if they wanted to spend 7M elsewhere - for example on Boucher. They chose Baynes and Boucher over Ibaka, even though all three would be gone if they landed Giannis, and all three could very likely be kept long term if they didn't.

[planetmars]

Yeah, I'm guessing the ownership of most teams are loathe to pay the luxury tax unless they are convinced they have a legit championship contender.

Makes you wonder what GSW will do then. They are $40M in the tax now and they will be repeaters next year unless they can dump either Wiggins or Draymond's contracts on to someone.

[golden]

Makes you wonder what GSW will do then. They are $40M in the tax now and they will be repeaters next year unless they can dump either Wiggins or Draymond's contracts on to someone.

Dubs are in a different situation. Once Covid settles down, the revenue from their new building (Chase Center) should be able to make up for the tax hits. They are fairly creative, financially.

[MixxAOR]

William Lou had Michael Grange on his podcast and they were talking about Serge situation. Grange basically said it makes no sense why they couldn't keep him because there was nothing that was stopping them unless they didnt want Serge back. Also he added something was happening behind the scenes.

at 27:53

[chris]

Yup.. Lakers did the same thing last year with Kawhi. They waited until the last second to fill in their cap space and ended up with guys they probably wouldn't have taken otherwise. It worked out for them in the end though.

well the difference with the lakers is that kawhi was actually unrestricted and the lakers had met with him, and they still got played. deaner is talking about having discussions with giannis while he still has at least one year left on his deal to position ourselves advantageously for next offseason.

Tampering (directly and indirectly) happens every day. The point is Masai supposedly had personal and inside track to The Alphabet plus his family if Giannis were to leave. You don't think, in the last 6 months, Masai or proxy had occasion to get a little better sense of whether Giannis would still be in play this next off-season? Come on.

call me naive but no, i don't. and it seems pretty likely that they didn't have that communication with him given how the offseason shook out. yes the scuttlebutt was that we might have some advantage given masai's previous connection to his family if he were to leave. he never left, so we didn't get the opportunity.

we're not the only team that got "played." so did the mavericks. the heat did a risk analysis and decided that their chances at giannis weren't worth jeopardizing their standing with their current franchise player, otherwise they would've gotten played too. or they tampered egregiously i guess.

all these teams were just reading tea leaves and positioning themselves for a shot at him, us included. if the type of tampering you're alleging were commonplace i feel like we'd have already seen a massive scandal or two.

[MixxAOR]

I mean Open Gym had whole draft room footage when Masai wanted to get Giannis. That was supposed to be message to Giannis. And that screamed to me desperate.

[RandomGuy]

I mean Open Gym had whole draft room footage when Masai wanted to get Giannis. That was supposed to be message to Giannis. And that screamed to me desperate.

I honestly think that Giannis wouldn't be enough for us unless he develops, even more, this year. We need Kawhi/Lebron/Doncic (if he improves his body) type of a superstar player to win it all, a guy who can be a playmaker, the best defender on the team and can guard 1 to 5 positions, and the best ISO option at any range. Yes, a backcourt of Curry and Klay Thompson (gosh he's underrated) can get you there but that's less likely these days when their game style is already adapted and improved by the rest of the league. Unless Giannis adds a 3pt shot to his game I see him being overpowered by teams like Lakers, Clippers or even Brooklyn (they have an amazing team on paper, just need defensive order and proper leadership in place).

[chris]

I mean Open Gym had whole draft room footage when Masai wanted to get Giannis. That was supposed to be message to Giannis. And that screamed to me desperate.

that pretty much re-inforces my point. would they resort to that if they had better avenues of communication? no. that is exactly the sort of soft, indirect tampering that is common though.

[G__Deane]

well the difference with the lakers is that kawhi was actually unrestricted and the lakers had met with him, and they still got played. deaner is talking about having discussions with giannis while he still has at least one year left on his deal to position ourselves advantageously for next offseason.



call me naive but no, i don't. and it seems pretty likely that they didn't have that communication with him given how the offseason shook out. yes the scuttlebutt was that we might have some advantage given masai's previous connection to his family if he were to leave. he never left, so we didn't get the opportunity.

we're not the only team that got "played." so did the mavericks. the heat did a risk analysis and decided that their chances at giannis weren't worth jeopardizing their standing with their current franchise player, otherwise they would've gotten played too. or they tampered egregiously i guess.

all these teams were just reading tea leaves and positioning themselves for a shot at him, us included. if the type of tampering you're alleging were commonplace i feel like we'd have already seen a massive scandal or two.

