If they get Love, they'll run away with it. Doesn't sound like they will, though, if they're not willing to part with Wiggins (and I wouldn't).

After the top 2 in the East, I think you could justifiably put those remaining teams in any order from 3-8.

i dont like the Wizards chances now that Martell Webster might have to retire. He was analytically perfect in the Wizards offense and changed his game for the team and was a reason you could let Ariza walk because hes the same 3 and D player. Would be perfect to lead the 2nd unit and platoon with Pierce. Without him our bench sucks and you have to trust Otto Porter playing real NBA minutes and though he dominated everyone in summer league I have no faith in that.

We basically lost or are losing our two best corner 3 shooters with no replacements

Also just remembered that division winners get a top 4 seed, which means the Raptors will likely get one again as they're still better than the Nets/Knicks.

I am sure Lance is now regretting his antics since it cost him some big money and I bet his Pacer teammates are all high fiving about right now.

As far as the East goes I would rank them

1) Chicago, 2) Cleveland, 3) Washington, 4) Indiana, 5) Charlotte, 6) Toronto, 7) Miami, 8) Detroit or Atlanta

I'm fine with Miami being under-rated. My homerism has them higher, and I like our roster better than some of the other teams people are rating higher. Wade is often cited as the fall-off-the-cliff guy but the risks associated with DRose in Chicago are much, much higher IMO. The guy's missed 115 games the past 2 seasons. Time will tell if DWade can bounce back, he was awful in the Finals, but he was great during the season (with the orchestrated 28 games off) and during the first 3 rounds of the playoffs.

logic fail. If neither deal is very good, it doesn't much matter how much better one is than the other.

I think you just made a compelling argument for trading wiggins for love.

Bulls will lose to the LeBrons.

Jimmy Butler is never going to be more than he is right now, Derrick Rose has been out of basketball forever, Noah is the most overrated player in the league, and Pau is Pau at age 34.

I really like the McRoberts signing. I think he will do a lot of the little things the Heat were missing last year at that spot.

Oh, it's pretty easy to make that argument. The Cavs are a 60+ win team right away with Kevin Love. But they'll likely win the East without him there anyway, LeBron is that good.

The real problem in LeBron's way is going to continue to be the Spurs/Thunder.

His Pacer teammates can high five all they want, but they just lost the one creator in what was already a bad offense. I don't even want to imagine what it will look like now. That organization has likely missed their shot at building anything meaningful (especially now that the Heat are done), while Lance is still in the prime of his career and has time to build up his own value for his next contract.

Heat are relying on Wade's health and Bosh returning to Raptors form (a player he hasn't had to be in 4 years). Neither of those things are particularly good bets, nor is Chris Bosh as a #1 something that should be greatly anticipated/desired (I didn't like him in that role at all in Toronto). Their ceiling as a team just isn't that high right now.

The Cavs will be a great regular season team either way. The youngsters have never been in the playoffs and their inexperience, I think, will hurt them there. Sure, Bron is seasoned but when is the last time a team largely made up of young, playoff-inexperienced guys won a ship?

I don't think any team in the East will win a championship this year. Maybe if the Cavs get Kevin Love there's a shot there, but other than that, it's almost certainly not gonna happen.

The higher risk guy is the one without a meniscus, Dwyane Wade. Stop being delusional.

LMAO underrated.

The Heat's roster is shit for post-season competitiveness.

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I guess you missed the rape that was the Finals this year.

Oh, and enjoy getting the 5-8 seed, a shitty draft pick, and years before the Heat will sniff the conference finals again.

I agree they missed their shot and will miss Lance's offense but they probably won't miss some of the turmoil. It will be interesting to see what else the Pacers do, rumors are they might be trying to trade Hibbert and get Goran Dragic.

Hope you enjoy the raping that Kevin Durant is going to give you this year.

#Cavs have signed James Jones to one year deal for league minimum, source tells the Beacon Journal
https://twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ

Well @GoodmanESPN just told us on @957thegame that buzz from Execs in Vegas is Kevin Love may be a little overrated
https://twitter.com/JohnMiddlekauff

Wow. Really impressed with the HORNETS.

LMAO

Not happening. Scott Brooks is still his coach.

It's not a logic fail. You just are so blinded by homerism you refuse to acknowledge that the Wolves are going to have to take the best available offer or nothing.

You think they can just refuse all offers in perpetuity, because no one will offer what he's worth. Guess what? He's only worth what they are offering.

Because you're not trading for Kevin Love. You're trading for Kevin Love's CONTRACT. And that's only one season long. His CONTRACT is not worth Andrew Wiggins' contract. Period.

