I’m making my own personal top 50 players since Kareem inspired by nick wright. Watching finals from 80’s on and conf. Finals from 90’s on. Along with all time stats and stats broken out from “prime” and “fringe prime” years. What 1-3 statistics or metrics would you look at to best compare players from different eras?
- The way I thought I'd always look at this was more subjectively, by ranking the top-10 players in the NBA for each season and then seeing how many top 1, top-3, top-5 etc seasons a guy had. That's the information I would consider most pertinent. But for pure metrics, I think the championships added type of methodology which both KP and Ben Taylor have focused on is the right way to look at careers. Guys who are doing the Cousins/DeRozan/Iverson raise you from 25 to 35 or 45 wins stuff doesn't mean as much as the guys who are pushing you from 40 to 60 wins in a season, and I think that methodology does a good job capturing that.
So Nets here…do you think this is just a realization by KDs camp that a trade wasn’t happening and we’ll see a trade dec 15/trade deadline? On court I think the Nets made decent moves but seems to be so much turbulence there
- Just talked about this some with Danny on a quick reaction pod. But to expand a little, I have no idea what caused this. One would think something had to have been said in that meeting other than "fuck you KD, we're not trading you" to get KD back in the fold. Surely the efforts to trade him "failing" have been part of it, but I'm guessing there was a carrot in addition to the stick involved as well. Perhaps it was the fact Kyrie seems to be truly back in the fold, maybe they agreed to fire Nash if the season doesn't start well, who knows? But it seems like some sort of negotiation/conciliation had to have taken place other than "well, I guess KD accepted it."
If the Rudy Gobert trade doesn’t work out in Minnesota during the season would you consider a move for Ben Simmons?
- So a Gobert for Simmons trade? Those 2 guys would need to be playing a lot worse and better than expected for that to be viable to me. Gobert makes a good defense on his own, and I don't think Simmons does. And there's no way the Wolves offered as much for Simmons as they did for Gobert, so something would have to happen to really change those valuations in their eyes. Maybe if it's just clear that Gobert/Towns just can't work somehow, but I don't see any way they'd give up on Gobert before even one full season has elapsed.
Should the CBA consider a 15+ year veteran minimum roster spot, which doesnt count against the tax and provides other incentives (like an old guy two way)?… Encourage veteran leadership, reward longevity, and build culture. Thought being almost 1/3 of the league is now developmental pieces who don’t impact winning short term and teams/players would benefit from more (Haslem’s, Iguodala’s, etc).
- I don't think I'd be too against this, but with 17 roster slots now I don't think it's necessary. But keeping vets around for longer would at least be good for writers looking for quotes!
How would you rank Giannis' Peak all time? You can give a range. But for me he isn't clearly better than non peak versions of steph and KD and it makes me thing he's more in the 15-20 range all time rather than on a similar level to a player like Duncan who people think Giannis might eventually match.
- It seems odd to say this, but I'd want to see the rest of his peak and what it looks like when he falls off to really put his peak into context. If Giannis only makes one Finals and it was that really weird season in 2021 with all the injuries, then it's hard to say his peak was that high. I think he was also amazing against the Celtics this year, but that was also in the 2nd round. But let's say the 2021 Finals is his high-water mark, I feel a lot differently about him than if he were able to have another similar postseason run against better competition. If he does that this year, then you can include 2021 in a 3-year peak that's very very high, as opposed to looking at 2021 as kind of an outlier in his career that maybe wasn't that good because it didn't happen against another great team. But knowing what we do now, and thinking he maybe has another year or two of playing at the same level of the last 2 years and maybe another slight step to improve, I think you'd have to get him into the top-20 all-time peaks pretty easily. I'd put him above the Malone/Barkley/Dirk class.
Podcast idea, greatest 10 players at each position since the merger. Would this be something Dunc'd On would do?
- Probably more of something to do with Hollinger I'd say. But yeah, I think that'd be fun. But I need to do this project of going through each year and ranking a top-10 players, and then could use that to branch into a lot of different avenues like that one.
How many players currently on the Magic do you think will be on their next playoff (top-6) team? Which ones?
- Carter, Franz, Paolo are the only ones I feel particularly confident about at this point.
