Your Morning Dump… Where the Brad Stevens ‘thing’ is absolutely real

Can Brad Stevens lure free agents to Boston? – ESPN Video
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Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

“People are going to want to go there and play for him.”

“The Brad Stevens thing is absolutely real. Jackie MacMullan wrote a great story about this a few days ago on ESPN. Players on other teams play the Celtics and think – Wow that guy is unflappable, he’s calm, he doesn’t say anything bad about his players in the media, his out of time out plays are great, but look, that gets you in the door. That gets you a meeting and you got to close at some point. And closing sometimes is making a trade… and trades are not that easy to do. Everyone in the league knows the Celtics offered 4 picks to Charlotte to get into the 9 spot last year. They didn’t forget that and they’re going to demand a lot.”

ESPN

First off, Raja Bell is an excellent NBA analyst. Never like his style as a player, but enjoy listening to him. Secondly, we all know Zach Lowe is as plugged in as any NBA reporter. Both guys are saying what we all hope is true – Brad Stevens has the attention of players around the league.

We’re lucky to have a general manager who can close with the best of the them. And, let’s be honest, it’s much easier to close when you have an incredible amount of financial flexibility and assets:

If the salary cap soars toward a projection of $92 million, Boston will essentially have $58 million to work with, though it’s not as simple as that because of cap holds and nonguaranteed deals. Boston’s three 2016 first-round picks alone will create holds of as much as $9.2 million if the pingpong balls bounce in the Celtics’ favor. But when you project that max contracts will range from roughly $21-$30 million (based on years of experience), Boston will have the ability to chase two max players and still have flexibility to make other moves.

It’s really not worth stressing over the exact amount of available cap space before July 1 because it seems likely the Celtics will try to use draft night to begin the process of adding the sort of impact talent that might make the team even more attractive at the start of free agency.

I know… every team has cap space this summer. But not every team has Brad Stevens or a GM who can pretty much make a viable trade offer for any player in the league.

Rich Levine wrote a great column, “Busting 5 Myths you’ll be hearing during the Celtics off-season.” I suggest you print it out and refer to it during your next bar debate with an uninformed “fan.”

On Page 2, the final seconds of the Thunder/Spurs game was absolutely nuts.

As you can see, Dion Waiters just straight up arm bars Manu Ginobili, who also breached the out-of-bounds line, out of his face before inbounding the ball on an illegal jump. There were three cascading violations on the play; one on Ginobili which should have warranted a technical foul and two on Waiters which should have both turned the ball over to San Antonio. It was a big ole mess and tomorrow’s last two minute report from the NBA will be fascinating.

Because Dion Waiters isn’t much of a passer (why wasn’t someone else in charge of inbounding the ball at the most critical juncture?), San Antonio still came up with it. They sort of freaked out at first, allowing the Thunder to regroup a bit before Patty Mills missed a three, a fan held Steven Adams back from the play after he contested Mills’ three, and everyone did some wrasslin’ under the basketball ring for the rebound as the horn blew.

Deadspin

NBA action, it’s fantastic!

Monumental win for the Thunder. Not a good thing for someone grasping at the Kevin Durant-to-Boston straw.