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by all reports the team views cade, ivey, ausar and duren their blue chip players and value stewart a lot. assuming that's the core they want to build around i think we've seen it's better to surround them with capable veterans instead of young draft busts.

my opinion:
bojan - keep at his current deal instead of cutting him to save $17M next season
burks - try to bring him back on a 2 year, $25M deal (in that ball park)
muscala - i'd be down to bring him back on something like a 1 year, $5M deal as a backup/3rd center
morris - 2 year, $20M deal as he's a great backup and we're *hopefully* moving on from hayes for good.

gallinari and harris are cooked at this point, if gallo wanted a vet min "mcgruder role" then fine but otherwise just let them go.

i think it would also be beneficial to retain them because they would still have trade value for any future moves since they wouldn't be expiring deals.

I expect morris to be back and everyone else traded or cut. maybe muscala back on a min contract after the dust clears. I don't think weaver (or whoever is in charge) is going to have the option of "maintaining cap flexibility." Changes are coming.

This is tough, because if your making trades, some of these vets have immense value in a package.

Morris/Burks/Bojan all are huge parts in a trade for players like Murray, so its a tough call on who will be back.

I voted Morris/Musky.

Morris as a local vet and shooter pg. Muscala as vet big 3rd/4th off the bench type. Bojan should be dealt by TDL but i would bee fine bringing him back over accepting lowball offer. Burks will walk to winning situation anyways so trade him surely.

Harris and Galli out of league

There are not a lot of FAs that are better than Burks/Muscala/Morris, so we will probably sign a Forward, keep Bojan, and try to bring as many of those 3 back with the money we got left.

Run it back, that’s what I’m guessing they do. Maybe if people stay healthy we won’t look like a **** team all year

whitehops wrote:by all reports the team views cade, ivey, ausar and duren their blue chip players and value stewart a lot. assuming that's the core they want to build around i think we've seen it's better to surround them with capable veterans instead of young draft busts.

my opinion:
bojan - keep at his current deal instead of cutting him to save $17M next season
burks - try to bring him back on a 2 year, $25M deal (in that ball park)
muscala - i'd be down to bring him back on something like a 1 year, $5M deal as a backup/3rd center
morris - 2 year, $20M deal as he's a great backup and we're *hopefully* moving on from hayes for good.

gallinari and harris are cooked at this point, if gallo wanted a vet min "mcgruder role" then fine but otherwise just let them go.

i think it would also be beneficial to retain them because they would still have trade value for any future moves since they wouldn't be expiring deals.

It is strange that we’re a 5-39 team with 8 guys to be open to bring back.

I’m not sure I disagree about any one player but if all 8 are still around next year that could be an issue.

Snakebites wrote:It is strange that we’re a 5-39 team with 8 guys to be open to bring back.

I’m not sure I disagree about any one player but if all 8 are still around next year that could be an issue.

it seems weird but i think a big part of our record this season is playing so much literal dead weight with wiseman, bagley, hayes and livers. replacing them simply with middling vets would make the team noticeably better. having a young core that are trying to learn how to play nba ball is already a lot so why weaver thought surrounding them with other young players that have proven for years they haven't figured it out is beyond me.

objectively morris is a high quality backup PG, burks is a bucket-getter off the bench and bojan is a good 2nd scoring threat. muscala is just a steady vet that can shoot as part of a 3-center rotation with duren and stewart. most importantly they just know where to be and what to do, which is pretty crucial when you're playing organized basketball.

obviously if we moved one or more of them to acquire better players then they should do that, but then i hope we'd still flesh out the bench with reliable vets. we'll be adding another raw 19-20 year old with our draft pick as is.



can you imagine hayes, bagley or wiseman doing this?

I voted Morris and Burks. Both had a horrible start to the year, Morris due to availability, while Burks was historically bad. However, both guys you’d love to have on your bench and both seem like good locker room guys. Teams for whatever reason love to run 5 man bench brigades now and I think Burks and Morris are a decent foundation.

ComboGuardCity wrote:Teams for whatever reason love to run 5 man bench brigades now and I think Burks and Morris are a decent foundation.

yeah a big part of it is their execution. in practice it's usually starters vs. bench players so both units have a lot more familiarity running sets, communicating on defense, etc.

a coach can draw up the perfect plays or the perfect defense but it ultimately comes down to the players executing it which is why they tend to prioritize that chemistry. vets can usually slide in wherever but the familiarity really helps younger players.

C: Duren / Stew
F: 3&D Forward(Jerami Grant?)/ Bojan
F: 3&D Forward(Cam Johnson?)/ Ausar
G: Ivey / Burks
G: Cade / Morris

That's a good lineup. That bench unit would be great. Only one non shooter with the starters and only one non shooter with the bench unit.... not sure if we could leverage our top 5 pick and cap space in to getting those two players or similar level players but I could see having 8 of the same 10 rotation guys. Honestly Ivey and Ausar are our worst two players in that rotation.


