2014 NBA Offseason/Free Agency Thread

[Hurricane Season]

Why do Heat fans spell Heat with all caps?  That shit's about as bad as The Ohio State.

 

[elcheato]

Hey buddy

 

[buzzy]

I don't

 

[CameronCrazy06]

As a rookie he shot 35% on catch and shoot 3's. As a rookie he shot 44.8% at the rim.

He made those two skills his top priorities during the offseason. He improved his catch and shoot by 11.4%, and his finishing at the rim by 3.8%. Austin has a great work ethic and I'm really excited to see what he has worked on this offseason.

It's sad to because people still think Rivers is the same guy who had the worst rookie season in league history (which isn't true, btw), when he's a lot more than that. He's going to be a good player in this league. People don't know that though because they listen to the national media and the national media does not watch Austin Rivers. He finished the season off strong averaging 16 points and 6 assists.

He's improved but it's not impossible for it to be a fluke season in that regard.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

He's improved but it's not impossible for it to be a fluke season in that regard.

If it would have been streaky I'd agree, but he was consistent with it throughout the year.

I'm not saying he'll repeat that number this season, but I'd be surprised if he dropped below 42%. I think it's something he's worked on and continues to work on, so I'm not expecting it to be something he falls back on. I don't think it's one of those "fall back to earth" things.

It's nice to see though, you saw a lot of guys really improve their jump shots last season for the Pels. Not only Rivers, but you saw an improvement from Anthony Davis (34%-39%), Eric Gordon (31%-40%), Jrue Holiday (44%-48%), Anthony Morrow (36%-43%), Ryan Anderson (38%-43%), and so on. They must have really put in work at improving their spot up efficiency.

 

[buzzy]

I'm sad not one person asked about the trivia game when I stopped doing it in the middle of the season.
 
Always thought it was a neat game.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

More I think about it, I'm really sure the Pelicans will start Holiday, Gordon, Evans, Davis, and Asik. Bench of Rivers, Salmons, Anderson, and a few minutes for someone else here and there. Someone like Ajinca or Babbitt for 4-5 minutes in the first half.

 

[Mobruler]

More I think about it, I'm really sure the Pelicans will start Holiday, Gordon, Evans, Davis, and Asik. Bench of Rivers, Salmons, Anderson, and a few minutes for someone else here and there. Someone like Ajinca or Babbitt for 4-5 minutes in the first half.

 
How do Pels fans feel about Rivers?  Huge bust?

 

[jonathanlambert33]

How do Pels fans feel about Rivers?  Huge bust?

He had a really bad rookie year, and while he wasn't even an average guard this season he showed about as much improvement as you can expect from a player, and he improved during the season. Averaged 10 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists post All-Star break. Averaged 16 pts, 6 rbs, and 6 asts per game as a starter late in the season. Pels fans are happy with how he has improved. Right now he's a guy that can get into the paint at will (though he struggles to finish, but like I said you saw a 4-5% increase), space the floor and hit 3's, play good defense for a 2nd year player, and he won't turn the ball over. In his prime I'd say he will be a very good first guard off the bench, very good.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZ0Ad47X8o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDfjC6asaRY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ljnwoGD5Vc

 

[jonathanlambert33]

https://twitter.com/BigPatYoung4/status/490600732077211648

nice

 

[Mobruler]

He had a really bad rookie year, and while he wasn't even an average guard this season he showed about as much improvement as you can expect from a player, and he improved during the season. Averaged 10 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists post All-Star break. Averaged 16 pts, 6 rbs, and 6 asts per game as a starter late in the season. Pels fans are happy with how he has improved. Right now he's a guy that can get into the paint at will (though he struggles to finish, but like I said you saw a 4-5% increase), space the floor and hit 3's, play good defense for a 2nd year player, and he won't turn the ball over. In his prime I'd say he will be a very good first guard off the bench, very good.

 
That's kind of hilarious that he has virtue for defending.  I'm interested in him because he seems a lot like what happened with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for the Pistons.  They drafted KCP based on being a shooter, and what happened in his rookie season is he couldn't shoot but he was the best perimeter defender on the team.  Pistons fans were like wtf just happened here.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

There was an article that Doc Rivers said he is shocked how much Austin has improved defensively, that's the one thing he never expected. Here's a good outtake from a season in review:
 

