Topic: American Sports

@Th3solution oh, for sure it will be bumpy. I quite like some of the role players though, so if we can keep them, promote some of the younger group too, I'll still be interested in watching the team develop, even without Tatum.

Bane to Orlando sounds good. Hadn't heard that one. Orlando can't shoot, Bane can shoot. Easy to see how that will help! Plus he's kind of gritty, not an all out dog, but definitely willing to grind a little. A player I liked a few years back when I watched more Memphis before the Ja saga.

Holiday is apparently pi$$ed, which is kind of sad to see. Not sure where else he could have landed, but maybe someone will offer Portland something, I guess you can re-trade?

Boston and the picks, one of the execs actually kind of let slip the potential reason for it, a future blockbuster trade 😅 he mentions how having a little extra in draft capital can be what edges a trade over the line when you have to give up multiple picks/players. Seemed a weird thing to say now, but he did.

@Ravix Yeah, I think players can be re-traded without ever playing a game for a team, but I can’t think of a time when it’s happened off the top of my head. Usually the way these multi-player and multi-team deals are worked intricately beforehand, they’ve looked at most of the scenarios already. Holiday could definitely be traded again though after the season starts and could be a good trade chip to offer mid-season before the trade deadline (in Feb I think it is) to a team who discovers they’re right on the brink of competing and are just lacking that one piece of a veteran defensive minded guard with a lot of playoff experience. Right now, his salary is probably too high to get teams willing to pay, but if Portland is stinking in Feb and a team like LA or Miami, etc has a need and a win-now attitude then it could definitely happen.

I think Orlando may have slightly overpaid for Bane (I think they gave a couple players and like 4 first round picks) but I agree that he’ll make them better and they’ll definitely be a team to watch out for.

As for Boston, I think they would have had more leverage to try to package their picks and a couple players for a blockbuster deal before the actual draft rather than after. Now that the draft happened, the value of picks is less until we get into the latter part of the season and teams start looking at the future again. But this is Boston, and it’s a big draw to just be there for the organization in a legendary market, so maybe it could attract attention for players to force their teams to move them there. I wonder if there’s still a blockbuster deal yet to come. Giannis still hasn’t been moved. Giannis for some package of White, Pritchard, Kornet, and some picks…. I don’t know how the money adds up but that would be interesting.

Apparently the biggest flop so far this offseason is the Brooklyn Nets. They had like 5 first round picks and rather than trade any of them for star players or to move around in the draft, they used all five, and used four of them on guards, all of which have similar play styles and similar poor shooting ratings. It’s the epitome of just throwing everything up against the wall and seeing what sticks. Not a way you want to run your franchise.

@Th3solution I think the future trade idea was more for next season when Tatum is coming back and they would know where they stand ready for the next push, so draft night 2026 or whatever. I suppose it depends if they tank for a season, or if Joe decides to force them to fight and see what happens in the weird east, where you could see a top 6 still being quite attainable.

But the main thing this year is being below the second curtain, or whatever (this is potentially where tbe sport loses people, I know I can't be bothered to study the financial rules that much) Boston are the guinea-pigs for that sh** and it will give the league a good look at what they all agreed to haha. It is funny in a league that is trying to grow that you are potentially hampering all the biggest markets. It's probably lucky LeBron will have to retire at some point, as LA would end up in trouble if they wanted a third star too.

Are Brooklyn hoping they luck into 2 generational talents in one go? I suppose technically their chances of that happening increase the more they draft 🤷‍♂️ or are they playing the long game and when everyone is financially restricted they make their move with unlimited cap space in x years time

Edit: just going to add a little quote about the importance of getting under the second apron. It doesn't particularly enthrall me, but its handy to know.

"The Celtics can now aggregate contracts," Forsberg said. "They can now send out money (in trades). ... You can put multiple players in a trade. ... Traded player exceptions are now in play, sign-and-trades; there are just so many more avenues now to go get players who can add to this roster."

As a concrete example: Say the Celtics wanted to trade for a player making roughly $18-$20 million next season. As a second apron team, they wouldn't be able to pull off such a deal, because they don't have a player with a 2025-26 salary in that range. But now that they're under the second apron, they hypothetically could package Sam Hauser ($10 million salary) and Georges Niang ($8.2 million) in a trade for that player making $18-$20 million.

