More NBA Free Agency Reactions

 It completely slipped my mind that I didn't even mention the whole Damian Lillard / Myles Turner situation yesterday. Lots going on right now so these posts aren't exactly planned out. I even did a whole paragraph comparing Jakob Poeltl to Myles Turner because they got pretty much the exact same contract, lol my bad. We'll get to that in full today along with some other little tidbits from the NBA. I also need to direct my readers to the MLB standings where on July 3 you'll see the Toronto Blue Jays in first place in the AL East. What kind of sucks is the Yankees are still pretty good and somehow someway the Rays just keep coming. They're playing in a minor league stadium, nobody watches that team and yet they're still 0.5 games back in the division. Going to be a fun August and September! Anyway, back to ball: 


Bucks Waive and Stretch Lillard, Sign Myles Turner

This was the first page of every NBA site and first topic on every NBA podcast, but it's a day 2 story for Lohensports. Sorry Dame, I have Sandro Mamukelashvili to talk about. On Tuesday I was shocked to find out that the Bucks had signed Myles Turner to a 4 year $107m contract. The first reaction I had was damn Turner is actually leaving the Pacers? After that finals run full of magic for Indiana, they were expected to have a bit of a down year with Haliburton slated to be out all season. You would think though that they'd run back the same team, be a decent playoff squad then load up again for the next season. That is now impossible with their starting center walking out the door, and going to their bitter rival the Milwaukee Bucks. After I got over the shock of Turner leaving the Pacers, I thought to myself: wait aren't the Bucks capped out? How could they afford this? Then I got the notification that the Bucks would be stretching the $110m left on Damian Lillard's contract over 5 years and waiving him to create the cap space to afford Turner. A wild sequence! Dame is also slated to miss the entire year with an Achilles tear and was a big strain on the books for the Bucks. The Bucks had just seen Brook Lopez walk out the door leaving a big hole at center in an already very shallow rotation. With that in mind, Turner does fill that hole pretty perfectly and as the quintessential stretch 5 in the NBA he's a picture perfect fit beside Giannis. Basically you have a more athletic Brook Lopez beside Giannis which is exactly what the Bucks need. The problem here is they now have $22m on the books in dead cap for Damian Lillard who will be playing elsewhere for the duration of these payments. 

The Bucks guard rotation as it stands right now is: Kevin Porter Jr, Gary Trent Jr, AJ Green, Ryan Rollins, Gary Harris. If you squint your eyes really hard you could argue that Kevin Porter Jr is a guy who can dribble and make plays, but that's even a stretch. Beyond that they have some spot up shooters who offer basically nothing else. They're still rolling out Kyle Kuzma who's their second or third best player now as well, a dark place to be. As much as Myles Turner fits with Giannis, they are essentially paying him $50m a year. We went over the stats yesterday and I showed how he's a pretty similar quality player to Jakob Poeltl, just he shoots so you can envision him fitting with a guy like Giannis a lot better. $50m for that really handcuffs what you can do with the rest of your roster. This team is still in the East and they have Giannis. As long as he's healthy they're still going to be a 45 win team or so, but once the playoffs hit I don't trust this team of 0 ball handlers to go anywhere. 

People were talking a lot about how Dame was the big winner in all of this. He gets his $110m and now can choose his next destination while not having to worry about his salary. I think that's laying it on a little thick though. This is a guy who prioritized loyalty to the Blazers all the way until he couldn't take it anymore. He took a leap in demanding a trade knowing it could burn some goodwill with the 1 franchise who loved him dearly, landed in Milwaukee which seemed like the picture perfect situation for the tail end of his career. Due to injuries and just general lack of depth, he never saw any playoff success with the Bucks, he rushed himself back heroically to try and get some playoff success in the first round this year just to suffer the most devastating injury an athlete can suffer. Now he's 35, coming off a torn Achilles and was just waived by his team. I don't care about the money, that's gotta hurt a little! Maybe I'm wrong and healthcare advancements have gotten so much better, but the track record for guys that age coming off an Achilles tear is pretty brutal, I'd be surprised if he's a useful player in the NBA upon his return. If that's the case, Dame is likely going to end his career bouncing around as a minimum contract guy, a sad way to go out as an all time great. 


Knicks, Magic, Clippers, Spurs, Hawks 

A nice little section now to talk about some of the other more minor moves that I liked in free agency this year. I am certain that I've missed some stuff but all that does is give me more ammo for future posts. The Knicks added Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele to their bench which I think is a solid upgrade for them. They'll essentially be replacing Cam Payne and Precious Achiuwa with these guys, which should be meaningful. They also brought in Mike Brown to be their new head coach. It'll be interesting to see the Knicks actually using some of their depth, I think the additions give them a really strong bench to compliment what was already a great starting 5 in the East. 

The Magic are my guilty pleasure team. They play such hard defense making them a real pain in the ass to play every night, but historically they simply cannot score. They added Desmond Bane in a move I spoke about after it happened and now they've also added Tyus Jones. Essentially the Magic are replacing KCP and Cole Anthony with Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones. Similar to the Knicks moves, these guys are just better at the things KCP and Cole Anthony provided and should give them a boost offensively without taking away much on defense. I have a soft spot for Tyus Jones, he's not really a risk taker at the point but he's a solid backup point guard on a team that started Cory Joseph in the playoffs last season, a huge boost. 

The Clippers added Brook Lopez in a bid to become the oldest slowest team in NBA history. I kid but really a lot more was made of this than it should've been. Brook was played off the floor in round 1 of the playoffs this past year on a team desperate for depth, although it was against the Pacers who are the fastest team in the league. The Clippers are already employing James Harden, Nic Batum and Kawhi Leonard who are all not exactly speed demons at this stage of their careers. For the regular season, Brook will be a solid backup to Zubac and offer them a stretch look at the 5, but come playoff time if this team catches OKC they're going to get left in the dust. 

Maybe the Spurs aren't really worth talking about, but I am more impressed that they didn't do anything rash! They added Luke Kornet, an upgrade over the slew of bad players they had backing up Wemby last season and pretty much stood pat with their #2 overall pick and young guys. I love Wemby so I'm going to be biased, but I think they're really cooking something up in San Antonio and I am glad they didn't try to rush the process and disrupt it. 

Finally the Hawks added Canadian Nickeil Alexander-Walker who's a solid addition for them on the wing. The Hawks look like they're going to be sneaky good next year, especially if they can get a somewhat healthy season from Porzingis. Trae Young now has a long list of switchy athletic forwards to cover for him on defense, and all of them can shoot a little bit as well keeping the offense flowing. I'm also just happy NAW is in the East, he's a fun player to watch especially on defense and he'll get more of an opportunity to show it now!



That's that! Good free agency with a lot of fun moves to talk about. It seems like the majority of the moves are now done, but something always comes out of left field in the NBA so you never know. Off tomorrow but will be back on Monday with something new, maybe Jays? Maybe Steelers move reactions? Who knows, stay tuned.

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