DuckIII wrote:I saw it being discussed in the young core thread, but didn't see an actual Giddey thread. If this is redundant mods, please merge. I've been taking my time with Giddey and its still only 13 games, but I've seen enough now that I'm starting to form the view we should do one of three things with him:
(a) trade him at the deadline;
(b) let him walk; or
(c) sign him to 2 year deal even if it means the trade-off is a bit of an overpay.
More on that later.
I was a big fan of the Giddey trade. Still am. The big obvious downside - and a big part of why we could get him for Caruso - is that he's on the last year of his deal. Doug noted this from day 1 and has discussed it several times since and has been 100% right. Its a problem. And due to AKME's inability to trade Zach and Vuc, we will likely not be able to evaluate Giddey in the context we need to evaluate him in, because if we do resign him it won't be to play with Zach or Vuc. It will be to be the PG for a completely different team.
And in some situations that might not be that big of a deal. But here it is. Because Josh Giddey absolutely sucks at defense and is a hopeless cause to improve. He doesn't have the desire to do it at a high level as evidenced by his waning level of interest and recognition during the games. But even more fundamentally, he has no lateral quickness to stay in front of NBA wings. Nor does he have a strength advantage that might permit him to leverage that attribute against his slow feet. Nor does he have the instincts of someone like Hinrich (who actually was laterally quick) which help mitigate this weakness through anticipation.
Its not a problem solvable by Giddey himself. Its permanent and severe. But it is not a deal breaker to me.
The problem is, as someone pointed out perhaps in the Cavs game thread, for Giddey to work he has play with 4 good-to-strong defenders to make up for it. As we have seen, teams just flat out go at him, and manipulate screen actions to get him to a mismatch and then attack. So we need to see how that works - Giddey surrounded by strong defenders. But we can't. Because we have one really good defender and three pretty good defenders, one of which includes Dalen Terry who pretty obviously is a fringe 12th man type. And I guess we can include Matas at least as someone who projects as a plus defender. But its a bit of a stretch to include him today given his minutes and learning curve.
And everyone else is pretty much a negative defender, and one of them - the critical center position - might be worse than Giddey.
As such, during the one year we get to evaluate him, we will not be evaluating Giddey in the most informative context. Or in any context even remotely close to that. Its almost the opposite scenario in fact, in which we can virtually never create a scenario like the one we need to see. Giddey, Ayo, Pat, Matas and Smith? Maybe that gets close to it theoretically for getting a look? After Matas improves? That's pretty much the only combo unless you want to play Terry and, um, yuck.
So this brings me back to the three best options as I see them based on what I've seen so far.
(a) Trade him. Decide he's not the guy, and trade him for the best flexible return you can get. Doesn't matter if its worse than Caruso value, which it will be. He won't bring much. Totally irrelevant. You rolled the dice on a smart bet, didn't work. No shame, team needs to be rebuilt wisely, move on.
(b) Let him walk. Same thing, but you get to evaluate him for a whole season. Perhaps even without Lavine and Vuc here if they keep playing as well as they have been. I'd be fine with losing him for nothing to get a chance to evaluate him in that context
(c) Sign him to a two-year deal, even at an "overpay" to buy time to evaluate him or possibly even trade him when his price is fixed and he has a year or more left on his deal. He has unique offensive talents. He might be a terrific point guard you can build with. But you need more time and far superior context for evaluation before making a more significant commitment.
Based on what I see so far, I'm fine with any of those three. I'm not fine with paying a premium for him ($30 mil neighborhood) to make him a key rebuilding piece. Won't be enough time, and won't be able to evaluate him in the right context. I'd rather keep Ayo and pay him way less and keep that money unspent to remain flexible going forward as we rebuild. As of 13 games anyway.
Kudos on the thread title change!
I have to admit that I forgot the specifics of the conundrum (pasted OP above). You really didn't even get into his lack of 3pt shooting. There is a lesson here, and I think it comes down to the fact that it takes guys time to figure out how to play in a new system.
