Mitch Cumsteen

So to put a bow on this trade, they also had to waive Bassey. They can get him back if he clears waivers, which he probably will. It looks like Barnes waived his trade kicker, Chris Paul took a little less than was originally reported, and those two second round picks to the Bulls are from Sacramento (not the Spurs). Since they are now at the cap, Spurs have access to the $8 million room exception that they can use to either bring back any of the guys they waived or go after another free agent. Just fantastic work from the front office. Tremendous off season so far.

I just ate lunch there a couple of hours ago. It was great, as always, which means you would probably hate it. Not really what I think about for a romantic date spot, but then again... Helobious'd. Singh's is really good. Love the brisket banh mi. The 12% in-house dining fee still pisses me off, but at least they mention it to you now when you check out vs. before when they would just tack it on and you wouldn't understand how 3 sandwiches cost you like $50. They closed the Jims on Broadway across from the Witte, the one on Hildebrand/San Pedro, and the one at 410/San Pedro. I'm not sure about the one at Broadway/410. I pity this generation that won't experience the joy of a drunk chicken fried steak and eggs at 2:30 AM after the bars close. And if I still had a bookie, I wouldn't know where to go any more to pay him off. That was just standard operating procedure to meet in the Jim's parking lot. Burger Boy is great. You should put Fred's Fish Fry on your to do high list, though.

They are also both brothers to weak kings and believe they could do better but denied because of birth order. Many parallels.

Those cheap bastards could have gotten that swap from Sacramento that they sent to the spurs but they didn’t want to go into the tax. They also could have potentially used that swap to get off Zach Lavine and get back under the tax. Bulls definitely in the running for worst front office these days.

They didn’t show the probably eight wide open shots he created where his teammates threw up a brick. I get that there’s some positional debate about him but he’s point guard. The one thing that really stood out to me was his pace. He doesn’t get speeded up. I thought he was the best player in the draft and I didn’t see anything yesterday to convince me otherwise.

I don’t love Barnes, but he can knock down an open three, play some defense, is durable, and has championship experience. This is exactly the type of solid vet they should be signing. That second year on his contract isn’t perfect either, but it’s not the end of the world.

Pretty incredible how far this guy has come since this time last year when he was playing in the French league playoffs looking lost half the time.

Ignoring the idiotic dollar amount for a minute, I can’t figure out why they did it now. He’s got a full year before hitting restricted free agency where they could match any offer he could get. And now they have that cap hold. It’s not like they couldn’t offer him the same deal in a year. Just stupid on every level. Am I missing something here? Like does he have compromising video of the GM and a farm animal?

And on cue, after I write that you shouldn't give max contracts to non-max players, Orlando gives Franz Wagner $45 million/year.

I think it's fairly obvious that you can't have more than two max contracts if you want to maintain any sort of depth. And you really can't afford to be giving max contracts to non-max players. MPJ's contract has crushed Denver. I would imagine that there are going to be fewer max contracts thrown around. In that vein, I'm interested to see what happens to Brandon Ingram. Very good but not superstar level, 26 years old, and in the final year of a $36 million/yr contract. He's eligible for a $52 million/yr deal. The Pels aren't willing to pay it. I don't know who will. Before the 2nd apron stuff, I think teams would just bite the bullet and pay him but now? If you aren't good enough to be one of the two best players on a championship team, then you're probably not getting the max. Cost controlled contracts on good players are going to be more valuable than ever because it's like opening another roster spot. That's why Mikal Bridges went for so much -- he's on a great contract for two more years. I think this goes for rookie scale deals as well. Minnesota probably overpaid for the 8 pick in a cruddy draft, but they at least know they have that dude under contract for 4 years and know what that number will be. I think ideally, you would want a mix of: one superstar, a second star who if you are lucky is on a less than supermax deal, some veteran role players who are on $10-30 million/yr deals, an older ring chasing vet or two on cheap/minimum deals, and a pipeline of young guys with different developmental timelines on cost controlled contracts. But of all the scenarios you laid out, OKC is the no brainer. You'd rather have the assets to give yourself flexibility.

When somebody says it's not about the money, you can bet your ass it's about the money. We're still a Nike school, right? I can't imagine it sits well with anyone in our program that the largest shareholder and founder of one of our corporate partners is actively undermining our recruiting efforts. This obviously isn't limited to Texas. It's a huge conflict of interest. I'm surprised more isn't made of it around the sport.

Look the west is deep with very good teams but no great ones. Maybe okc gets there this year but otherwise it’s all about matchups. The wolves were this close to the finals. Also, if Dallas loses one more regular season game and they drop to the six seed, they probably lose in the first round and then the narrative is completely different. Minnesota matched up well against Denver, who probably beats Dallas if they played. The Lakers matched up well against OKC but terribly against Denver. Who knows what happens if the seeding goes a little differently. It’s rock, paper, scissors right now. Point being, things broke right for Minnesota. They had a great season but I wouldn’t let the results get in the way of critical thinking. They still have the worst cap / future picks combo in the league (other than Phoenix) and a murky ownership situation. Running it back this year with a $50 million tax bill is going to be ok, but things will get dicey with their depth sooner rather than later.

