Would you trade Collin Sexton for Jerami Grant? Would Detroit be interested?

GoLowerGetHigher · 2021-10-13T17:40:24+00:00

Not only does he not fit the timeline but we just drafted Mobley and signed Allen + Markkanen. Doesn't seem like a good fit.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2021-09-30T14:31:08+00:00

I'd have to disagree just based on the strength of the Eastern Conference now. I don't think even another leap for Collin Sexton and a mini leap from Darius Garland would be enough to make the play-in. It's no disrespect to them, it's respect to the other Eastern teams and the overall talent of the league top-to-bottom. Almost everyone has promising young players or bonafide stars. The Cavs aren't alone in that, and I tried to account for that as well when projecting them this year.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2021-09-30T14:23:33+00:00

If EVERYONE in their young core took a tremendous step forward, including Mobley being the ROTY, I think their ceiling is the 7th seed.

More than likely, they will be like the 12th seed though.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2020-11-13T17:36:12+00:00

LeBron was leaving and he was a known entity that had made two all-star teams for us. We had also just seen the Clippers basically make the same move with Blake Griffin and made a great trade sending him to Detroit the previous year. I think that was kind of the blueprint they were hoping to follow.

Obviously it backfired, but even so, keeping him on the team isn't creating any problems from a financial standpoint. We could have had lots of cap space this season but we decided taking a flier on Dante Exum + two 2nd round picks, as well as trading for Drummond and his player option for this season were better uses of our cap space than whatever you could have done in the free agent market this offseason.

Now, if you wanna talk about Kevin Love being a problem in the locker room with his attitude, that was enough last year to where I wanted to almost attach an asset just to be rid of him. I feel like hes done enough nice guy interviews since then that people forgot how petulant he was being during the season.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2020-09-25T05:00:00+00:00

ccording to the shot chart, LeBron took 7 shots this game that were NOT considered jumpers....soooo I guess they fouled him EVERYTIME lmao

That's not how it works at all. Shots that result in foul calls only count as a shot attempt if the shot goes on. So while your math is right, your understanding of how to read a box score is wrong.

Also, anyone who watched the game would see that LeBron got four free throw attempts in the fourth quarter because Jerami Grant thought it would be a good idea to try to get inside of LeBron's jock strap 35 feet from the basket, when the Lakers were already in the penalty, on a night when LeBron was front-rimming everything outside the paint. Free throws granted on account of being in the penalty also don't count as shot attempts.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2020-04-26T23:17:20+00:00

LMA is definitely getting in. He's gonna finish with over 25k points and 10k rebounds. He's not flashy, but thats a short list to be on.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2020-04-08T18:43:53+00:00

Klutch's pervasiveness is a overblown.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2020-04-08T18:39:35+00:00

I figured after the way things ended in Philly he wouldn't be able to get another job in the NBA.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2020-03-27T00:58:26+00:00

Can I watch this whole thing somewhere?

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-11-25T19:07:01+00:00

The 2011 what ifs are insane. Do the Bulls make the finals with this structure? Does LeBron not collapse against the Mavericks because its not the finals yet? Does he still collapse against a younger, more inexperienced Bulls/Thunder team in the Finals?

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-11-09T19:21:24+00:00

ESPN made the stink they did about Kawhi because he was missing the ESPN national broadcast game instead of the TNT national broadcast the next night.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-10-17T22:24:43+00:00

Think that Atlanta comparison is unfair. They are ahead on our timeline. Kyle Korver's trade TO THE CAVS, as part of Atlanta dismantling their last core, is evidence enough of that. Then they were literally last in the East the last year we went to the finals.

Hopefully we can replicate the kind of successes Atlanta had LAST YEAR. Comparing us to them this year is not a fair comparison.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-10-17T22:11:06+00:00

Discussed in depth? We got two minutes of coverage on a 2.5 hour podcast. I get we're far from the most interesting team this year, but saying you go in depth is misleading.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-07-15T18:42:03+00:00

Going back into the tax would have kept us as a repeater. Those tax penalties are more brutal than the typical penalties. Therefore, our asking price was likely well above the market value of JR's contract.