That opens more doors for Stevens to tweak the roster, especially if there's interest in Hauser, Niang or Anfernee Simons, who was acquired in the Holiday trade and is set to make $27.7 million this season on an expiring contract."

Not sure how many small market baseball fans are on here, but if you havnt noticed, the Milwaukee Brewers have a new ace pitcher and he is so fun to watch. Just youtube Jacob Misiorowski. His pitches are crazy good, regularly hitting 100+ on his fastball and 96! On his slider. We may have a third of top teams payroll, but we have a shot.

@Th3solution were the Spurs one of the 14 teams you follow? 😛 because they just got Luke Kornet 😭😭😭😭

I'm genuinely gutted about that loss. Ahh, who needs centers anyway? 😭😭😭😭

Amazing sudden career trajectory for Luke, a great story, and a great contract for him. But damn, it's not just the loss of his sneaky good talent, but his attitude and ability to create a positive atmosphere by being a massive goofball, and his work ethic.

@Ravix Yeah, I keep my eyes on the Spurs and they are quietly making their way up the NBA relevancy ladder. I would have said that they’ve done enough to be a fringe contender already (provided Wemby makes a good recovery) when they nabbed Fox and got the second best player in the draft, but now with Kornet they look even better. They have one of the most savvy front offices in the NBA (and as I noted before, one of the luckiest franchises too).

@Th3solution I was wondering why I kept seeing Damian Lillard linked with the Celtics, despite the fact we cant afford to pay players, but I've finally seen it is because teams can pay him a veteran minimum while the Bucks (I guess?) continue to pay him the rest of his money? (No idea how it works or what offsets are in relation to NBA rules)

So in theory Lillard and JT could rehab together and come back the next season in a stacked squad 🤷‍♂️

I'm not exactly cheering on for this to be the direction they take as I like defensive effort and a certain style of play, but in a way I do think it'd be interesting to see as a way for them to assemble another popular/marketable title contending squad. And I imagine the league would want that story. And if the Bucks do have to keep paying him, then that just makes it all the more better if he ends up on a contender of some sort.

Whether Lillard wants it will be interesting to see, but I wouldn't want the C's to give up a Pritchard or a White in the meantime with a gamble on two players coming off severe injuries.

What do you make of this. And is there any other fun news or potential stories in the NBA off season developing yet?

@Ravix I did see those rumors about Lillard to Boston and I had similar thoughts to you. I’m not sure how it works in the salary cap side and which team has to pay what. But from a basketball perspective, he’s a great offensive player when healthy, perhaps top 5 in the league, but I’m not sure I’d want him on my squad. He’s never really been a consistent winner. There’s a certain mojo that he hasn’t quite figured out. Some of that may be bad luck on the teams he’s been on, but some of it feels like is a lack of leadership and as you say, not a defensive minded player that I’ve seen.

Most of the recent moves in the Association have been peripheral, exchanges of role players and signing of bench players and young talent. It seems like all has quieted down for the time being and we may not see a big splash until the season starts. The biggest thing lately that I can recall is the Deandre Ayton to Lakers move. He’s a guy with the talent that should fit right in with the backcourt heavy squad of Doncic, James and Reeves. They needed a big man down low and he’ll fit in perfectly, since he won’t necessarily need to score a lot, just rebound and defend and look for those lob passes. My only concern is that he’s been an overall disappointment for a number 1 pick, in general, and I see chatter that it’s because he’s a bit on the lazy side and doesn’t really put 100% effort. We’ll see.

@Th3solution what's that, Domin-Ayton lazy? 😱 but I did think it is potentially a good fit, like you, when I saw it, if being in LA doesnt go to his head like when he declared himself to be the aforementioned Domin-Ayton. Which has to be the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever called themselves when they are in fact bang average. ["Bang average" is a British English colloquialism used to describe something that is thoroughly mediocre or unremarkable, often implying that it falls short of expectations] thought i'd include that little description as this phrase is mostly used by the bang average english football fan 😅

I did look into the Lillard thing a little more, The Bucks Waived him, but they still owe him 3 or 4 Years of wages 🙈 so any team that signs him can indeed offer a veteran minimum contract and get a very cheap top tier talent, which negates the risk of the injury in terms of wasting cap space, so a lot of teams will be in for him. LA and Golden State among the big names along with the C's.

