New NBA TV negotiations

[League Circles]

Ive heard from some that King wants Coby to return to the bench and be a 6th man.

I'm as big of a Coby fan as there is among us, and I don't think this is insane necessarily IMO. If Zach isn't traded this summer he absolutely has to start for several reasons, and if Demar is re-signed he will obviously start. With those two givens, IMO, it wouldn't be insane to start any of Ayo, Caruso, a re-signed Patrick (pushing Demar to the 2 and Zach to the 1), or even a healthy Ball over Coby, at least until we can make a consolidation trade.

The absurdity that bringing arguably our best all around player off the bench to start the season might actually be a reasonable idea is why one or two of these guys MUST be traded before FA.

Simply don't bring back DeMar, problem solved.

There is literally no reason to bring him back given we're already in a tax crunch, it forces us to trade Zach at a lower value point, and we can't win under his timeline, and he fits terribly with the modern NBA offense, and forces all our young players to develop habits around a system that doesn't make sense to play in the long run.

I'm not married to the idea of bringing him back, and it should definitely depend on the deal specifics, years being the most important thing, but in this era of lottery odds I pretty much want to try to compete every year. I don't care about the tax and won't use that as a reason not to do anything. I don't agree that anything forces us to trade Zach (in fact, I'm very open to the idea of him staying indefinitely). Yes Demar's style isn't "modern" but I don't really care about style, only results. He has a lot of strengths and weaknesses. I just don't want to embrace the idea of sinusoidal roster makeup and don't want to rely excessively on Zach and/or Coby for everything. I think the 3 of them would look much better together without Vuc. And losing Demar is likely to hurt our overall talent level the most because IMO we likely won't get much in a sign and trade. Might even get more of what we want by trading Vuc, just cause of matching rules.

Regardless, even if you ignore Ball and Carter (which is appropriate), our best 6 players are all best suited to play the 1, 2 or 3 spots. That's insane. I guess a re-signed Drummond is in the discussion for being better than some of Demar, Patrick, Caruso, Ayo, Zach and Coby, but we are extremely perimeter heavy in an unbalanced way. If the guys we have aren't good enough we need to get rid of them, not intentionally see their values decrease due to limited role, expiring contracts, etc.

[dougthonus]

I'm not married to the idea of bringing him back, and it should definitely depend on the deal specifics, years being the most important thing, but in this era of lottery odds I pretty much want to try to compete every year.

We aren't going to compete this year. We just aren't. We're going to bring back the same team as last year with an older and worse Vuc and DeMar, and no other meaningful incoming assets. There was a huge gap between us and the teams ahead of us. I would love to be good and compete every year, but we aren't going to get there by more desperately making more and more short term decisions as our value at other areas continues to eek away.

I don't care about the tax and won't use that as a reason not to do anything.

Every idea that you don't care about the tax is irrelevant, because management explicitly said they won't pay it. So if you don't want to think about it, it doesn't bother me, but it is a very real constraint in how the organization will be have whether you approve or don't.

If you don't care about whether something is possible in reality, then we can do all sorts of fun things like trade Dalen Terry for Anthony Edwards and move Vuc for Wemby. Those would be great ideas if we don't need to care about reality.

I don't agree that anything forces us to trade Zach (in fact, I'm very open to the idea of him staying indefinitely).

I agree nothing forces us to trade him. It just seems what the FO is hellbent on doing, and in response to your idea, that we need to remove one of Zach/DeMar from the roster, if it's not DeMar then it has to be Zach.

Yes Demar's style isn't "modern" but I don't really care about style, only results. He has a lot of strengths and weaknesses. I just don't want to embrace the idea of sinusoidal roster makeup and don't want to rely excessively on Zach and/or Coby for everything.

I don't really care about DeMar's style either in a vacuum and agree it's about results. I don't think DeMar can contribute to really meaningful results given his timeline and other flaws though. He will raise the floor but also forces a low ceiling.

If you got DeMar at a cheap price that would be one thing, but once you're paying 30M+ and making roster moves to fit under the tax (which I know you don't care about, but the team does and will do) then I'm not excited about it.

I think the 3 of them would look much better together without Vuc. And losing Demar is likely to hurt our overall talent level the most because IMO we likely won't get much in a sign and trade. Might even get more of what we want by trading Vuc, just cause of matching rules.