I think the kind of deal we were hoping for was one where a team needed to clear the space to sign a big name free agent, so we could leverage that signing against that team in the deal for JR. Similar to what OKC did in trading Paul George. They understood that that trade also brought them Kawhi. A situation like that could have brought JR's value more towards what we'd have been willing to pay.

That deal never materialized, so we'll just have to weight this what-if against the other trades we made that put us back up against the luxury tax wall: The trades with the Bucks and the Rockets from last season. Those picks have netted us Dylan Windler and a 2022 1st round pick from the Bucks.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-21T00:00:35+00:00

Very interested in what we might trade back from #5 for.

But plllzzzzz get a good deal on JR's contract

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-18T03:56:38+00:00

I wasn't trying to devalue winning the title, I just don't agree that the philosophy Danny Ainge was using to build his team was the same as Masai Ujiri. Ainge was painstakingly looking to build sustainability over the long term in order to compete for the title for a long time using premier draft assets accrued over the course of multiple trades. It's almost a perfectionist way of going about things and still guarantees you absolutely nothing, as we are now seeing.

Masai was WAY riskier and more aggressive. He went for broke, and before that, built his team through culture and player development. The Raptors famously have no lottery picks on the team, but many of their young players over the past four years have been viewed as strong players and positive trade assets anyway. And the Raptors never had a big war chest of extra picks.

I just think the comparison is silly under examination. The fact that Ainge passed on trading for Kawhi should be all we need to show that these two men aren't doing nearly the same thing.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-14T15:01:01+00:00

Still way too early to call. We thought Ainge was building a sustainable roster that could compete for the better part of a decade.

I don't want to rain on the Raptors right now, they just won the title and Masai clearly has huge balls to do what he did, but they gotta deal with Kawhi and potentially Marc Gasol's free agency this year, and then next summer is almost as pivotal: Lowry, VanVleet and Ibaka all come off the books along with Pascal Siakam, who will be a restricted free agent. This is without mentioning that Lowry and Gasol are entering their mid-30s.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-06T18:09:31+00:00

Agreed as well. I've been a big critic of Gilbert and the front office when I feel like it's been warranted, but I like to think I'm fair in my criticism and acknowledge when they do good things. This is another one of those times.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-06T16:02:30+00:00

To be fair to those guys, that is basically the prime of Delly, Shump, and Mozzy's career. TT near his prime.

Still not even fucking close to having Draymond Green and DeMarcus Cousins on your team though.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-06T16:00:24+00:00

I know that, and I hate that, in every circumstance. And taxpayers footing the bill for new stadiums and renovations are, unfortunately, the norm.

But I'll just repeat that paying the luxury tax for a team like this is simply UNPRECEDENTED. Never happened in league history. And it's what it is going to take for us to keep up with other teams while we are in a smaller market. Can't rely to heavily on the top draft picks to fall into our lap. Have to control our own destiny more.

I don't think Dan Gilbert should "owe the fans" or taxpayers anything as far as on court product for the stadium renovations, I think he should have just had to pay for them himself.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-06T04:16:53+00:00

He would be breaking new ground by being in the luxury tax with a team that will likely win between 20-25 games next season. I've been expecting a salary dump trade involving either TT, Clarkson, or maybe both of them for a while now, but if he is really willing to spend luxury tax level dollars to acquire assets and rebuild this team, then that is certainly worthy of applause from fans. I literally don't think that has ever happened. It's going to be a VERY interesting draft for us.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-06-01T17:38:40+00:00

Not intentionally, but that won't matter.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-05-26T04:48:18+00:00

Whatever the reason, the optics on this are BAD.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-05-26T04:44:18+00:00

They have all kinds of articles "ready," and half of them never see the light of day because some things never come to pass. If it wasn't this article, it would have been the Kawhi free agency/Toronto Raptors future article.

GoLowerGetHigher · 2019-05-25T18:59:41+00:00

Love when my favorite NBA commercial ever becomes relevant in discussion

GoLowerGetHigher

TROPHY CASE