Ball went to a bunch of Raptor games and tried to meet with Kawhi in the hallway. They had scouts at every damn game to show Kawhi how much they wanted him.
lebron communicates with players through Klutch all the time. We all know he told PG to balk at his valid contract and get out of it after he failed in LA the first season there without a 1B

The NBA doesn't care about tampering unless it's overt for fan optics.

[MixxAOR]

Tampering (directly and indirectly) happens every day. The point is Masai supposedly had personal and inside track to The Alphabet plus his family if Giannis were to leave. You don't think, in the last 6 months, Masai or proxy had occasion to get a little better sense of whether Giannis would still be in play this next off-season? Come on.

And Dan I get what you're saying but Masai and Bobby could have also known that if they got Serge back for one year or even 2 at 12 per, they could move him if necessary. But you could be right they wanted to move on regardless because in any event, even if Giannis was still on the potential-market, we were going forward without Marc and Serge anyways.Which is strange to me since it would have made it even less likely for Giannis to turn his gaze towards us with a weaker team this year. Serge/Baynes/Boucher or Serge/Len/Boucher would both have been better than Baynes/Boucher/Len

So what happened then? Masai knew but didn't do anything or he didn't know because he had no inside source or he got lied to by Giannis's people?

[chris]

Ball went to a bunch of Raptor games and tried to meet with Kawhi in the hallway. They had scouts at every damn game to show Kawhi how much they wanted him.
lebron communicates with players through Klutch all the time. We all know he told PG to balk at his valid contract and get out of it after he failed in LA the first season there without a 1B

The NBA doesn't care about tampering unless it's overt for fan optics.

who is ball? ballmer? i've not heard of him or anyone representing the clippers meeting kawhi in the hallway while he was under contract with the raptors. doc rivers had this to say about them sending frank and ballmer to raptors games:

“I got a lot of credit, and so did Jerry West, but the guy that was the hero in all this was Lawrence Frank,” Rivers told the newspaper. “(Frank) did all the work. He had Steve Ballmer going to Raptors games and he went to some, too. We were warned that no more Clippers players, coaches or employees could go to games in Toronto. We were sending guys to go sit in the stands.

“There was nothing wrong with what we were doing, but Steve Ballmer sitting courtside in Toronto seemed a little strange. But we didn’t say a word. We just wanted (Leonard) to know we were there and we were interested.”

the raptors were understandably pissed about it. that whole article is about the raptors being furious over the clippers sketchy recruiting tactics at a board of governors meeting. but everything they did (that we're aware of) is within that grey area i was referring to and is not an explicit violation of the CBA.

what you're suggesting is such a flagrant violation of the rules, i've never of something like that even being hinted at. and i'd find it hard to believe such occurrences could be kept under wraps.

if shit like was happening how would the knicks end up trading their franchise player for cap space? you think they did it because they knew they had julius randle and taj gibson et al. in the bag? i think they had others in mind and struck out, and probably wouldn't have risked it if they had any insider info.

[MixxAOR]

guys Masai waited till last minute for Kawhi to make a decision and leave (and we lost out on all free agents) and he waited till last minute for Giannis to make a decision and stay with Bucks.(again which impacted Raps decision making)

I think I can confidently say that Masai has no insider info lmao. He underestimated how unsexy Toronto is as a destination. "Belive in yourself. Believe in your city" sure felt good. But...that didn't really work out lmao

[golden]

guys Masai waited till last minute for Kawhi to make a decision and leave (and we lost out on all free agents) and he waited till last minute for Giannis to make a decision and stay with Bucks.(again which impacted Raps decision making)

I think I can confidently say that Masai has no insider info lmao. He underestimated how unsexy Toronto is as a destination. "Belive in yourself. Believe in your city" sure felt good. But...that didn't really work out lmao

Masai is also waiting until the last minute for Masai to make his free agent decision. lol.

[LJ2]

guys Masai waited till last minute for Kawhi to make a decision and leave (and we lost out on all free agents) and he waited till last minute for Giannis to make a decision and stay with Bucks.(again which impacted Raps decision making)

I think I can confidently say that Masai has no insider info lmao. He underestimated how unsexy Toronto is as a destination. "Belive in yourself. Believe in your city" sure felt good. But...that didn't really work out lmao

In both instances he did the right thing. If there was even a slim chance to nab a top 5 player then he had to take it.