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Thordain posted:I somehow missed that Herbert Curry is Italian? And now it's going to haunt me for the rest of my life. The first child named Herbert since the first world War and he's Italian. Beautiful, this game is great. Unfortunately I think you misunderstood. Herbert Curry from the Hornets won the 3 point shooting contest, an an Italian guy from the Clippers won the dunk contest.
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Jun 13, 2020 23:10
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beejay posted:Unfortunately I think you misunderstood. Herbert Curry from the Hornets won the 3 point shooting contest, an an Italian guy from the Clippers won the dunk contest. Correct. I'll post images of the Clippers' guy in the next update. STATEMENT FROM THE THREAD CREATOR I've used this thread to say some damning things about Kyrie Irving as a player. Kyrie is currently being dragged by sports media for his saying very logical, very reasonable and meaningful things about the consequences of a potential early return of basketball. He is using his position as one of the leaders of the players' union the way he's supposed to, by giving the collective of players a voice. I support Kyrie Irving. Sadly, I am not a sportswriter, merely a guy who has a gaming thread on a comedy forum. So my support is largely meaningless. But, maybe if enough nobodies like me push back against shithead sportswriters for their painting this young man as a disruptive nutcase for having serious concerns about the players' safety and long-term consequences for his entire race, they'll lay off some. Or the players won't give up fighting for what they know is right. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jun 14, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 23:24
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If I can't finish the season tonight, I will split the update in half to get some content out there. I did want to mention that the local newspaper had an article that read "Pistons 'Workhorse' Mykhailiuk makes great strides" and, after I got done wondering how you would know that woth the season suspended, was pretty tickled. Thanks to using him heavily in this thread, I kind of want this no name player to succeed. Bonus points if he becomes a good defender.
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Jun 15, 2020 22:24
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Chapter 8, 2024-2025, Part III, Season End, Awards Our own season is a nice, consistent run of excellence, keeping our second best position for the entire run. None of our players had a notable game, but I did somehow catch wind of this monstrosity from back in December  ....>sigh< I'm gonna have to play this guy again later in the year. These guys actually swept us on the season in the regular season, but in 3 of the games I didn't have Bilic, and in the 4th game both Bilic and Windler only played 1 minute each off the bench from injuries. So hopefully things look different when those two are healthy, since both will definitely be in my playoff rotation.  Biggest surprise or most worthy thing to note is our first round opponent, the Sacramento kings. They hadn't made a playoff series since 2006. With this berth, the team with the longest dry spell becomes the Chicago Bulls, who finished this season with, I think, the worst record.  Once again spared a triple double, I guess. This is four consecutive MVPs. This breaks Larry Bird's record streak of three consecutive MVPs.  Atlanta's #1 guy does what #1 picks are supposed to do.  Centers almost never win this award. This would make Montrezl the fourth Center ever, and the first since 1993 to win this award.  Lies. At this point I think the committee is giving him this award to recognize his excellence in the face of Doncic, since they're not going to give him the MVP  This guy keeps coming up with trades I reject, so maybe the Cavs were using his breakout season as bait?  Once again, Dallas has the most wins. God drat 2k is bunch of lazy pieces of garbage. This award exemplifies their entire loving corporate creed. All NBA teams 1:  2:  3:  Bol Bol returns to all-NBA form. Bryant Lowe is already a megastar. All-Defense 1:   Bilic continues to not be recognized for his hard work on this end, but at least Rudy gets a bit more decoration. Rookies:  Once again I somehow fail to capture the rookie second team, which Esteban Barea makes. Among all rookies, he was fourth in points per game, fifth in assists per game, and eighth in steals per game. Things keep coming up and making simming the playoffs difficult. Playoffs will have to be a separate post.
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Jun 16, 2020 10:23
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It's all good! Thanks for the update. Speaking of Kyrie and the NBA - I was excited that they were going to play, but reality is, it's not a great idea. I'll take rooting for the Honu for now.
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Jun 16, 2020 15:16
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Chapter 8, 2024-2025, Part IV, Playoffs For the playoffs, I activate a nine man rotation of Aaron Holiday, William Floyd, Sasha Bilic, Bol Bol, Rudy Gobert, Delon Wright, Mfiondu Kabengele, Dylan Windler, and Esteban Barea. This particular rotation forces Wright to spend most of his time at point and Windler to spend most of his time at shooting guard, but both remain productive, so whatever. Injuries going into the playoffs are as follows:       Which is really a case of the rich getting richer. None of those injuries really move the needle at all on their series---the winners were gonna win, the losers were going to lose.  The Warriors' injuries, though.... yeah, those mattered. So that's the "Still getting MVP shares" Star player of the team, and also his immediate backup both injured to start their series off against the Clippers. The Warriors are Stacked, and Filimon returned partway through the series, but it was too little too late, and the sole first round upset is the Clippers catching a lucky As for our first round series  Somehow I'm not too worried. If you guys had clicked the spoilers, you know how this goes:  Yeah....... we uh.... we beat the Kings, guys.  Here's Ralph Miller getting some valuable garbage time minutes. This guy will probably feature a bit heavier in our rotation next season.  Our next series was the Clippers. HI HARRY! I didn't manage to catch a screen grab of it, and it could totally be a coincidence because in the playoffs, players are always hugging it out and poo poo, but before the opening tip, him and Bol had a big hug on the court.   Here's a picture of our newest rookie alongside his good friend Dylan Windler. He fits right in. He almost alternates starting roles with Bilic, as he gives us a scoring look, and Bilic gives us a lockdown defender. Since they get about the same minutes either way, it really doesn't make much difference---just depends on when I want to score vs focus defense. Sometimes they'll both play together, so they seem to be able to coexist, and Windler doesn't get in the way either, since he can spell either of them at either swingman role. Weirdly, Barea likes to throw alley-oops to Windler, who is surprisingly athletic. Most people throw alley-oops to Kabengele and no one else. Holiday will toss to anyone over 6'5 if he's feeling cheeky, it usually works out. I really like our swingman rotation. They give me a variety of good looks and play well together.  The Clippers in real life are only just now relevant again after several years after Chris Paul left. So I had no idea they changed their mascot to this eyesore. What the hell does that have to do with anything? Someone put Chuck here out of his misery. It's hard to see, but his unnecessary helmet has the flag of California on it.  I forget what dumb poo poo turnover the Clippers had that caused this, but it got a great look from both Sam Cassell and Doc Rivers. Neither is amused, but I certainly was. Since I'm actually in a playoff series against him, here's the slam dunk champion:  He's... ...a little on the heavy side for an NBA player. I am briefly afraid for my season once I realize that he's a fat Italian guy with mad ups and Honolulu is a team of turtles. Only briefly though.  Bowser over here had ten rebounds in the first 6 minutes of game 1.  And ended the game with only 18. But check out Ralph Miller. That's a garbage time double double. He only played in the fourth quarter and managed a double double with seven offensive rebounds. Dude is a beast on the boards, I'm very tempted to burn a camp on something to improve his "around the basket" shooting. Well, assuming I can re-sign him in the offseason. He should be an RFA though. I digress. The point is, is yeah, we handled the Clippers pretty easy. Aside from that, the playoffs play out by the numbers, with Philly advancing through Atlanta and then New York, and Milwaukee defeating Washington and Cleveland. By the time the Conference Finals roll around, our hated rivals have recovered from all their injuries.  