Nate, what do you think will play out next off-season with 8 teams having more than 40 million dollars in cap space and the free agent crop arguably worse? Will players like Wiggins and Grant get near max deals? Do the Bulls have to worry about a player like Ayo getting a 10 million plus offer in restricted free agency? Or do you think people will stick to conventional wisdom in terms of value? Or does that get chucked out the window with impending cap spike?
- it's going to be a very interesting offseason. Of course the new CBA will affect things but let's assume things are pretty similar to now, but with smoothing implemented for a potential new TV deal. I think there could be a dynamic similar to 2015 when spending gets aggressive knowing the cap will be going up to some degree. We should also be close to the point where a new TV deal would be announced if the timeline is similar to the last one, where it came out in fall of 2014 for the deal at the start of the 2016-17 season. I think if there are players out there who can really help winning teams, like Wiggins, you could see them getting paid a ton. Same with RFAs like Poole if they make it that far. But unless it's a team really trying to take the next step, I'm not sure this will filter down too much to the average free agent. Bad teams seem a lot more content to just take space into the season, and perhaps even to just not use it until the end of the year. OKC normalized that this year, and it also seems like a nice way to make your rebuild attractive to agents so you don't become a pariah like the Hinkie Sixers did for a time.
WAFO Nash is the Nets coach at the trade deadline?
- I'd call it 75%.
Have you seen Ben Taylor’s recent video on the evolution of rules over different eras? Which current all-nba level player do you think benefits most from the changes to refereeing?
- This is a great video if y'all haven't watched it. I'll comment on it generally first and then hit the specific question. Ben and I have talked a lot about this over the years so there wasn't anything in there that was really new to me. In terms of the rules changes, I largely agree with him that most of them are good but some go too far, although I'm not as concerned about it going too far as Ben is. I'm not quite as concerned with Ben about the initiation of contact going in favor of the offensive player. If you're not in legal guarding position, then you don't have the right to be in my way as I'm going to the basket even if I'm "initiating" the contact. I think as long as you're making a basketball move and being impeded by the defender who isn't in legal guarding position that's a good foul call no matter who initiates the contact. However, if the offensive player is initiating contact with his off arm I think that should be an offensive foul. The issue I have of course is when the moves devolve into foul-baiting as the primary purpose, whether that's via the offense taking a shot they wouldn't take or trying to dribble to a space on the floor that has no purpose other than drawing a foul, or the bullshit rip move which should also be part of the non-basketball moves. It also applies to defensive players who jump in front of guys to fall down and draw the foul. But I do like the fact that more dribble manipulation and step-thrus are allowed now. That leads to awesome plays. If you had to say who has benefited the most from the change in enforcement of the rules, I think we can drill that down to more leeway on traveling, more leeway on carrying, and then more on initiating contact by the offense. Harden of course benefits from all 3. Ja is probably the biggest carrier (with Poole close behind), Giannis probably benefits the most from the traveling rules. But almost all players benefit to some degree.
Have you and and Danny considered doing Offseason Re-Grades going back two years? Seems like there could be greater variance from original expectations as opposed to a single year retro so it could be an interesting exercise and solid listen. Thanks!
- I've thought of this, I guess I don't think it rises to the level of being important enough to do considering the other stuff we get to. I do think we try to go back as much as we can and remember how we got to this point, how certain moves look better or worse in retrospect in the course of our usual analysis. Plus we'll occasionally do redrafts of certain drafts as well. So I think there's probably enough in the spirit of that without a formal regrading process. 4 "grades" pods a year is probably enough, right? What do y'all think?
Hey Nate, what would you think about a CBA tweak wherein, for rookie extensions only, if a team signed a rookie to an extension, for salary cap purposes, the rookie's salary would be calculated as the lower of a) the rookie's cap hold if no extension had been signed and b) the actual extension number, but only until the start of the regular season of for the rookie's fifth year. For example, if rookie signs an extension of $15M a year going into his fourth season and his cap hold would have been $8M if he had not signed the extension, the following summer he counts against the cap $8million, but only until start of the next year, and then it's $15M for there on out. The idea is that rookie extensions are the only extensions that are not necessarily calculated off of previous salaries, so you run into an issue where teams decide not to sign deserving rookies in order to preserve cap space. With my rule teams sort of have their cake and eat it too, by being able to sign rookies to extensions and maintain cap flexibility. This helps out the players by making it less likely they go into restricted free agency and lock up money. On the con side, this hurts other teams trying to pry the player away, but most teams are wary of restricted free agency anyway and would probably take that trade off in order to lock up their own players. I also worded it in a way to avoid issue of high pick agreeing to extension below his cap hold being an issue.