I don't think the narrative has changed that much. There's a fine line between doing all things necessary to win a championship and pushing all of your chips into the middle of the table with a losing hand. You know, that whole discretion and valor thing. Regarding draft picks being overrated... I guess we'll see. It seems to be working out pretty well for OKC so far. I don't think it's going to end as well for teams like Phoenix, Milwaukee, and the Clippers. And I don't think it's going to work out so great for your Twolves, either, but I guess we will see. Also, unrelated but hilarious....

Let the warriors overpay for him. I like LM but it’s not worth what they have to give up. And the timing isn’t right. PSA if you need a wemby fix you can catch him live tomorrow: The NBA App, NBA.com and @NBA YouTube will stream France’s five exhibition games ahead of the Olympics (local blackouts may apply). Game schedule and NBA players competing are below. Schedule DateOpponent July 3vs. Turkey July 8vs. Germany July 12vs. Serbia July 19vs. Canada July 21vs. Australia *All games will tip off at 3 p.m. ET

I just looked at Tech's schedule. Woof. The only things running through Lubbock are cheap tickets and penicillin. Regular Season DATE OPPONENT TIME TV TICKETS Sat, Aug 31 vsAbilene Christian 6:30 PM BIG12|ESPN+ Tickets as low as $12 Sat, Sep 7 @Washington State 9:00 PM FOX Tickets as low as $45 Sat, Sep 14 vsNorth Texas 11:00 AM FS1 Tickets as low as $10 Sat, Sep 21 vsArizona State TBD Tickets as low as $17 Sat, Sep 28 vsCincinnati TBD Tickets as low as $21 Sat, Oct 5 @Arizona TBD Tickets as low as $16 Sat, Oct 19 vsBaylor TBD Tickets as low as $27 Sat, Oct 26 @TCU TBD Tickets as low as $100 Sat, Nov 2 @Iowa State TBD Tickets as low as $51 Sat, Nov 9 vsColorado TBD Tickets as low as $73 Sat, Nov 23 @Oklahoma State TBD Tickets as low as $61 Sat, Nov 30 vsWest Virginia TBD Tickets as low as $14

Sure, this contract was about maximizing his next contract, but the third year option maintains much of his leverage over the franchise. They have been talking about this extension (and him possibly going to NY) literally from the day that he got traded from Utah. It's been looming the entire time. In the meantime, he got the coach fired. They are probably going to move off Garland. Whatever they do with Mobley and Allen, I imagine he will have to sign off on. I guess in this day and age, it doesn't really matter because every star has leverage and can just demand a trade whenever the hell they feel like it regardless of contract status, but this one feels a little more sticky to me for whatever reason. I could be way off, here. The point of the CBA is parity. They have legislated out the super teams, and it's going to be so good for the league. It very well might suck for franchises that have three guys on max contracts, have a murky ownership situation and have mortgaged all of their future draft capital though.

It's way too overindulgent and lumbering. The great parts (and there are no doubt some great parts) are too few and far between. They could have done that entire season in probably 4-5 killer episodes. I love this damn show, but this season was some bullshit.

Great for Cleveland that they retain him but with that third year option he’s got them by the short and curlies for the foreseeable future. He’s clearly won the power struggle in that org, and we all know how well it usually works when your best player decides he’s going to play GM in his spare time. Does he have kids that will be draft eligible anytime soon? He also sets himself up with a second ridiculous extension if he opts out because he will have 10 years service by then.

They also got a trade exception and don’t have to pay a zillion dollars in luxury tax for a play in team.

The two signings of Joe (4/$48) and Wiggins (5/$47) are also killer values for OKC.

The issue with Markkanen is his contract. It's complicated. Not too get too far into the minutiae of the CBA regarding extensions, trades, timing and dates, but it's going to be more difficult for Utah to move him than it appears. I'm pretty sure the Hartenstein signing takes OKC out of the running. Basically, you can't extend LM until his contract hits year 3, which is Aug 27 and you have to extend him into cap space. You can't trade someone that you extended for 6 months, which would be post trade deadline. You can't extend someone that you trade for, for 6 months. And everybody needs to hit the salary floor in October. The only teams that could hold close to enough cap space for an extension are probably the Spurs and Pistons, and even so it would cost LM some money. If Utah trades him to a team that decides not to extend him until the end of the season, then it's going to cost LM about $15 million. All of that is a long way of saying, that there really isn't that much of a market for LM and Danny Ainge isn't going to be able to bend anybody over for him. The most likely scenario is that he stays put in Utah, unless he wants to take a decent sized haircut and/or take a risk of getting injured in a contract year.

Yes. Awful. Disgusting. I'm now going to go take a 45 minute long shower in the fetal position.