This is right. He got lucky. If he had tore ligaments, it would have been all of them..and he was then likely out for 2 years and his career in jeopardy. As it stands..he got two clean breaks..had surgery, and now his bones will set as strong as before. he will be back fine. He will just miss an entire season, and basketball players are reliant on repetition. It will hurt his game when he comes back, but his health will be fine.
I can't say I'm a George fan but it has nothing to do with him. I think he's a very good player who got hyped as the next Lebron level player for a bit when the media was trying to sell the idea that Indiana had surpassed the Heat. That was unfair and unrealistic. George seems like a good guy and a very good player. Like any such talent he could beat a Lebron type on the occasional play but he's not going carry a team like a generational player like Lebron would. I was glad to hear that the injury is not career threatening though. As for Indiana, I see them as a non-playoff team now. Before the George injury I saw the East as Chicago, Cleveland and Miami at the top with everybody else battling for 4th place. I felt Indiana just had too little offense with George as their only consistent, get his own shot weapon. With George out for the season though Indiana will be too inconsistent offensively. Their D will keep them around and make them a threat any given night, but not a team to worry about beyond that.
Indy's D will actually take a huge downgrade. Stuckey and CJ Miles are terrible defenders. Indy was so good because George and Stephenson could each take a wing leaving West and Hibbert to just clean up the glass. Those guys will be in foul trouble all year. Sucks for George but I could care less about those dirty m'efers from Indy. Almost hope they sneak in as the 8th seed just to give them no chance in the lottery. In all likelihood now, this opens a spot for NYK or Brooklyn to grab. I think Cleveland, Chicago, Miami, Washington, Charlotte and Toronto are locks. That leaves 2 spots for Atlanta, the Knicks, Brooklyn and maybe Indy.
The Paul George leg break is a pretty big development in the East...similar to Derrick Rose's injuries. By the way are the Cavs getting Kevin Love or not? I'm tired of trying to keep track.
Yes. I think Love to Cavs is likely. Just a matter of them giving up Waiters or not. Wiggins is gone.
I think that a healthy Atlanta is also a lock. If so, that would leave one spot open with NY as the top contender.
The rumors seem to indicate that it's very likely but just can't happen for another three weeks or so until Wiggins is tradeable. There was the report that Wiggins Cleveland jersey was removed from NBA.com implying that somebody knows he's gone.
Well that should make for an interesting season. I have a feeling it will be very similar for the Cavs to what it was for the Heat this past year. They'll be regarded as the favorites of the East but will be widely considered vulnerable to being bounced from the playoffs due to bad depth, and not considered the favorite to beat the West's champion in the Finals.
Have a question for Section126 about salary cap and max contracts. I've heard that max contracts are generally considered to be great value in the NBA. I assume this is because the players worthy of those max contracts are actually worth a lot more but can only be paid so much under the rules. But it also seems to me like there are a bunch of dudes getting max contracts that shouldn't be getting them. Is that accurate? And wouldn't that be extremely detrimental to a team if that were to happen? Seems to me like something similar is happening in the NFL with quarterback contracts, with the extensions of guys like Jay Cutler, Colin Kaepernick and Andy Dalton being the latest examples. Seems to me like giving a QB-level contract to a quarterback who actually is elite is still a very good value, but otherwise these teams that are sneaking up and competing with those elite quarterbacks are actually ones that are getting good quarterback play from cheap options (who may then become expensive quarterbacks within a year or so).
True. If Horford is healthy then Atlanta should be in with no problem. The Knicks are the team helped most by Indy likely dropping out. I don't count out Brooklyn though. They will be very well coached and still do have some talent.
The NFL is running into the same problem as the NBA - where 1 guy has such a ridiculous influence over the performance of the team that it can inflate the worth of mediocre players. Utah just ran into that - is Gordon Hayward worth a max-deal? No. But not having Gordon Hayward sets your team back so far, because you can't just go use that money to sign two guys that equal one Gordon Hayward. In the NFL - Dalton isn't worth that huge contract - but it's not like you can just slot in a slightly worse QB and improve other areas and keep moving. A good QB is worth 10xs more than a good WR, OG, etc. So your choices are pay the QB and be decent but cap strung, or not pay the QB and suck.
Another thought on max deals - I think the NBA should increase the % of the salary cap a max deal can consume. If you want to stop super teams, make max deals worth 40% of the cap. This would also probably force the Hayward, Parson, Lopez type dudes out of the max deal distinction. The best players' salaries are artificially deflated to such a point that these mid-tier guys can demand max deals because they aren't THAT far off to begin with. If one guy was taking up 40% of the cap instead of 25-30%, I don't think you'd see these mid-tier guys getting the same deals, because teams would realize they can't add another guy at that contract like they can now.
