J.R. Smith has literally been shanghaied away for the foreshortened 2011-2012 NBA season: rolling ILH sandbox thread

More than a year and a half after his last surgery and the latest estimate is that Greg Oden will be ready to play (maybe) in January. Can't wait to see how his free-agency goes.

at this point he's a near minimum-contract guy, i think.

and here it is: CP3 determined to play for NYK

gahhh

nooo cp3 don't make me hate u

wowwwwwwwwwww

honestly i'm not sure i can hate a knicks team with cp3, melo & amare -- amare is prob my favorite athlete right now behind THE REAL BLACK MAMBA (de'anthony thomas)

i'm going to have to summon up all of my intense hatred of new york sports fans to pull that one off

now if nene could just similarly force his way to the heat . . .

oh i'll be able to hate them just fine ('cept for a'mare, obv.).

interesting eastern-conference. NYK -- Heat rivalry is back.

is it even possible for the knicks to pull this off?

i liked the heat-knicks rivalry renewal a lot more when it was amare + homegrown knicks vs the monolothic heat transformer -- there's no narrative to a knicks-heat superstar rivalry

well, sure there is. two powerhouse, star-heavy teams that represent the "new" NBA of player-driven rosters.

Paul has reached out to Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard(notes) recently, encouraging Howard to find a way for the two to play together, sources told Yahoo! Sports.

apparently chris paul took up crack during the lock out. what a shame.

i should've said that there's no interesting narrative

is it even possible for the knicks to pull this off?

― v-shasty, Thursday, December 1, 2011 2:39 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

it won't be in two years but i bet it is right now. scary.

btw there is no way that this is happening unless the knicks are able to grind the entire league basically to a halt by trying to put a three-way deal over on every single team in the league

the difference between this and the amare sitaution as it pertains to the knicks is that the knicks truly have nothing left to trade. with melo the hornets were "shopping for a better offer" but they still had a pretty good thing in their pocket w/ the knicks role player sampler that they ended up taking.

truly i can't forsee anyway that the knicks could pull off a trade for cp3 unless the hornets just flush their entire franchise down the toilet by taking... who? landry jones, iman shumpert and non-lottery picks from now until 2020?

by amare i mean carmelo obv

amd also obv nuggets not hornets

Nets can offer D Will a 5th year and more than anyone else in free agency. An extension would be 4 years, $78 million ; FA signing with any team but Nets 4 years, $75 million; FA with Nets 5 years, $100 million. It's a no-brainer not to extend.

I still expect him to resign with the Nets as $25 million is not to be sneezed at.

yeah i think this is mostly a formality. i think BIG PROK will in the d will gamble.

plus if he's gonna be on the move AFTER howard and chris paul, idk what team is gonna be left for him.

So if Paul really wants to go to New York, he can go -- as long as he's willing to give up, at a minimum, forty million dollars to do it. (The same, incidentally, applies for Deron Williams or Dwight Howard.)

I have no idea how super teams are possible with this new cba unless the owner wants to pay a jillion dollars in luxury tax?

i guess dolan might, but good lord

it's funny how much the decision will hang over lebron. if he had just done everything the same minus that, he would've been able to stand in pretty stark contrast to these idiots who bring the entire league to a standstill trying to get to only one team

I have no idea how super teams are possible with this new cba unless the owner wants to pay a jillion dollars in luxury tax?

there's actually a hard cap, tho no-one's calling it that. i think it's fixed at roughly 74.5M.

WallaceNBA_ESPN Michael Wallace -- Keeping my fingers crossed this CP3 'MeloDrama' doesn't lead to owners backing off that handshake CBA deal.

chris paul poised here to potentially become history's greatest monster.

and why would it?

THAT IS AN UNUSUAL INTERVIEW QUESTION AND IT IS UNCALLED-FOR.

just trust me that chris paul is about to become history's greatest monster.

if he does form a nyk superteam junior varsity squad I will agree with you

i like the notion that the NYK would be the "junior-varsity" of superteams.

certainly fitting, since they -- organizationally -- are a total clusterscrew, which benefits only because players want to play in NYC.

Al_Iannazzone
The Record just learned Deron Williams WILL NOT Sign an extension with the Nets and will play the year out. Link coming shortly.

yeah, it's cuz he can get more $ as a FA even if he re-signs w/ the nets

there's still something kinda gross to me about the way prohkorov will have gamed the system via the new cba -- the nets aren't d will's "original team" and i'm not sure what good it does for competitive balance to allow a guy to trade for a player solely for the purpose of signing him to a max deal and allow that team to offer him $25m more than anyone else

still celtics will be a middling team in 3-4 years probs

― k3vin k., Thursday, December 1, 2011 3:51 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

celtics literally have three players under contract next season, if they got paul, traded pierce and rondo, they could have a whole new team!

um... it's been like that with free agent contracts since the last CBA, maybe even before. Kobe would have given up like $40mn if he'd left LA for anywhere else.

Sign and trades are also capped - anyone trading for D-Will or Howard this season can only sign him to a one-year extension, so either one will just opt out and have to be signed as a FA (w/ Bird rights, though).

i read one summery of the new cba but i feel like it wasnt that comprehensive

um... it's been like that with free agent contracts since the last CBA, maybe even before. Kobe would have given up like $40mn if he'd left LA for anywhere else.

well yes, but i'm pretty sure that they significantly increased the difference b/w how much money you can get from your own team vs how much you can get from your existing team

I think it actually got smaller, because of the amounts and years.

And the money hit for Paul/Howard is offset by increased endorsements in a bigger media market. D-Will not so much, but maybe he really just hates Avery Johnson that much.

lol you guys

The Knicks can't even trade a first round draft pick until 2018.

wow

Nuggets will receive the Knick's first-round pick two years after the Knicks surrender their 2012 first-round pick to the Rockets (Carmelo Anthony trade 02-22-11)

Nuggets have option to swap 2016 first-round picks with the Knicks (Carmelo Anthony trade 02-22-11)

Rockets receive the Knicks' 2012 first-round pick (top 5 protected in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, if not conveyed by 2015 then the Rockets will receive the Knicks 2015 and 2016 second-round picks) (Tracy McGrady trade 02-18-10)

though i guess as long as the knicks don't have have a top 5 pick in next year's draft, some of those first round picks become tradeable

i think it's increasingly likely that a team tries to pull a d will here

celtics literally have three players under contract next season, if they got paul, traded pierce and rondo, they could have a whole new team!

c's were supposedly clearing cap space to make a run at dwight howard.

Poor dwight. So much talent, so little help.

he'd do well in boston!

Daniel, all the good players can't play for teams that you like and it wouldn't even be fun for you if they did.