I feel myself vomiting - Melo and Bron????

[D.o.s.]

Because Charles Barkley didn't spend half of his career chasing rings.

Because Michael Jordan didn't tell the front office which stars to surround himself with.

Because you couldn't even build the '86 Celtics under Today's CBA.

Because I'm sure no LA player ever colluded with anyone about joining the Lakers. Ever.

Asking your front office to surround you with other great players that compliment your game to have a chance to contend is not the same as colluding with the other elite players to form a dream team.  That's a shortcut, it's not competition.  It's bad for the league and bad for their own legacies.

That is such an arbitrary line to draw, and you know it. What about Rodman's assertion that Phil Jackson made him apologize to Scottie Pippen, face to face, as a prerequisite to joining the Bulls while Rodman was in Chicago being recruited? Is that not collusion because it was a coach, even though Pippen (obviously) knew what was going on and why?

[hpantazo]

For some reason I can't picture Bird ever thinking that he really wants to team up wih Magic and MJ, or Magic or MJ thinking the same thing. Nope, it would never happen. They were far too driven to be better than each other to ever consider teaming up in he NBA.

It's like when you play pickup ball outdoors or at the local gym and all the really good players team up and crush the weekend warriors. No one has fun and there is no point to it, it just sucks. When the good players have an ounce of pride and want to have some fun challenging themselves, they demand to be on different teams.

[fairweatherfan]

Yeah, I have a hard time grasping the logic that says that Larry Bird's front office going out and getting him multiple HOF teammates is A-OK, but if Larry had gone out and gotten those same teammates through his own efforts, it would somehow be a knock on him.  Doubly so if he was willing to - gasp! - take a pay cut to do it.  The latter situation would mean Larry played an even bigger role in his own success, instead of just landing in a good situation and making the most of it.  And if he had the same contract and free agency rules we have now, who knows, he might well have tried.

I think the real anger here is that first, it hurts the Celtics for this to happen, and second, a lot of fans are really uncomfortable with star players taking control of their own destinies instead of just passively accepting whatever their often incompetent management can put around them.

why is that so difficult?  in Boston's case, both in Bird's time and with the recent title, they had to give up valuable assets to get the players to go with Bird and Pierce.  the players they acquired were on legit contracts paying the players their legit values.  In Miami's case, they gave up nothing other than releasing some scrub players and had teh benefit of top players agreeing to sign deals at below-market value.  to me, that's player collusion and cheating the system. 

It's so difficult because we hear again and again about this noble ideal that players should put team success ahead of money and individual accolades.  Here we have players (possibly) doing exactly that, and it's a travesty somehow because they're too good at it.  Is it a great situation for Miami's franchise?  Sure.  But that doesn't change the fact that what we're talking about is players doing what "selfless" players are supposed to do. 

And Red wasn't exactly known for giving up fair value for the guys he brought over here.  Underpaying other teams for their talent was how he got a reputation as such a great team builder.

if they pulled off something and were able to add Melo to that bunch, I would hope Silver would step in and do something to prevent it in the name of preventing harm to the game.  much like Bowie Kuhn did in baseball with the firesale of the Oakland A's top players.  Personally, I'd be fine with a 1-year suspension from the league with no pay (annulment of any contract they signed as well) for all players involved and a heavy financial penalty for the team as well as the loss of draft pick(s).

This would be more damaging to the league than anything four top players on the same team could do.  It'd be the Chris Paul veto x4, plus a year without multiple top stars, plus the massive legal issues of the NBA overriding and penalizing a completely legal move by a team they don't own.

[Moranis]

LeBron/Wade/Bosh would be voluntarily giving up millions.

Melo would as well.  That's why I don't think there's any chance this will happen.  For all the talk of the Miami 3 "giving up" money, they're still among the top 13 highest paid players in the league.  They only "gave up" a few million dollars over the life of their contracts.

In this scenario, the only way it could happen is if Bron, Wade and Bosh agree to sign for no more than about 15 million each and Melo agreed to sign for that amount as well.  So, even if they'd all get another opt out after 3 years, they would be giving up AT LEAST 15 to 20 million dollars over that span.  And even then, those 4 and Udonis Haslem would still be over the salary cap.