Not going to lie, I'm starting to get attached to this team like it was a real sports team. Seeing Dallas in the playoffs again just makes me irritated. Like, lie down and die already. This is the fourth time in five years we've been in the playoffs, and all four times we have encountered Dallas. Currently, we are 2-1 up on them. Each of the first three encounters was a six game series. This is the second time we have met in the conference finals. I'm growing to hate this fictitious Dallas team, despite the real Mavs probably being my favorite team. I am sick of them  Bol Bol is, apparently, also sick of them. Seven blocks. Just telling them on their home court to move out of the way. They still won the next one. Game 3 was a tale of Roleplayers stepping up. Huge games from Wright, Windler, and Kabengele, making up for Bol being quiet on the scoreboard. Check out this dubious "Quadruple Double" from Bilic  The flipside is this:  Bilic came off the bench, but still largely played when Doncic was playing. Between him and.... whoever the hell else was on Doncic, we basically held him to only scoring, instead of every other terrifying thing he does. I still consider this shutting him down. Remember, this little bastard averaged a triple double for like, four straight seasons. Holding him to 1 rebound and 3 assists is a feat. So we split our home games, too. FINAL RESULTS?    Another 6 game series. We have a 14-10 record against these guys in the playoffs now. Since I posted a picture of him: hey, uh, I dunno if Kabengele is gonna take his player option or not, but if he becomes a free agent, I really strongly think we should prioritize signing him over literally every other decision, including re-signing Gobert. He's way younger, almost* as good on defense, and much better on offense. Gobert's old and Kabengele started about half our games this season. As good as Olynyk has been in spurts, and as much potential as Miller shows, Kabengele is most of our big man bench rotation by himself, and isn't always on the bench. Not only does he sometimes just play himself into the rotation over Gobert, but Gobert and Bol are pretty frequently injured, and he's had to start in place of both of them every single season. *Well, it's the difference between "Very good" and "All time good". He's way worse, but still closer than like, 90% of the league would be.  Seriously just go away. Well, I have a plan for the Sixers, and it worked pretty well, and I got rid of the Floyd problem holding me back by sliding him to SG. Incidentally, we apparently had the third best record in the league, because they have home court advantage this time. Well, whatever. And then, NBA2k surprises me by how well it can simulate sports sometimes, by almost perfectly replicating the sheer, eye-bleeding rage I felt for the 2006 Miami Heat, history's greatest monsters and loving frauds, for the exact same reason. My guys get absolutely loving hammered on hard shots the entire game, and I get called for fouls for, I dunno, hurting Sixers' feelings.  Look at this horse-poo poo. The Honu don't foul much at all. 16-6 foul differential, including Bol fouling out for I think the first time ever, despite the other team definitely being way more physical. I still almost won. Any time I built a lead of about 5 points, there were suddenly a bunch of phantom loving calls. They just handed the loving game to the Sixers. Literally, watching these sim games was like watching the 2006 NBA finals again. In my worse days, I'm straight up irritated by how actually decent of a human being Dwyane Wade is outside of the game of basketball. He's honestly just.... something of a stand up guy. So I can't and don't hate him as a person, and I have to seriously commend him for a few things. BUT gently caress HIM FOREVER because mother fucker you had an entire finals handed to you on the backs of the officials, and you could have seriously hurt someone, including yourself, with your loving uncalled charges or charges that were called blocks because the league wanted to elevate you to a superstar early. This is where I wish these games had a "Technical foul" button. Like, I'm not controlling the game, but I wish I could have the coach scream at the officials for some kind of benefit. Barring that, I wish I could have some kind of enforcer in my rotation and could give a "foul HARD" instruction. Like a Jordan Rules instruction. Like, gently caress 'em. If officials are going to hand the game to the other team anyhow by calling a foul on anything, get your drat money's worth. Stuff in a guy to go straight up into a dude driving the basket about 6 times, and put that little poo poo on his rear end all six times. You wanna pull this reckless play being rewarded with lopsided calls bullshit? Cool. You want to be able to dance at your grand-child's wedding? PICK ONE. Edit: Please only ruin the lives of fictional versions of players. So yeah, my Charlie Flashbacks should probably be your first clue:  We lost. 4-1. It's hard to play 5 v 8.  The actual best player on the team got the MVP, which is nice. I think I'd have broken my controller over my knee if they would have awarded it to Simmons or Embiid, who I actually sort of handled and were also the two biggest offenders of getting nonsense foul calls. I'll kill you last, De'Aaron.  These players (also Jrue Holiday) retire at the end of the season. Paul and Westbrook make the Hall of Fame. Kevin Love does not. Former Honu players Jimmie Sharp and Fred Valentine leave the NBA to pursue basketball in other leagues.  I mean, I won't go to war over it like I would for Shawn Marion, but worse players than Love have gotten into the hall for less.  Even more insane is the only Jersey retired is Paul's, and specifically just for the Clippers. So.... Russell Westbrook doesn't get a Jersey retired for the Thunder, despite.... how many playoff appearances with them? Numerous all star appearances, and one MVP season with the Thunder. And also lasting the longest of the core team that they had built from that era. This made me almost as mad as the result of the Finals. Especially because the game almost certainly will retire Durant's number. In no universe should one be retired without the other. But, if you're only going to retire one for the Thunder, the correct call is Russ. Chris Paul's is the first Jersey ever retired for the Clippers, though. So that's cool.  The Jazz win the lottery, and the game points out that they got to keep their first ever #1 pick because they had pick protection. Imagine if they didn't. The draft looks super rich with a lot of potential stars available, judging by the scouting reports of "ceiling". We go into the 2025-2026 draft with the following roster depth: Holiday/Cisse/Arcidiacono/(Wright) Floyd/Wright/(Windler)/(Barea)/(technically also Holiday) Bilic/Barea/Windler Bol/Hollins/(Kabengele) Kabengele/Francis So, priority one, as I said, should be re-signing Kabengele if he doesn't accept his player option, even if he asks for a huge raise. We're a little poor up front. I also don't know if we can afford Gobert again, but it's a bit early for that. Miller, Olynyk and Gobert are at the end of their contracts. I won't know what it will take to bring any of them back until after the draft. We have Pick 30 and... I think pick 50 in the draft. We don't have our own second rounder, but we have Phoenix's  Voting Time PICK 30 A)Select the highest potential player available, regardless of position B)Sign the highest overall player available, regardless of position C)Highest potential big man D)Highest overall big man E)Other (Specify) Pick 50ish A)Select the highest potential player available, regardless of position B)Sign the highest overall player available, regardless of position C)Highest potential big man D)Highest overall big man E)Draft and stash F)Best name available (warning: we are going to lose this category this year) G)Other (Specify) Also, if you think the team should pursue a specific skill over all other skills, all things being equal, please state as much. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 15:17
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I would just go for highest potential big man with both picks. One of them has to work out. Also I just have to say the Honu uniforms are so good.
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Jun 16, 2020 17:03
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That 6ers team is a killer, Fox is a perfect fit for them! That mascot is a California Condor, a bird that was super endangered but is now recovering, but it's still an odd choice for the clippers. Then again, a clipper is an old sail-powered ship - hard to have a mascot with that. It is at least slightly less disturbing than the Pelicans mascot. Maybe I missed it, but do we have a mascot? I imagine not? Also, how did we not have home court advantage, yet we have pick 30? Weird. I would just go for highest potential overall at both.
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Jun 16, 2020 18:28
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Guper posted:That 6ers team is a killer, Fox is a perfect fit for them! We sadly do not have a mascot. That's probably too much to ask for 2k to put in, and I mean that sincerely and not in my usual "condemning 2k" way. What if we went with the Volcanos? We have pick 30 because we had the third best record in the league, after the Mavs and the 76ers. Our league is 32 teams now, so 30 is not the last pick in the first round.
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Jun 16, 2020 18:58
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Duh, of course, forgot about literally the premise of this LP oh man.
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Jun 16, 2020 19:32
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C and Best Name, even if we lose.
