Post by TimPig on Feb 6, 2020 23:46:33 GMT
Top 2033 Free Agents
1. Danny Manning - Manning is a tantalizing player. I’m not sure he can be the *best* player on a championship team, but he might be able to be the second best. He is a fantastically efficient scorer (1.18 pts/tsa last season) and an excellent rebounder (12.1 per 36 last season). His defensive numbers aren’t impressive at face value, but 1.8 bleals per 36 last year are certainly not awful. His C shown potential could mean anything, but at his age (24), he should have at least six or seven good years ahead of him, making him an easy MAX candidate. With less than two turnovers per 36 and decent free throw shooting, he really has no holes in his game.
2. Kyrie Irving - This may be Kyrie’s swan song as he’s now 34 years old and therefore much more likely to retire when the season ends (pending retirement insurance), but the greatest player in TMBSL 5.0 history can still offer a lot to a team. He’s not the all-around force he once was - rebounding and defense both appear to have taken a hit this past TC - but he’s still one of the top point guards in a league that doesn’t have many. He’s already been to Germany so a further decline is inevitable, but I could see a team - probably Dallas - offering him a lot of money in the short term to stick around and continue providing some offensive punch.
3. Dan Majerle - In the right system, it seems like Majerle should be an easy 20/7 guy with solid efficiency and almost no turnovers. His career FT% of .594 is...not great and the reason he falls below Manning on this list. With a B outside scoring grade and his free throw shooting that bad, it would stand to reason that he has a decent three-point shooting attribute. I don’t recall very many players (any?) with a high three-point shot and low jumper, so I don’t really know how that build plays out in the software. Is Thunder Dan the first? He’s already received +25 inside, so it looks like his jumper will be broken for his entire career, which is unfortunate as it’ll keep his pts/tsa, and therefore his value, low.
4. Wilt Chamberlain - Like Kyrie, Wilt’s getting up there in years, as he’ll be 34 this offseason. Still, he’s a career .557 shooter from the field who continues to rack up about 14 boards per game. I wonder what his career points per game might be had he not been sharing the ball with the likes of Tracy McGrady and Mike Conley for so many of his years. If he doesn’t retire, someone will surely be willing to throw big bucks over a couple of years at the veteran center with three rings to his name.
5. Mitch Richmond - I am actually not a fan of Richmond and there are quite a few players I’d put above him here personally, but I think with his age and scoring grades he’ll command some big bucks this offseason. His rebounds are surprisingly nice for a shooting guard and his defense is average (somewhere around 1.5 steals per 36), but I just can’t get over the turnovers which are at over 3 per 36 in limited time this year. He doesn’t score a ton (22 points per 36 for his career), so the volume is a tad low for the grades. If he does shoot more and cranks up those points numbers, his usage, and therefore turnovers, will also increase.
2032 Top 5 Re-Draft
1. Joel Embiid - No doubt to me that Embiid was the right pick at 1.1, as his only minor weakness is in the rebounding category, though he may be losing some of his boards to Shaq and John Havlicek, who are both excellent at it. The efficiency and jumper look good and the defense looks excellent, so I have no major concerns about Embiid’s game. If he can capitalize on that “A” shown potential, look out.
2. Aaron Gordon - 1.2 remains the same as well, as I think Aaron Gordon is probably the second best player in this class. It remains to be seen if he’ll more closely resemble the player we saw in preseason or the one we’ve seen in the first two sims of the regular season, but either way, I think the tools are there for him to end up really good. Assuming some natural growth, his defense and rebounding should end up fine. His eventual +25 may be wisely split between inside and jumper, but it’s probably worth waiting to see if his current FT% (73.6%) or preseason FT% (61.5%) is more accurate. His pts/tsa in the small regular season sample size is 1.19, and I want someone on my team who can do that at 19 years old. It feels like the “C” shown potential is going to be closer to “A” actual potential.
