2022-23 Season Discussion and Review - the Blockbuster trade and playoff downfall

[Jdiddy701]

Damn, I’m old enough to remember when a few us were called Ayton haters. This entire board has gone against him. It’s honestly sad. Ayton is a good dude off the court, treats fans with total respect and goes out his way to cheer people up. It sucks that it just hasn’t worked out.

I think if he was drafted on another team, he probably would be close to being out the league. Book, CP3 and Monty’s system was able to hide all his flaws. He’s had all the resources in Phoenix to be successful. I wish him well.


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[Puff]

I know this board constantly throws darts at Monty but how in the world to you expect this team to win with $60 million either on the sidelines or performing far below expectations? It goes deeper than that.

To state the obvious.
1. CP3 is the leader of this team and keeps everyone happy. I expect that we would be a lot happier with KD and others if CP3 was the PG on the court. Cam Payne is not getting it done and it is wearing Booker out trying to make up for CP3's loss.
2. Ayton is not holding down the middle worth a crap. He doesn't score, rebound or play defense. That is what he is paid to do.

I expect Isaih Thomas is going to have a voice this off season. I just hope whoever is making the decisions can shore up both the PG and Center positions. We now have the PF we have needed but he and Booker cannot be counted on to run the offense for all 48 minutes. They need to be scorers while the PG sets the table.

Outside of Booker and KD, this roster sucks. We are basically playing 2 on 5.

How can you expect Monty to turn this crap pot into a champion?

Ayton and CP3 need to go this off season.



.

[AtheJ415]

I know this board constantly throws darts at Monty but how in the world to you expect this team to win with $60 million either on the sidelines or performing far below expectations? It goes deeper than that.

To state the obvious.
1. CP3 is the leader of this team and keeps everyone happy. I expect that we would be a lot happier with KD and others if CP3 was the PG on the court. Cam Payne is not getting it done and it is wearing Booker out trying to make up for CP3's loss.
2. Ayton is not holding down the middle worth a crap. He doesn't score, rebound or play defense. That is what he is paid to do.

I expect Isaih Thomas is going to have a voice this off season. I just hope whoever is making the decisions can shore up both the PG and Center positions. We now have the PF we have needed but he and Booker cannot be counted on to run the offense for all 48 minutes. They need to be scorers while the PG sets the table.

Outside of Booker and KD, this roster sucks. We are basically playing 2 on 5.

How can you expect Monty to turn this crap pot into a champion?

Ayton and CP3 need to go this off season.



.

Monty has had repeated chances and when we lose our big games it is not by a little. He underperforms the Vegas lines by record numbers. We get blown out in every key game by 20+, with our guys thoroughly unprepared to play. That has to fall on him. He had to be bullied into playing Ross and Warren. He's not the worst coach in the world but no roster is perfect, and he has the 1st and 3rd best offensive weapons in this playoffs. We were favored to beat Denver pre series. You can't have 2 superstars and the best bench and better depth. He made our bench look historically bad when it simply is not THAT terrible.

And here we are 3 offseasons later with good backup bigs and more and we're getting eaten alive by the same gameplan that cost us to blow a 2-0 lead to Milwaukee, which is switching Ayton onto the perimeter and then abusing us on the offensive glass with the wings and traditional big / Jokic going against our remaining guys. Monty has never effectively countered that. And our guards / wings are pansies who won't rebound. So here we are.

Jones and Monty should go. I think Jones is MORE responsible for this predicament. We should have, and this isn't revisionist b/c half the world expected us to draft the guy, and with him we would have maybe the best young talent in recent memory:

Haliburton
Booker
Mikal
Cam Jo
Ayton

with a bench of CP3, Bane?, Cam Payne, Ross, Warren, Bismack, Landale, Okogie

That is every bit as bad as passing on Luka for McD. In fact, I would much rather Mikal + Haliburton + Ayton than Luka or what we have in the corpse of KD whose play is already seemingly fallen off.

[garrick]

I know this board constantly throws darts at Monty but how in the world to you expect this team to win with $60 million either on the sidelines or performing far below expectations? It goes deeper than that.

To state the obvious.
1. CP3 is the leader of this team and keeps everyone happy. I expect that we would be a lot happier with KD and others if CP3 was the PG on the court. Cam Payne is not getting it done and it is wearing Booker out trying to make up for CP3's loss.
2. Ayton is not holding down the middle worth a crap. He doesn't score, rebound or play defense. That is what he is paid to do.

I expect Isaih Thomas is going to have a voice this off season. I just hope whoever is making the decisions can shore up both the PG and Center positions. We now have the PF we have needed but he and Booker cannot be counted on to run the offense for all 48 minutes. They need to be scorers while the PG sets the table.

Outside of Booker and KD, this roster sucks. We are basically playing 2 on 5.

