Mocking SLOE: Expansion Everythang!

[LoCo89]

Note: I've been holding this to put up after the trade deadline in case any of this changed, but seeing that LMessi put up his, might as well post mine too.

Hello and welcome to Mocking SLOE, an article where we take a look at the future of SLOE and talk about some things that could potentially happen. During the beginning of the season, the league was hit with a bit of news and a massive proposal. First, the news, DarthVegito, previous long-time GM of both the Mavericks and the Supersonics was back in the market to manage a team if a current GM left. He wouldn't have to wait long however, as Commissioner WigNosy hit the league with a massive proposal. He proposed the long talked about idea of League Expansion & Re-Alignment for the proposed 30 team league. Today, we're gonna go through how the expansion draft and surrounding events will work and how they could unfold.

Naming the Team

So first things first, this proposal has to pass for any of this to matter. But with league-wide OCD about having only 29 teams and the potential of having a strong GM such as Darth leading it, I believe it will pass. If it does, we already know that the New Orleans Hornets want to move their team to the Western Conference, stay in the city of New Orleans, and change their name to the Pelicans to reflect their commitment to that city. This leaves the new potential team in the Eastern Conference and returns a team to the city of Charlotte, 10 years after their move to New Orleans. They will have a choice between bringing back the Hornet name or having the new name of the Bobcats. The Hornets had their time in Charlotte and New Orleans, and will likely forever be associated with NickMalone77. May as well begin anew with a fresh franchise. Therefore for this mock, I'm going with the Charlotte Bobcats. I'm also picking the orange Bobcat version so I get some sweet, sweet orange unis.

Selecting the Players for the Expansion Draft

There have been a lot of questions surrounding the players eligible for the draft, so I'm gonna try to simplify the proposed rules:

• Only players under contract for at least next season are eligible

• Every free agent still gets their rights (Bird,RFA) retained by their current team

• Every team can protect up to seven contracted players

• Player exposure goes as follows 4 contracted: Can expose none, 5-9: at least one exposed. Every additional player on roster adds 1 exposure

• 12 Players selected have contract moved to the Charlotte Bobcats

• Players not selected in the draft remain on contracted team

Let's talk strategy, a lot of teams can go a couple of ways with their selections. I'll try to give a blurb on why I picked who I picked, but my idea was that teams probably weren't gonna give up significant talent unless they wanted to give them up for some reason (expensive, old, bad). So with that, lets look at some candidates that I’m picking for each team:

Team	Number of Candidates	Players Selected	Reasoning
Zardos	3/5 available	Furkan Aldemir	He's pretty Furkan bad compared to everyone else
Hawks:	6 available	Aaron Gordon	I figure Atlanta is still pretty good and while Wig has a couple of expensive players under contract and Noah enters FA, I'd be surprised if he was willing to move anyone that he can get value out of
Bulls	7/8 available	Jae Crowder	I thought this was easy. Trillsap is on a decent deal and shouldn’t just be given away and Bev still has nice potential.
Heat	6 available	Justin Holiday	The Heat's Lux Tax woes have been discussed every which way. So while it’s fun to think Serge might be thought about here, I don’t see it.
Raptors	9/10 available	Mike Muscala, Terrence Jones	Neither of these guys are spectacular especially with the team Soundwave has built. Capela is the other choice, but with better Athletics and Potentials, I think you expose MM. Even with his superior JPS.
Celtics	6 Available	Shabazz Napier	Bazz is orange. Easy choice
Pacers	7 available	James McAdoo	Got talent around Deron finally this year . McAdoo is orange. Sometimes it’s that easy
Nets	5/6 available.	Jabari Brown	If the Nets wanna move on from Kaman, they can decline his Team Option. Everyone else besides Brown is young and at least ok. Except Bled. He might have TC Final Destination Syndrome. But I don’t wanna see him teamless. SO BROWN IT IS
Cavs	4 available	Evan Fournier	Another easy one given how few he has. I think Tyler Johnson has better potentials but he’s the other choice here
Magic	9 available	James Anderson	If false9 likes Anderson he could expose Teague. But I think Jeff Teague is a solid backup on a nice deal for one.
Bucks	8 available	Jeff Withey	I like Seraphin a tad more. Coin toss between the two though.
Knicks	8 available	Gorgui Dieng	Teams with a ton of young guys were tough. I think everyone else is at least more interesting than Gorgui.
Hornets	6/8 avaialable	Timofey Mozgov	If he declines his option even better for NM77. Now pause as we all throw our heads back and laugh at that prospect ;D. SO if we’re being realistic… Mozzy it is
Sixers	7 available	Julyan Stone	Orange. Orrrrrrraaaaannnnnnggggeeee
Pistons	8 available	Cory Jefferson	Probably the least interesting of his guys
Rockets	4 available	Grant Jerrett	New rule on top of the Orange Rule. It’s the “Never Heard of You Rule”. Welcome Patient Zero for this… Grant Jerrett
Nuggets	6 available	Spence Dinwiddie	Trying to figure out what Ryan is doing a season from now is an exercise in futility. If Spence was a bit better I could see him sticking with him. But he’s not so he won’t.
Mavericks	6 available	Steven Adams	Nothing that I can even talk myself into on this one
Jazz-ercise	6 available	Bob Covington	There could be some lingering IRL feelings for keeping him *coughPhillyFancough* but it’s fairly easy.
Grizzles	5 available	Omer Asik	The only team I can really give insight on, he’s like Mozgov, but makes like half. Like if youre thinking about Mozgov, YOU SHOULD FOR SURE CALL ABOUT ASIK INSTEAD
Spurs	5 available	Jordan Hill	I hated trying to make this choice. I could also see Randle and Schroder here, but their rookie deals help them to stick around and with Josh Smith already on the block, maybe Eazy tries to reset
Timberpups	9/11 available	Nick Calathes, Langston, Noah Vonleh	Christ on a cracker, the other team I was dreading. This draft is gonna be weird with interesting young talent. Side note I swear to Christ it better not be Toney
Suns	7 available	Festus Ezeli	This one might just be personal preference, but I feel like ok bigs are a dime a dozen. Also I have a residence on Waiters Island.
Warriors	4/6 available	KJ McDaniels	He’s just not doing anything right now for the Warriors. Shrug. Sorry.
Clippers	5 available	James Adams	My second choice is Delonte and its strictly a money thing. 94 points were spent between Adams and Roy Hibbert so I'm sure it's a gut punch to expose Adams but its the right choice
Sonics	7 available	Adam Morrison	Blame the podcast guys.
Blazers	2/5 available	Jonas Jerebko	Ish is my second choice. But Jonas is kinda meh and probably won’t figure into the Blazers plans as much
Kangz	2/4 available	DJ Augustine	Look if you’re gonna burn it down, you may as well burn it all the way down. I mean I guess you could put up no one. But 9 million.
Lakers	9/11 available	CJ Miles, Andrew Bynum, Mouhammed Sene	I’m sure Tray will be torn about putting CJ Miles and Bynum up for the draft. But he will endure. Henry Walker if he declines Mouhammed

