Barring trade, keep 2nd round pick or sign FA such as Tre Jones?

[League Circles]

Barring trade, and assuming we re-sign Giddey, we'll have 14 out of 15 guaranteed deals locked in for next year:

Vuc
Collins
Smith
Matas
Patrick
Phillips
Giddey
Huerter
Terry
Ball
Ayo
Coby
Carter
#12

In this scenario, for the 15th and final spot, would you rather keep whoever we take at #45, or sign a free agent such as Tre Jones?

I know it can depend on the specific players obviously, especially for free agency, so this is in some ways more of a money/contract question. Obviously we can probably get a better player in FA, but if we want that guy to potentially be a long term piece, we'd need to offer him multiple years, compromising our FA options in the future, and probably at least marginally hurting our 2026 pick position.

I suppose another option that I think is unwise is to cut somebody like Carter, Terry, Vuc or Phillips to add an extra spot.

I think I lean towards keeping the pick, assuming the contract is as minimal as possible.

Thoughts?

[TheSuzerain]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

[League Circles]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

Probably helps us a bit from a talent standpoint but hurts a fair amount in terms of flexibility, since we'd have fewer options for contract matching in trades over the season, and then be on the hook for the multi year deal for Tre or whoever.

[ChettheJet]

I'm resigning Tre Jones and taking #45 for the G League. Running back the roster that finished the season plus #12 is regression not progress. There will be trades, prediction or wish list doesn't matter. I need to move Vucevic, help Jevon Carter get somewhere he wants to be, wish Dalen Terry the best, maybe Ayo and his people find a good destination and see what comes back. Simple two teams deals aren't going to change the roster situation, there will be bigger players in motion and being the 3rd or 4th team to make those guys move should be plan A.

[League Circles]

I'm resigning Tre Jones and taking #45 for the G League. Running back the roster that finished the season plus #12 is regression not progress. There will be trades, prediction or wish list doesn't matter. I need to move Vucevic, help Jevon Carter get somewhere he wants to be, wish Dalen Terry the best, maybe Ayo and his people find a good destination and see what comes back. Simple two teams deals aren't going to change the roster situation, there will be bigger players in motion and being the 3rd or 4th team to make those guys move should be plan A.

Understood, and frankly agreed, but this is about the plausible plan B scenario where we simply cannot find a trade that we want to do.

And frankly, even if we do find a trade we want to do, it's probably unlikely to open up extra roster spots for us, because the guys we'd want to move mostly make real money, and mostly aren't good enough to package together for a high priced player coming back.

Also, if you don't offer your 2nd round pick an nba contract (non two-way), don't you lose your rights to them?

[MrSparkle]

If AK doesn’t make atleast 1 trade to dump some salary or roster spots, and he just resigns two RFAs to their asking prices in a dead FA market (ONE TEAM!!) then he’s the most incompetent moron to ever have worked in NBA roster management.

Over half the rotation is expiring next year. They won’t (hopefully) all be back. The time to begin re-positioning is this summer. Don’t want to be stuck with $80M longterm salary on Giddey, Pat, Jalen and Tre, and then deal with Coby/Ayo extensions.

Lonzo, Collins and Huerter will have value as expirings. They have no value on bigger/new extensions (to the Bulls).

[Stratmaster]

Barring trade..... the team is screwed and we have running back more of the same results from the last 5 seasons. So lets hope they can find trade partners. In fact, if you have to use #45 and/or Coby to help facilitate a trade for anyone not named Giddey, Matas you do it. Personally, the guys I want to see back on this team next season are Giddey, Matas, Smith and Ayo. But if you need to use Smith and Ayo to facilitate unloading other players, you do it.

[WesPeace]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

Huerter useless?? Come on dude..

Lets hope Carter doesnt pick his player option and we will have another roster spot.

[League Circles]

If AK doesn’t make atleast 1 trade to dump some salary or roster spots, and he just resigns two RFAs to their asking prices in a dead FA market (ONE TEAM!!) then he’s the most incompetent moron to ever have worked in NBA roster management.

Over half the rotation is expiring next year. They won’t (hopefully) all be back. The time to begin re-positioning is this summer. Don’t want to be stuck with $80M longterm salary on Giddey, Pat, Jalen and Tre, and then deal with Coby/Ayo extensions.

Lonzo, Collins and Huerter will have value as expirings. They have no value on bigger/new extensions (to the Bulls).

Very difficult to dump salary of guys that are overpaid expirings anyway due to matching requirements. What do we care anyway? Not like we're going to become a player this summer.

The only contract on the roster that we'd really benefit from dumping is Patrick's, and he's probably at such a low value point that the cost to dump him would make it unwise IMO.

Also not sure what you mean in the first part. Only Giddey is an RFA. Jones is a UFA. What we pay Giddey and how we handle it matters for sure, but it's probably going to happen one way or the other, so this is about the very plausible scenario where we re-sign him (to whatever deal), and can't find a trade we like, and have to decide between the player we drafted at #45 and a FA (such as Jones or others).

I mean, look at it from other team's perspectives - why would these tradeable guys be wanted:

Vuc - sucks, old, not cheap
Collins - nothing special, not cheap, expiring
Patrick - sucks, absurd contract
Phillips - who? (And also doesn't need to be moved by us for much reason)
Huerter - nothing special, not cheap, expiring
Terry - who? Same situation as Phillips
Ayo - probably has some value, but coming off a mediocre year and injury, and is a UFA in a year (and we may kinda need him depending on who we draft)
Ball - probably has some value, but we don't need to move his salary, and he still missed more than half the season while "healthy" and shot terribly
Coby - would obviously have some decent value, but looking like one of our building blocks
Carter - no value, and maybe can't even be traded after he inevitably picks up his player option?

