****The Official 2015-16 NBA Thread****

Buahahah Brian Windbag with an article siting "several teams upset" with the Heat salary manipulations to stay under tax. Cry more Windy you putz :lol:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14870954/miami-heat-buyout-beno-udrih-leaves-several-teams-upset

"Sumlit wrote:

Buahahah Brian Windbag with an article siting "several teams upset" with the Heat salary manipulations to stay under tax. Cry more Windy you putz :lol:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14870954/miami-heat-buyout-beno-udrih-leaves-several-teams-upset

On twitter I hate when people take to fat shaming the guy. I think we should be above that. But at the same time you see **** like this and you just shake your head.

"Sumlit wrote:

Buahahah Brian Windbag with an article siting "several teams upset" with the Heat salary manipulations to stay under tax. Cry more Windy you putz :lol:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14870954/miami-heat-buyout-beno-udrih-leaves-several-teams-upset

Its all legit people can whine all they want... If they dont wont things like this dont have "buy outs".

The die has been cast. Heat waived Beno Udrih.

If the 76ers claim Beno Philly gets to push their salary accounting figure closer to the salary floor and save about $1 million of actual dollars in the process. If that happens the Heat will have $2.1 million under the luxury tax which they can use to pay Marcus Thornton and possibly even another player.

If the 76ers don't claim Beno, then the Heat will get their buyout and still go below the luxury tax, but they won't have enough room to get Marcus Thornton.

Heat officially waive Udrih.

He'll be in waivers until 5:00 Wednesday. If Philly claims him we can add perhaps two players and stay under the tax

If I'm not mistaken we can definitely add two players. The only reason we wouldn't be able to is if we had to pay more than the minimum for one of them.

This is by far the best part of the Windhorst column:

For years, Riley has parlayed the advantages of being located in Miami and the general respect level of the Heat franchise to create team-friendly contract situations.

In several cases, players who have opted out of contracts, taken pay cuts or turned down the chances at raises have ended up re-signing with the team at later dates. It is also something the San Antonio Spurs franchise, among others, has been known to do.

You can just picture him sobbing while typing this as tears fall onto his keyboard with his Pat Riley dart board behind him.

Kyrie wants to leave Cleveland? Not even success/winning would make you want to live in Cleveland.

Ugly moment for Lebron which im sure he will justify it some way.

Gave up a turnover to Paul George and instead of going for his usual chase down blocked, he kinda ran behind him and then suddenly just stopped, gave up on the play and let PG get an easy dunk.

Wonder if something is up in the locker room. The Cavs energy and body language is just bad.

I saw the play and I think he just made a business call. George had a few steps on him and he's a good finisher.

LeBatard saying that if Philly claims Beno, Kevin Martin is the target

"schmolioot wrote:

LeBatard saying that if Philly claims Beno, Kevin Martin is the target

Man, gonna ignore Marcus Thornton again?

Lol now he's saying that there is someone else above Martin on their list but the Heat is giving no clues

May be Lawson if he gets bought out

This year Kevin Martin is 39.4% on catch-and-shoot threes, and 7 of 15 on left and right corner threes (46.6%). He's an 88% free throw shooter. He's 28 of 68 (41.2%) when he's "open" for three.

He qualifies as the kind of pure shooter that we'd like to have out there for Joe Johnson to find and kick the ball out to on the perimeter. Seemed like already in the Knicks game there were times Joe was kicking out to an open three point shooter and we just didn't shoot it or we shot it badly because we're not very good at them.

Wow. I knew the three point situation was bad. I didn't know it was THIS bad.

The two best shooters in "open" or "wide open" situations are both injured, Chris Bosh and Tyler Johnson. They were head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Luol Deng is 49 of 149 (32.9%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Gerald Green is of 50 of 153 (32.7%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Goran Dragic is 36 of 119 (30.3%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Justise Winslow is of 23 of 88 (26.1%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Josh Richardson is 6 of 25 (24.0%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Dwyane Wade is 6 of 27 (22.2%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Josh McRoberts is 7 of 34 (20.6%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

That total is 177 of 595 (29.7%). These are three pointers where the nearest defender is at least 4 feet away from the shooter.

Here are the two players injured:

Tyler Johnson is 26 of 62 (41.9%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Chris Bosh is 74 of 191 (38.7%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

Luckily, help is on the way. In comes:

Joe Johnson is 74 of 197 (37.5%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

And perhaps one of these three?

Kevin Martin is 28 of 68 (41.2%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Marcus Thornton is 54 of 153 (35.3%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Ty Lawson is 30 of 85 (35.3%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

Seeing this, my preference is for Kevin Martin.

I am told the Heat is in on Ty Lawson, but only if they can negotiate a taker for Gerald Green and it not being Cleveland or Atlanta.

