So Paul opted in to last year for $25 million so is still eligible for five year super max right? So that would be 6 years of CP3 at $230+ million?

I'm curious to see if Houston signs him to the max next year or if he is willing to take less. That's an insane amount of money in his later years and makes me think perhaps Spurs backed out at that cost. Its certainly a win now move at that heavy back end price, which is a big gamble with the dominant warriors.

Pretty sure George Hill to the Spurs is a done deal.

He is hosting a 1st Annual Movie Night in SA.

https://instagr.am/p/BV2aRZvA09X

GatorAg03 said:

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So Paul opted in to last year for $25 million so is still eligible for five year super max right? So that would be 6 years of CP3 at $230+ million?

I'm curious to see if Houston signs him to the max next year or if he is willing to take less. That's an insane amount of money in his later years and makes me think perhaps Spurs backed out at that cost. Its certainly a win now move at that heavy back end price, which is a big gamble with the dominant warriors.

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Reports are that he and the Rockets agreed to an extension.

$50mm/season when he is 38 may hurt a little.

Trading an average guard plus scraps makes the Rockets very talented. Paul's defense is overrated but his scoring ability is underrated. It should also dramatically increase their late-game execution, as Chris Paul is great there while Harden and D'Antoni are boneheads. Last, Paul won't shrivel up and die when the going gets tough, something that team really needs.

The Rockets might score 120 a game, but they did get worse on defense.

The wildcard is if Paul can convince Harden to play defense. Seems unlikely, but if so, the Rockets will be competitive with anyone including GS.

Capella is going to turn into a Jordan/Chandler like star catching lobs from CP3 and Harden.

I don't see us making any major moves now

If Paul was going to another team in West, Warriors probably happy was Rockets instead of Spurs. Houston seems like they want to play a run-and-gun style similar to GSW but without as good a defense. Cavs tried that approach and look where that got them. And neither Harden or Paul has a strong playoff history in terms of leading a team to the promised land. Good luck with that.

I agree with this. CP3 to the Spurs with a content LMA or a post replacement and a superstar Kawhi was the biggest threat to GS.

By going to Houston he hurts both the Spurs and his chances to win a title. Rockets got a little better but not enough to win more than a game or two vs the warriors. Plus they will be in salary cap hell soon.

I don't see another move that the Spurs can make that will realistically close the GSW gap this off-season. I just hope they stay in a competitive 2nd or 3rd poll position in case the warriors get hurt or trip themselves up, while developing their youth in an attempt to find a true sidekick for Leonard. Maybe Murray can develop into that. Also have to handle the LMA situation.

Growing through the draft, development and good finances has always been the Spurs path.

harden and paul will be fighting for the ball every series. i don't see why they need 2 pgs. this is gonna get dantoni fired...again.

GatorAg03 said:

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I agree with this. CP3 to the Spurs with a content LMA or a post replacement and a superstar Kawhi was the biggest threat to GS.

By going to Houston he hurts both the Spurs and his chances to win a title. Rockets got a little better but not enough to win more than a game or two vs the warriors. Plus they will be in salary cap hell soon.

I don't see another move that the Spurs can make that will realistically close the GSW gap this off-season. I just hope they stay in a competitive 2nd or 3rd poll position in case the warriors get hurt or trip themselves up, while developing their youth in an attempt to find a true sidekick for Leonard. Maybe Murray can develop into that. Also have to handle the LMA situation.

Growing through the draft, development and good finances has always been the Spurs path.

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The only 'not so fast' to the Houston thing is if they are also able to add yet another star to Harden and Chris Paul like Paul George or Melo forming a definite 'super team' situation. IF that happens, then I could maybe see an argument of Houston with say Harden, Paul, and George/Melo having a puncher's chance to beat the warriors in a 7 game series. Warriors would still be favorites, but I'd maybe buy into Rockets being a legit threat (assuming the Rockets still had a serviceable roster around their Big 3).

I still wouldn't pick the Rockets if their strategy remained to try to 'Out Warrior the Warriors' playing a similar style, because Durant/Curry/Thompson/Green is the Dream Team for playing that style, but the Rockets would have enough star power to maybe make it interesting.