Al Horford is reportedly on his way to the west coast too 😭😭😭 If he wants one more year to compete for a title right away it makes sense, but it will hurt, and I still hope he comes back to coach in Boston when he does retire, if he does wave goodbye i'm hoping it is more of a goodbye for now.

For UK/Ireland based American Football watchers:

Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its long-standing partnership with the league to over 30 years and cementing its position as the home of the NFL in the UK & Ireland.

Fans can once again look forward to the best games every week on Sky, with the broadcaster having the first-pick exclusive game on Sunday at 6pm live on Sky Sports NFL and the first pick for the Sunday 9pm game.

There will also be more choice as a second game at 6pm and up to an additional two games at 9pm will also be shown live on Sky Sports concurrently.

In another first, all London and Europe games will be broadcast live on Sky, including the highly anticipated inaugural games in Ireland and Spain. Combined, this equates to a near 50 per cent increase in the number of live matches available to Sky Sports customers.

The highly popular NFL RedZone programme will also continue to be shown live on Sky, alongside every Thursday Night, Sunday Night and Monday Night Football, Thanksgiving games, the Playoffs and the Super Bowl.

Not bad. I thought when I read a while back that ITV/C5 were getting some games in the 6pm/9pm slot that Sky had decreased its selection as none of the usual night games were mentioned in that article at the time. But it seems, with this announcement, they are getting everything as usual, plus a bunch more games. As well as some games being free to air on C5 & 5 Action. A good year for NFL UK

@Ravix That's great that (like football) they are going to have options of games to watch at the main slots and overall show more games. Over the last few seasons I find myself enjoying NFL more than I do Premier league football.
Eager for it all to get going next weekend.

@BearsEatBeets honestly, I fell off Premier League football years ago, the only mild interest has been kept by playing bloody FC games. I barely recognise the game any more, and the action vs f*** all happening ratio has severely leaned in favour of f*** all happening. Scottish football is actually far more worth watching than the English game, but even that I rarely watch. It is far more open a style, though, and far more entertaining because of it.

American football I dip in and out of, but as I have a good deal on Sky Sports anyway that makes it worth keeping, this year might be one to watch a few more games, especially with there being more options. And with the potential of a more dissapointing Boston Celtics season (if they get one more big injury they might pack it in for the year) the opening for a bit more NFL instead of NBA might be there.

Though, the only actual NFL news I've seen lately related to Cam Ward and Jeff Simmons having a training ground rivalry that actually feels like it adds some personality to the Titans. As long as Ward doesn't get himself flattened, i'm all for it 😂 it brought the O-line together though, apparently. So maybe it was manufactured to build a cult of protection. Probably not though, I think Cam Ward is possibly just a big f***ing wind up merchant haha.

I will have to draft you and @Th3solution in, and any others still here, for a more broad league wide perspective. I can't even keep up with one 52 man squad, (52 is right... right?) Let alone the entire league

@Ravix 53, actually 😄

@Elfuggingjefe I thought I’d move the discussion over here to save the other thread from all the American sports talk.

But yeah, I do enjoy both college and NFL. I follow several teams but in college I usually follow the SEC teams, the Big 10, and some Big 12. In the Pros I usually follow the NFC but in the AFC I do like a few teams, like KC and Baltimore. If I don’t have a rooting interest, I like to see underdogs prevail, so I do feel for the Jets fans out there. It’s been rough for a lot of years. 😅

@Elfuggingjefe I typically get more interested the higher the stakes get — so playoff time and such. But early season excitement also attracts me. And so, like you I do have a wide range of sports engagement, but a lot of them are only during playoffs or tournaments. For example, I can’t be fussed about soccer unless it’s the World Cup. Baseball and Ice Hockey only catch my eye during championship season. I love the Olympics, but never watch track and field or skiing or figure skating or whatnot at any other time. Football and Basketball are probably my two main consistent interests.

