skywalker33 wrote:Rebel, watching Collins in this series, he seems real soft, not a rebounder at all. He reminds me of a weaker Blair Rasmussen. Not sure he's be a good fit behind Jokic.
As I have always said he would be my 3rd big at best. While he cannot handle Jokic, he has actually done a good job against Plumlee and bugged him and has somewhat gotten under Jokic's skin at times. Which is all we need from a bench big.
The toughness for me has to come from Vanderbilt. He is the defender, rebounder, hustle guy which means he has to have the heart and toughness to step in during an issue.
Collins is the bench big that comes in and spreads the floor and stops the layup lines at the rim when our perimeter players are not slowing down the drives.
Harkless is not a soft player at all and is a good perimeter defender to work with Craig and Harris giving us at least 1 good one on the court at all times.
The Blazers are still in cap hell, they do not have a means to sign Kanter, Curry, and Hood. They are already at the tax line with needing to resign Aminu, and the taxpayer MLE will likely only get 1 of those guys with the playoffs they have all been having.
Given that I think we can get Collins very cheaply considering. We have the TPEs to take back both Harkless and Collins for free.
Now I am not so sure that they would take Barton as he has not been great this year, but if they could be convinced that he is their scorer off the bench than we could literally give them Barton for Harkless and Collins keeping us just under the luxury tax even if we opt into Millsap's deal, which creates a max cap slot in 2020 without losing any of the young guys and holding Plumlee's bird rights. So if in a year we do not like Collins he can be dumped and we could bring back Plumlee on a short term deal, but if he works out than our bigs are set and we can go get a max guy at the 3 or 4 depending on how Murray and Harris are doing and whether MPJ or Vanderbilt are going to work out.
For the Trailblazers Barton can replace Hood's scoring, allowing them to give the full taxpayer MLE to Kanter and with Anfernee Simons they can still have a viable bench once Nurkic gets healthy.
edited to add, I am not so concerned about toughness seeing the way that Jokic, Harris, and Murray have not only stood their grounds but went back after guys who tried to get physical with them in the playoffs. I still want a goon off the bench, but he can be the 11th or 12th man at this point.