Not sure how everyone else feels, but the only way I wanted to keep LA is if we managed to move some things around and sign CP (the two of them working the pick and pop would be legendary), I think now though you've got to keep shopping LA or else his future will become a distraction all season long

There is a legit chance that LMA would get booed heavily by his own fans if he is still a Spur during the opener. I think they move him, even if it's not for much.

GatorAg03 said:

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Also shows how poorly LMA is thought of. I'm sure the Spurs would have gladly moved LMA, Green and a 1st for Paul....yet the Clips prefer Bev, Decker, Williams. Pretty eye opening on how much damaged goods LMA is currently.

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Or the Clips thought LMA and Griffin were redundant pieces that wouldn't work together.

I won't argue that LMA has been disappointing, but there can be more than one reason a trade didn't happen.

Blake Griffin is not going back to the Clippers. That team is blowing up

Yep, reports make it sound like it was CP3 picking the beard over Leonard. Don't think Spurs ever were really even in it for him, so Clips probably had no choice, although I am a bit surprised they took back the poor package that they did.. All interest between spurs and CP3 was pretty much just rumors and conjecture. I'm wondering how much of the LMA info is false as well. I do think LMA value is pretty depressed currently though and am not expecting much.

I think there is a massive disconnect between Spurs fans and Spurs brass when it comes to Aldridge. Fans keep looking for any reason to believe they are simply going to kick him to the curb. Meanwhile, the Spurs haven't said anything publicly about any disappointment with LMA. The worst thing you could say is they "shopped" him during the draft. Shopping someone during a historically rich draft is NOT a sign that you don't like the guy. It just means you were being smart and looking at your options. Do you think the Clippers hate CP3? or that the Rockets hated Beverly?

Actions speak louder than words. If LMA was in Pop's doghouse at all we would have noticed because he would have been on the bench. There have been a dozen players get into his doghouse and it was always obvious and they were always gone shortly after entering said doghouse. This didn't happen with Aldridge. That tells me Pop is okay with him. Aldridge didn't play well against the Warriors, so what? He was probably as depressed as everyone else when Kawhi went down.

We quickly forget the good things he's done while here because he's not great all the time. Now, if he wants out for some reason then I'm sure the Spurs will move him eventually. But they obviously aren't desperate to get him out yet because they haven't. I'm sure they could get a crap deal if they wanted. Hell, they gave Splitter and Diaw away for basically nothing.

Guitarsoup said:

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Blake Griffin is not going back to the Clippers. That team is blowing up

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lol dude what the hell was deandre doing a few summers ago

LMA hit the dog house during the playoffs. Pop even publicly critiqued him, which he has never really done. They aren't going to bench their best healthy player.

I agree they won't give him away, but I'm pretty confident they would move him for a fair price. Of course I would have hoped a top 10 pick was doable and apparently it wasn't so maybe they won't get any reasonable offers. There is still plenty of time. Teams get desperate once Free agents start signing. I still think he is moved within the week.

I don't think the front office is as low on Aldridge as i am, but unless he is hurt there's no excuse for how he played against Memphis, Houston, or Golden State. He didn't fall short of greatness, he was legitimately bad. The Spurs were trying to get him going with lots of post touches and he was still terrible. Over dribbling, taking dumb shots, inconsistent effort on the glass, and apathetic on defense. The worst was against Houston when Leonard was injured, the Rockets were intentionally putting Harden on Aldridge, and Aldridge kept passing up the mismatch.

Ag Natural said:

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I think there is a massive disconnect between Spurs fans and Spurs brass when it comes to Aldridge. Fans keep looking for any reason to believe they are simply going to kick him to the curb. Meanwhile, the Spurs haven't said anything publicly about any disappointment with LMA. The worst thing you could say is they "shopped" him during the draft. Shopping someone during a historically rich draft is NOT a sign that you don't like the guy. It just means you were being smart and looking at your options. Do you think the Clippers hate CP3? or that the Rockets hated Beverly?

Actions speak louder than words. If LMA was in Pop's doghouse at all we would have noticed because he would have been on the bench. There have been a dozen players get into his doghouse and it was always obvious and they were always gone shortly after entering said doghouse. This didn't happen with Aldridge. That tells me Pop is okay with him. Aldridge didn't play well against the Warriors, so what? He was probably as depressed as everyone else when Kawhi went down.