I’m with you on the statistics and history aspects. I like to get into those things sometimes.

I'm not sure if anyone on the forum side of things likes golf to a great degree (some in the comments section side of the site definitely do) But I suppose this is a belated round of applause for Tommy Fleetwood, as I didn't bother posting at the time because I doubt anyone cares haha. But that was a good watch, and the post above by man of many names @Elfuggingjefe 🫡 kind of alludes to why sports can be a great watch. Storylines. Natural, unwritten storylines that play out in front of us. And that was what Tommy Fleetwoods win had going for it. One of the most consistently high finishing golfers on the PGA tour, multi time winner around the world, but in the American PGA Tour, he could never get it done. And leading up to the final chance of the season he'd been in position to finally win multiple times, and absolutley thrown it away, in the nicest terms possible, it looked like he would be a perennial bottle job. To me, I always thought, well, to be that good and that consistent in rhe biggest of tournaments, it will obviously happen at some point, by default, because, you know, finishing top 5 in majors and big events a lot is not an easy thing to do to start with, but you have to factor in pressure, and the mental side of the game in terms of getting it over the line across 4 days of play. So yeah, massively longer comment than I expected, but seeing him get it done after all of that pressure had built up was a real moment, only second to Rory McIlroy finally winning the Grand Slam this year after years of not being able to win any major, let alone the one he really wanted.

And now with the Ryder Cup teams locked in, maybe casual fans will be here for that. So I thought, might as well make a golf post.

Any Americans want to start a (faux) rivalry to make it more interesting, speak up, and/or come at me bro! 💪😤

Who you got Sol? Europe, you say? 😁 @Th3solution

@Ravix Not all that into golf, outside of occasionally playing it, that is. If memory serves, the U.S. hasn’t had a good showing at the Ryder Cup for a while so I don’t see it happening now. I look at the names on the list of team members and don’t recognize any, so hard to really get pumped for an upset. 😅

@Th3solution most of the likeable golfers are European anyway, so you can just support them, if you'd like.

By the look of it, the US team is quite boring, but form player based. Griffin and Henley deserved a spot, for sure. Scheffler is golf's robot. Cantlay is like a piece of boiled meat with some hair stuck on to it, and his personality is probably worse than a piece of boiled meat with hair stuck on to it. Schaufelle is great, but had a sh** year. I think the only player on the US i'd root for would be JT. But JJ Spaun had a great year and isn't unlikable. De Chambaux is a jacked nutcase, but, in that team, at least he is genuinely weird and interesting and has a bit about him.

European team is far more fun to watch, but i'd not necessarily call them favourites, as playing in the US (New York Crowd) will be tough. But at least they aren't robotic.

We shall make you care and convert you into a golf fan, yet. The New York setting will be a character of its own. And maybe if the US get battered, a certain orange blob might be fit to burst.

Almost forgot the NFL season kicked off last night/this morning (UK time). I watched the highlights a little while ago and a pretty decent first game. A game of 2 halves to be sure, offence game then defensive game. Jalen Hurts looked sharp.
I checked the schedule and saw the Chiefs playing tonight but discovered Sky despite all their extra games don't have it, not even highlights. With a quick search though I've found out YouTube is actually showing it live for free which is great. I'm assuming it will be watchable as a VOD after it has finished and not just live only, I don't think I'm up for staying up that late (though slightly pondering it).

@BearsEatBeets
I'm doing what I did last night. Going to bed at 9pm with alarm set for 12.30am getting up to watch the game then going back to bed for a few hours.... Dedication is what you need! Though the hours delay in the first game due to the weather didn't help!!!
Kind of wanted both teams to lose but REALLY wanted the Cowboys to lose. Guess America's Team is not also the UKs Team (At least not in my house).

@sorteddan You won't see this until you get back up then 😄.

I much more leaning towards staying up for it now. I originally planned on rewatching it as a VOD when I get up in the morning but searching for 10/15 minutes I can't find any information to confirm that will be possible. I might have to also get a nap in, or make myself a late cup of tea in a while.