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Jun 16, 2020 20:19
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OP, Thanks for this thread! I didn't know much about b-ball until this thread. The management side is really interesting! Also I vote C and C
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Jun 16, 2020 20:23
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The jersey retirement is a special nonsense. I’ve had seasons where I’ve won 3-4 rings with the blazers with Lillard at the helm and they don’t retire his jersey. There doesn’t seem to be a way to force it either. I guess cause they don’t want you retiring every number and having blank jerseys
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Jun 16, 2020 22:35
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I'm nearly certain that there is an element of randomness to it, and to the Hall of Fame, but damned if I know what all goes into it. Edit CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT Who will be the first Honu to have their jersey retired by Honolulu? Bol Bol is probably already a lock, but he's still ridiculously young and nowhere near retirement, barring injuries. Correct guesses will receive a prize to be determined, depending on how long it takes to find out. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 00:05
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Hell if I know, but I'll throw in an obligatory guess for Windler.
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Jun 17, 2020 00:15
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Gobert
WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 00:20
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I would love to see Delon Wright, but I think it’ll be old man Gobert
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Jun 17, 2020 05:17
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As the child of two Philadelphia area natives, I’m of two minds regarding the 6ers’ win. One hand has me happy that another Philly team FINALLY gets recognized for their efforts. The other hand has me wishing the salary cap wasn’t abolished so that their win wasn’t cheapened. In any case, be glad that it wasn’t Boston, Miami, or New York who hoisted the trophy. Because gently caress those guys.
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Jun 17, 2020 09:02
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dervinosdoom posted:OP, Thanks for the interest! Glad to have you aboard. Chapter 9, 2025 Offseason: The Draft Gotta say, this draft was an interesting one. I know I called it "deep" before, but what it really is, is insanely talent rich, but shallow. After the draft, I declined more second round picks than I ever have, but there were guys taken very late that had all-star potential listed on their bio. The second overall pick (didn't nab a screen-cap, because I confused him with the first overall player) could be a Hall of Famer. Also, I didn't want to waste three screen captures on it, but at one point a guy with the first name Blake, a guy with the last name Blake, and then a guy with the last name Black were picked in a row. It felt like there was a run on Blakes. Utah opens proceedings by taking the wrong guy first overall, Daryl Baldwin.  Who, to be fair, is the best player in the draft right now, but the second overall guy is a shooting guard that has a much higher ceiling, is an excellent attacker and defender, and already has 7 badges. He's such a stud, that the Hornets might not re-sign Wil Gaines, who is a high potential shooting guard with proven success in the league in his own right. As near as I can tell, Utah did it this way because they have Harden and didn't want to counterfeit his position. Just replacing Harden or putting Harden at the PG and developing the blue chipper prospect next to him are both ideas that do not occur to this franchise. Another A+ potential player and reason why I am not winning the Name draft this year is the third overall pick to Detroit:  Mo Pope. 80 years, game. Please, please generate a player named Les Pope at any time, I beg of you. Another solid name, but nowhere near as good as "Mo Pope" is Portland's new rookie  Warren Ellis. I'm not going to lie, I was tempted to edit this player before the draft to give him a long black beard. Because Famous guys named Warren Ellis seem to rock that style. He doesn't actually look bad with one, either, so I still might do it, just because I find it funny. EDIT: I think every time I mention a real life person in this thread that's not a current basketball player, they're shortly thereafter revealed to be a poo poo-head of some kind. I hope the Bad Seeds' guitarist remains OK  The sole trade of the draft is a pretty big one---the Lakers trade for Nikola Vucevic, one of the top centers in the league  This is the guy Orlando drafts, clearly to replace him.  This guy taken 13th was one of the three mock draft boards' #1 pick. See what I mean about "rich in talent"?  This guy has the highest listed potential, and I do very much like that "Sooner rather than later" remark. A couple of you wanted me to bias big, but not all of you, it just sort of worked out.  Welcome to the team, Darnell Castro. (He turns out to be a higher starting overall than the 68 my scouts thought he was. For once they hosed up in my favor) I'm pretty sure him and Pope took North Carolina to the championship---a great point guard and a great pick-and-roll big  This is the guy I waffled on taking over Castro. He had slightly less potential, but absolutely monster athleticism. It turns out I had the 57th pick, which is sort of like 50. The draft has long since turned shallow, but I have a couple of options available. There are only couple of high potential players remaining that I know about. There's a guy who slid very far in the draft because of an injury concern, so there's at least one player (that's not a sleeper) that still projects as an NBA starter one day. If I were picking in the lottery, depending on guy, sure, an injury concern might throw me off. (I still made Bol Bol the star of my team, so maybe not too far) But at 57? Like, six from last? It also helps that he completely threads the needle of all of the draft directives I was given, where most of you wanted the most potential, some of you wanted the most potential big, and Farting Bedpost wanted the best name available. Well, friends, I hit all three directives.  Jared Slaughter, who might have rickety knees, joins the Honu.  Mr Irrelevant 2025: Terence Haywood from George Washington University. He went unsigned.  These are the team/player options. Unfortunately, Kabengele opted out and becomes an Unrestricted Free agent. Gobert is also an Unrestricted Free Agent. I was worried about this, but hey, that's the hustle. Bilic is a no-brain pick-up, and Harry Francis has two years of option to potentially make him no longer hate us for sticking him in the G league. Counting the two guys I just drafted, Francis, and Hollins, and I have a wealth of high potential bigs. Knowing Cisse is finally coming over, and that Hollins is out of the G-league, I do some math for the roster, and realize that I should probably not pick up my option on Arcidiacono, since I'll only be able to make three signings in the off-season, and it'd only be two without him. I have three value players potentially leaving, so..... yeah, I'd rather either have my players back, or have the options to sign someone better than Arcidiacono. And, well, free agency leaves us with some pretty important decisions. The game is very opaque about letting me know how much money I can spend. I dunno if it's unlimited or if I have an actual maximum budget somewhere I can't see. So maybe money really is no object---but I do know that last offseason, there were still differences between "affordable" and "all" searches----when the cap existed, players that weren't on the "affordable" list would put me over the actual cap and couldn't be signed. So it seems like it might be possible this is the case for the team's budget. Thanks for documenting this, 2k. We have two key players that are unrestricted free agents, but luckily, both are big men and I have a lot of those to develop, as we discussed.  Rudy Gobert is a defensive force of nature, still one of the best in the league at 33. While he is a few years past his prime, and lost two points off his overall just two years ago, he also remained even this past season. He's had a few injuries, but, looking at his body health, it seems like they're freak accidents, since he's only got one zone that isn't green and it's still yellow. He scores rarely and frequently disrupts team chemistry by complaining about touches and not being a bigger part of our offensive sets. He's a neutral 3 stars on system match. He wants 21.4 million dollars a season, which is slightly less than what we're paying Bol Bol this year.   Mfiondu Kabengele, you might recall, was my personal recommendation as "#1 priority" to resign, and, for my money, probably the second most valuable player on our team. At just 27 years old, it's unknown if he's even entered his career peak yet, and I know he hasn't hit his potential cap. He's the best center in free agency for fitting into our system, a full star (whatever that means!) higher than Jarrett Allen or Mo Bamba, the two highest rated Centers available. He's not as good of a defender as Gobert. Literally no center is right now. He's still very, very good at interior defense. One of his defensive stats is a 98 where Gobert's was a 99. I think help defense? He's much better offensively. Not only does he have a gold Lob City Finisher badge (making him a frequent Alley Oop finisher), but he actually has a jumper, including a serviceable (but not great) shot from 3 pt range. He's very rarely been injured. He is asking for 5 million dollars less per year than Gobert.  He averages roughly five minutes less per game than Gobert does.  His per 36 numbers help to illustrate that he could be a decent scoring option for us, if we needed him to be or gave him more responsibility.  Ralph Miller doesn't fit our team very well and thus doesn't get a lot of minutes, but he's a rebounding animal, especially on the offensive glass. He has a hall of fame "Worm" badge, which basically allows him to completely avoid getting boxed out. Even though most of his shots are putback layups, he doesn't shoot a very good percentage at all. He's one of the better man-to-man interior defenders in the league. He's kind of a dollar store version of Dennis Rodman. It's a shame he doesn't match our system well at all, because it affects his minutes. I've floated him a qualifying offer, so if I only sign two of the listed options in free agency, there's a good chance he comes back for cheap anyhow. After the players you guys all know, there's the Gheorghes.  Gheorghe Eminescu is a young Romanian Shooting Guard that our thread rivals the Ravens gave up on way too fast. (they actually waived him!) He's capable of scoring from basically anywhere, and he's a better-than-average perimeter defender. At age 25, he still has room to grow as a player, and somehow only wants 1.76 million dollars a year. He would be a decent match for our system.  Gheorghe Filimon was also waived by the Warriors. You may remember him from the injury list, where I mentioned that Steph Curry's immediate backup was injured alongside of Steph Curry. I have no earthly comprehension why the Warriors would waive him, or why the contract he is asking for is so absurdly small. At 82 overall, he could theoretically compete with Holiday and Cisse for a starting PG role on this team.  An 8.1 ppg, (on roughly 50% shooting) 7.5 apg (off the loving bench, remember) player would not be asking for less than three million a year. In real life, Rajon Rondo had numbers like that in 2014-2015 and was making 12 million, but that's a bit misleading because Rondo is/was also an excellent defender and can rebound. This is similar (actually, a bit better) to what Tomáš Satoranský posted this season in real life, and he's making ten million per. Remember that we are now six years into the future, with player salaries ever creeping higher. I have no idea what's going on with Gheorghe Filimon. What in the hell happened in Romania in my universe? Two suspicious waivers of Romanian players who are begging for peanuts to stay in the league? Seeing these two next to each other feels dark. EDIT: I didn't mention anywhere, but Norman Powell and Kelly Olynyk are both also UFAs. I don't intend to sign either, even though they served us well. Good luck to you guys. Voting Time Pick up to three guys I mentioned Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jun 20, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 09:08
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Eminescu, Kabengele, Filimon. Wouldn't mind Gobert, but disruption to team chemistry isn't a good look in my book.