We quickly forget the good things he's done while here because he's not great all the time. Now, if he wants out for some reason then I'm sure the Spurs will move him eventually. But they obviously aren't desperate to get him out yet because they haven't. I'm sure they could get a crap deal if they wanted. Hell, they gave Splitter and Diaw away for basically nothing.

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Well, Pop did pull LMA about midway through the third quarter of Game 4 of the Warriors series and never put him back in. Does that count?

Well, no I wouldn't. Aldridge played about the same number of minutes as Gasol, Green, Simmons, Forbes and Anderson. That was a typical mail-in game.

From Reddit:

• First: Renounce all rights to our free agents (other than Simmons) including Patty and Manu
• Second: Trade LMA and Kyle Anderson (along with whatever combination of players rights like Milutinov and 1st round picks) to the Pacers for Paul George. This is probably really unlikely, but it's better than nothing for Indiana and certainly better than whatever package Houston is trying to offer centered around Ryan Andersons awful contract.
• Paul George has a contract of $19.5M for next year, so trading LMAs $21.5 and Anderson's $2.1 results in an extra cap space amount of $4.1M, bringing the total to $23.1M of cap space for the Spurs.
• Third: Trade Danny Green to the Knicks for Kyle O'Quinn.
This frees up another $5.9M of cap space for us (up to $29M now), though I hate seeing Danny go. Though we are giving up a perennial all-Defensive Team guy, we are getting a guy in a similar mold to Dedmon on a nice contract. I'm not sure if New York would agree to this, but Danny fits their desire to become a more defensive team and O'Quinn doesn't really have a spot in the starting lineup with Porzingis and Hernangomez.
• Fourth: Don't guarantee Bryn Forbes's contract
• This frees up an extra $1.3M in cap space, putting us at $30.3M in total space.
• Fifth: Sign Gordon Hayward to a maximum contract
This is also super unlikely, but I've seen that his max contract starts at $24M. I won't spend any more time talking about how stupidly unrealistic this is. This leaves us around $6M in cap space.
• Sixth: Sign Pau Gasol to a four year deal starting at whatever cap space we have left (somewhere around $6M).
Pau didn't opt out to make less money, so really the only way we can pay him back what he's looking for with the remaining cap space is to do a backloaded four year deal.
• Seventh: Sign Manu Ginobili using the room exception.
• Eighth: Match Jonathon Simmons' QO
• Ninth: Sign Adam Hanga to a 2 year minimum contract similar to Bertans.
• Tenth: Sign Tiago Splitter (or other end-of-the-bench big) to a minimum contract.
• Eleventh: Sign a vet minimum PG

So your new Spurs lineup:
C: O'Quinn/Gasol/Splitter
PF: George/Bertans
SF: Kawhi/Simmons/Hanga
SG: Hayward/Ginobili/White
PG: Murray/Parker/Vet Min

Obviously we suck at point, but George and Gordon can both create some. Do it, Pop.

Deputy Travis Junior said:

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The first thing I do in the morning when I get to work is type Lamarcus Aldridge trade into Google News.

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https://www.google.com/alerts

I can only assume Paul didn't watch game 6 of the Spurs-Rockets series. That's the only reasonable explanation I can think of for him to choose the Rockets.

The Rockets definitely upgraded their team. They essentially just swapped Bev for Paul, playoff rotation player-wise. But Bev is a more versatile defender than Paul. If Harden and Paul can make it work, their offense will improve (scary), but their defense will even take a further hit, IMO. If this is the team they roll out next year, I really don't see them getting further than they would have with the same team from last season.

You hear of Paul's frustrations with teammates when they don't do something right. I'm excited to see his meltdown when he experiences James Harden's defense.

...or the first time Harden dribbles out the first 19 seconds of the shot clock before launching a three from 7 feet past the arc late in the fourth.

Eh honestly CP3 in Houston doesn't really scare me at all. Sounds cavalier, but there it is.

Melo reported to sign with Houston if Knicks buy out his contract