Jake

Going to be hard to evaluate what teams are doing now that players commit so early that they are rarely seen by outside evaluators.

I think what you'll find even with the Astros and Cubs is that at least in terms of sheer numbers, draft and international free agency are not the main tools used to build the teams in the rebuild period. Of course, hitting big on a small number of draft picks was crucial. Getting something from the "oops" years (when the rebuild had not begun but the team wasn't good) is also important (e.g., Altuve, Javy Baez, Willson Contreras). For the Cubs: Kris Byrant Kyle Schwarber (wasn't an important piece in WS year, though) For the Astros: Carlos Correa Lance McCullers Alex Bregman Both teams have some rebuild-era draft picks that are on the fringe of being core contributors (e.g. Almora, Bote) that I'm not yet including. The other method of course is trading for those important pieces as part of the rebuild. For the Cubs: Jake Arrieta (for that old starter whose name I forget) Anthony Rizzo (for Cashner, basically the first move of the new regime) Kyle Hendricks (for Dempster) Addison Russell (for Samardzija/Hammel) Pedro Strop (same deal as Arrieta) Carl Edwards Jr. (for Garza) I wouldn't include the post-rebuild trades like Chapman, Wade Davis, Mike Montgomery (if he would count as an important piece anyway) For the Astros: Joe Musgrove (for JA Happ) Brad Peacock (for Jed Lowrie) Evan Gattis (for Foltynewicz) Ken Giles (part of mega-deal) Brian McCann (acquired as salary dump) I'm leaving out most importantly Justin Verlander who was acquired at the waiver deadline once their rebuild was quite clearly over with. Everything else for those teams came either from times before the rebuild began, via free agency, or moves post-rebuild.

Feels a little like the new supermax contracts will end up not helping teams keep their stars all that much and instead leave them paying even more to second-tier stars that never would have left even if there was no supermax.

FWIW, it's clear that part of Kyrie's choosing to go to Brooklyn is that he is from NJ and clearly sees himself as a New Yorker. That opened the door to pulling KD in as well, who is not a native New Yorker. Probably speaks quite ill of the Wizards that they ended up out of the discussion for Durant. Bulls should feel the worst that it appears there was zero thought on the part of Anthony Davis to go to his hometown team. On the other hand, every player is different — it seems like a major priority for AD was to get paired with a LBJ-caliber superstar. Oops, Bulls don't have that. It's hard to make a superstar want to come to you when they prefer for another superstar to be there already. And when you trade for them, you might get something great (Toronto) or you might pay dearly and have little to show for it (Boston, Philly and/or Minnesota). Time will tell, but Toronto may end up a cautionary tale if Kawhi departs; you would have thought that if your gamble paid off and you got a title, that would be the one thing to guarantee your new superstar stays in town. If not, then the superstar acquisition game is even riskier than it already looked.

With a salary cap system, can't get too wrapped up in the dollar figure. The question is whether he's worth X% of the cap, which in this case is based on the yearly salary. And with Steph and now D'Angelo Russell on the team, GS is now in the position where they could keep Klay at this salary but they couldn't replace him with someone at the same salary because of the way the soft cap allows you to go over the cap to keep your own guys but not to add new ones.

Robert is definitely the type that strikes out a bunch whenever he struggles

I was agreeing with you

I think it's reasonable to say that the lack of draft picks kind of "forced" the new management of the Nets to try to win and in the process, probably put KD and Kyrie at ease that the team wasn't a complete shitshow like the Knicks.

I wonder...if a player had a drug problem, would they be tested frequently enough for that to be caught before it spiraled out of control?

I agree that it would be a big negative for the NBA if Kawhi goes to the Lakers. For once there could be no major favorite to win the title going into the season, but Kawhi to LA would change that

Well that's what I'm thinking about as the potential cause. There are a number of teams that aren't projected to be good and partly because they already did their teardowns, but are they tanking? I don't know. Pelicans sort of tanked without tanking. Hawks and Mavs have assembled a bunch of young pieces, as have the Bulls. Knicks are terrible but they're still signing vets in free agency. Cleveland seems to be the team that isn't doing anything, but maybe I'm forgetting something.

Am I wrong or does it feel like more teams are trying to be competitive than ever?

Bulls are in a spot where they need to take this season to see if the star is already on their team (LaVine? Markkanen? Late blooming Porter?)

Big fan of the Satoransky move. Kind of fills two holes at once

lol I love it

So the Pacers are giving Malcolm Brogdon 4 years, $85 million and had to give Milwaukee a first rounder and two seconds to get them not to match.

Certainly doesn't help but AFAIK there aren't projected to be any major guys next year. The third year of this deal is only partially guaranteed and at any rate he should be a tradeable asset if we really need the space.

Being the worst team is not worth the costs of trying to get there anymore, especially with where the Bulls are with a number of young pieces that would probably have to get traded or spend much of the season hurt (as was the case last year) in order to be near the bottom of the league

Honestly Thad Young is a pretty good player

Hard to argue that Hahn stuck to his plan not to allow MLB needs to affect Cease's timeline

Right, so the lack of explanation paired with the implausibility of the recovery time makes me wonder what is being withheld

They've been saying "bruised" but no explanation offered for how he got such a bruise

I really hope MLB does something about the baseball. This is getting silly.

Saw some chatter on Twitter about comparing Jose Abreu to Brett Favre. Idea is basically that although sometimes the numbers don't match the eye test, your gut tells you that you want to see him at the plate with the game on the line