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Jun 17, 2020 17:47
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Jadecore posted:Eminescu, Kabengele, Filimon. Wouldn't mind Gobert, but disruption to team chemistry isn't a good look in my book. I agree with this. Although I will miss our gigantic Frenchman, we have a new, smaller Frenchman with a mustache coming in, and the two must never meet!
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Jun 17, 2020 21:30
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SIGN: Eminescu, Filimon, Kabengele
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Jun 17, 2020 21:41
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Jadecore posted:Eminescu, Kabengele, Filimon. Wouldn't mind Gobert, but disruption to team chemistry isn't a good look in my book. I agree with this. Gobert played well for us but chemistry issues are chemistry issues, and I hope Miller can find a better fit, since he seems really good.
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Jun 17, 2020 22:28
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Chapter 9, 2025 Offseason: Free Agency I added Kabengele to a 4+1 player ETO contract, because he's earned it. First off, I want to state for the record that I'm an idiot. The waived Gheorghes were asking for small contracts because they were waived. A waived player has 48 hours to have their contract claimed by another team. I'd say NBA 2k simulated this correctly, but I know they don't for two reasons.  So yeah we get a rental on Filimon, because I can only sign him for one year. As for Eminescu, well, I said there were two reasons that waivers aren't handled correctly. Well, the first reason they aren't handled correctly, is they don't last 48 hours. The moratorium period is equal to three days (72 hours), and Eminescu's 2.whatever million asking price was stuck there for the entirety of the moratorium period. "But VSM", you ask, "why did you wait until after the moratorium period to sign Eminescu? Wouldn't you be forced to offer him more money?"  And you're right. And I did offer him more money. But you see, the second reason that 2k fails at waivers is it doesn't handle optional contracts. So that, itself, requires some explaining. See, the Ravens waived Eminescu, even though he wasn't on a guaranteed contract ----waiving him made no goddamn sense and sort of broke the game. They weren't paying him so.... in actuality, what they did was not pick up their team option. Why the game bugged out like this, I have no idea. At any rate, during the moratorium, it wouldn't let me sign Eminescu to a 0 year + 2 team option contract, which is technically what he was waived from.  I still offered him a deal because, hey, we need another guard for our rotation, and he's still only 25 and a good fit on our team. He's exactly the sort of player I'd have scouted as a potential signing anyhow. What did the other teams do during free agency? Well, I won't show all 31, but there was some interesting player movement.  The Bucks got one of the better available centers and a back-up point guard that was inexplicably waived. (Note that they didn't pick up his waiver contract, opting to offer him a longer term deal. Filimon is likely on a rental year, since he'll want the entirely rational amount of 13 million dollars next season. We'll worry about that once the season's over.)  The Grizzlies acquired the services of Rudy Gobert. Hopefully he's happier there. And they're eastern conference, so that's a relief.  Former Honu Fred VanVleet moves from Los Angeles to Atlanta  Why the gently caress wouldn't Cleveland match that Ciro Reyes contract? Heat just got really scary, adding a high-quality point guard and one of the top small forwards in the league to the 2nd place MVP candidate last year, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander  VanVleet's replaced by Spencer Dinwiddie, who should do a lot more for the Lakers but is old and declining. Young and growing is Gabe Marks, who has a lot of potential at PF. With these two guys plus Vucevic, they could be trouble.  This doesn't seem like news, but Andre Petersen caused me some trouble in the finals, so I'm happy to see the 76ers backup Power Forward go to a different team. Their new backup is probably worse.  Ravens continue to lock in their current guys, but also acquire the services of Tyler Herro who was pretty big for the Clippers last year, and part of why they made it to the second round of the playoffs.  The Rockets don't blink after Westbrook retired and manage to sign the best Point Guard available in free agency, as well as a good backup in Derrick Rose and a decent center in Daniel Gafford.  Suns sign some good backups for their rotation, but I notice that MCW is projected as their starter---they had a pretty good point guard named Omar Santiago, who regularly had an elite PPR in the league among actual qualified players.  Ralph Miller found a home as the (projected) starting power forward of the Thunder.  Kelly Olynyk and former Honu player Harry Kelley, the Kellys find themselves on the Wizards.  Norman Powell settles in (with a raise, somehow!) with the Timberwolves. They also pick up one of the best centers available in Mo Bamba.  Oh, that's where Omar Santiago went. He's replacing Gheorghe Filimon as Steph Curry's backup on the Warriors. They also got Darius Bazley and.... Jayson.... Tatum.  Good god, this is a city just blatantly trying to buy a championship. Stupid abolished Salary Cap. Knicks lock in some of their stars, get a decent backup center in Noel and... Wil Gaines? Why does that sound familiar? Last Update posted:Utah opens proceedings by taking the wrong guy first overall, Daryl Baldwin. Speaking of:   Paul George. And also the best free agent this offseason, Anthony Davis. So.... they replaced their backup PF Andre Petersen with their starting power forward, Tobias Harris, and then just added a much better starter. I see. I..... see....  Well, at least the Mavs probably didn't improve too mu------   I want the salary cap back At the least, after progression, Embiid and Anthony Davis both decline. Rudy Gobert declined 3 points, so avoiding his contract was probably a good idea. Most of my team gains a bunch. Bol Bol stands pat, but only because, with Gobert gone, I swap his and Kabengele's positions, and for whatever reasons, power forwards are always higher rated than Centers. I have no idea why. His skillset improved a bunch, he'd have otherwise raised several points. I assign Castro to the G-league because I can sway his opinion on me after 3 years of making it up to him. Slaughter I have to hope develops on his own, since I will only have him for two years and that won't be enough. Game wouldn't let me give him a two-way contract like it did for Hollins. But the G-league is definitely an enormous help for these low-rated, high potential guys, as both Francis and Hollins made big overall gains. In training camps, I burn my untapped potentials on Castro and on Gheorghe Eminescu. Even after the horrors of player movement: (Hey, check it out, I was wrong, Coach of the year doesn't always go to the best record. That's a small relief.)  I have my doubts (especially with Cleveland so high after losing Ciro Reyes to Miami), but this is an encouraging power rankings. 
Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 07:50
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Oh my god, incredible! Next update could you post the payroll for some of these teams? Maye the highest and lowest few? It looks like the 6ers added ~100million in addition to whatever they already had!
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Jun 18, 2020 16:25
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Sure thing. Remember that the Warriors picked up Karl-Anthony Towns last year, too. I figure they have to be around 300 million a year. For reference, by not signing Gobert, I'm somewhere around 110.
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Jun 18, 2020 19:18
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Chapter 10, 2025-2026 Part 1, 2025 Welp. The Romanians have exceeded my wildest expectations. But first, since someone has asked to see some cap situations:  We are an extremely frugal, some might even call us "stingy" team. I'm not happy not having a cap. It's very vague what I can actually sign players for. Is the "affordable players" screen a lie? will anything stop me from signing several players to giant contracts? I have no idea. At any rate, I've been pretty good at flipping players for more productive players on better contracts and recognizing when a giant contract might actually exceed a player's value. There are no teams even close to us in cap. A few teams, particularly ones like Chicago and Charlotte that have a lot of young players, are around 135 million, which is where I think the cap might actually supposed to be.  The Sixers have the second highest cap. It disgusts me that they can keep this together for years.  The Warriors just hate money. The fourth highest paid player on their team makes about 8 million dollars more than our highest paid player, and I guarantee you isn't nearly as productive.  On opening day, we blow the Cavs right out, Bol showing off why he's still the man in Honolulu. For a good while in there, Gheorghe Eminescu is given starting privileges over William Floyd. (I think Floyd picked up a minor injury and then, even when he came back from it, the Coach still assigned him to a bench role)  Eminescu really, really shines during this period. This isn't that unusual of a game for him, although I think the thirty was a career high. He was averaging something like 18 or 19 points as a starter before Coach shot his minutes all to hell for seemingly no reason. (Seemingly.... he had a pretty good reason) You might have noticed some good games from Filimon, too, just looking for his name in those box scores. Sometimes he's outright the best player on our team   Meanwhile, Bilic is developing as an all-round player, and Floyd continues to score well.  Player of the week honors are always nice. STATE OF THE TEAM Gheorghe Filimon is a rental point guard, and one of the best pure point guards in the entire league---actually, he's the best pure point guard in the league, presently, leading all eligible players in both Pure Point Rating and Assist Ratio. We split ball handling duties three or four different ways. If he were getting 30+ minutes a game, it's very likely he'd also be leading the league in assists. He's making a drat solid case to pay him next year, but he's going to want a lot of money. More than I'd have initially suspected---and he might be worth it. Jacque Cisse has taken to the NBA like a duck to water. He's a scoring minded point guard, as opposed to a passing minded one like Filimon. Luckily, he's very good at it. His scoring is equal to and his rebounding is higher than Aaron Holiday, despite Cisse playing 7 less minutes per game. He doesn't pass as well as Holiday does, and neither pass nearly as well as Filimon. He currently has higher PER and higher EWA than Holiday. (Filimon exceeds both at both) Aaron Holiday, despite starting two thirds of our games, is clearly our team's third best point guard. This isn't to say that he's bad, just that we're temporarily rich at that position. His scoring has taken a significant dip this season, but I'm sure that has to do with there being more scoring options surrounding him. Basically everyone's numbers other than Bilic and Kabengele have dropped--this is because Cisse and Eminescu are taking these points. William Floyd continues to score at an elite level. His points per game are way smaller than they used to be, but he's been in a dog fight for minutes with Gheorghe Eminescu, who is capable of putting up big numbers in his own right and plays much better defense. While he's posting the lowest numbers of his Honu career, His per 36 minutes scoring is like, 30 points per game. Also, he's scoring at an absurdly efficient level. Check the screen cap at the end of this post. Gheorghe Eminescu has been a revelation. This kid is special. He was scoring points per game similar to what Floyd is now before Coach moved him to the end of the rotation for some screwy reason. So his ppg has dropped to "only" 12 from about 18. This is on much less minutes than he had been getting. I'm baffled that he's not in the running for MIP, when he doubled his scoring, and is shooting 9 percent better than last season. He's also a very good defender. Delon Wright is still his old, wiley self. His numbers are down, but his minutes have tanked because.... there's a lot of fabulous talent on this team. His per 36 minute stats are still pretty in line with what they used to be. Sasha Bilic continues to do a little of everything and a lot of lockdown perimeter defense. 22 is his career high in scoring, and he posted it twice this season so far. He looks more comfortable shooting the ball and has improved in rebounding and passing. Unlike last year where he traded with Barea (and rarely Windler) for starting honors, he has yet to relinquish that role in 31 games so far. Esteban Barea is a savvy scorer that should be scoring more points, but it's questionable when he's going to get the minutes to. First world problems. He's down to about only 8 points per game, because who would you bench? Dylan Windler is another savvy scorer, but he's at the bottom of our rotation right now. Mfiondu Kabengele is performing admirably in our starting PF role, averaging a little shy of a double double per game (about 11 points and 9 rebounds... pretty close!) while contributing good interior defense. Just a very solid player that has shown he can be trusted with minutes. Wayne Hollins makes 1.1 million dollars per year, and is developing still. He'll be an RFA next season, so, assuming nothing too absurd is offered to him, I intend to bring him back and then maybe he'll be a real NBA player. Darnell Castro was fine with being in the G-league, but then Broke his wrist down there and is busy being a complete poo poo-head like everyone assigned to the G-league does. God I hate 2k as a company. Nevertheless, I expect him to develop. Bol Bol remains the star of our team, regularly posting about 25ish and 10ish a game, with a couple of blocks. I'm irritated he's not on the race to the MVP board. Harry Francis is now "Thrilled" with the way things are going, so see, you can turn around the mood of these G-league assigned guys, if you keep them around enough. He's averaging about 8 and 5 a game, which is pretty decent given how far down he is in the rotation and that he exclusively plays Center, and thus subs for Bol. It took a while to make him productive for us, but he's there, now. Jared Slaughter played one minute this year, and managed to score a basket on one attempt, and thus has a PER of 66.5 for the season, leading all players (he is not eligible for PER). Maybe he'll develop. FURTHER READING: The Contract extension deadline and the trade deadline are coming up soon.  