I agree we'd look better without Vuc if we could get a decent MLE dunker/defender type center. Probably not practical given our assets, especially if we keep DeMar/Pat and are working only with the vet min. Maybe in a Zach trade or if you do a player trade around Coby/Ayo/Caruso you could bring back a center, but then you'd also need Donovan to stop pretending vuc is a starter.

Regardless, even if you ignore Ball and Carter (which is appropriate), our best 6 players are all best suited to play the 1, 2 or 3 spots. That's insane. I guess a re-signed Drummond is in the discussion for being better than some of Demar, Patrick, Caruso, Ayo, Zach and Coby, but we are extremely perimeter heavy in an unbalanced way. If the guys we have aren't good enough we need to get rid of them, not intentionally see their values decrease due to limited role, expiring contracts, etc.

I agree the roster balance here stinks. I'd also start shedding guys, and I'd start with the ones that have the short term impact, high cost or would return a ton of value.

To me that means:
Move on from DeMar for short term / high cost
Move on from any of Coby, Caruso, Ayo, if you get high value

[League Circles]

I'm not married to the idea of bringing him back, and it should definitely depend on the deal specifics, years being the most important thing, but in this era of lottery odds I pretty much want to try to compete every year.

We aren't going to compete this year. We just aren't. We're going to bring back the same team as last year with an older and worse Vuc and DeMar, and no other meaningful incoming assets. There was a huge gap between us and the teams ahead of us. I would love to be good and compete every year, but we aren't going to get there by more desperately making more and more short term decisions as our value at other areas continues to eek away.

I don't care about the tax and won't use that as a reason not to do anything.

Every idea that you don't care about the tax is irrelevant, because management explicitly said they won't pay it. So if you don't want to think about it, it doesn't bother me, but it is a very real constraint in how the organization will be have whether you approve or don't.

If you don't care about whether something is possible in reality, then we can do all sorts of fun things like trade Dalen Terry for Anthony Edwards and move Vuc for Wemby. Those would be great ideas if we don't need to care about reality.

I don't agree that anything forces us to trade Zach (in fact, I'm very open to the idea of him staying indefinitely).

I agree nothing forces us to trade him. It just seems what the FO is hellbent on doing, and in response to your idea, that we need to remove one of Zach/DeMar from the roster, if it's not DeMar then it has to be Zach.

Yes Demar's style isn't "modern" but I don't really care about style, only results. He has a lot of strengths and weaknesses. I just don't want to embrace the idea of sinusoidal roster makeup and don't want to rely excessively on Zach and/or Coby for everything.

I don't really care about DeMar's style either in a vacuum and agree it's about results. I don't think DeMar can contribute to really meaningful results given his timeline and other flaws though. He will raise the floor but also forces a low ceiling.

If you got DeMar at a cheap price that would be one thing, but once you're paying 30M+ and making roster moves to fit under the tax (which I know you don't care about, but the team does and will do) then I'm not excited about it.

I think the 3 of them would look much better together without Vuc. And losing Demar is likely to hurt our overall talent level the most because IMO we likely won't get much in a sign and trade. Might even get more of what we want by trading Vuc, just cause of matching rules.

I agree we'd look better without Vuc if we could get a decent MLE dunker/defender type center. Probably not practical given our assets, especially if we keep DeMar/Pat and are working only with the vet min. Maybe in a Zach trade or if you do a player trade around Coby/Ayo/Caruso you could bring back a center, but then you'd also need Donovan to stop pretending vuc is a starter.

Regardless, even if you ignore Ball and Carter (which is appropriate), our best 6 players are all best suited to play the 1, 2 or 3 spots. That's insane. I guess a re-signed Drummond is in the discussion for being better than some of Demar, Patrick, Caruso, Ayo, Zach and Coby, but we are extremely perimeter heavy in an unbalanced way. If the guys we have aren't good enough we need to get rid of them, not intentionally see their values decrease due to limited role, expiring contracts, etc.

I agree the roster balance here stinks. I'd also start shedding guys, and I'd start with the ones that have the short term impact, high cost or would return a ton of value.

To me that means:
Move on from DeMar for short term / high cost
Move on from any of Coby, Caruso, Ayo, if you get high value

By "compete", I simply mean a team that has a chance of making the playoffs just to be clear.

