At The Bar: NBA offseason discussion thread

A passion project of our longest-standing mod and Silver Screen and Roll legend — and my first boss at this site! — SoCalGal, “At The Bar” was a recurring feature at SSR where the community could just chat about whatever is going on in and around the NBA that (I believe) began in 2012.

Here is how SCG described it, in one of the earliest versions I could find in our databases:

SB Nation communities are supposed to be like internet sports bars, but even within a “sports bar”, you still have options. If you want privacy, one-to-one conversation, and the opportunity to engage in specific debate about a single topic, you grab a booth. If you want to shoot the shit with friends and strangers alike, you take a seat at the bar. “At The Bar” is your one-stop shop for all the daily randomness that makes SSR such a joy. If you want to discuss something specific, you’ll have nice, quiet “booths” in which to have focused conversations. But if you just want to kick back and enjoy the company of friends and strangers, with a little sports and current events on the side, then saunter on up and grab a seat.

To give you a sense of how long ago that was, the featured photo of that post is then-new Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni on crutches, observing Kobe Bryant in practice.

Now THIS is going to be FUN.

For a variety of reasons, we don’t do “At The Bar” as regularly anymore, mostly because of the volume of stories being published allowing for all kinds of places to discuss the latest news. But given that we are headed towards the slower part of the offseason, I wanted to bring it back to give everyone in the community a place to chat about anything that may be going on around the league as there is less happening around the Lakers.

So let’s hang out below! To get things started: How are you feeling about the moves around the league, and where do you think the Lakers stack up with the rest of the teams who got better?