Oh plz heypartner. You are acting like Fegan or Walters have a completely unique way to do things. When in fact all the agents in the league do the same. They leak stuff. They leak rumours. They want their players to get playing time and a good role to get their commision. The powerful ones have great influence in some Front Offices. It is obvious by the Woj mention of agents who is the source. And like ALWAYS when the agents get involved in actually looking for deals themselves it's because the GM has looked and failed to find something satisfying. Look at other Woj rumours. There is no mention of agents looking for deals. And Morey wants it public ofc because this leak serves a purpose, peaking interest and improving any competition between teams to up their offers. This is not the first day that Lawson is on the trading block. For this to have come to the point of active agent involvement it has been going on for a good while.
Sorry but that's silly. I still go to bars sometimes even though I don't drink. Personally, I'm not tempted to drink when I do because I know it will make me feel sick (I have Lyme disease). But I know tons of ex-drinkers, dry drunks and ones in the program, that go to bars and clubs and don't drink.
It is on his pay per view website. I paid for diamond access, it is really good. I am starting to thinm he actually believes he is some kind of source. As George Costanza said, it isn't a lie if you believe it yourself.
yYOU still go to bars. Tell me..a recovering alcoholic on his first month of recovery isn't actively discouraged from entering any establishment that serves alcohol? Judging this by someone like you who has achieved recovery for a while, it's not the same as for someone who just starting and the temptation is extremely more. He was in a club in the third game of the season in Octomber.
If Lawson is in fact the raging alcoholic you guys claim he is i doubt he would be able to function on a professional level. Maybe he is just a guy who parties too much? Does not care about a DUI because he is a rich athlete? But it sure seems that something is not right, on paper we looked like a nightmare for any back court. Where is the reset button?
Bobby Marks @BobbyMarks42 Some minor housekeeping notes. Minnesota ($2.8) and Houston ($816,482) trade exceptions expire today.
I disagree. Wall...Lowry....Rondo...would be marginalized on offense in Lawson's position as well. Might not be this bad, but they aren't great off the ball either.
No. Denver made the diagnosis that they wanted rid of Lawson. He was a cancer to them. He had had 2 DUI's, he was coming to practice drunk, and they were losing. They were hoping to get a decent draft pick or two or perhaps a young player or two for him. They were hoping nobody knew what was going on with Lawson. They tried to trade him for months before they finally moved him to us for basically nothing but an upgrade from their second round pick to our first round pick. Don't know if we consulted Lucas or not. But there was no way we were trading for Lawson without him being essentially an expiring contract. Remember, this was prior to us signing Harrell so there wasn't the hard cap in place. At worst, Lawson was (and is) a $12 million expiring contract that could be a great help in a future player acquisition. If we weren't boxed in by the Harrell contract we could have used Lawson to acquire $15 million of incoming salary. That's pretty significant. And there's still the possibility that Lawson's contract helps with a substantial player acquisition. Although we can no longer get $15 million worth of salary out of his contract, we can still get basically $12 million worth of salary out of his contract. By getting Lawson to make year 2 non-guaranteed, Morey covered all the bases. Next season being non-guaranteed instead of a team option means Lawson can still be traded on or before June 30th, after the season, and the team that trades for him could still waive him without any consequence. This situation with Lawson and his alcoholism was and is serious. Did they consider the possibility that Lawson wouldn't be the same player without alcohol? Dunno. But...if they didn't think about....there would have been no difference in how they dealt with Lawson (asking him to make next year non-guaranteed) than if they did think about it. Because being a crappy player really isn't different than not being able to play at all for whatever reason, and still having your guaranteed contract. Here's what I do know. Lawson was considered "too risky" to trade for at all and still have guaranteed money owed to him for 2016-17. We would not have traded for Lawson for free without him making next season guaranteed. I know that for a fact. And I told this board that over and over while guys were proposing we give up 2 first rounders and DMo for Lawson. I knew Lawson had no real trade value around the league. There were NO TAKERS. Nobody wanted him. The only way a deal got done with us is Lawson agreed to make his last year guaranteed to get out of Denver. He was sold by James that he would be moving to a great situation and would be a huge part of what we were doing. And that's precisely why his agents are getting involved now. You're looking at a player that, unless something changes drastically, he'll be losing $14 million and he'll have difficulty getting a team to give him more than a minimum salary contract unless he shows that he's still got something left in the tank. Never in a million years did Lawson nor his representatives think that he would be benched here. And that's the key. It's not really important whether or not Morey accounted for the risk of Lawson not being able to play alcohol-free. Morey accounted for the risk that Lawson couldn't play for any reason by getting Lawson to make next season non-guaranteed. The people that didn't account for Lawson not being able to play well here were TY and his representatives. It is definitely in Ty's interests for him to move on to another team. He's got to re-establish market value. So his agent is going to move heaven and earth to help us make a trade to get Ty to a different team that will play him as their primary playmaker. And this is what should drive your trade speculation. This is why you should know the trade talks with the Nets are real. The Nets need to make the playoffs. So they're interested in taking a flyer on Lawson's playmaking. They'd really like to dump salary in the process. And that's what makes it difficult on our end to get a deal done. But perhaps a team's desire to make the playoffs will overcomes their desire to dump salary and they'll send us back ending contracts as well. Or perhaps we can move out some of our other long-term contracts (Brewer, McDaniels) for ending contracts so whatever long-term money we take back by moving Lawson is offset by Brewer and McDaniels leaving. Otherwise, we might be stuck with Lawson and Lawson might be stuck with us. Personally, I think it is and will be complicated but I expect a deal to get done to move Lawson at some point. We really owe it to him to get him to a team that will start him and give him the basketball and let him play his game. He's a vet. You don't take vet players and all of a sudden ask them to be a different player than what they established their career doing. We're obviously unwilling at this point to move James off the ball and have Ty run the show. And Ty is terrible off the ball. It's time for all parties to move on if a deal can be made.
