Starting From the Bottom

[Tim Moungey]

Free Agents
Josh Howard
Marc Gasol
Joel Anthony
Nick Collison
Rudy Fernandez (FA)

I renounce everyone except Gasol. Fernandez picks up his PO, putting our cap number at $88.2 million heading into FA. Our owner, who is a skinflint, is salty as hell, as we're $30.2 million over the cap. Luckily, only Jeff Teague, Danny Green, and our young guys are guaranteed money next year, so if I can hold off angry owner for a year, we can get ourselves in good shape financially.

Maurice Matthew is raw, but looks like a really promising all around prospect with his only weakness an inability to draw fouls. Mihail Simmons is a defensive god already, which is great, because he's pretty much as good as he's going to get.

Harris Jones looks an All-Star with shutdown defensive potential, even though he can't generate steals. I still like Matthew better for his complete game, but we'll see what happens. Tristan DuBois is the rawest player I've ever seen, but if he develops to his potential as I'm seeing it, he'll be an All-NBA guard best suited to SG due to meh floor general skills. Ryan Lang, who the draft guys loved, is raw but looks really good on offense and rebounding. Not a franchise player, though. Overall it very much looks like a meh class. Biggest potential steal: Sviatoslav Gogunov, who could develop into a brilliant #2 option with ball-stealing talent at #18.

Summer League
Game 1 vs Grizzlies: Gilberto Montero goes into beast for 24 points, 11 rebounds, a block, and 2 steals, earning PotG nod in a 95-80 win, completely embarrassing former Hawk T.J. Weems in the process. 18 points by Eric Neterville and 10 and 14 respective bench points by invitees Matt Allaway, a 22 year old UDRFA out of Oregon who looks better than some guys drafted in the late 1st, and Ishmail Smith, who looks like not the worst third string PG, but has been a career D-Leaguer to date.

Game 2 @ Milwaukee: 20 point beatdown to the tune of 96-76. Maurice Matthew shows off why he was the #1 pick, racking up 17 points, 11 rebounds, a steal, and 5 blocks against Sviatoslav Gogunov, who did lead all scorers with 23 points and 3 steals on phenomenal accuracy. Just missing 20 points: Gilberto Montero with 19 points and 3 blocks, while Festus Ezeli comes from out of nowhere with 16 points and 2 blocks off the bench. The 25 year old Nigerian big from Vanderbilt looks like a scrub, but he's gotten key bench minutes with Orlando the last few years.

Game 3 vs Lakers: We continue to roll, 103-73. Our starters all shoot horribly, bar Eric Neterville, who goes 6 of 11 en route to 15 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 0 turnovers and Player of the Game. Side note: Mihail Simmons garners 4 steals and 3 blocks going up against #4 overall pick Damion Gates at the 4. Damned impressive, considering Simmons gives up 3 inches and almost 30 pounds to the BYU product. So where'd all the scoring come from? Festus Ezeli (12 points, 9 rebounds), Matt Allaway (14 points), and 24 year old UDRFA Amon Watkins of Virginia with 13 points, a Virginia product who looks like a potential decent system fit. Watkins got scrub minutes for Anaheim in the D-League last year

Game 4 vs Portland: Another curbstomp - 100-66. Maurice Matthew's 16 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, and a block are good enough for top player. Eric Neterville impresses with a near perfect shooting night on his way to 14 points and 5 steals. Off the bench: 10 points, 6 rebounds, and a block by Festus Ezeli, 14 points from Matt Allaway, and 10 points and a steal via UDRFA Kenny Johnson, a Georgia Southern senior who can defend and that's it.

Game 5 @ Philadelphia: I keep waiting for the shoe to drop, but nope! 113-90 laugher to go undefeated in summer play. Eric Neterville goes off for 24 points, 6 assists, 7 steals! as the game's biggest star. 23 points on great shooting by Maurice Matthew, and 14, 10, 10 points by Festus Ezeli, Matt Allaway, and Ishmail Smith off the bench.

