But.......WTF?
I have also always been the type that gets attached to players as people, causing me to be reluctant to want to trade anyone.
We need a bit of a shake-up this offseason, but not a major overhaul. We need to get older, not younger. We need to move some of our youth-with-potential to anybody willing to bite on that potential. We need Rubio to get the F over here, which I fully think he will if there is no lockout. We need there to not be lockout.
We need to move the following players: Flynn, Ellington, Pek, and, if we get good value, Beas. Maybe even Webster and, as much as I love him, Tolly. We can also use the rights to Bjelica/Prestes, the MEM pick, maybe the rights to the Utah pick, etc. We just absolutely need to move some youth/prospects/picks for actual productive players.
What kind of team would want any of these players? Any rebuilding team with less young talent than we have. Cleveland, Toronto, that might be it.
What would we possibly want from either of those teams that they would be willing to give up? DeRozan and Ed Davis are certainly off-limits in Toronto. But they do need a young PG and might still have some faith in Flynn excelling in a different system, which might be somewhat true. They could certainly use a bruiser like Pek. Quietly, Leandro Barbosa is having a nice season, averaging 13ppg in 24 MPG off the bench, and I have always liked him. He would fill a glaring need of ours in his ability to create off the dribble, and he is still one of the fastest players in the league, which would certainly look nice next to Rubio.
What about Cleveland? What do they need? What can they offer? They need some excitement, any excitement. I think they would love to get Beasley, and would maybe overpay to get him. What do they have that we would want? Another Brazilian. Varejao. I think he would be a huge upgrade both in terms of defense and passion. I know Cleveland loves him, but they need any excitement they can get and would be one of the few teams that I think would give up good value to get Beas.
These are just the ideas I have had lately, in thinking about what teams would possibly give up anything of value for our struggling young players.
I think this line-up would be a big improvement:
Rubio/Ridnour
Barnes*/Barbosa
Wes/Randolph/Webster(?)
Love/Randolph/Tolly(?)
Darko/Varejao/Randolph
*also, we need to get Harrison.
So, we need Rubio to get over here and be legit. We need to draft Barnes and we need him to become as clutch in the NBA as he has been at UNC. We need Wes to continue to develop and become much more consistent. We need Love to be Love. We need to use Darko as the kind of starting center that starts the 1st and 3rd quarters, but if he isn't having one of his good games, we need him to not pout and completely lose his confidence is Varejao gets the bulk of the minutes. We need Ridnour to be a solid back-up PG, which I think he is. We need Barbosa to do basically what he has done in Toronto this season, and be a consistent spark off the bench with consistent energy. We need plenty of minutes for Randolph, and we need him to develop some consistency and resist the urge to try to do too much. We need Tolly to keep being Tolly, unless we have to move him, but I hope we don't. We need Varejao to be what he always has been- one of the best defensive bigs around, who also brings great energy.
I think this line-up would also give us a lot of versatility.
How fast would this up-tempo line-up be?: Rubio, Barbosa, Wes, Randolph, Varejao
How tenacious would this defensive line-up be?: Rubio, Wes, Randolph, Tolly, Varejao
How lights-out would this shooting line-up be?: Ridnour, Barnes, Wes, Tolly, Love
How savvy would this veteran line-up be?: Ridnour, Barbosa, Webster. Tolly, Varejao
I have reached the point where I don't think Beas and Love can co-exist defensively long-term. I actually think they are a worse combo defensively than Al and Love were. That is my primary reasoning for being willing to move Beas. I think people around the league fully understand how much potential he still has, so I don't think his value is completely shot. I also think he needs to be on a team built around him, and this team will never be that team, as we are building around Love. I also think AR can play some of his minutes at the 3, so moving Beas helps open up minutes for him. AR just compliments Love defensively much better than Beas.
We also need Rambis to show us something early in the season, or I will quickly stop defending him, even though he is a nice man. He needs to let Rubio play to his strengths and have the ball in his hands a lot, and he needs to let him play through mistakes. We need him to stop trying to force the offense through Darko, and to be willing to run more pick-and-rolls and run our shooters off screens more often. We need him to get more passion out of his players and much better defensive energy overall. If these things don't happen and we are struggling early in the year next year, I will gladly join Vindicater in calling for his head.
I do think that Rubio, Varejao, Barbosa, Randolph, and Tolly(I really don't want to move Tolly) are the type of players that play with 110% hustle on both ends of the court for 48 minutes. While I don't think any of these guys are vocal leaders, I think they will consistently lead by example and give the team much better energy in general, making us a less-than-atrocious defensive team. Beasley is just not that kind of player, and he never will be, so I don't like him as a key piece of this team going forward. Love, despite his defensive reputation, plays his ass off.
I don't know. This is the WTF thread, where everybody desperately tries to find ideas about how we can improve next season.
For me right now, the biggest WTF is our lack of passion, heart and effort,
so I have tried to address those problems with these moves. Thoughts?
Ohh, that critical analysis is a bitzch. But basically, yeah, what he said.