This shows us what some of our players are asking for, extension wise, and also gives us an inclination what other players will ask for in free agency. As we see, Filimon's expecting a huge pay-day which, honestly, might be about the right figure if he keeps up his productivity. Delon is asking for a pay cut over the next few years and prefers to sign for only 2---I don't think he's indicating he wants to retire, but I think he wants to check his options. He has yet to decline despite being 33 years old. Aaron Holiday is asking for 13 million a season, which on the one hand is fair, but on the other hand, is probably too much money for our third best point guard. William Floyd is now expecting 22 million, or roughly double what he currently makes. (A little less than double)  This is Eminescu right now. Very solid figures on very, very good shooting percentages. Despite playing a pittance of minutes these days (and in part because he played many minutes to start the season), he is third overall on our team for EWA, after Bol Bol and William Floyd. This guy is a gem, and I got really lucky that I signed him in spite of it not being the contract the game told me I could get. His per 36 numbers look like this:  And I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that William Floyd is holding him back. Eminescu is playing 8 minutes less per game than Floyd is. But the thing is, that's not necessarily bad---As good as Eminescu actually looks, Floyd is still better on offense. He's been on an entirely different level this season, despite his actual scoring averages being way down---you could say that Eminescu is holding Floyd back.   I mean, look at that, he's shooting an absurd percentage. That's monstrous efficiency. 22 Million a year is not an unreasonable figure for production like that. .................but there is one other thing to consider between these two:  Why I cropped oFG% out of the image is beyond me, but that's the column that's highlighted. (Incidentally, the 6.6 next to the oFG% is box +/- average per game.) This is out of 292 qualified players. Gheorghe Eminescu has the second best oFG% in the league. Say what you want about William Floyd's offense---his defense isn't that. He's not actually a bad defender, but he's undersized at SG. I took a leap of faith to pay Eminescu 9 million a year, and it turns out I am absurdly underpaying him. I can't believe Vancouver waived this kid. When Mykhailiuk and Ralph Miller posted big (well, small) oFG% numbers, neither did it while scoring significant points. Eminescu is arguably the only actual two way player we've ever had. VOTING TIME We have to decide whether we want to trade or extend Holiday and Floyd (and I guess Wright) First, off, I am by no means saying we have to trade anybody. Our team is really good as is, so there's an argument to be made about not rocking the boat. But, well, there's at least a few options worth considering: First, Holiday. Any trade that removes Holiday would give the keys of the team to Cisse, who is already better, albeit not quite as good of a passer.... the flipside is, we can't guarantee we'll be the ones who lock down Filimon next year, so we might find ourselves very thin at PG moving forward, but as it stands, Holiday is getting in Cisse's way. The main thing I could trade Holiday for is a backup Power Forward  I'm missing a rotational backup PF for Kabengele, since Francis is a dedicated Center and all my guys are prospects. The Englishman here (who has a team option, so it's actually a two year contract) would make our rotation, and he's a very solid PF already, posting about a double double with good size. Gabe Mason is on a two way contract and already in the G-league, and thus won't whine at us about being in the G-league. He's got less potential than Slaughter, but he's more likely to actually reach said potential for those reasons.  Brazdeikas would not make our rotation, if I ever saw the game assign him minutes, I would force them onto Dylan Windler. At first glance, this seems like a dumber trade, because in addition to Holiday and Slaugher, it gives up a 1st round draft pick. However, Donta Greene has a 98 potential. The drawback here is, I've seen other players with 90+ potential just.... randomly lose it. And not just by my tampering. Ralph Miller had something close to this, but by the time he left, he was stuck at 80something. Nonetheless, that's an intriguing prospect. It doesn't solve the PF backup issue, really, but it does give us someone other than Hollins and Castro to develop. Just... farmin' big men. Whatever.  This option gives up a first round pick as well, but would give us a player who very likely would actually start over Kabengele, and is in a model that we know has been very successful for the Honu: Pair an elite defender in the front court next to Bol Bol. Emanuel Terry was a defensive player of the year candidate the last two seasons. Gregory Murray, I believe has a team option, so while he'd be a fringe rotational player at best, I could theoretically develop him into something that would contribute to our squad. (Hell, if his passing is anything at all, I could edit him to a point guard---his rating would drop, but it'd solve the potential depth issue trading Holiday might cause) Alternately, we could trade Floyd:  This would replace Floyd's production somewhat, because Sabonis is a very good scorer. He's also an excellent rebounder. This is another "get back a guy likely to start in front of Kabengele" option. I'd be paying him a lot of money, but the flipside is, I wouldn't be paying William Floyd 22 million dollars. As with the holiday trades, I am not going to play Brazdeikas over Windler. Also, because this trade gives up Barea, Windler would be getting minutes again. Giving up Barea kind of hurts, but he's seriously under-performing. 1)Deadline Decision: A)Trade Neither, Extend Both (specify time frames) B)Trade Neither, Extend Floyd (specify time) C)Trade Neither, Extend Neither (we're an elite team---if either/both walk next year, so be it. This is essentially "make a decision later") D)Trade Holiday, Extend Floyd (Specify package) E)Trade Floyd (Specify whether or not to extend Holiday) 2)Delon Wright is still productive! He just has less minutes. He's asking for a very reasonable figure. He has trade value as well, but I didn't like any of his options. I could actually trade him for Paul George right now, straight up, but Paul George's contract is absurdly bad and I don't want to. I'm also not convinced George's corpse is an upgrade to Eminescu. I'm fairly convinced it's a sizable downgrade to Eminescu. It's definitely a downgrade to Floyd on offense. (Also, keep in mind that while Wright doesn't play that many minutes this season, that will likely change if we trade either Holiday or Floyd, and he's also a backup point guard---technically, he's the best passer on my team after Filimon) A)Extend him for two years B)Don't extend him SPECIAL BONUS CONTENT VOTE Hey, how long has it been since we decided 2k was a garbage fire. Remember when I said that I fired all my default staff at the start of the game and signed staff to actual contracts, because it listed everyone as hired for zero years on expired contracts?  Vancouver's free loving staff is still there. After five years. Thanks, dumpster fire game. Vancouver is currently one of the top teams in the West. 3)Vancouver's Illegal Front Office A)Wait until the off-season and fire the staff -- Vancouver is doing well this year, firing their entire front office could disrupt that, and give us an unfair advantage B)Fire their staff now -- On the other hand, gently caress that. They've had an illegal advantage for five years.
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Jun 19, 2020 12:18
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1D 2B 3A
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Jun 19, 2020 12:46
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Man, I wish there was an NBA team built like this, a turbocharged version of the Raptors that is deep as hell. Nice to see Bilic coming together to complete our Balkan Boys. 1D and let's go get Donta Greene because I'm a sucker for prospects, and he's probably better than what we'd find in the late first round. At PF he'd get minutes immediately too. 2B I love you Delon but there's probably other PGs out there that are just as workable. 3A
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Jun 19, 2020 15:16
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1C - Probably time to move on from both, but wait till the off season 2A - He's our talisman. 3A Also keep Jared Slaughter forever. Even if he's a bust, he can be our token 13th man.
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Jun 19, 2020 17:26
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Write-in vote for making one of the Ravens' staff a white elephant contract
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Jun 19, 2020 21:03
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Thordain posted:
If it matters: No, not at that price for an 81 Overall. Unless I get lucky again with waivers like I did for Filimon.
