Agreed. I was thinking almost the exact same thing and came here to post it. I am very happy for him to get that ring.

Monty Williams fired, it’s like the Anthony Rendon of coaching contracts.

I would absolutely take the ignominy of being fired after 1 season for $65M.

Let the Williams to the Lakers rumors begin

Gotta say, even though I am not a huge hoops fan, BYU is killing this off-season under Kevin Young. Igor Demin, who is likely a lottery pick in 2025 draft, now Kanon Catchings, most likely a first round pick in 2025 as well, related to both Tamika and Harvey Catchings.

Young is really capitalizing on his NBA ties and the pro system the Cougars will be running next season. May be the first time ever I am more excited about BYU basketball than BYU football.

Legend at the bank!

A year plus after getting a $20 million buyout to no longer be the Suns head coach.

This kid is 15 and will be playing for the Gators.

I don't know how good he is but interesting to see how teams defend against him. His dunks must be something else!

Florida basketball giant Olivier Rioux extends his Guinness World Record height for a teenager to 7-FOOT-9 before Gators career begins | Daily Mail Online

It must be dreadful to be that tall.

The Bulls are trading Caruso to the Thunder for Giddey.

I'm not mad at that trade. It gets the Bulls a ball handler and someone who can run the offense. Hopefully, the shooting coach can help improve his shooting. Good gamble.

This would make OKC significantly better and Chicago a lot worse in the short term. Giddey is an interesting player, but a really difficult fit in today's NBA. I would have thought Chicago could do better, but Giddey is only 22 next season so they're betting on the upside I guess.

They could have done better but their ownership demands they compete for the play-in game each season instead of rebuilding. Report came out the other day that the Bulls turned down a top-10 pick for Caruso at the deadline.

how are the high school cheerleaders in Chicago?

Kenny fkn Atkinson.

I think it is hilarious and somewhat fitting for the franchise. The Hawks finally have the number one pick, and no one really has any idea what they are going to do with it, except whatever they do will likely be wrong.

That’s Bridges trade is great for the Knicks.

Idk, is he better than it appears from advanced statistics? He seems like a pretty mediocre starter.

It's a good fit and a fun trade (with the three Villanova guys reuniting), but seems pretty steep on the draft picks. If a guy like him is worth 4+ 1st round picks, that seems like quite a shake up on the value of picks in trades.

Yeah, 5 firsts for a guy that is *maybe* a #3 (prob a #4) on a title team. And it's not like he's 23, he's 27 and has just two years left on a great deal that will probably double if you keep him at age 29.

There's so many restrictions on those draft picks that I can't tell if it's a good deal or not.

This.

Looks to me like the Nets absolutely got bailed out here, all that Bridges has really proven is that he is not "the guy" And 5 firsts for "not the guy" seems like the sort of thing that is more likely to end some front office careers than to win a title.

That's kind of how I see it, too. If he is not cornerstone enough for a team like the Nets to build around (which he isn't with him presumably fully developed at his age) and isn't a slam dunk to put your playoff team over the top, that is a lot of future to mortgage.

Who in the hell thought it was a good idea to spread a 2 round drafted out over 2 days?

nets made a trade to get a bunch of their future picks back. So maybe this time they won’t suck and give a fucking title to someone.

As far as bridges goes, he’s basically indestructible, which is good because Tibs wants guys to play into the ground. He absolutely fits the potential title window of the Knicks. I’m not sure who else they could’ve gotten with all those assets. AD would have been a dream fit but he’s not available. The Knicks enter the season with 7-8 guys to go to war with. Maybe they gave up one or two too many first round picks, but this team can absolutely win a title now.

It makes me furious the Bulls couldn't get more for Caruso if that's the asking price for a nice role player.

The Knicks are still well behind:
1. Healthy Celtics team
2. Healthy Bucks team
3. Healthy Nuggets team

They are comparable to:
1. Healthy Thunder team
2. Healthy 76ers team
3. Healthy Heat team
4. Healthy Wolves team

I think they are fighting for the 3-5 seed next year IF they resign OG and somehow keep Brunson, OG, Bridges, Hart and Donte healthy. I guess they have a chance in the East if Giannis, Embiid, Jimmy & Haliburton get hurt again. But their core isn't anything special compared to the other top 5-6 groups in the league. So giving up 5 firsts to better your third guy (when you already lost the top 2 in most matchups) seems like a risky move.