If we don't make a trade before the deadline, I could still see us bringing back a 8 guys for the rotation and signing one new FA and adding a top 5 pick. That in many ways would suck, but I do kind of doubt that we'll do a big time revamp and have just 5 of our 15 back next year.

whitehops wrote:

Snakebites wrote:It is strange that we’re a 5-39 team with 8 guys to be open to bring back.

I’m not sure I disagree about any one player but if all 8 are still around next year that could be an issue.

it seems weird but i think a big part of our record this season is playing so much literal dead weight with wiseman, bagley, hayes and livers. replacing them simply with middling vets would make the team noticeably better. having a young core that are trying to learn how to play nba ball is already a lot so why weaver thought surrounding them with other young players that have proven for years they haven't figured it out is beyond me.

objectively morris is a high quality backup PG, burks is a bucket-getter off the bench and bojan is a good 2nd scoring threat. muscala is just a steady vet that can shoot as part of a 3-center rotation with duren and stewart. most importantly they just know where to be and what to do, which is pretty crucial when you're playing organized basketball.

obviously if we moved one or more of them to acquire better players then they should do that, but then i hope we'd still flesh out the bench with reliable vets. we'll be adding another raw 19-20 year old with our draft pick as is.

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can you imagine hayes, bagley or wiseman doing this?

Fair enough.

I’d still say that while I like Bojan/Burks/Muscala/Monte individually that we should be looking to upgrade where we can. Collectively I don’t think they’re good enough.

I would absolutely resign burks, musicals, and Morris. If Morris has to go I don’t mind, Killian is the new veteran guard on our team and we need another veteran guard after Morris. I think Morris is more valuable with a contract though so I would extend him and burks. Bojan is too valuable not to trade. I dont’ think he benefits us as much as we think he does. We need to move on and get a starting PF ASAP.

Spider156 wrote:I would absolutely resign burks, musicals, and Morris. If Morris has to go I don’t mind, Killian is the new veteran guard on our team and we need another veteran guard after Morris. I think Morris is more valuable with a contract though so I would extend him and burks. Bojan is too valuable not to trade. I dont’ think he benefits us as much as we think he does. We need to move on and get a starting PF ASAP.

Killian is the new veteran guard? Am I reading this correctly?

I do like the idea of a 10 man rotation where our youngest rotation players our 5 youngest rotation players are:

Duren (21)
Thompson (21)
Ivey (22)
Cade (23)
Stewart (23)

That's already a ton of youth I'd be thrilled if the other 5 rotation guys are 25+ in age... It doesn't really matter as much for guys in the 11th - 15th spots but even having a few of those slots filed by vets is good. I'm pretty on board with trading away our pick this year unless the offers for it are garbage.

I want to wait and see what happens at the trade deadline before deciding. If we can get great value for any of these guys, we should be willing to move off of them. If we can sign better longterm fits in free agency, we should do it instead of bringing these guys back. But I like all of these guys (except Harris, who is washed) and have no problems with bringing any of them back for continuity and stability.

Harris looks done, and Gallo is way too injury-prone.

But yeah. Morris, Muscala, and especially Burks and Bojan are quality vets to have. Unless we can replace them with other quality vets, we should keep them.

Our problem has been and IS playing very low quality rookies and young players a lot of minutes, guys that bring critical flaws. Killian destroys our offensive flow with his anti-spacing and hesitancy. Bagley and Wiseman kill our defense with lack of awareness and inability to read and defend screens.

These may not seem like huge things, but good teams exploit the hell out of your weaknesses. Add in smaller stuff like Stewart’s lack of handle at the four, Cade’s sloppiness with the ball at times, (bigger) Ivey’s poor decision-making, and Ausur’s lack of shot. There’s just so many ways we either beat ourselves or get taken advantage of.

You can reasonably expect the guys under 24 to get better at things (except Wiseman… he’s just a lost cause, apparently), but Weaver’s adding these young vets that aren’t good and the huge, failed investment in Killian have kept us stalled out for now.

One can only hope we’ll stop with the reclamation project nonsense going forward.

Kalamazoo317 wrote:I want to wait and see what happens at the trade deadline before deciding. If we can get great value for any of these guys, we should be willing to move off of them. If we can sign better longterm fits in free agency, we should do it instead of bringing these guys back. But I like all of these guys (except Harris, who is washed) and have no problems with bringing any of them back for continuity and stability.

Good post, totally agree that we need to see what we can do at the deadline. Also, a lot depends on how much these guys want. Does Burks/Morris/Bogdonovich cost $20M each? 10? 5? These are the 3 I’m most interested in.