3. Jabari Parker - I’m sticking with Parker here too because the other candidates just look like they have too many question marks. At least with Parker, he ought to be able to shoot over 50% from the field and has shown a strong jumper in preseason and the first two sims. Surprisingly, rebounding looks to be the weakest part of his game, as in scouting sims, preseason, and the first two sims his defense has been only below average, whereas I was expecting a trainwreck. He went +3 during his first training camp, which should indicate he had high potential coming in and there is room for further growth. It’ll take some work in the rebounding and defensive categories, but if he finds some natural growth there he ought to become a starter in the league.
4. Marcus Smart - Dante Exum was the pick here, and I can see why a 19-year-old, 6’6 point guard with seemingly high potential might draw a lot of interest. Smart, however, was only a year older and had grades that made him already close to starter-level. We haven’t seen much of Smart yet, but he went +1 in TC and seems like he should have a pretty high floor. Per his write-up, he ought to play good defense and have high strength, so it seems his +25 would be best used going into his jumper. He’s not a sure bet by any means, especially without having seen him play almost at all, but I still think he was a good player to take a chance on.
5. Jusuf Nurkic - Another player who seems like he’ll have a high floor and low ceiling, Nurkic could probably be a third big for a lot of teams today and a starter for a few. His preseason rebounding and volume numbers per 36 were both nice, and his defense wasn’t an awful. He’s an easy candidate for +25 inside, at which point he’s likely a 20/10 guy at the bare minimum. He doesn’t have any huge holes in his game, nor does he have any incredible strengths, but he should be a good player for years to come.
MVP Candidates
LeBron James - The winner last year and the engine that keeps the Bulls going. Now that he has a few TCs under his belt, he’s overtaken Oscar as the Bulls’ clear-cut best player and, as such, made Oscar a much less likely MVP candidate. LeBron is an elite scorer who has added a three-point shot to his arsenal, and while playing power forward has been able to emphasize his best skills while minimizing his turnover issue. Defense isn’t outstanding, but it’s still pretty dang good, and the blocks numbers have certainly risen since he was moved into the frontcourt.
Bill Russell - He missed two games so he doesn’t currently appear on the league leaderboards, but Russell is having yet another excellent season as arguably the only worthwhile player on Detroit’s roster (Dr. J can’t come soon enough). Defensive numbers continue to be fantastic and his usage is going up with Andre Iguodala and everyone else Mike ever loved now departed. I don’t know if the software puts any stock into wins when choosing its MVP, but if not, Russell should be right up near the top with his all-around dominance.
Jerry Lucas - Lucas and Kyrie are the focal points of Dallas’ offense, but I have a feeling that with Jerry now healthy, we might see Kyrie’s scoring numbers dip a little bit. As he was in Atlanta, Jerry is possibly the league’s most efficient scorer and one of its best defenders, although he still doesn’t play a lick of defense. He’s in a good situation where his lack of defense is offset by Joakim Noah (who shoots and turns it over too much for his own good) and gave the Mavericks exactly what they need as they have some really nice complementary pieces on James Worthy and LaPhonso Ellis but needed that extra scoring punch.
Shaquille O’Neal - O’Neal is looking really nice to start the season after signing his shiny new contract and being allowed to flourish with Lucas’ departure. I’m not sure we’ll ever see what he and Embiid could be as the focal point of an offense as it looks like they’ll be sharing a frontcourt for almost their entire career. For now, Embiid is young and needs a bit of time to reach his ceiling, and Shaq is taking full advantage of that time. He’s shown he can be a big-time scorer and very good rebounder, but is a bit weaker on the defensive end. He reminds me a little bit of Wilt Chamberlain in that way. Anyway, Shaq’s putting up really nice scoring and rebounding numbers this offseason that should keep him in the MVP conversation.
Mike Conley - The software loves point guards and Conley is probably neck and neck with Oscar for the best in the league right now. With McGrady now departed and Wilt getting older, Conley is the present and future of the Magic. He’s currently averaging career highs in points, rebounds, and assists per game and would surely rank higher on this list if not for Wilt and Jerry West both being high usage players. Most teams are running an inside focus these days, but with the Magic running balanced Conley’s resume is boosted by the number of threes he’ll be taking.