They're behind the Celtics and Nuggets. Not sure about anyone else. They solid defenders all over their roster and someone to take up the scoring load if Randle goes out again. They're following the Celtics blueprint and aren't as good, but they have impressive depth and a variety of defenders to throw at top heavy teams. They have a poor man's Celtics roster that's probably on par with OKC and the T-Wolves. I put them over everyone in the East except Boston.

I don't see much risk here. You either push your chips in and make a play for a title or you sit just outside of contention until you have to rebuild anyway. If it doesn't work out there are always teams out there ready to throw picks at you to improve. Everyone thought Houston and Brooklyn screwed themselves for years to come and Houston has one of the stronger young foundations in the league and the Nets are flush with picks to rebuild with.

I'm not sure the Bulls understood what they had. Caruso has massive value to title contenders. For those teams with stars already in place you get a guy that can come in, knock down shots, defend, and make you clearly better without using many possessions on a cap hit of less than 10 mil per. That's something you pay a premium for when you're firmly within your window.

Just read through the details and 4 of those picks are unprotected which seems a bit insane. Like would the Nets really have turned down that trade if those picks were top 3 protected?

They reportedly turned down a top-10 pick in this year's draft. The Kings also offered them their 1st. Supposedly the Warriors offered multiple first last season. And Caruso was a way to dump the bad Lavine contract.

Their problem seems to be that the owner doesn't want to rebuild. He wants to just sneak into the playoffs and keep the arena full. The goal isn't titles, it's 40 wins. And trading Caruso for a bunch of future picks hurts that chance next season.

It's still criminal that they traded with a team that has like 10 first round picks in their pocket and they didn't get any. Especially when you realize the Bulls still owe the Spurs a 1st round pick.

I personally would have dumped Caruso for picks. Sign and trade with Demar for picks (a guy they should have moved at the deadline when he had a ton of value). And then pray you can get anything for Lavine. That way you're bad enough for the next year or two to keep your protected 1st too. But can't do that with the worst owner in sports.

I don’t understand trading the Dillingham pick for the Spurs. They have no guards.

Have the Lakers been sold to Donald Sterling and nobody told us?

I have not dove deep into the story but this Kyle Filipowski thing is wild. Apparently he's estranged from his family primarily due to his GF who was his babysitter at one point and they may have been in a relationship from as far back as when he was 13? I don't know if her age is confirmed but I've seen anywhere from 5 to 7 years older. Someone purporting to be his brother alleged she had groomed him, she's Mormon and he ended up drafted by Utah.

Sounds like she had as much influence on his draft slot as LeBron on his kid!

Just a weird story that came out of the blue (at least as someone who watched a bunch of college bball but didn't get into it that deeply - was this out there before now?).

No it wasn't. His brother broke the story on Twitter. Apparently teams saw all sorts of red flags with his interviews and had figured out what was going on but it hadn't leaked out until his brother went public with the info.

Weirdest shit since that ND linebacker got Catfished I think

5 years and 90 mil for Patrick Williams is insane. I'm not sure what Chicago is doing and I don't think they do either. He's, at best, an average defender and his offense is well below average. He's still only 22 years old but he also hasn't improved much in 4 seasons.

Chris Paul out to play in SA and make his 8th team unwatchable.

That’s basically the midlevel though.

I don't think it's just the salary, but the years as well. If he doesn't pan out, you have $18 million on the cap for the next five years.

Yep

Ball's contract comes off the books after this season and rather than working toward cap flexibility they tied up a guy for 5 years that they've been worse with on the court.

Glad to see Hartenstein get a bag. Still one of the more puzzling things was when the Cavs let him bounce for nothing.

The Bulls turned down 3 2nd round picks for Andre Drummond last season and just lost him for nothing.


Like I don't think the Williams contract is terrible considering what other players are getting and his upside, but the Bulls are just a disaster of an organization.

This is where I'm at. They are 6 months too late with the moves they're trying to make. Lavine, Caruso, and Drummond should've been traded by the deadline. Probably Derozan as well if they didn't have a deal in place. Now, they'll be stuck with Lavine with just Giddey to show for the others.

Yeah, they should have unloaded everyone at the deadline last year. Would have gotten a bunch of picks back and could have kickstarted the rebuild.

Now they don't have picks and still owe a 1st to San Antonio. They're in about as bad a spot as any team in the league.

Anyone like Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes or Franz Wagner at the max? Or probably Jalen Green or Evan Mobley soon? Or Kuminga?

5/225ish

Like tbh I’d rather have Suggs at whatever he gets which is like maybe 4/120? Suggs has been hurt too much but he just screams defensive cog on a championship team some day.

