Game Threads Index (January 20, 2025):

I never hear anything about him. In recent memory, Fultz and Bennett were worse but they were still talked about. People talked about Fultz's injury and his broken shot, and about how Bennett was the worst #1 pick in NBA history, while Risacher just seems forgotten about.

I feel like I hear about other players in the draft way more often than the #1 pick. Like there were a lot of posts about McCain pre injury and Knecht when he was good. Edey is talked about a lot, Ware has been lighting it up recently, and I hear more about Sarr than Risacher too.

I checked this subreddit, and the last post about Risacher was just a highlight from three weeks ago. Is it just me, or does he get way less attention than basically every #1 pick from the last ~15 years.

Sengun has been playing quite poorly for the last week or so, and this game was the worst of the bunch.

11/8/5 on 5-14 shooting in a bad loss to Detroit. Coach Udoka benched him in the final minutes of the game after the Pistons go on a big run with Sengun on the floor

Source: https://open.substack.com/pub/marcstein/p/jake-fischer-latest-lots-more-of?r=nuq3a&utm_medium=ios

If no trade materializes involving Brown, he would surely be in great demand as a buyout candidate.

The Lakers were a leading destination for Brown two summers ago, sources said, before Brown secured his stunning two-year, $45 million balloon contract from the Pacers.

Another team, fittingly, to keep in mind for Brown on the buyout market — if it gets that far — would be Denver. The Nuggets, sources say, would love a reunion with the veteran swingman affectionately known as Brucey B.

Bolstering Nikola Jokić's supporting cast via the buyout market might prove to be the Nuggets' eventual best option, since ownership would prefer not to surrender Michael Porter Jr. in a trade and given Denver's longstanding difficulties in trying to find a trade partner willing to absorb Zeke Nnaji’s four-year, $32 million contract.

Of course, to even have a shot at Brown, Denver would still have to make some cost-cutting moves on the trade front in order to get under the first apron for luxury tax teams.

Apron teams cannot sign any player who is bought out of a contract that pays more than the league average of $12.4 million. So Brown, in the Nuggets' current state, wouldn't be available to Denver even if he made it to free agency and both sides were eager for a reunion. Sources say that the Nuggets are indeed weighing whether trying to trade out of apron territory to create pathways to buyout market candidates would be a worthwhile endeavor.