Mike

They gave up approximately 2 million a year as well as the additional year.

[Moranis]

For some reason I can't picture Bird ever thinking that he really wants to team up wih Magic and MJ, or Magic or MJ thinking the same thing. Nope, it would never happen. They were far too driven to be better than each other to ever consider teaming up in he NBA.

It's like when you play pickup ball outdoors or at the local gym and all the really good players team up and crush the weekend warriors. No one has fun and there is no point to it, it just sucks. When the good players have an ounce of pride and want to have some fun challenging themselves, they demand to be on different teams.

and yet Magic Johnson is on record as saying the only reason he came out after his junior year of college was because the Lakers won the coin flip and he wanted to go play with Kareem.  He would have stayed at MSU had the Lakers not had the first pick.

[fairweatherfan]

For some reason I can't picture Bird ever thinking that he really wants to team up wih Magic and MJ, or Magic or MJ thinking the same thing. Nope, it would never happen. They were far too driven to be better than each other to ever consider teaming up in he NBA.

It's like when you play pickup ball outdoors or at the local gym and all the really good players team up and crush the weekend warriors. No one has fun and there is no point to it, it just sucks. When the good players have an ounce of pride and want to have some fun challenging themselves, they demand to be on different teams.

and yet Magic Johnson is on record as saying the only reason he came out after his junior year of college was because the Lakers won the coin flip and he wanted to go play with Kareem.  He would have stayed at MSU had the Lakers not had the first pick.

Yup, and a certain Boston organization wound up with the #1 the following year.  So it very feasibly could've happened.  I suppose Magic would've done the noble thing and promptly demanded a trade to a team with worse teammates.

[MBunge]

LeBron/Wade/Bosh would be voluntarily giving up millions.

Melo would as well.  That's why I don't think there's any chance this will happen.  For all the talk of the Miami 3 "giving up" money, they're still among the top 13 highest paid players in the league.  They only "gave up" a few million dollars over the life of their contracts.

In this scenario, the only way it could happen is if Bron, Wade and Bosh agree to sign for no more than about 15 million each and Melo agreed to sign for that amount as well.  So, even if they'd all get another opt out after 3 years, they would be giving up AT LEAST 15 to 20 million dollars over that span.  And even then, those 4 and Udonis Haslem would still be over the salary cap.

Mike

They gave up approximately 2 million a year as well as the additional year.

The additional year didn't mean much to Bosh or Bron and I wonder if even Wade really thought about it.  It wouldn't surprise me if all three expected to opt out after three years and sign longer extensions for more money.  But now Wade and Bosh have to know that if they opt out again, they're never getting that money back.

Mike

[ram]

I hate the Heat.  I hate Pat Riley and most of all, I hate DWade.  Lebron is overrated.

But the bottom line is that Red would have tried to do the same thing if he were running things in Boston right now.  He would pitch the idea of winning championships by players taking less money to allow for more talent to come aboard. And, knowing Red, he would have built an even better team because he was better at identifying talent and how they would mesh together.

Red tried to get Wilt to go to a school in New England so he could use the territorial draft rule of the time to snatch Wilt when he came out.

[obnoxiousmime]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11070401/could-miami-heat-really-afford-big-four-nba

Don't know if anybody's posted this yet but this insider article goes through all the possible scenarios of Melo going to Miami to join the big 3. I'm a lot less worried after reading this because the salary penalty is a lot greater than I imagined. These 4-5 year deals will likely be their last big contracts and while it may not be a huge hit for LeBron, the other guys don't have the same endorsement money he does. Also, it would require Haslem to decline a 4.6 million dollar option that he will never make back considering he's a minimum salary guy now.

That is, unless LeBron (wink wink) tells Haslem he will "take care of him." =)

[celticsclay]

I think it's a lot of fuss over nothing.

The team with the most talented players doesn't always win. 

2013 Lakers - many people thought they were practically a lock to be in the Finals and face the Heat, yet they barely made the playoffs.

2004 Lakers with Shaq, Kobe, Malone, and Payton. A lot of people thought they'd challenge the 72 win mark and sweep the playoffs.

2002 Bucks.  Coming off a 7 game ECF battle, added All-Star Anthony Mason to their trio of All-Stars (well to be fair Cassell wasn't an All-Star yet, but putting up All-Star level numbers).  Pretty much a shoe in to go to the Finals in the weak East.  Didn't even make the playoffs.