I've watched some of the warm up games for team USA and I don't think Steve Kerr is a very good international coach. It's crazy that a guy that comes from a team that really helped popularize the current 3 point era in the NBA doesn't seem to focus on shooting enough offensively and is terrible at coaching his USA teams to defend them.

I don't think Haliburton was a good choice on this team. Embiid isn't either. Lillard would have probably been the best choice over Haliburton but if they wanted a young player to get experience then Maxey would have fit this team better IMO.

Embiid was likely selected because of his status in the league but he's a poor fit for international play. I think Chet Holmgren would have been a solid choice over Bam Adebayo or Embiid. Myles Turner probably wouldn't have been a bad pick either. One thing the US seems to underestimate when they try to plug good NBA interior defenders into international play is how much more ground they're expected to cover. Holmgren's length and shooting would have been more valuable IMO.

That doesn't even get into the Derrick White selection which seems like a waste. And this seems to run counter to that comment but when they rebuilt USA basketball from the ground up after '04 the focus was on building a team that would do well in international competition. They seem to be focused too much on getting certain stars on the team again.

South Sudan can’t covert a six foot shot and lose at the buzzer to team USA by one point. Make Team USA great again.

Germany took 42 threes today compared to the US taking 16. They probably lose by double figures without Lebron.

That would have to go down as one of the greatest upsets in sports history, right? I know it was just an exhibition, but there is no reason South Sudan should be within 20 of Team USA playing even at half speed.

Nice! Now if we can work same magic on the football side …

I think the consensus is we have had alot of talent, just couldn’t make them all gel together well

I just saw one picture of Zion Williamson in shape and wasted $20 on an MVP future ticket at +10,000

A few of my critiques of Caitlin Clark from earlier in the season.





Getting to the basket more?......Check
Being more of a passer first? ...... Check
Shooting a few mid range jumpers?... Check

The Caitlin Clark that was the college player of the year last season has finally arrived in the W.

BTW she is still getting rocked once or twice a game just like every WNBA player. After being reacquainted with FIBA basketball for both the men and the women, I am now of the opinion that girls and women's basketball is called much more like the FIBA game for both the men and women while boys and men's basketball is called more like the NBA game.

ESPN has an article on the NBA asking the court to dismiss the TNT/Warner Brothers discovery, and lists all the changes that TNT/WBD made:

NBA files motion to dismiss Warner Bros. Discovery lawsuit - ESPN

I think the lawsuit will survive the motion to dismiss (it's VERY hard to get the judge to agree that no reasonable person could consider this a match), but it sounds like NBA's trying to play hardball here. (Realistically, this is all a waiting game, WBD/TNT want lots of money to go away, and the NBA doesn't want to give lots of money. Neither side actually wants to go to trial)

Apparently Damien Lillard was/is training with the Goggins. Safe to say he's not likely to have any conditioning issues next year.

This is pretty amazing considering where they started at the begining of the season. It is also amazing how much I enjoy watching the WNBA, or specifically watching the Fever play.

The Fever are the best offense in the WNBA. pic.twitter.com/T1an71Fhw7

— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) September 10, 2024

My sister and I watch every one of their games that we can, it's been incredibly fun following the league, I definitely want to go to a game next year.

Woj dropping the most massive Woj bomb today that he is retiring to go work for St Bonaventure. Helluva run.

It would have been better if Charania had scooped him.

KAT to the Knicks for Randle and other pieces?

I watched a little of the Fever but only because of Caitlin Clark.

Lot's of YT out there pro Clark and negativity towards Reece and the culture (?) of the WNBA. So, what is the real story?

Karl Anthony Towns vs. The NY media.

The Knicks better not lose one game.

Racism. Jealousy. Media exploitation. There are definitely old school WNBA players that don't like a straight white girl getting so much attention, but the media is exploiting that, especially right-wing media. Fans then have started attacking POC players both online and on the court with racist comments.

For the most part, you can watch the other players interact with Clark and see they get along. Most of it has been just click-farming. She has brought lots of eyes and people to the seats in the league, and players generally recognize that only means more money for everyone.

As for Reece in particular, they are rivals. She and Clark have clashed all through college. She has made comments that she feels unjustly ignored at times because of Clark. Really, it could be a fun rivalry if they hadn't started making it about race and brought in the rage-farmers.

The Knicks just got a whole lot dumber.

TIL Woj was making about $7 mil per year at ESPN when left to join the Bonnie's athletic department.

They are saying ESPN is considering moving MLB reporter Jeff Passan over to become their chief NBA insider.