How can you expect Monty to turn this crap pot into a champion?

Ayton and CP3 need to go this off season.



.

Monty has had repeated chances and when we lose our big games it is not by a little. He underperforms the Vegas lines by record numbers. We get blown out in every key game by 20+, with our guys thoroughly unprepared to play. That has to fall on him. He had to be bullied into playing Ross and Warren. He's not the worst coach in the world but no roster is perfect, and he has the 1st and 3rd best offensive weapons in this playoffs. We were favored to beat Denver pre series. You can't have 2 superstars and the best bench and better depth. He made our bench look historically bad when it simply is not THAT terrible.

And here we are 3 offseasons later with good backup bigs and more and we're getting eaten alive by the same gameplan that cost us to blow a 2-0 lead to Milwaukee, which is switching Ayton onto the perimeter and then abusing us on the offensive glass with the wings and traditional big / Jokic going against our remaining guys. Monty has never effectively countered that. And our guards / wings are pansies who won't rebound. So here we are.

Jones and Monty should go. I think Jones is MORE responsible for this predicament. We should have, and this isn't revisionist b/c half the world expected us to draft the guy, and with him we would have maybe the best young talent in recent memory:

Haliburton
Booker
Mikal
Cam Jo
Ayton

with a bench of CP3, Bane?, Cam Payne, Ross, Warren, Bismack, Landale, Okogie

That is every bit as bad as passing on Luka for McD. In fact, I would much rather Mikal + Haliburton + Ayton than Luka or what we have in the corpse of KD whose play is already seemingly fallen off.

To be fair to JJ I don't think he wanted to give up Mikail for KD & from all the news articles on the KD trade it really seems like it was Ishbia who wanted KD at whatever cost so here we are.

What is inexcusable is he never got us a decent PF leaving us extremely undersized at the 4 which was a huge part of why we struggled getting rebounds & his attempts to mitigate this was getting Torey Craig as our backup PF.

Jae was clearly not the long term solution at PF for us and JJ waited too damn long until it was too late and when he had to trade him he had zero value to the rest of the league. In a nutshell JJ waits too long to make a trade and sits on his assets for way too long.

[spanishninja]

The funniest and actually kind of realistic Ayton trade destination would be Brooklyn. They were a below .500 team after the trade that got swept, I doubt they just want to run it back. They could view Ayton as a upside gamble and they had good results with Bridges.

Claxon plus some combo DFS, Dinwiddie, Harris, or O'Neal could work. Other than Claxon I doubt any are in their long term plans. Claxon is a nice yet limited player so I doubt he's a real building block kind of guy.



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I am sure the market for Ayton will be pretty decent. A team will think that if he is the top dog, not behind Booker and KD - but a true 1/2 option - a team might want to "try" as the talent is there.

I still think Detroit or Charlotte

Ayton/Payne for Rozier/Oubre/Richards works

Ayton/Payne for Bojan/Hayes/Wiseman works

[BobbieL]

The funniest and actually kind of realistic Ayton trade destination would be Brooklyn. They were a below .500 team after the trade that got swept, I doubt they just want to run it back. They could view Ayton as a upside gamble and they had good results with Bridges.

Claxon plus some combo DFS, Dinwiddie, Harris, or O'Neal could work. Other than Claxon I doubt any are in their long term plans. Claxon is a nice yet limited player so I doubt he's a real building block kind of guy.



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I am sure the market for Ayton will be pretty decent. A team will think that if he is the top dog, not behind Booker and KD - but a true 1/2 option - a team might want to "try" as the talent is there.

I still think Detroit or Charlotte

Ayton/Payne for Rozier/Oubre/Richards works

Ayton/Payne for Bojan/Hayes/Wiseman works

Isn't Oubre a free agent - I will have to look.

I like the second trade much better. Thats my target trade - as of today.

[spanishninja]

I am sure the market for Ayton will be pretty decent. A team will think that if he is the top dog, not behind Booker and KD - but a true 1/2 option - a team might want to "try" as the talent is there.

I still think Detroit or Charlotte

Ayton/Payne for Rozier/Oubre/Richards works

Ayton/Payne for Bojan/Hayes/Wiseman works

Isn't Oubre a free agent - I will have to look.

I like the second trade much better. Thats my target trade - as of today.

I suppose Hayward works in place of Oubre.

[BobbieL]

Ayton/Payne for Rozier/Oubre/Richards works

Ayton/Payne for Bojan/Hayes/Wiseman works

Isn't Oubre a free agent - I will have to look.

I like the second trade much better. Thats my target trade - as of today.

I suppose Hayward works in place of Oubre.