What Went Right

Literally Everything Improved
Field Goal Percentage, Three-Point Percentage, True Shooting Percentage, Effective Field Goal Percentage, Free Throw Percentage, Free Throw Rate, Offensive Rebound Percentage, Defensive Rebound Percentage, Assist Percentage, Steal Percentage, Block Percentage, Usage Rate, Offensive Win Shares, and Defensive Win Shares.
Season PER TS% eFG% FTr 3PAr TRB% AST% STL% TOV% USG% OWS DWS WS
2012-13 5.9 .431 .408 .277 .221 4.6 13.9 1.0 14.5 16.8 -1.2 0.1 -1.1
2013-14 11.6 .482 .443 .365 .209 5.6 18.7 1.8 12.3 21.3 0.2 0.4 0.6
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Only things that went down were his three-point rate (22% down to 21%) and his turnover rate (which is a good thing!); Other than that, he improved in every category. Perhaps most importantly, his ability to finish at the rim drastically improved. That is important for Rivers because he gets there so often, and with relative ease because of his handles and terrific first step. Last year, Austin had a field goal percentage of 48.8% on attempts within three feet. This year, he was at 53.6%. That is huge for a guy who took nearly 40% of his shots at the rim this season.

Talking to Austin this summer, he said that he was banged up much of last season and didn’t have his explosiveness. He said that in addition to getting healthy, he really worked on adding strength to his base and it showed this year. The really weird thing about last year was that Austin did not have a single dunk according to Basketball Reference. This was a guy who competed in multiple dunk contests in High School, so that was a little odd. This year he only had seven, but the increase in explosiveness was evident. And the stats simply showed increase across the board.

Playing Within Himself
Austin Rivers is starting to understand who he is as a basketball player. He cut his mid-range shot attempts in half because, well, he is not a good mid-range shooter at this point. He also started to make the simple play, rather than force things that weren’t there. Despite playing far more point guard this season (79% at PG compared to just 9% last year), his turnover rate went down and his assists that resulted in a dunk or a close shot went up by over 200% despite playing less minutes than he did last season.
He also learned how to attack while staying in control and giving himself a chance to finish at the rim. Rivers tripled his number of And-1′s this season and nearly doubled the amount of shooting fouls he drew this season (79 compared to 44 last season) while only committing 5 more offensive fouls this year. Rivers still has a ways to go, but it looks like he knows the path he needs to follow to get where he wants to be.

Spot Up Three
Eric Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Ryan Anderson, and Anthony Morrow were all terrific catch-and-shoot three-point shooters – all above 42% on the season. But Austin Rivers was the best of the bunch, as he hit 46.4% of his catch-and-shoot three’s according to NBA.com. Right behind Rivers in terms of where he fits in the league rankings in this category – Marco Belinelli. So, Rivers was terrific spotting up off the ball, and was far more balanced when he released the ball than he was last year.
Amongst players who attempted at least 60 catch-and-shoot threes, only Kyle Korver, Lebron James, and Stephen Curry shot a higher percentage. Read that sentence again. Okay, now pick your mind up off the floor, because it has undoubtably been blown. Seriously, this is an emerging part of Austin’s game, and you gotta imagine that as AD’s post game develops and Evans gets into the lane and creates for others, that Rivers could benefit big time when he is on the court with either of those guys. Or if Gordon moves to the bench and you put him in the pick and roll with Rivers spotting up, that could be a dangerous second unit. The development of this skill has made Rivers infinitely more valuable than he was at this time last year.

Defense
Look, I don’t have a bunch of fancy stats for this because defense is hard to capture statistically – especially for this team. The Pelicans’ defensive concept requires guys to help and recover so much that it is nearly impossible to assign praise or blame to a certain guy on each play. So for this one, I am just going to use the eye test. Rivers talks far more than last year and almost never misses a rotation. He also has great quickness and uses his hands well on defense without fouling too much. Combine that with the fact that he has become infinitely better jumping passing lanes and what you have here is the makings of a very good perimeter defender.

 

[tyfreak]

Pelicans have Casspi, Salmons, Reke, Jimmer? 2011 Kings live on lol.
 
Klay Thompson reportedly wants a max contract. Probably gonna get it from someone.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

I thought they were going to let Casspi go but they haven't yet from the best of my knowledge.

 

[tyfreak]

I thought they were going to let Casspi go but they haven't yet from the best of my knowledge.

He'll probably be cut before the season starts. Is the Pelicans roster full? Or do they have some roster space left

 

[jonathanlambert33]

Jrue / Rivers / Russ / Fredette
Gordon / 
Reke / Salmons / Miller / Casspi
Davis / Anderson / Babbitt / Young
Asik / Ajinca / Withey
 
So with Casspi you have 16, cut him and you have 15.

 

[RipCity32]

So apparently the Suns sign Greg to an offer sheet.
Which might be good news if it does happen, cause I highly doubt they would max him if they didn't max Bledsoe. 
 
But IDK if double S&Ts are allowed, but I love Bledsoe lol.

 

[Pugz]

dont think you can double sign and trade but they some players i like and we can have a handshake agreement and let them take greg and we sign bledsoe.

 

[RipCity32]

We have no cap left to sign Bledsoe do we? Or without Greg's caphold would we?
 
IDK if they would do a sign and trade though.