UK had Big Blue Madness tonight and the worst kept secret in Lexington was that Pitino was going to show up. Now, I get it - Pope is his guy from the 1996 championship team, Pope has been preaching "UK family" and nostalgia for the (mostly) pre-Calipari UK teams, and Pitino was due for a proper return to Lexington.

That said... dude is the current, active head coach at St. John's! When Pope was a candidate, Pitino came out in support of him. Totally understandable. When he was hired, he made some noise about donating to the program (OK?). Now, he's shown up for the start of UK's season - wearing UK blue. I assume St. John's blessed his appearance (or at least didn't say no), but I find this whole thing incredibly weird. He's acting like a retired coach "coming home" when in fact he's still a head coach - AND will be playing UK this year.

I assume everyone here loved it, but I found it really awkward. St. John's fans/players cool with this?

Do they have a choice? Pitino may be a douchbag but he is also a hall of fame coach. If it bothers St. John's that much, they can fire Pitino. UK will demote Pope to lead assistant if they feel like being nice and then hire Pitino.

Would St. John's prefer to be with a hall of fame coach who has a night out or two with one of his exes or would they prefer not to have that hall of fame coach?

Well, apparently I'm not alone in thinking that was ridiculous and embarrassing.

#BREAKING: Big East commissioner Val Ackerman held a phone conference with St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino and AD Ed Kull this morning to discuss Pitino’s visit to Kentucky this weekend, per source.

Ackerman called the visit an “embarrassment to the conference” and “wholly… pic.twitter.com/h5RUEn8QnM

— Rob Reinhart (@RealRobReinhart) October 13, 2024

The rest of that tweet is - "Forced resignation for Pitino is on the table, among other possible sanctions for St. John’s, I’m told."

It was ridiculous, insulting to his players, and it's not like Pitino had any leverage to pull a stunt like that. The guy is 72 and damaged goods, or else he wouldn't be at St. John's. Programs aren't beating down his door to coach at their school at this point.

That seems to be a troll post from a low end source.

Another reason I stay away from Twitter these days. The reasons just keep piling up to delete the damn thing like I did FB a few years back.

I can understand it if St. John's wants to discipline him, but I don't see how the conference can do anything unless they have some sort of written rules.

Troll post aside, I can't see why it would be an issue for St. John's. It's not like he went back to Providence to celebrate his history with them. Providence is one of St John's conference rivals. He went to Kentucky under the invite of one of his former players who is now Kentucky's head coach to celebrate with other former players of his the achievements they all had at that school.

If he had left Louisville to do this, I get everyone being upset. This is St John's and this ain't Louie Carnesecca's St John's program either. This is a St. John's program that signed a 70 year old coach with Pitino's baggage to a 6 year deal for $20 million total. That suggests he has a bit more leverage that we may think. Add to that a Pitino rant where he absolutely insulted his players telling them they were not good enough motivated a donor contribute some $10 million to the NIL fund. He might have taken the school private jet to Lexington.

Bennett retiring from Virginia out of the blue today. Health or scandal related? Seems like some odd timing.

He's been really unhappy with the lack of NIL support and other things lately. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why and he takes a year off and then takes another job.

If someone told me an ACC coach was going to retire 2 weeks before the season starts, I'd have gone HAM. Coach Ham, that is.

If it's NIL/Portal stuff, that's really bad timing to screw over your players this close to the season. But maybe he just decided he couldn't recruit HS kids and portal players now knowing he was going to leave at the end of this season, so he ripped the band-aid off now.

First time since 1981 no coach in the ACC has a national championship on their resume.

A request for more NIL funding would have required a change in offensive style right? But it would make no sense in my opinion to expect Tony Bennett to change his style after all these years.

He retired this close to the season so his guy would get the job rather than a national search. Similiar to what Bo Ryan did during the season to ensure Gard got the job (and also to cover up how he used university money to fund his affair).

Bennett confirmed this was about NIL and portal - "The game and college athletics are not in a healthy spot. I think I was equipped to do the job the old way."

The changes in the sport made him $38 million over the past decade. Didn't see him complaining when it benefited him.

One thing the process is good for is exposing the coaches in college sports who realize they can't cut it when they don't have a massive talent advantage over other teams.

Well, that's his story at least. The timing of this sudden epiphany ... well that does give me some doubts.

A factor could be the fact he ain't won a tournament game since 2019. Another could be the realization he probably wasn't gonna win one this year either.

It's weird too because he has used the transfer portal successfully to bring in really good players. He just wasn't able to win with them. Still can't fathom how they couldn't make it out of the first round with that 2021 team.

