u/Derpy_Mc_Burpy

I have never seen a GM defend a rookie this hard during trade talks especially over a star player like Jaylen Brown when in talks with a superstar like Giannis. Hugo Gonzalez isn't even seen as an "elite" in any specific skill.

I looked at his stats on tankathon and it's absolutely red, probably due to skewed stats since he played international instead of NCAA.

Point still stands, what makes Hugo such a good prospect that it had Brad bending over backwards to trade JB over him, when they could have had Giannis.

It just feels like after the horrendous JB trade, Hugo now has to be as great as JB for all these problems to be justified but I don't see the upside.

If anyone got a clue please feel free to share because I am curious.

How cooked are the Celtics/76ers? To me they're making the Kawhi trade look like chump change

>BLOCKBUSTER: The Boston Celtics have agreed to trade Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George, two first-round picks and two second-round picks, sources tell ESPN.

For everyone saying why we didn't use Dick + BI to go for JB, the reason was most likely the fact we would have to add one or 2 more players.

JB is earning 57 mil, Kawhi is earning 50 mil meanwhile Dick + BI are earning ~47 mil combined. That means we would either need to trade at least 2 more players to make this work for JB, which is bad because it shrinks our depth.

For those asking why not add Poeltl, then it would probably mean that we would have to overpay in additional picks as teams were asking for 2 picks at least just to offload his contract.

Ignore the flair. Mods still haven't added a Graves flair so I had to use this

I found this article to be helpful to paint a better picture of Allen, as not much is known about him. It also answers some important questions like why was he redshirted at Santa Clara. I hope this post + article can help clear some of the negative air around him.

4 key points to take from the article:

1. Allen Graves used to be a point guard in high school. This was when he used to be 6 ft and after he had his growth spurt, he moved to become a power forward.

I attribute this prior experience to the reason for him carrying over guard type qualities like ball-handling (0.7 TO), a surprising 41% 3P on an average of 4 shot attempts, nearly 2 steals a game and high AST/TO ratio of 2.5, when he became a PF at Santa Clara.

This is important because we've seen Darko try to "train" Scottie into being a point forward, but now we'll have a player who already has the potential to play point forward with inherent abilities he already developed by being a PG. Allen Graves definitely has the BBIQ to play in this role so it would not surprise me if going forward, Graves is developed into a point forward type player.

2. Addressing the big elephant in the room about his redshirted NCAA season. The real reason why he was redshirted on Santa Clara was because he was even more unathletic than he is now, to the point he self-described as “Chubby Allen”. He took 1 year off to get into shape and become more athletic and it paid off given the fruitful stats he has put up in this season off the bench.

Expect him to become much more athletic at the NBA level in the near future because he'll have better resources to improve his physique. This sort of reminds me of how Giannis came into the league very frail, but in a few years he developed a great physique.

3. Graves played under Herb Sendek, a coaching legend who most famously has coached James Harden, Jalen Williams, Wally Szczerbiak and Brandin Podziemski.

This coach runs an NBA-style system of position-less, quick-decision basketball, which is all too similar to the system that Darko runs on our team as well. Combine that with the fact that Allen Graves is able to quickly process games, it makes sense as to why Bobby believed he was a good fit on this team.

His coach even commended him as well, saying:

>“He’s a winner. You know, bottom line, I don’t know if there’s a greater compliment you can give a player. He’s a winner. He impacts winning. He impacts winning in the locker room. He impacts winning by his influence on culture. He impacts winning on both ends of the floor. He’s a leader. He’s a teammate. As a player, he brings toughness. He brings unselfishness, a very high basketball IQ, and a tremendous skill set. So, he checks a lot of boxes.”

His own coach describes him as a high processing, two-way player who is also versatile. A near perfect match for the type of player that Bobby said he was looking for at the start of our offseason. The other, more ideal pick would've been Morez, but it's no surprise that Bobby's mentor Masai, took him with the 9th pick instead.

4. Future Speculation. By now it's been stated that Allen Graves is the backup player that we've drafted if Mamu ends up leaving. He had a great season so no can blame him if he leaves for a larger extension elsewhere in the league. That's why if Mamu does leave, Graves will fill that void while also being a better defender than Mamu was.

[Youngmisuk] The Charlotte Hornets are seriously engaged in trade talks with multiple teams that are aggressively pursuing star point guard LaMelo Ball, sources told ESPN's Shams Charania.

Talks surrounding Ball have picked up steam with the Hornets fielding aggressive offers, sources said. If Charlotte's terms are met, a potential trade could develop in the next 24 to 48 hours, sources said Wednesday night.

Ball has been happy in Charlotte, and both parties are in a good place after the Hornets enjoyed a massive turnaround last season and fell one play-in win short of making the playoffs and ending a postseason drought that dates to 2016.

Ball has three years left on his contract and is eligible to sign a two-year, $119.2 million extension July 6.