Originally Posted by
Sloppy Joe
I think they're still deep in the weeds to figuring things out. They won't be holding many teams to under 100 this year.
If they come out of the east it will not be because they figure it out; it will be because Kevin Durant is the second best player in the game and James Harden can fucking score.
I always wish I could have 30 unfiltered minutes with a GM like Marks where he couldn’t lie. I’d love to know given two weeks if he had a do over? I look back a few years ago and they had this scrappy young Nets team and assets and that strikes me as a dream when you’re a GM. Especially for a team that’s never won anything. I have to think he loved his job then.
Then the Russian who had already learned the lesson of making bad trades sells to the Ali Baba guy, and you’re going from scrappy young team to Miami Heat shit, and that’s a dream too, but the Heat were forming a big 3 with two way players who can be giant assholes, but no one ever questions their work ethic, and all three of them were in their 20s in 2010.
The crazy part of these mega deals is it’s the small shit that seems like nothing when you’re landing huge whales that comes back and can haunt you and that has to drive you crazy if you’re the GM. Like the Heat has to ship some first rounders just to make the salary cap work even though LeBron was a free agent. Shit you don’t give one fuck about when you’re forming a super team and they’ll be 30th pick in first round, and then you’re sitting there with Joel Anthony trying to rebound for you against the Spurs and have no cap or assets. It’s the little shit that’s the difference between winning 3 or 4 out of 4 and maybe keeping it all together. It was mostly Wade falling apart, but those little things have to haunt you.
I always wonder about the pressure from ownership and your stars when you’re making these deals and how you end up looking like the idiot, but you’re getting all those millions to take the bullet for ownership and superstars and never blame them if you’re the GM.
Marks struck me as pretty sharp, and you have the Rockets playing the Sixers off against you, and maybe the owner or Durant is pressuring you to get it done, and you lose Allen just to make it happen that moment and then you’re watching Reggie Perry have to play serious minutes and thinking how this most amazing offensive triple threat of all time might go up in flames over some kid who was a basic 12/10 guy, but he allowed Durant to not have to play defense and 40 minutes, and you’re now trying to find something off the scrap pile as all these guys are on the wrong side of 30 and the window is short and you’re fucked if it doesn’t happen in the next two years. Then you add in needing Durant to now have to play defense and more minutes can take it all down if he has an injury setback.
That Clippers deal and this deal, if they don’t work, is going to be the wake up call for the short term thinkers again. I think its often ownership wanting to play with their new toy. The Russian had just bought them when they did the horrible Pierce/ KG deal. Balmer wanted to win this moment. Idk where the pressure came from for Marks, but it’s got to make for some sleepless nights if you’re the GM sitting there with 3 over 30 dudes, all of whom have walked on winning teams when it didn’t go right. Harden/Durant looked fantastic immediately. They are so good that getting a bunch of pieces for Kyrie is obvious, but you just have no idea what promises were made to whom and how they’ll react. It could all go down in flames over some kid who didn’t want to be second option to LeBron fucking James and wants to sage your court and is dropping Malcolm X quotes from 1962 when he has a bad day. That has to feel surreal if you’re Marks. All the shit that can go wrong.