My understanding is that it's what INDalltheway said - he timed it like this so his assistant would at least get first crack at showing he could be the head coach as interim, rather than doing it at the end of the year and allowing the school the time to do a full search and potentially exclude him. I don't know who "him" is and I don't know if that's true, but I've read that in multiple places/

Ron Sanchez, who was a coach for Bennett then took the job at Charlotte, had a losing record there, and landed back with Bennett last year. It's unlikely he'd even get an interview if they had a full offseason to make a hire. Now he's probably going to get a chance to coach this year and get an interview unless they can somehow pull someone with a couple weeks left until the season starts.

The rumor at the start of this past coaching cycle was that Bennett would at least listen to offers to leave UVA because he wasn't getting enough NIL support. If he wants to sit out for a year or two he'll have his choice of jobs as they open. Dealing with recruiting high school players, transfers, and your own players 24/7 isn't for everyone. I 100% get any of the older guard coaches wanting to step away from the mess NCAA sports are right now.

For all the hype from this rookie class, the WNBA is apparently going to lose $40 million, which is an improvement over the projected $50 million.

https://www.si.com/onsi/womens-fastb...a-01jah39wngp2

The phantom call that forced overtime was super cute. Nice fix

What a fucking joke of a call

I'm not sure how to assess the back-to-back stories this week about the WNBA losing $40M and the players opting out of the CBA to get "a bigger piece of the pie." Plenty of people are making money off the league, I'm sure, and we're all aware of how teams and leagues hide profits and cry poor (I don't know enough about the WNBA to understand its economics aside from the fact that the NBA is thr main investor and appears to be propping the league up for an ROI that may never come), but if it's not profitable, seems like a hard ask for a bigger portion of revenues.

I think that "loss" release was exactly targeted because the owners knew the opt out was coming. If the owners were in real danger of losing on their investment, Golden State and Toronto wouldn't be paying $50 million a piece in franchise fees to get in, and Portland wouldn't be paying $60 million. Toronto and Portland also having to invest another $50 million on top of that in facilities and other cost.

Yeah I get it. I'd love to see the true financial picture - of any of these leagues, really. But I will allow for some truth to the idea of "ramp up" losses and some impatience with things happening more slowly than anticipated/promised.

The "financial loss" is inconsequential since it's based off the old media deal. The new media deal starts in 2026 and jumps from $60 million to $200 million. That should wipe out all losses and put the teams into the black. The league is also no longer footing the bill for production costs like they were on their old deal which likely saves millions as well.

I was wondering about that and meant to look it up when i got home. I thought they had signed a new deal, but didn't realize it hasn't even kicked in. Tv deals are where most league derive their biggest income. So, yeah. The woman are on pretty good ground to demand a raise, even while the billionaires cry poor as usual.

I keep meaning to checkout the end of the WNBA finals.

Seems like some Minnesota state rep should designate 01/19 as “Sabrina Ionescu Day” to protest the outcome.

Celtics should get the NBA record for most threes.. they scored their 29 threes in just 39 minutes.. then went 0 for 13 the last nine *laughs*

Those last Pitino teams at Kentucky (1995-96 national champs and 1996-97 runner-ups who lost in overtime playing the tournament without arguably their best player; group also seeded large part of 1997-98 Tubby Smith-coached champs) were collectively an incredible accumulation of talent—even with the 94-95 team’s number two scorer and assist man (and future NBAer) Rodrick Rhodes transferring to USC to sit out a year and then finish his collegiate career in 96-97. Just off the top of my head: Wayne Turner, Anthony Epps, Derek Anderson, Tony Delk, Jeff Shepherd (redshirted scheduled 96-97 senior year, F4 MOP in 97-98), Allen Edwards, Cameron Mills, Ron Mercer, Heshimu Evans, Antoine Walker Walter McCarty, Scott Padgett, Jared Prickett, Nazr Mohammed, Jamaal Magloire, Mark Pope…

The question is how much of a raise they're looking for, and the twist is the new 3v3 league with 30 of the best players (but no CC yet). I don't think today's players have any sympathy for the years of losses up to this point, but if I was a backer I'd feel entitled to a higher portion of the profits that are finally here as payback for some of those. TNT also only needed to pay ~$8 million a year to pay all 30 players at least the WNBA max of $250k (plus equity) for much less work and travel, and if they've got that as a fallback those top players may be a lot less willing to compromise on a smaller graduated pay increase for the WNBA. None of this happens until after next season, so I don't see any deal getting worked out in that time and both sides getting a data point on how that league does TV rating wise and whether the WNBA can capitalize on the recent popularity surge or if it still stays really Caitlin Clark centric.