Who's safe and who's vulnerable?

[younggunsmn]

I think Connelly's biggest mistake was in making an all-in move before he had enough time to fully evaluate the roster.
I know he no doubt had all the film on our players from his time in Denver and the opinions of our coaches, but that's not the same as seeing them work every day and learning about their character and work habits firsthand.

What would he have done differently if he had seen another half season of growth in Naz for example (who would be buried on the bench if not for the KAT injury). Would he have held onto Vanderbilt?
Would he have been more likely to move on from D-Lo, or include him as salary filler instead of Bev and Beasley?

Outside of moving Russell, I'm okay with him not making any big moves until the offseason.
I'm not a big fan of the Gobert addition so far, but I think there is far more risk in not letting it play out and making a panic trade at this point.

[Biff Cooper]

0 D'Angelo Russell
4 Jaylen Nowell
11 Naz Reid
10 Bryn Forbes
Expirings who haven't shown a reason for the team to keep them.

Reid is interesting in that he could have decent value at the trade deadline. He can be a very effective player on the court, and we can't give him the minutes or pay him what he probably deserves.

Could easily see D'Angelo Russell traded where we get a slightly better player(s) back on a longer term contract from a team who is rebuilding and wanting to shed future salary. DLo has decent value on the court for us if we don't expect him to be more than a 16-24 mpg rotation guy, so I don't think we are giving him away. Our shortness of PG makes it unlikely to get rid of him unless it gets us better on-the-court player(s). Seems pretty obvious that we have no interest in paying him $30M + in a future contract though. If we can't work out an in-season trade, maybe we'd offer him $15-20M a year this summer and let him shop to see if he can do better.

Forbes has shown very little and agree that he is likely to get waived the second we need his roster spot - or if we need to up Garza to the permanent roster.

Nowell seems a little safer than the other three. He gets fairly consistent minutes that we would have to replace.

Tough to put a value on Minott, Moore or Knight. They each have some potential, but hard to believe that we would hold up a bigger deal because the other team needed to have one of those guys included.

[Dewey]

0 D'Angelo Russell
4 Jaylen Nowell
11 Naz Reid
10 Bryn Forbes
Expirings who haven't shown a reason for the team to keep them.

Reid is interesting in that he could have decent value at the trade deadline. He can be a very effective player on the court, and we can't give him the minutes or pay him what he probably deserves.

Could easily see D'Angelo Russell traded where we get a slightly better player(s) back on a longer term contract from a team who is rebuilding and wanting to shed future salary. DLo has decent value on the court for us if we don't expect him to be more than a 16-24 mpg rotation guy, so I don't think we are giving him away. Our shortness of PG makes it unlikely to get rid of him unless it gets us better on-the-court player(s). Seems pretty obvious that we have no interest in paying him $30M + in a future contract though. If we can't work out an in-season trade, maybe we'd offer him $15-20M a year this summer and let him shop to see if he can do better.

Forbes has shown very little and agree that he is likely to get waived the second we need his roster spot - or if we need to up Garza to the permanent roster.

Nowell seems a little safer than the other three. He gets fairly consistent minutes that we would have to replace.

Tough to put a value on Minott, Moore or Knight. They each have some potential, but hard to believe that we would hold up a bigger deal because the other team needed to have one of those guys included.

I agree with most of this, but it always seems we are the team to five in to the other team in trades. Nowell I can take or leave. See what happens - DLo is good as gone.

[Klomp]

Reid is interesting in that he could have decent value at the trade deadline. He can be a very effective player on the court, and we can't give him the minutes or pay him what he probably deserves.

"Hasn't shown a reason to keep" was probably a tad unfair when it comes to Reid. However, when you think of it positionally it makes more sense.