Interesting comparison and I think an accurate one. The truly great players at impact position have such a huge impact on wins and generate so much income for the team that it would be impossible to pay them what they're worth, but the good players at impact positions don't have nearly the same impact. Dalton is unlikely to ever be a guy that will carry the team to wins and the contract he signs implies that he should have that ability. But he's a guy that you could win with and having a lesser QB would probably make the team completely irrelevant. The quandary is that his contract may make it difficult to ever put enough talent around him to make the team a legit SB contender and the team is less likely to spend a high pick (or even have one) on a QB that is likely to be able to carry the team. But that's still better than being irrelevant and having no chance. So it's better to overpay the good QB than not have one at all.
Bosh is a far better player than Gordon Hayward and he had max offers from other teams. The Heat is also in a different situation than a lot of other teams. We have basically eschewed the draft, except for lottery picks, in the Riley era, and as long as Riley remains in charge we will be a team primarily built through trades and free agency. Thus, given we are pointing to 2016, it was imperative that we have a "star" under contract for that year, while also remaining a competitive near contender the next two years. Kevin Durant is not considering a lottery team. Neither are any of the other potentially available guys.
Nah - Bosh is awesome. I'd be more worried about Wade/Deng than Bosh. (Keep in mind I'm a Cavs fan and Deng was pretty awful for them in his stretch last year. If he goes back to Bulls-version Deng he should be fine.)
if a player is very near Max Value..it doesn't really matter whether you save a million here or a million there, because you are now committed to being a capped team. Miami for example does not mind paying Bosh the Max, because the savings on a cheaper max deal is not the difference between having adequate cap space to add a difference maker, and being a team that uses exceptions. The key is short contracts for those you have doubt about, and longer contracts for those you don't. it is why Miami is so well managed. In the last 8 years, the Heat has had exactly ONE BAD CONTRACT (Mike Miller's), and they used amnesty to get out from under it, and it led to Luol Deng this year (who I like very much as a player). Now..the problem comes when a player like Joe Johnson is getting paid DOUBLE what he is worth. Bosh is overpaid by less than the value of a Mini-MLE so it is of no consequence. Johnson is overpaid by what Luol Deng makes a year. Now..THAT is bad cap management.
Man, I can't believe how many people miss this point. When everyone was praising Atlanta for getting Milsap cheap for only 2 years I kept thinking - only having him for 2 years makes it REALLY hard to build a team for the future. Maybe if it was a big money deal it would be better to be shorter since there is risk involved, but they got him at $9.5million per year. That's a STEAL for a high-scoring big man.
BTW..I heard a doozy of a rumor this weekend...... I was told that Cleveland (unclear whether Lebron was involved) put out a call to Henry Thomas (Bosh's agent) and it was unclear whether the call was for Client #1 (Wade) or for Bosh himself the day of the decision.
There was a rumor that the Cavs had a deal in place with Toronto for Bosh back before The Decision but that Bosh refused to go to Cleveland and that pushed LeBron to Miami. Have you ever heard anything of that nature? I always kind of assumed the Big 3 had planned that whole ordeal way in advance, but who knows.
I don't know about Bosh but I'm finding it difficult to believe that Dwyane Wade ever seriously entertained the idea of assembling the Big 3 anywhere other than Miami. The whole Big 3 idea could have disintegrated and become a Big 2 for Cleveland with Bosh and LeBron, but I doubt that was ever going to be a Big 3.
Oh yeah I didn't mean all 3 in Clevealnd. I meant Bosh to Cavs with LeBron, Wade stay in Miami. This is back in 2010 or 2009 whenever that all went down. That was the rumor. I always assumed it was a false rumor because the Big 3 wanted to all be together and Miami was only place that made sense.
No, I heard the Cavs tried to get Bosh before the decision in 2010 as well and that he refused to play in Cleveland (even under the assumption of Lebron's retention).
The other rumor from 2009-2010 that I had heard was that there was a trade in place for Amare Stoudemire and the Cavs refused to give up JJ Hickson, and that infuriated Lebron.
Jon Lester "Thank you" ad to Red Sox fans in the Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2...l?hootPostID=5174323a60c0784a8ee1d3d407323ca7 Not a very difficult thing to do for a rich guy with an ounce of class......
I remember this. Was all over the Suns forums at the time. Cleveland traded for the nearly useless Antawn Jamison instead. Riley also looked into Stoudemire at that time too. Don't remember what the deal parameters were though, or if it got close.
Steve Kerr has come out a few times and refuted that Hickson trade thing. Not saying it's not true, but they shipped him off for Omri Casspi and a heavily protected pick the following year, so hopefully it isn't haha.
I'm just not sold on Toronto at all. Everyone seems to disagree on that, but I'm not positive they repeat their success. Just not that impressed with the talent level. Washington is interesting. If Porter comes to life and can somewhat replace Ariza. If Beal takes a step forward like it seemed he was in the playoffs (remember when we said that about Harrison Barnes before last year?) and if Wall continues to improve they could be dangerous. Chicago is the big question mark. They could be monsters if McBuckets / Mirotic are as advertised. Gasol is a nice addition. Just depends if Rose is healthy.
The couple people who seem to be reliable on Cavs insider info refuted this a number of years ago. I'd tend to believe them if only for my sanity.