So I don't see much potential to drop bad salary (Patrick at a low value point). To gain a roster spot, maaaaybe we can find a deal where we attach Ball or Ayo, or less likely Coby, to Vuc or Collins to bring in a high salary player to clear up a roster spot, but that sounds like an ill-advised "win now" move.

Like, what does Ball + Vuc or Collins actually get us that we'd even remotely want?

[League Circles]

Barring trade..... the team is screwed and we have running back more of the same results from the last 5 seasons. So lets hope they can find trade partners. In fact, if you have to use #45 and/or Coby to help facilitate a trade for anyone not named Giddey, Matas you do it. Personally, the guys I want to see back on this team next season are Giddey, Matas, Smith and Ayo. But if you need to use Smith and Ayo to facilitate unloading other players, you do it.

So you want to just trade Coby to get rid of him? That could easily be accomplished. Crazy, but easy to do.

Who do we need to unload other than Patrick?

[Bulliever2020]

I like Tre but let him sign elsewhere

We already have way too many PGs on this team as is

And I thought everyone was so confident in Lonzo playing next season and eventually getting us back a 1st round pick

[sco]

IMO there are a number of teams that are looking for starting PG's like BKN and DAL, and probably others. The real question is whether Jones is viewed as a legit starter. The truth here is that he played well when given the starting assignment for a handful of games, but the fact is that he wasn't really the starter (it was Ball who went down) and he wasn't really the PG (it was Giddey). Those circumstances may create enough of a question that nobody lines up to pay him more than $10M. If we can nab him for that kind of money, we should jump. He's a legit 5th/6th man with 2 way skill and decent playmaking ability and the ability to guard the quicker PG's.

Regarding our 2nd, I'd do whatever I could to use it as a carrot to enhance the value of guys we'd otherwise like to be rid of like Vuc or Carter if anyone is remotely interested. We have too many young guys on this roster as it is.

[LateNight]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

How was Collins useless?

[Red Larrivee]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

Huerter useless?? Come on dude..

Lets hope Carter doesnt pick his player option and we will have another roster spot.

Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd waive so many players on expiring deals. Makes sense to get to the trade deadline to see how you can leverage that.

[TheSuzerain]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

Huerter useless?? Come on dude..

Lets hope Carter doesnt pick his player option and we will have another roster spot.

Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd waive so many players on expiring deals. Makes sense to get to the trade deadline to see how you can leverage that.

You don't need to waive all of them. But if we have a strong MLE target, we can obviously make room.

And personally, I'd love to bottom out next year which basically would just involve hollowing out the bench and putting all relevant players in the starting 5.

[TheSuzerain]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

How was Collins useless?

He's a competent/mediocre vet.

We're not in a stage where those guys have value. Same with Huerter.

Those guys keep you in purgatory.

[League Circles]

Just cut out buy out the useless people.

Carter, Terry, Huerter, Vuc, and/or Collins.

How was Collins useless?

He's a competent/mediocre vet.

We're not in a stage where those guys have value. Same with Huerter.

Those guys keep you in purgatory.

I'm with you to an extent. If I could magically remove a lot of these guys from the roster I might do it, even if it only helped our 2026 pick position slightly. That said, we'd either have to release them, which means we still have to pay but cannot trade, or trade them, which I think is unlikely to result in what we'd want (even worse players on similar expiring contracts).

But we do have WAY too many mediocre players on not insignificant contracts for next year.

I feel like the first two dominos to fall should be seeing what type of player (position/skillset) we draft at #12, and then ideally moving at least one of Vuc or Collins in a smart trade, which is much harder said than done IMO. We have a serious deficiency at C. Smith is the youngest, IMO the best, and has the best contract, so I'd prefer to keep him from among the 3. We have to have one of our 3 centers next year be somebody new, whether it's who we draft at 12, who we draft at 45, a FA or a trade return. We can't stick with this 3 headed monster situation again where 2 of the 3 should have no future with us.

[sco]

How was Collins useless?

He's a competent/mediocre vet.

We're not in a stage where those guys have value. Same with Huerter.

Those guys keep you in purgatory.

I'm with you to an extent. If I could magically remove a lot of these guys from the roster I might do it, even if it only helped our 2026 pick position slightly. That said, we'd either have to release them, which means we still have to pay but cannot trade, or trade them, which I think is unlikely to result in what we'd want (even worse players on similar expiring contracts).

But we do have WAY too many mediocre players on not insignificant contracts for next year.

I feel like the first two dominos to fall should be seeing what type of player (position/skillset) we draft at #12, and then ideally moving at least one of Vuc or Collins in a smart trade, which is much harder said than done IMO. We have a serious deficiency at C. Smith is the youngest, IMO the best, and has the best contract, so I'd prefer to keep him from among the 3. We have to have one of our 3 centers next year be somebody new, whether it's who we draft at 12, who we draft at 45, a FA or a trade return. We can't stick with this 3 headed monster situation again where 2 of the 3 should have no future with us.

Not to continue the derail here, but I would really like to be rid of Vuc this offseason so that we can give Collins a good look next season (in a time split with Smith). Both guys have been behind guys their whole careers and have played well when given limited opportunities. In Collins case, he had several seasons where he was limited due to injury. When Vuc was out I saw a legit starting-level C on both ends. Not allstar level, but if I'm prioritizing my salary spend, it wouldn't be at C, and competent starter at a good price may help us find $ to upgrade at one of the other spots.

[TheJordanRule]

Coby ain't no building block. He's improved, but he's just a microwave scorer and his next deal WILL be inflated af. No, I don't need a guy who would ideally be the third guard off in the rotation stuck on a fat contract. Trade him while you still can!

[TheJordanRule]

Why do we torture ourselves with Vuce every time? The FO guys are slow. At what age can we finally let Vuce go and develop a young big instead?