Post#28 » by LofJ » Fri Jul 31, 2015 2:43 pm
I gave us a B, it would have been an A+ had we retained Biyombo.
I vehemently disagreed with us letting Biyombo go. We didn't tender him the qualifying offer because it would have put us over the apron and given us the smaller MLE to use. I think we had plans to use the full MLE on either Bellineli or Biyombo himself, but our coach has never been a fan of Biz so he probably thought (rightly) that it was in his best interest to go to a team where he would get more opportunities to play. So in the end we haven't used the MLE at all and Biyombo is playing for another team in our conference. We basically let our coach dictate personnel moves and I don't think he has proven himself nearly enough to have that kind of clout.
The rest of our offseason though? I loved it, even the Kaminsky pick and trade refusal (despite Ainge's unprofessional whining to the media). Kaminsky is projected by a lot of statistical models to be a potential all-star level player. No other player in our range other than Turner, who looks like an injury waiting to happen, had the combination of talent and fit that Kaminsky had. Winslow is a smaller MKG, on a team that already has enough project shooters. We would not have been able to give him the development attention he needs, we were wise to pass on him. Boston's offer was certainly competitive, but two mid round picks, some likely 2nd, and a 2018 first on a team looking to be competitive now to take full advantage of the cap rise was not worth it for us. And it wasn't worth it for the other 9 teams Boston offered deals to in an effort to trade up with them.
It hurt to see us trade Vonleh, but to get something you have to give something.We made a gamble that being more competitive now and maximizing the value of our over $50 million in available cap space next offseason was worth more than holding onto Vonleh. If it works and we have a good season, keep Batum, and are a desirable destination for other free agents in the offseason the risk will have paid off. The end goal is to be as competitive as possible when the 2017 season rolls around. We have the All-Star game in Charlotte that year and Steph Curry will be a free agent later that summer. We are going to throw everything we have at Curry in an effort to convince him to come home. If we fail another rebuild will be right around the corner.
The Lance trade was as good as we could possibly expect. We moved Lance for a big in Hawes that will improve our passing and spacing and then flipped a guy who likely didn't want to play for us in Barnes for a guy who very much wants to be in Charlotte in Lamb.
We then signed Lin to a bargain of a contract and added Aaron Harrison and Hansbrough to the team as well for development upside and added toughness. I dislike it that we have yet to add a rim protector to the team, but there are none available that are worth the MLE. Which is another reason why not tendering Biz the QO was a very poor decision. Overall though I am happy with what we did. It is going to be very hard to attain a rim protector though and it will come back to bite us sooner or later.