I certainly wouldn't trade anything for a guy like Demar, but it's probably re-sign him or lose him for nothing, and since I don't believe in tanking / sinusoidal roster building, I don't think keeping him around for another couple years really harms anything.

As far as the tax, I've never understood why people merge what they want with what they predict. I'm not predicting anything. I'm saying what I think they should do, and that might be to pay the tax. There are a lot of potential moving parts in that calculation. Paying luxury tax is certainly possible, even if ownership and FO don't want or plan to.

If the FO was truly hell bent on trading Zach, IMO it would have already been done. Good chance their asking price has been and will remain too high IMO.

I may yave mispoken, but I do not think we have to remove one of Demar or Zach. I definitely want to remove one or more of Vuc, Zach and Demar (Vuc being the priority for sure). Then I also want to generally clear up our crowded perimeter, both to balance our talent better and to manage our assets better. We're currently begging to decrease the trade value of most of these guys just due to math.

We just gotta use Caruso or Ayo to move Vuc (or Zach) and return less salary. Try to shed Terry and Carter too if possible. Maybe even trade Ball. I'll judge LT motivated moves as they come. Drummond and Edey sounds like an appealing C tandem to me. Quit forcing Patrick to be strictly a 4 and open up room for him to play more 3 by getting rid of (short term) Caruso.

[Ccwatercraft]

Charles Barkley is the slightly smarter, snarky version of Stacey King.

Well put. I'd have some beers with Stacey, too. But I'd rather hear about hoops from JJ and LBJ.

You get different things from different people for sure. Also, the persona people have isn't always representative of what the private conversation would be like.

Of people I've spoken to Tom Thibodeau, John Paxson, Joakim Noah, and KC Johnson would be my favorites to spend an evening with for completely different reasons.

I heard Adam Amin on Locked on and thoroughly enjoyed the episode, I'd replace Johnson on that list.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

[kodo]

Really a shame about Inside the NBA...but can't say I'm at all surprised since Zaslav took over.

Looks like Amazon's involvement is pretty light.

ESPN is reportedly paying $2.8 billion annually for the NBA’s “A” package, which includes coverage of the NBA Finals, weekly primetime games, WNBA, and international broadcasting rights.

Meanwhile, NBC is getting the “B” package or $2.6 billion, which includes “Basketball Night in America” on Sunday nights after the NFL season ends, two primetime windows per week, and several playoff matchups.

Amazon is set to pay between $1.8 and $2 billion for a package that includes the In-Season Tournament, first-round playoff games, WNBA, and international rights.

All of this is to say, TNT’s Inside the Crew will no longer have a home on TV after the 2024-25 season concludes, breaking up a legendary quartet.

[Jcool0]

Interesting

Read on Twitter

[Lexluthor]

I blame David zaslav for inside the nba ending

[Future Coach]

I bet Amazon or NBC will swoop some of the Turner folks, likely Candace Parker, Barkley and Shaq.

It will also be interesting (/creepy) to see NBC dust-off and activate the robot known as Bob Costas more frequently. And I wonder which of the Alberts they will have calling games.

[kodo]

WB might match the Amazon for the C package. That would not be much because it's only the IST and first round of playoffs, but maybe the TNT guys don't break up.

A new report from CNBC’s Alex Sherman says it might be the Amazon package for Prime Video that NBC tries to match.

It is clear WBD prefers to keep a rights agreement with the NBA for TNT, a partnership which goes back nearly 40 years. However, as Sherman points out there is the matter of their $42 billion gross debt. This may be a big reason they might try and match the Amazon offer, believed to be worth $1.8 billion per year, whereas the NBC package is believed to be priced at $2.5 billion. WBD is reportedly paying $1.2 billion per year currently.

https://barrettsportsmedia.com/2024/05/23/report-warner-bros-discovery-considering-matching-amazon-nba-package-not-nbc/

[jnrjr79]

I bet Amazon or NBC will swoop some of the Turner folks, likely Candace Parker, Barkley and Shaq.

It will also be interesting (/creepy) to see NBC dust-off and activate the robot known as Bob Costas more frequently. And I wonder which of the Alberts they will have calling games.

Don’t you figure they’ll rely on Tirico rather than Costas for that role?