We really need one more shooter. I agree with seeing Joe pass to open 3 pt shots that just aren't getting taken. I believe that getting two or three more 3 pt shots made per game would be huge. Perhaps even more important would be minimizing how many of those days we have where the 3 pt shot percentage is around 15% or less. We've had three such games (out of 6) since the all-star break. Prior to that when we had Bosh we'd had three out of 53 games. Since then Miami is attempting about 5 fewer per game and shooting less than 25%. It's a small sample size, but it's not a good trend. I think one more shooter would help immensely. That could be Bosh coming back or adding one of the guards that we've talked about (or ideally, both). I also think that Richardson is starting to emerge as a 3 pt threat. His shot looks good but just didn't fall before the all-star break. It looks like it's starting to fall more and he's getting the confidence to take more. I don't expect Richardson to be a high volume shooter, but I think he should get maybe three open 3 pt shot attempts per game and make one on average. I'm hoping that Joe plus some or all of those possibilities get us back up to the 18 or 19 attempts and +6 makes per game.

But I would bet on Kevin Martin being the full blown first target.

"ckparrothead wrote:

Wow. I knew the three point situation was bad. I didn't know it was THIS bad.

The two best shooters in "open" or "wide open" situations are both injured, Chris Bosh and Tyler Johnson. They were head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Luol Deng is 49 of 149 (32.9%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Gerald Green is of 50 of 153 (32.7%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Goran Dragic is 36 of 119 (30.3%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Justise Winslow is of 23 of 88 (26.1%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Josh Richardson is 6 of 25 (24.0%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Dwyane Wade is 6 of 27 (22.2%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Josh McRoberts is 7 of 34 (20.6%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

That total is 177 of 595 (29.7%). These are three pointers where the nearest defender is at least 4 feet away from the shooter.

Here are the two players injured:

Tyler Johnson is 26 of 62 (41.9%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Chris Bosh is 74 of 191 (38.7%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

Luckily, help is on the way. In comes:

Joe Johnson is 74 of 197 (37.5%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

And perhaps one of these three?

Kevin Martin is 28 of 68 (41.2%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Marcus Thornton is 54 of 153 (35.3%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.
Ty Lawson is 30 of 85 (35.3%) on "open" or "wide open" threes.

Seeing this, my preference is for Kevin Martin.

I forgot about the impact of losing TJ.

We really need more attempts and more makes. Bosh got a ton of open looks due to his position, but the faster pace should also yield a few more open 3s for the other guys.

Ty Lawson is scary. Do you risk him messing up the chemistry? I know you have the "Heat culture" which has a pretty good track record, but with Richardson playing as well as he has, I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer to just add another shooter like Thornton or Martin. Martin would probably be a very good get. He signing might actually be as good or better than Joe Johnson.

As for cutting Green, that makes sense. He'll be relegated to the end of the bench with Johnson here. There is still a possibility Philly claims Udrih, though, right? If so, we wouldn't need to waive Green. That would be the best option all-around because while Green has been beyond awful lately, we've seen what he can do when he gets hot. He may never get another chance to show that, but it's nice to have on the bench, especially in the playoffs when you might need a spark.

Any word on Bosh, Section. Seems like there is zero information being given about him right now. If he could come back even for the playoffs, that would be HUGE. It could be tough because that would give the new rotation zero time to jell, but they may be able to win a round that way and ideally start to round into form for round 2.

Lawson certainly brings more baggage.

Between Thornton and Martin, do you think we need a PG or a SG more? Or are they both good enough ball handlers and able to push the pace? I really haven't watched Martin this year so I know nothing about his game. His 3 pt numbers are good. How is his D? I'm trying to figure out who would seem to be the better fit.

Neither Martin nor Thornton have been good defenders lately, but hopefully they would improve to average by playing in our system alongside guys who can really guard. I prefer Martin between the two: smooth stroke and he gives you a little more natural ability in the lane off of close-outs. Martin's just a little ballhog-y or a black hole, wouldn't call him a good passer.

Lawson's a tough call. Seems like a lockerroom cancer. But if you want someone to push the pace with Winslow and JRich off the bench, he's a guy. When he's on, he's a one-man fast break. One of the most exciting guys I've seen in person at a college game at UNC...he's a blur. Gotta straighten out his attitude though.

Just for reference here are the Splash Brothers on open or wide open threes:

Klay Thompson is 132 of 320 (41.3%)
Steph Curry is 212 of 432 (49.1%)

"ckparrothead wrote:

Just for reference here are the Splash Brothers on open or wide open threes:

Klay Thompson is 132 of 320 (41.3%)
Steph Curry is 212 of 432 (49.1%)

Aka utter insanity.