Now...
-Keep the stealth tank moving. Play the young guys to get experience.
This off-season...
1. Sell our souls to keep our draft pick and land Cunningham. If we get the 2nd or 3rd pick take Suggs.
*Why - Who needs a soul anyways...
2. Trade Beasley for Aaron Gordon.
*Why - A lot of fans are thinking "hey we've got 2 young PFs now, we don't need a replacement. We do have 2 nice young developmental PF's. One is only 20 years old and 20 pounds away from playing the PF position full time. The other is a gritty and hustling defender but offensively doesn't need to be guarded (a bigger part of the problem than you might think).
*Aaron Gordon... Is he the PERFECT fit at PF? Probably not. He's average defensively in the post (which isn't terrible mind you) but ABOVE average switching onto wings. Plus he's right at his prime or approaching it and is there physically right now, no waiting around. AG benefits:
A - Defense is good (not great of course). We keep our young defensive minded backups on the squad if we can and use them when needed.
B - Lob dunker - Another legitimate thing that defenses have to game plan against.
C - Transition scorer
D - Will get you 14 ppg every single night, unlike what we get from the PF position right now.
E - Ball handling & play-making - The dude has REALLY grown into a very good play-maker. More and more he acts as the primary offensive initiator, and that's from the FOUR position. That's hugely valuable.
F - Good 3 ball - He'll shoot it around 35%, around league average. Not what you NEED him for, but he's solid and can hit it, you would think he'd get GREAT looks with what surrounds him.
Beasley has had a very nice 10 months of basketball, he's probably hit his peak as a player, and he's still got holes, especially on the defensive end. There's just no way that a back court of DLo, Beas, and Ant could EVER take you anywhere in the playoffs with 3 bad defenders (of course Ant has potential).
Why Orlando does it - 2 reasons - Jonathan Isaac & Evan Fournier. They've got their PF of the future in Isaac, a good young backup in Okeke. Fournier is a free agent this summer so nabbing Beasley on a good contract would be a good plan for them to not over-pay Fournier to return.
The Gordon / Cunningham Effect...
1. KAT - He wouldn't have to blow all of his energy on offense trying to do everything. He could focus his energy on defense and score an efficient 18 ppg to boot. Effect? Better defense, more efficient offense.
2. Play-making & Ball Handling - Cunningham is simply ridiculous with the ball in his hands as a scorer, passer, and play-maker. Gordon is growing into a very good play-maker himself. The best NBA teams have play-makers at the wing position, we'd have CC, Gordon, and Ant to take care of things in that realm. And while DLo is still on the team, he can focus on what he does best offensively and AVOID the things he struggles at on that end (collapsing the defense, getting to the hoop, etc.).
3. Size - The starting squad would almost never have a size disadvantage, we have that a lot as it stands. DLo / Ant / CC / Gordon / KAT. Size at every position.
I'll add this to the equation... If Nowell continues to develop and becomes more efficient on the offensive end, I could see him closing games ahead of DLo just because he's a good defender (again if he develops more offensive efficiency). He wouldn't need to be a facilitator in that scenario, CC / Ant / Gordon would take care of that. He'd play the Derrick Fisher role at PG in those instances. Play defense, hit the open 3, move the ball.
Frankly, I'd mortgage pretty much any player on the wolves to make this happen. If the magic wouldn't budge, I'd throw in any other player(s) they would want outside of KAT & Ant. Any. Player. Yes, even Big Mac.
Suggs - Plan B...
I'd do the same plan, trade for Gordon, and if we got the 2nd or 3rd pick in the lotto I'd take Suggs. I think he's big enough to start at the 2 alongside DLo and would take a lot of the play-making responsibilities off of his plate. Plus he's a damn good defender and shooter/scorer.
Either way, with my plan (and I would mortgage a future draft pick or 2 in the process if needed) would be to end up with a core of either:
XX / Ant / CC / Gordon / KAT
or
XX / Suggs / Ant / Gordon / KAT
Either way I'd be pumped, but getting CC would transform this organization IMO. We gotta go all in this off-season. Yes, we'd be sacrificing a great shooter in Beasley. Some may think that Beasley is worth more in a trade, I actually think it would take more than just Beasley to pull Gordon away from the Magic.
Best case scenario: Land top pick and get Gordon for Okogie.
DLo / Ant / CC / Gordon / KAT
Hope for progression in Nowell, Big Mac, V8, Culver, and Naz. Sign jMac if they need to (2-way again). Use the rest of the squad in whatever trades for picks and or players that have different last names than them (Rubio, Juancho, Layman). After we start winning next year, maybe a high profile star would want to join in for the championship, who knows. That's the plan, send it into Rosas..