I don't, no. I don't think they ever got to that point because they had already decided to let him go based on past problems, alcohol-related and not. This isn't something that happens to every ex-drinker. It's something that happens to a lot of ex-drinkers. I think the Rockets made a low-risk, high-return gamble. And the fact that they got him to renounce his option for next year demonstrates that they knew they were taking a chance. Maybe both. Though I expect the idea that he would go back to drinking and continue getting in trouble was the larger concern. I don't think most people predicted this. I didn't, even though my personal experience points to it being a potential problem. I think Morey was mitigating risk when he did this, all kinds of risk. As I said I doubt most people would predict what has happened and I didn't either. I just feel I understand it after the fact. Ty was second in assists last year and we needed a playmaker. It made all the sense in the world and we were all thrilled when it happened. When I present my theory it's one I developed after the fact to try to explain why his game dropped off so severely.
I don't say it was advisable for him to be in bars. And you're right that it's discouraged. But that's not what you said. What you said was there's NO WAY he's not drinking. Sorry but that's nonsense. The fact that he has been in clubs is not definitive proof he's drinking, as you made it out to be.
I drank to the point of blackout nearly every night for 20 years. During that time I built two successful businesses and was highly productive. There are many fully functioning alcoholics. One day it catches up to you. That doesn't mean you can't be a highly functioning alcoholic. AA is full of them.
I don't believe the Nets have any delusion to still make the playoffs when there are 13 teams infront of them.
The Nets want to do one of two things: 1. Either make the playoffs without taking on much long-term salary Or 2. Drop long-term salary Or BOTH! Ideally they want to make the playoffs while dumping some long-term salary. If they can't do both they'd like to do one or the other.
But Batman : you and bbalholic is interpreting a perfomance on the court based on stop drinking which is a possible reason AMONG many others. On the other hand there are real indications (not proofs) that he is continuing to drink. One is that in his just first month out of rehab he went to a club and another is that after he just came out of rehab he declared that he wouldn't go there if it wasn't court ordered because he didn't have any real problem. The first step is admittance, and that doesn't seem to have happened. He may or may not have stopped drinking but the indications suggest he continues to.
malakas, I said that. reread my first sentence. I said agents float rumors to gain a negotiating edge just like GMs. Where are we disagreeing Im merely questioning the wild idea that Lawson's situation is somehow tied to Howard when they dont even have the same agent. i dont see why its even required of a conspiracy theory to tie the two together. Lawson and Brewer have the same agent. If you want to start rumors of tightly knit agendas, then Morey signing Brewer to $8m in echange for Lawson favors from Happy Walker is enough. Tying it to Howard and Fegan is stretching what would already be wild speculation to begin with and my other point was Lawson trading block situation is a mutual position of both Morey and the agent assuming the agent can help find an agreeable trade agents and GMs sometimes have mutually beneficial objective like finding sign and trade suitors. these appears to be a mutually beneficial scenario to help noth sides
If they don't drop any salary they will have good capspace though. Johnson expires. They will have space to sign lets say..Derozan. Any other big long term salary is basicaly Brolo and Young and they have said that Young is part of their so called core (besides he is one of their best players right now). Though I totally agree with all the other things in your post. They have no incentive to tank and now that Prokhy JUST bought all the team and arena, maybeee they will start making good decisions all of a sudden (that is one conspiracy theory that said that he made those bad decisions on purpose to drop out all the other minor owners because they didn't make any profits and had to pay all the lux taxes). Def Lawson in BKN is the best available option right now because I dont' think any other team will have any interest. Except if we want to absorb Calderon.
It's most likely a condition of his case that he be tested for drinking. To say all signs point to him still drinking is unfounded and unfair. I agree it was troubling that he didn't feel he needed rehab but he did go and he is most likely still under court order not to drink. But if he were still drinking, well, he was drinking last year too and his numbers were exactly what we were looking for. His drinking wouldn't cause his game to fall off; he was already drinking. What exactly are these "among many other" explanations for his game going from second assist man in the league to his first DNP-CD's? Right. Didn't think so.
Oh I see. The easiest way to solve this is to ask cyber when he's on who the heck is Lawson's agent right now.
Does he still wear the bracelet? I thought it was removed. If he's still wearing it then he doesn't drink anymore ... Other reasons being that he is a horrible fit here, who isn't utilised properly by the coaching staff. (the most important factor is FIT). Another is regression due to age and partying. A lot of pgs esp those who peak at a young age have a sudden and huge dropoff historically. Another is that he continues with his bad motivational issues. (Karl had mentioned he needed to personally call Lawson before every game and motivate him otherwise he didnt' bring it in the court).