- So you have two competing virtues here. One is the idea of the cap hold is to be a placeholder for the player's expected salary. If you get into a situation where the player's cap hold is far less than his eventual salary, that's a kind of gaming of the system where teams can artificially get cap space they "shouldn't" really have given the talent of the players on their roster. On the other hand, you also want to encourage extensions to occur. But those are less important than veteran extensions because the incumbent team still has restricted rights and can match and retain the player. So I think ultimately the league wouldn't want to give more teams cap space they don't really "deserve." It's also worth noting this would be a rich getting richer situation, where the only time you get a big difference between a guy's cap hold and the eventual salary he'll get after 4 years is if the guy is drafted really low, and then also is good enough to get a huge contract. So that's a huge benefit for those teams already, I don't think they need even more benefit while also allowing them to build up their salary in a way that the cap hold system is kind of supposed to avoid.
Hey Nate. 18 Rockets vs 20 Lakers in a best of 7 series. What's your pick?
- I think you'd have to go '18 Rockets in a normal situation where there were fans and the series was being played at the end of a long season. That team was absolutely awesome. The '20 Lakers did totally destroy the '20 Rockets, but that was in the bubble and with a hobbled Russ who wasn't as good as CP. I don't think the Lakers' strategy of doubling to get it out of Harden's hands would have worked with the superior cast around him that '18 team had. And I don't think AD shoots it as well in a normal setting as in the bubble. So I'd go '18 Houston. They were just the better team overall. If you assure me you get bubble AD for the whole series (and bubble Rondo too btw) then maybe it's closer to a toss-up. But I think your odds of that are pretty low.
Was Danny Green the best (non-star) 3&D player ever?
- This is a great question, best 3 and D guys ever. You do run into some classifications problems here because if you're too good then you're not really 3 and D. Also, what do you make of guys who were 3 and D and graduated out, like 2014 Kawhi? That's maybe the best 3 and D season ever? Or Andrew Wiggins last year? He wasn't always a 3 and D guy. On Green, I'm not sure he was quite there as a defender. He was kind of a borderline all D guy at his best, and his teams also didn't play him 40 mpg although all of them had other good options as well. Green also didn't necessary have quite the size to guard everyone. He's certainly on the list though. Feel free to nominate some others, but I'll just throw out a few of these guys who never made an all-star team: Trevor Ariza, Bruce Bowen, Shane Battier, PJ Tucker, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges.....gonna keep trying to think of some. A lot of these guys are more recent vintage as great defenders who can also shoot it.
I remember you mentioning that you would pick OG anunoby to guard a random player 1 on 1 previously. Has that answer changed? What about the opposite (offensive player to get you a bucket against a random defender)?
- Yeah, I think OG is still the guy for me if he's locked in. Bam might give him a run though.
- And then basically the best iso scorer? Tough call but probably Kawhi if healthy by a nail over KD. KD, you can kinda get into him a little but Kawhi is too strong for that.
How much compensation would be fair to take on a $47 million contract & immediately waive a player?
How much does a first round pick cost? Realize there are a lot of variables (pick protections, how far away the draft is, etc).
- I think it's probably around the realm of $25m in dead salary to take on to get a decent pick, e.g. lotto protected projecting in the high teens/low 20s. The market here has inflated because far fewer teams are trying to just dump salary these days to get into the free agent market because that market is bad these days. You also have to consider the value of the players going back as well. Are they also bad salary but guys who can still play? guys on good contracts? But in the case of the Pacers, I wouldn't take on the Russ contract and send back decent players Turner & Hield for less than 2 unprotected picks.
Shoes on or shoes off in the house ???
- haha, good one to end on. I think I generally take them off, if only because I store all my shoes in a cabinet near the front door. If I'm doing something where I'm walking in and out of the house often, I'll leave them on when on the first floor. But generally off considering it's more comfortable. I'm not one of these people who thinks it's like sooooo gross to have your shoes on because OMG dirt from outside might get in. Yeah, if you specifically have something gross on your shoe then clean it off, but just some dirt from outside getting on the floor in the first 3 steps inside, who cares? That's what cleaning the house is for--it's not like you aren't going to be doing that if you don't wear shoes in the house right?