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Jun 19, 2020 22:07
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1B, 2 years, I don’t want to move Holiday until we’re sure we can keep our other 2 PGs 2A, Wright is a good dude and I want him to retire with us if possible. 3A
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Jun 20, 2020 00:34
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I'm allowing myself to be a tie-breaking vote to extend Wright. (He's really good value for his asking price. >shrug<) I'll be extending Floyd as well and trading Holiday----there was only one person who specified which trade package, so I'm gonna be taking a gamble on the guy with the potential. EDIT: Hit a snag, I just noticed that the Pacers are asking for the 2027 Blazers pick, which has a serious chance of being first overall if the Blazers are as bad next year as they are this year. On the other hand, a max potential player is probably worth that, but... mnf. Lemme see if I can enact any sorcery. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Jun 20, 2020 |
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Jun 20, 2020 13:34
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Chapter 10, 2025-2026 Part 2, Thru All-Star Break Delon Wright and William Floyd were extended for another two years each. So, after noticing that the Pacers (incidentally, this was Holiday's original team) were asking for the unprotected Portland pick, and having no other directives about Holiday other than to try for Donta Greene, I eventually settle for this trade:  Instead of giving up one first rounder, I give up two. However, I value this as a better trade than the one where I was giving up just the Portland pick----our own picks are likely to be worse than what we can get with Portland's. Furthermore, we have the enviable position of having possibly too much depth. I'm trying to get out of this year's draft commitment, and we don't actually have a big need for that many new players. Or---at least we won't next offseason and quite possibly the one afterward. We have one, possibly two players leaving now, depending on if we can re-sign Filimon. The other one would be Brazdeikas here. Everyone else is either staying with us, or a restricted free agent we can match or sign to their base offer sheet, like Wayne Hollins (who still has quite a lot of room to grow) I'm happy with that. Deferring our draft commitments for this (I was mistaken---he's 99 potential overall currently) high ceiling player, but keeping Portland's pick which could conceivably land a guy just as talented? These two are going to be better than anything I was likely to grab at 27-32 two years in a row. And if I'm being honest, my draft record is almost certainly my weakest team management skill when compared to trades and signings.  With or without his longtime point guard, Bol is a complete monster. Shortly after this, I get some bad news:  He was doing so well, too. (He's still third on our team in EWA after recovering from this injury. Coming off the bench and missing over a month of games----Eminescu is really good. It is batshit he's not in the running for MIP) With Holiday out, Cisse splits starting duties with Gheorghe Filimon---Cisse generally being a much better scoring option, but Filimon being arguably the best pure point guard in the entire NBA. How many games these days do you see stuff like this? (Also, Floyd is doing his damnedest to show he earned his pay raise)  Cisse largely shines when given the spotlight, earning himself Rookie of the Month honors in January:  I get some trivial injuries to Bol, Kabengele, Bilic, and others during this period----and in some cases, I do mean trivial. Because our getting into the playoffs is a pretty surefire bet, I use any old injury as an excuse to bench a player, even if it's something like "Bruised right shoulder", like what Kabengele had. I call Darnell Castro up from the G-league and begin rotating him, Donta Greene, and Wayne Hollins. Greene shows occasional flashes of brilliance. He had a 9/6/9 game I didn't screen grab, but I'm seriously digging seeing 9 assists randomly on a prospect power forward that doesn't have passing listed as one of his main skills. On the whole, he seems to be the best rebounder and distributor of the three prospects and has the highest ceiling. Castro is definitely the best scorer and also has north of 90 potential. Hollins appears to be between the two, but with a lower ceiling. All three seem like they could be worthwhile NBA players. Also, I recalled Castro from the G-league fast enough that he doesn't hate me. I'm slowly learning, friends!  Here's an example of a game where I sat Bol, Kabengele, Eminescu, and Bilic. So... yeah. As good as our bench is, we're not invincible. An elite team will still eat our poor rotational guys' lunch.  On paper, that might be the worst trade I have ever seen. The saving grace to it is that Leonard (I forgot to check Oladipo) is an expiring contract and wasn't going to sign with the Pacers in the off-season. So this might have been the only assets they could dump him for. If that's the case, then this package is actually probably better than 30 million in cap space A bulls pick in 2029 is still likely to be good---the Bulls show no signs of suddenly becoming competent.  Bol is once again an All-Star. Lillard, Ingram, Harden, and very arguably Kevin Durant don't belong here. Like the real All-Star game, established guys get selected too often by the committee. I forget which All-Star becomes injured, but their spot is given to Michael Porter Jr on the Ravens, which is good, because the Ravens are the #1 team in the West and otherwise didn't have an All-Star. That seems like a huge oversight. Some other snubs:  Still doing his thing, leading the Rockets. His backcourt running mate probably could have used a nod, too:  Seriously, the Blazers and Jazz are trash. Replace Harden and Lillard with these guys.  DeAndre Ayton's numbers suffer from his team's collection of 30million dollar power forwards, but I'd still say that's probably an All-Star season, too, given that Phoenix didn't have a selection. Also worth consideration is Lauri Markkenen, who is averaging 22 and 7 off the Phoenix Bench----unless his production is magically higher there, there's no reason any of the other bigs should start over an Ayton/Markkenen pairing. Zion Williams is named All-star MVP. Bol acquits himself with 21 points and 3 blocks. Jayson Tatum wins the 3-pt Contest (?! Huh. He actually does hit a decent percent of these in real life, but it's still weird to picture) and the Clippers' Paciani wins his second Slam Dunk Contest. Jacque Cisse and Esteban Barea are named to the World team for the young players whatever the hell showcase.  The World team wins, and Cisse leads in scoring, but I gotta assume that the MVP of the game is Stelios Patsatzoglou and his monster performance. With Tatum and Jaylen Brown gone (to the Lakers! He was another "possible snub") this guy might be the sole bright spot of the Celtics.       The Honu are currently the league's leading team in Assists (largely because of Filimon, but also, our entire bench passes well) and points off turnovers. We also have nine players with a 15 or better PER.
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Jun 20, 2020 21:05
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So I see Dolan sold the Knicks or kicked the bucket in this universe
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Jun 20, 2020 21:36
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JackBandit posted:So I see Dolan sold the Knicks or kicked the bucket in this universe more along the lines of "even a blind squirrel eventually finds a nut, especially when you drop him in a bucket of nuts".
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Jun 20, 2020 23:01
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Or in this case, two can't miss #1 draft picks back to back, followed by lucking into the best actual player in the following draft. The Knicks are terrifying right now. Even though the Sixers beat me fairly easily last year, I don't consider them anywhere near as dangerous. The teams that frighten me are, in order: Bucks, Knicks, Ravens, Mavs. The Mavs I've proven I can beat in the post season, but that doesn't mean Luka can't just go off sometimes for 50. He'll just do that and you can't stop him. The Ravens are built somewhat similar to me, in that rather than a huge world-beating star, they have supreme depth----they have a full 11 man rotation that "hey any one of those guys could catch fire and drop 20 on me". The Knicks have a collection of stupidly good young stars that have developed next to each other for their run----I could see them going the way of the Oklahoma City Thunder. If the league awards weren't so lopsided right now, in another universe the Wayne Newton -> Bryant Lowe -> Alec Tyler drafts could theoretically copy OKC's "We drafted three MVPs in a row". As it stands, the only one of the three I realistically expect to win MVP is Lowe. Not "He's the one I think could win." I mean, "I expect that before 5 more sim years are up, Bryant Lowe will be league MVP" A lot can change in a year, though. The Bucks have Giannis, who in addition to going off for 40, could shut down Bol and keep Kabengele off the boards. My games against the Bucks have had crazy unpredictable swings. I beat them by what? 60 last season? They beat my understaffed team by 43 this year, but.... ugh. Like, when the Mavs swept me before the playoffs last season, they were close games. Giant swings in score scare me. Like, I dunno how to adjust against the Bucks. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Jun 20, 2020 |
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Jun 20, 2020 23:30
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Probably no update until Monday. I've got a few things to do still this weekend. I jumped into a few games: Cisse lays up kinda funny when contested. Like an eight year old. When he actually slashes, he has a pretty little Euro-step. Watching Filimon is a joy. He absolutely can score his own points, but doesn't seem to operate that way, he wants to pass first. When asked to shopt, he has confidence. I watched him drill a three from well outside the arc because his defender played too far off him. Eminescu moves his feet really well. He's literally -big- on defense. He gets real wide and goes side to side well. I have no idea how his perimeter defense is "only" a B+. Fundamentals are definitely really, really good. There's no defensive animations in a player's signature settings, so I gotta assume one of the actual stats covers this, but which one? One-time Diva Harry Francis is BIG. He is seven two with long arms and he's got muscle on his frame, too. He's as tall as Bol but seems so much bigger. I couldn't get a grab yet, but sometimes he sits between Floyd and Cisse on the bench and it's hilarious. He could develop into a 20 and 10 guy. Just a throwback big that's supposed to be extinct these days. (Naw, it's just the real life guys built that way have been stiffs ever since Dwight Howard.) Help me, I have like, ten guys on my team that I don't want to get rid of for any reason. When it comes time to pay these guys what they're worth, I might cry.