Especially when Brendan Haywood's contract next year isn't guaranteed, when Verejao only has one year left on his deal, when you can wait until the trade deadline and move Bennet or Waiters or Thompson and create more room, and suddenly... you have more than enough space to sign Kevin Love without giving the Timberwolves or their delusional fanbase your future star.

Well, the wild card is Kevin loves bird rights. Any trade partner wants this to be a trade. His contract if through free agency will be very expensive against the cap. But I agree otherwise that that doesn't mean either team is desperate and it's clear neither golden state nor Cleveland is flinching.

I would rather lose love all together. Draft picks are a much better option. If Cleveland and Golden State aren't including Wiggins and Thompson then move on.

I think they might skate deep because of how bad the east is. But the cavs are a mile away from competing with the west.

I think they were fortunate. They needed Stephenson more than Hayward and backed into it.

OKC will have a chance even with Brooks. As long as Westbrook, Durant and Ibaka are healthy. I definitely understand your confidence though.

OR, they hold on to him through next near and let him walk. I would prefer that to taking on David Lee's contract. And for whom am I showing homerism? I like Cleveland. I like Minnesota. I like OKC and the list goes on. I'm just saying what I would or would not do if I was in Minnesota's position. Of course, they don't much care what I think.

This, although I wouldn't want Thompson either. Dude isn't staying in Minnesota.

**** the Hornets, and **** them for trying to steal Gordon Hayward from us. Of course, this inevitably led to us paying him 63 million dollars over 4 years. :banghead:

That's true too. I'm not sold on Thompson and doubt you can get him to committ. The other offers though won't cut it. The picks from those teams won't do you any good either. Minnesota is in a tough spot, but I wouldn't panic. You have til the all star break. Love maybe a problem but you aren't going anywhere this year anyway.

Shouldn't have matched. Hayward is a decent player, but max money is stupid.

I wonder if some teams sign RFAs to ridiculous contracts knowing the original team will match just to **** up their cap space.

I won't begin to understand how the salary cap works for the NBA, but the way it was explained to me, it won't hurt us too bad because we needed to spend money anyways to reach the minimum.

Looks like Brandon Rush is a Warrior again.

Here is a list of NBA trades for superstars, just to give some perspective to deals that happen for them

Shaquille O’Neal trade to Miami
Brain Grant, Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, 1st Round Pick

Pau Gasol trade to Lakers
Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the rights to Marc Gasol, and 2008 and 2010 first round draft picks

Kevin Garnett to Celtics
Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Boston's 2009 first-round draft pick (top 3 protected), and the 2009 first-round pick which Minnesota had traded to Boston in the Ricky Davis-Wally Szczerbiak trade of 2006.

Chris Paul to Clippers
Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu, and the Minnesota Timberwolves' unprotected first round pick in the 2012 Draft

Carmelo Anthony to Knicks
Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, a future first-round draft selection and two future second-round draft selections (originally acquired from Golden State on Jul. 9, 2010), the right to exchange 2016 first-round draft selections and cash considerations

Dwight Howard to Lakers
Josh McRoberts, Christian Eyenga, Maurice Harkless, Nikola Vucevic, Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, and draft picks

More important for Utah is Favors fulfilling his promise and Exum becoming a star.

I wonder who sits? Gerald Henderson I'd guess. That would give them some scoring off the bench.

ROFL Noah is the most overrated player? Don't think so. You're just ****ing stupid. The East is theirs to lose.

I would tend to favor Cleveland. Everyone in the East is a question mark for one reason or another. I'll take the question mark with Lebron.

Man, you really took offense to that.

Wiz also acquired Dejuan Blair in a sign and trade with the Mavs. Our frontcourt is going to bang hard

Interesting. First of all because three of those trades involved the Lakers and almost a fourth one was as well (Chris Paul).

Paul had an expiring deal and said he wouldn't re-sign with the Hornets. Gasol still had three years on his deal at the time.

Carmelo was a sign-and-trade, which I think right now only Cleveland could pull off.

I would say that the Dwight Howard trade is exactly why teams are not willing to overpay for Kevin Love. That massively backfired when he didn't sign an extension with the team, something EVERYONE in LA expected him to do.

Dejuan Blair is an interesting player. He plays hard all the time and has heart, but he will get pushed around by bigger players. He's a good spark but his inconsistent offense and being occasionally dominated is frustrating from a fan's point of view.

hes perfect as a 3rd or 4th big man depth. Our bigs off the bench last year were Trevor Booker, Jan Vesely, Kevin Seraphin. absolute dumpster fire

Carmelo wasn't a sign and trade. It was a straight deal. A sign and trade is what Miami did with LeBron, etc.