2001 Blazers.  Coming off a game 7 WCF collapse, traded away no rotation players to add All-Stars Shawn Kemp and Dale Davis.  Many believed they were a serious contender to the title.

2002, 2004, 2006 Team USA men's basketball teams.  (Plus all the other gold medal winning teams since 2000 have had several single digit wins even though they have 10x the individual talent).

Barkley joining up with Olajuwon and Drexler?
Pippen joining up with Olajuwon and Barkley?

Pretty much every Coach K or Calipari team that doesn't win the NCAA title.

Every one of those teams (except maybe the Drexler/Barkley/Olajuwon team and the NCAA teams) ended up imploding.

Even this current superstar Heat team has had great 7 game battles with San Antonio, Boston, and Indiana, and lost in 6 games to the Mavs, and may lose to the Spurs again this year.

This won't ruin the NBA.  Besides everybody likes cheering against Goliath.

There's only one ball.  How effective is Carmelo Anthony going to be getting 1/4 the shots he get's now?  Will the Heat offense be that much more effective?  Probably not as he'll just be taking shots away from LeBron, Wade, and Bosh.  There defense on the other hand will probably get worse.  While a favorite to win, that team will still be beatable.

You realize that half of these are ridiculous comparisons? I would say the only valid comparison starting point might be the first lakers, although I think the public at the time was failing to realize that Malone was 40 and Payton 35.


The Blazers as all star team? They had a lot of big names on that team, but Shawn Kemp weighed 315 pounds at the time of that trade and was a shell of his former self. He would go on to average 7 points and 3 rebounds in 15 minutes as he ate his way out of the league. Davis was a solid big man, but definitely not a superstar. That team had one borderline superstar in a 26 year old rasheed Wallace. Everyone else was in their early to mid 30's and not that great to begin with.

The bucks? The words Anthony mason and all star have rarely been strung together. Are we really comparing the likes of glenn robinson, cassell and mason to Carmelo Anthony, wade and bosh?

You got to be able to have better examples than this.

[KGs Knee]

I dunno, I just don't buy it.

Lebron might very well be willing to take a significant pay cut, but I struggle to see Melo, Wade and Bosh all taking the sizeable cuts necessary to fit their salaries under the soft cap.  Those guys don't make anywhere near the amount of money Lebron makes off the court.

This soft cap this year is due to be approx. $61m or so, so that means they'd have to each take salaries south of $14m each, when you account for Halsem's player option, and the various cap holds for their draft picks and empty roster slots.  Even if Riley can convince Halsem to decline his player option (doubt it), I just can't imagine a scenario where Melo, Wade and Bosh all take such low salaries.

Unless, of course, Lebron plans on playing for the veteran's minimum.

[D.o.s.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wOp62MwZkQ

For fun.

[MBunge]

that doesn't change the fact that what we're talking about is players doing what "selfless" players are supposed to do. 

Conspiring with other great players to team up and beat everybody else isn't "selfless".  It's selfish and cowardly.

Does anyone think that the reason this wasn't done in the past is because those players weren't "selfless" or didn't want to win as much as LeBron?  No.  It's because those guys wanted to beat other great players to prove their own greatness, not team up with them to try and stack the deck in their favor.

Mike

[Moranis]

that doesn't change the fact that what we're talking about is players doing what "selfless" players are supposed to do. 

Conspiring with other great players to team up and beat everybody else isn't "selfless".  It's selfish and cowardly.

Does anyone think that the reason this wasn't done in the past is because those players weren't "selfless" or didn't want to win as much as LeBron?  No.  It's because those guys wanted to beat other great players to prove their own greatness, not team up with them to try and stack the deck in their favor.

Mike

Pretty easy to not have to conspire to team up when you are drafted into a team with other HOFers already on the roster (or who join you soon after you).  Lebron James was in Cleveland for 7 years.  And while Zydrunas Ilgauskas is a nice player, he should never be the second best player on your team as he was virtually James' entire career in Cleveland. 

[Waew]

People don't realize these are 4 top 15 players on the same team. It has never happened before, and naming past good teams WIll not change that.