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Jun 21, 2020 21:54
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Chapter 10, 2025-2026 Part 3, Finishing the Season Closing stretch and playoffs today. One of our first games coming out of the All-Star break is a loss to our thread rivals, the Vancouver Ravens.  But I think it does a little bit to illustrate what I mean by the Ravens being a deep team. That's 8 players in double-digit scoring on one game. Sure, it went into overtime, but the AI likes to keep things to its starters during OT (which probably hosed me---notice my "4" scoring.... yeah.... coach decided it made strategic sense to bench Eminescu, who was currently leading me in scoring, because Eminescu isn't my starting SG.)  The Honu bounce back with Bol's best scoring game of the season.  Which unsurprisingly nets him another player of the week, his second of this season. Spy Fabricio Nunez on that list---looks like he's doing a bit better than Cisse, but he's a sophomore and Cisse is a rookie, and also was coming off the bench for half the year.  I'm still pretty happy with Cisse, on the whole. I'm not sure what confluence of events led to Brazdeikas having actual minutes here, Every time I changed rotations, I moved one of Hollins, Greene, or Castro into his minutes instead.  I'd say he had a decent showing in the RotM honors.  We end the season with a bit of a drag, and, if I'm being honest, some of my low standing here is me goofing around with rotations. Like I said, I kept building them with my three power forwards so they'd develop more, and I kept benching guys for zero reason, essentially treating my dudes as if they were made of glass. 1)Again, to develop my young talents and 2)I really wanted to keep my playoff rotation safe the closer I got. I really should have ended with a better record, and I blame upper management instead of players or coach. (Coach wanted Brazdeikas to get all of the Hollins/Greene/Castro minutes)  ALERT. SOMEONE OTHER THAN DONCIC IS MVP. THIS IS NOT A DRILL  ...........oh. It was the other walking cheat code. That's less exciting.  I'm elated that Mo Pope is actually really good.  Markkanen's numbers actually came down from where they were earlier in the season---Phoenix's depth up front is something to behold, but there's honestly zero reason either of the other power forwards were playing starting minutes over Markkanen.  Stop winning this until you're at least bottom 20 oFG%, you big fat fraud. (His real defense is super good. I hope I don't give the impression that actual real-life Giannis is a fraud. I fuckin' love that guy)  How is this not Eminescu!?  The New York Knicks have a 67-15 record. ALL NBA First:  Second:  Third:  Bol's pretty settled in as All-NBA. Defense teams   I now have two guys to be pissed every year about not being on these teams. Rookies 1:  Rookies 2:  Cisse manages the first team. I don't know how many games you have to play to qualify for these teams, but 2k makes it into a lot. The last three of these were guys that didn't even play a minute, but were alphabetically early among rookies----I had to manually assign the last three. But it claimed every single available rookie didn't qualify for stat rankings, so I had to manually comb through rookies to see who posted what numbers---it's not like any of those guys played less than 30 games, either, which.... throw me a bone, 2k. What the hell. Playoff Injuries look as follows:       I'm honestly a little surprised Jusuf Nurkic isn't the first player I've seen retire from injuries in a 2k game. I know it can happen. He's just constantly beat up, and is almost 10 points overall lower in my simulation than he is in others that I have seen. ZNJ being out could be seriously bad news for the Rockets, if he doesn't come back quick, but the flipside of that is Phoenix is out its backup Point Guard and have to do an entire playoff series with either Michael Carter Williams or someone playing out of position. The Hawks are hosed. That's a devastating blow, and should be the #1 injury story of the year. But it's not. You know who isn't on that list, nor on any of the three All NBA lists? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the Heat. Yeah, at one point this year, he was leading the Race to the MVP list but took some kind of injury and was out for a couple of months. He's back in time for the Playoffs. That Heat 7 seed is extremely deceptive.  There's a lot of buzz about this meeting. 4/5 matchups are usually squeakers, and our teams are weird mirrors of each other, being primarily a bunch of gunners with excellent passing, main difference is at the starting SF where they have a scoring option and worst defender of all time (hey, 2k, please stop making Wiggins good. He's not. He's really, really not a good basketball player at all) while we have an excellent defender and a guy who doesn't score anywhere near as often as he ought to. Our Starting Point Guard is their cast-off, ingloriously waived despite being such an important piece for them. He lead the league in PPR and was second in AR at the end of the season. He was top 10 in assists but first in assists/36. Oh, and there's also the interest because this is a battle between the richest team in the league and the poorest. They have just shy of three times our pay roll.  Some of our younger players are fired up.  Here's Jacque next to Windler----with that Mustache and not particularly being built like a professional athlete, Cisse looks freakishly like a guy I know from work. I crack up sometimes watching him run around. Though the series goes 6 games, the story eventually settles onto it being a scathing indictment on the Warriors for paying so much for all their flashy guys, and being unspeakably cheap when it comes to Gheorghe Filimon. You'll pay out over 30 million a year for an extra Big Man, but you can't even pay 1.73 for the league's best true point guard?  REAP WHAT YOU SEW, assholes. This is his best assist game, but Filimon dropped a bunch of points on Golden State, too. He got tantalizingly close to our first Triple Double (ever.... still hasn't happened yet.  ) I know I'm just making up stories in my head about what happened, but he played angry. Here it is, friends  Our first real, playoff meeting against our thread rivals. In the regular season, we tend to outplay them, and both our teams have been consistently good over the last few years, maybe a blip here or there. How would it go? ....Well, we got run out of the gym. Remember when I said they had 11 guys that could drop 20 on you?    I wasn't spitting nonsense. Literally the top 11 guys on that list all had at least one 20 point game this season. I'm actually out-depthed by an AI team and I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I can't defend that many guys. In game 2, Bol goes into "Playoff Bol" mode and pulls one out:  .....it'd be the last win of our season. So, with us out, how do the Ravens fair against Dallas, who have one (now two, I guess) really, really good player? Well, we do well because we have singular elite defenders and a lot of other scoring. The Ravens have a ton of different scoring options and looks, but no elite defenders.  So of course those miserable bastards got swept. Also, remember what I said about the Heat's record being deceptive? Ciro Reyes kept them in the playoffs, but suddenly getting an MVP level player back tends to make you successful. Also, yet another Mavs/Heat finals. Some teams just seem linked by some sort of greater force of destiny. That the two teams colors go so very well against each other makes this matchup even better. Do you think this might be another close gritty series?  Of course not.  Miami doesn't have an elite perimeter defender, either. There's one team in the league that can beat Dallas in the playoffs until proven otherwise. Ain't nothin' but Rock, Paper, Scissors, baby. (One thing to note is this series went 5 games. Luka injured himself in the final minutes of a game 4 loss and then Kevin Durant did something to earn his contract and dropped 35 in game 5.) No rule changes, staff retirements (though I fire everyone in Vancouver---they rehire most of the same guys, but with actual contracts and such now), or much of interest in the off season. For players, the ones that retired anyone cares about are LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins, Enes Kanter, and Patrick Beverly. No one's jersey is retired. No one goes into the Hall of Fame.  I dunno. Basketball Reference only has it at about 50/50. Not a lot of success, but 8 all star berths is kind of a lot. The only player who has that many and isn't in the Hall of Fame is Larry Foust. If you haven't heard of him, he played in the 1950s, mostly for the Fort Wayne Pistons. Just by the numbers, BBR says he would have been a 94.2% odds guy. Actually still in the top 100 all time for both total career rebounds and rebounds per game. I gotta say, just eyeballing him, Foust's numbers look really good for a guy who played in the 50s. Well, without tape of the guy or knowing diddly or poo poo about 1950s NBA, I won't lose sleep over it. But seriously, gently caress-os, induct Marion and Billups, you pieces of garbage. voting time I'm doing both offseason votes right now instead of having a separate one for the draft and for free agency, because there's only one decision to be made on each. (I'll run some trade options to see if there's anything juicy and will post if I see, but I doubt it) We have the 58th pick in the NBA draft, which isn't going to amount to much, at least not right now. Luckily we don't need it. There's essentially no chance we get a player who can help us right away. This player will replace Ignas Brazdeikas 1)The Draft a)Most potential player b)Positional Need c)Skillset Need d)Name (though, I didn't see any particularly great ones offhand We have most of our team either locked up or on RFAs and set to return. We've had a season to gel together, and we have a lot of very good pieces that fit like a glove. As it stands, the only question in the entire offseason is Gheorghe Filimon, league leader in Pure Point Rating and second place Assist Ratio last year, who is asking for a large sack full of gold coins with a dollar sign on it. I've maneuvered us into having the lowest salary in the league for just such an ocassion. 2)Free Agency A)Pay Filimon B)I mean, I guess we don't have to pay him.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:42
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