Summer League Standouts
I'm drooling over Nuggets' second year big Ivoree Campbell, who has emerged as the perfect low usage rebounding/defense/shotblocking big everyone wants. Summer League Stats: 14.2 points, 12 rebounds, 2.8 blocks. Harris Jones[/b, [b]Ryan Lang,] and Ted Strong both average more than 21 points, as does Terrence Ross, who will get minutes he doesn't deserve (I don't see him as that good). More specifically, 24 points, 5.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 1.4 blocks for the 23 year old Ross of the Orlando Magic in the last year of his rookie contract. Been a full-time starter his first three years, too, so odd he got to play. It was Harris Jones who led the summer league in scoring @ 26.2 points a game, but he didn't do anything else of note. Oh, there were other standouts too, but they read as career scrubs to me, so I won't mention them.

Free Agency
Quite a few teams with cap space. Marc Gasol wants a 5 year contract averaging in excess of $15 million a year. ...Yeah, I'm getting less and less interested in that idea. I offer him a 3 year, $30 million flat rate $10 million/year contract with a TO in the last year, because he's already 30.

Tim Duncan continues to play out the end of his career as a Milwaukee Buck. Kyrie Irving re-ups with the Cavaliers on a 5 year max. LaMarcus Aldrige and Kemba Walker stay with Portland and Charlotte respectively. The Lakers waste their money in sim league life, too, inking Marshon Brooks to a 4 year, near $50 million offer sheet on the same day the Spurs sign Ricky Rubio to a 4 year, $56.6 mil offer sheet. Biggest first confirmed jump is O.J. Mayo to the Boston Celtics for 4 years, $35.6 million and a TO in last year. That's until the Spurs and Lakers confirm their captures of Rubio and Brooks. Stunned the Timberwolves let Rubio go for that cheap a cost. Brandon Knight goes to Dallas when his 4 year, $45 million offer sheet isn't matched. The Knicks continue to buy into the Carmelo Anthony mistake, and I'm just laughing.

To my surprise, Marc Gasol takes our offer, and we immediately go down to $74.4 million - still $16 million over the cap, but we have a glut of wings that we can move if need be. Ramon Sessions gets over $8 million a year from the Lakers and I'm just shaking my head. Our first offer sheet match comes when the Jazz don't let Alec Burks get away - not for the paltry sum of 4 years, $20 million. I'm stunned when the Spurs don't match the 4 year, $48 million offer sheet from the Suns for Kawhi Leonard. Just shocking. We finish up our free agency by grabbing my old D-League star in Mateen Turner on a 2 year min-sal deal.

[Tim Moungey]

After Training Camp
Feeling lazy so didn't check HTML on stuff. Gilberto Montero looks amazing though.

Lineup
PG Jeff Teague
SG Danny Green
SF Maurice Matthew
PF Al Horford
CE Marc Gasol

with Gilberto Montero a 28 MPG 6th man

Eric Neterville backup PG, Tony Allen backup SG, Mikhail Simmons backup SF.

Preseason magazine has us picked last in the Southeast, 11th in the conference. Pfft.

We open at the Bucks and win 90-73, as Al Horford racks up 18 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 3 steals. Just missing the double-double is Marc Gasol (10 points, 9 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks). Both teams shoot 37% or worse, so it's going to be an ugly season offensively. And that's true as the Magic embarrass us 103-86 in our first home game. Al Horford goes off for 28 points, 10 rebounds and 3 steals in a 92-74 home win vs the Bulls to get us back on the winning side. But our best offensive performance is a 92-98 loss in Toronto. For some reason, Jarrett Jack keeps getting minutes over Eric Neterville, even though my DC and sub matrix are both set for the latter to get the minutes.

And that's when I discover my Sub Matrix is being COMPLETELY IGNORED and is resetting itself. FFS.

Too annoyed to deal with it now.