EXPANSION DRAFT!!!

Thoughts Going In: Darth is his own GM but if I were doing this, here's my two rules: 1) Good Players. I'm locked in for 2 years so might as well pick BPAs. 2) Young Talent. If there's young talent that's exposed it should be snatched up. Other than that this talent pool blows. With that HERE WE GOOOOOOoooooOOOOOO

Round	Player	Originating Team	Position
1	Jordan Hill/Omer Asik	Grizz/Spurs	C
2	Jonas Jerbko	Blazers	PF
3	Jae Crowder	Bulls	SF
4	Adam Morrison	Sonics	SG
5	DJ Augustine	Kings	PG
6	Jeff Withey	Bucks	C
7	Noah Vonleh	T-Wolves	PF
8	Mike Muscala	Raptors	C
9	Robert Covington	Jazz	SF
10	KJ McDaniels	Warriors	SF
11	Jabari Brown	Nets	SG
12	Spencer Dimwiddie	Nuggets	PG

Thoughts After: I hate hate hate that the first pick is the player I think is least likely to be exposed. I just can see Eazy starting to pack it up. If Hills not there, its gotta be Omer as the Center. The forwards as Jerbko and Jae could be an interesting pair. Morrison does his thing and Augustine can do ok at getting them the ball. I guess. There weren't alot of PGs, ok? For young talent we nab alot of big men and Dimwiddie. Vonleh has solid potentials even though he's pretty far from them. Muscala and Withey also have decent potentials and you just hope one hits. Covington, McDaniels, Brown are all flyers on the wing. It's not a great team, but it's the first one for Charlotte in 10 years, I don't think they'll be picky.

That's all for now, I cannot wait to see how wrong I actually am, especially after putting entirely too much time into this

[Inner_GI]

Nice. That's actually an okay team to start. Much better than I would have expected. Did you account for cap space or the 66% rule? Just curious.

[LoCo89]

Nice. That's actually an okay team to start. Much better than I would have expected. Did you account for cap space or the 66% rule? Just curious.

So having done a handful of creation drafts I wasn't sure how this applied to the expansion draft. In creation drafts you can go over the cap so I just assumed that it was the same for this situation and that the artificial cap was more for free agency and trades after this.

With that said at its most expensive, this team is at $47,880,622. This falls under 66% of our current cap, $53,999,960.

[TheSyndicate]

I like how you spelled Spencer Dinwiddie's first AND last name differently in two places.

[LoCo89]

I like how you spelled Spencer Dinwiddie's first AND last name differently in two places.

I blame this on Spence being cooler than Spencer and me discovering his name wasn't Dimwiddie like I've thought irl

[TheSyndicate]

I like how you spelled Spencer Dinwiddie's first AND last name differently in two places.

I blame this on Spence being cooler than Spencer and me discovering his name wasn't Dimwiddie like I've thought irl

Legitimately not a criticism. I totally get it.

[LoCo89]

I like how you spelled Spencer Dinwiddie's first AND last name differently in two places.

I blame this on Spence being cooler than Spencer and me discovering his name wasn't Dimwiddie like I've thought irl

Legitimately not a criticism. I totally get it.

All good, Pretend there's a winky face in there.

[Darth Vegito]

Good read. Made me a bit depressed but good read.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

[Inner_GI]

Good read. Made me a bit depressed but good read.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

it made me surprised your team would even be this good.

[Inner_GI]

Loco89 can collect 5 points toward 2014-15 media cap.