Not going to happen.

Ever.

****ing Exum.

What a ****ing train wreck of a pick that was.

I think it's awesome that the Jazz took an 18 year old Australian that nobody has seen play except on a 13 second YouTube video against other Australian high schoolers.

And the ****ing guy couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.

What a bunch of douche nozzles running that team.

They did get lucky with Rod Hood though, even though he's the exact same goddamn guy they draft every goddamn year who ends up being a pile of monkey shit.

Some hot basketball takes in here with the Noah is overrated bullshit.

If you think Joakim Noah is overrated, then you're ****ing clueless.

Dejuan Blair is an energy guy and a damned good one. That's what you pay guys like him for. If they play 28 minutes, they get exposed, but if they can come in, bang bodies, do dirty work, and score on some putbacks and save a few loose balls, they've done their job and it's an important one.

Ok, Zach.

****, you're obnoxious.

Haven't read those saying he is overrated in this tread but the top 5 MVP/player momentum in the latter part of the season was getting a bit much. Though not entirely unwarranted.

He's a career sub-60% shooter from 3 feet or less. Absolutely pathetic.

Also takes too many inefficient 2-point jump shots. If he was Bosh or Garnett...ok... but he is well under 40%

Tied for 186th in true shooting percentage

He's basically a slightly better, but much uglier DeAndre Jordan.

Not a good comparison at all. Noah is an elite passer and ball handler as a big man. He's also an outstanding defender beyond just blocked shots. Doc Rivers would trade Jordan for Noah in a heartbeat.

I mean in terms of value as a player. They have different skillsets for sure. Noah is better, but his inefficient volume shooting really brings his offensive game down.

He wouldn't shoot as much (or as inefficiently) if he wasn't on a team with no other consistent scoring threats. Assuming Rose is back healthy and sucking up 15-20 shots per night, I'd bet that Noah becomes more efficient.

That's a fair point. That offense was terrible.

Noah took a team with Kirk Hinrich, Mike Dunleavy, Jimmy Butler and Carlos Boozer to the playoffs.

I could give a dick about his inefficient shooting. He was basically a constant triple double threat all of late February and March.

He's a million times better than Jordan.

i'd love Noah on the Lakers, kids an Anchor. He gives it his all. He doesnt have to score, he's not a good offensive player, but does everything else really good.

I actually thought one of the biggest reasons the Cavs might need to trade for Love is because they are going to have their hands full with Noah, Gasol and Gibson. That frontcourt could do some damage in the East. Then obviously if Rose gets healthy on top of that, the Bulls are legit contenders.

And everyone picked the Bulls over the Wizards too. Not sure why everyone wants to suck their cock every year.

Wiz could probably beat them next year too lol

Their team's inability to score is why they didn't advance in a weak conference. You also left off Gibson and elite coaching. Not saying Noah isn't a badass but if he could score more efficiently and at a little more volume then it would warrant more of the top 5 MVP/top 10 player praise. Absent scoring he hardly far from that though.

Agreed that he is way better than Jordan and that it's a dumbass comparison.

I agree about elite coaching and Gibson. Gibson was huge last year.

I just think the way he moves in the offense, screening, facilitating, that his scoring isn't that big of a deal. I think he was around 13 last year. His impact on the offensive end is far greater than that production.

I may be biased about Noah. He's probably my favorite player in the league.

Noah is one of the top 15 players in the NBA when you take into account his elite defense (I'd only take a healthy M. Gasol over him among centers). Not overrated.

if i was building a team I would take Andre Drummond over both on my big board of centers.

That's a different question, but he may surpass them soon. Not yet, though.

**** off. Different skillsets, but both are great defenders and rebounders. Jordan has awful offensive skills and Noah is one of the least efficient offensive scorers. Noah's passing and basketball IQ put him above Jordan, but how much value does that bring? He turned the ball over 19 times in 5 games in the playoffs trying to do his point-center thing. Is that what you want in your offense?

Overall, Noah has been a pretty bad player in the playoffs. Maybe because other players start trying hard too. I don't know.

But 4th in MVP.... can't beat Wizards. Makes sense. Not overrated.

if he played in a system like the Bulls or Grizz he would have already. He's been stuck on an awful team with awful coaching surrounded by individual players, whereas Noah and Gasol have high IQ, good rotation and team defense players to help.

Not Greg Monroe and Josh Smith having no clue what to do, where to go on the defensive end.

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Wish the guy would have dubbed over the wrestlers' names, but still funny.

It's being reported that the Cavs have made Wiggins available in the Love deal. If that's actually the case, have to think it gets done sooner rather than later. The Wolves can't do better than that.

LMAO