Paul and Ayton for Rozier and Hayward would save the Hornets a ton of cash and give them a young player to put next to Ball

[kennydorglas]

Bucks going after Scott Brooks.
WOW

[BobbieL]

Bucks going after Scott Brooks.
WOW

that was an odd name to me

he didn't seem that good in Washington

I thought of Nick Nurse for that job

[spanishninja]

Bucks going after Scott Brooks.
WOW

Looks like Russ about to head up north!

[Ghost of Kleine]

I am sure the market for Ayton will be pretty decent. A team will think that if he is the top dog, not behind Booker and KD - but a true 1/2 option - a team might want to "try" as the talent is there.

I still think Detroit or Charlotte

Ayton/Payne for Rozier/Oubre/Richards works

Ayton/Payne for Bojan/Hayes/Wiseman works

Isn't Oubre a free agent - I will have to look.

I like the second trade much better. Thats my target trade - as of today.

Yep! Oubre is a free agent, that's why Bouknight 5 million (TO) and one of Richards/ Williams would need to be included for a more equitable salary exchange. But ALSO, in a Charlotte trade, the 27th pick (DEN) needs to be coming back not only for value. But also for us to get back more controlled assets in the deal. But more than anything else, So we can secure a player almost identical to Mikal Bridges that we gave up in the Durant trade in Coulilaby!!

[Ghost of Kleine]

Isn't Oubre a free agent - I will have to look.

I like the second trade much better. Thats my target trade - as of today.

I suppose Hayward works in place of Oubre.

Paul and Ayton for Rozier and Hayward would save the Hornets a ton of cash and give them a young player to put next to Ball

I really like your premise of Charlotte as an Ayton trade partner!! But would trading both Ayton AND Paul really save them money though IF the receiving team can't buy him out for his 15 million under the new CBA? (What Week shared not long ago)?? Because IF they can't, then Paul's 30 million becomes nothing more than a 30 million expiring contract swap for them, same as what they already have with Hayward? And IF they miss out on Wemby, then they'll most likely take Scoot and start him at guard and Paul would become a 30 million bench option? Honestly though, with them already sitting on only 88 million in guaranteed salaries this summer and even less at 56 million the following season, would they even be prioritizing cap savings over proven talent? At best, I could maybe see them being interested in Ayton and willing to take Shamet in the deal IF they happen to miss out on Wemby! But I'd doubt they'd have any interest in Paul as an expiring brother!

[BobbieL]

I suppose Hayward works in place of Oubre.

Paul and Ayton for Rozier and Hayward would save the Hornets a ton of cash and give them a young player to put next to Ball

I really like your premise of Charlotte as an Ayton trade partner!! But would trading both Ayton AND Paul really save them money though IF the receiving team can't buy him out for his 15 million under the new CBA? (What Week shared not long ago)?? Because IF they can't, then Paul's 30 million becomes nothing more than a 30 million expiring contract swap for them, same as what they already have with Hayward? And IF they miss out on Wemby, then they'll most likely take Scoot and start him at guard and Paul would become a 30 million bench option? Honestly though, with them already sitting on only 88 million in guaranteed salaries this summer and even less at 56 million the following season, would they even be prioritizing cap savings over proven talent? At best, I could maybe see them being interested in Ayton and willing to take Shamet in the deal IF they happen to miss out on Wemby! But I'd doubt they'd have any interest in Paul as an expiring brother!

Good point as Ayton costs more than Rozier.

That said, Charlotte is not going to attract a lot of free agents so maybe they take on an Ayton - especially if they do not get Wemby like you mention

Gambo has a few tweets about how Monty and DA do not get along. Monty been done with Ayton since the Bucks series
Ayton didn't like that Monty was not at his signing

Why didn't the Suns take turner if that was an option? Maybe it wasn't an option

I still think it will be Ayton to Detroit unless the Pistons take Dray and Poole

[Slim Charless]

Bucks going after Scott Brooks.
WOW

that was an odd name to me

he didn't seem that good in Washington

I thought of Nick Nurse for that job

As long as they stay away from my guy in Miami.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Paul and Ayton for Rozier and Hayward would save the Hornets a ton of cash and give them a young player to put next to Ball

I really like your premise of Charlotte as an Ayton trade partner!! But would trading both Ayton AND Paul really save them money though IF the receiving team can't buy him out for his 15 million under the new CBA? (What Week shared not long ago)?? Because IF they can't, then Paul's 30 million becomes nothing more than a 30 million expiring contract swap for them, same as what they already have with Hayward? And IF they miss out on Wemby, then they'll most likely take Scoot and start him at guard and Paul would become a 30 million bench option? Honestly though, with them already sitting on only 88 million in guaranteed salaries this summer and even less at 56 million the following season, would they even be prioritizing cap savings over proven talent? At best, I could maybe see them being interested in Ayton and willing to take Shamet in the deal IF they happen to miss out on Wemby! But I'd doubt they'd have any interest in Paul as an expiring brother!

Good point as Ayton costs more than Rozier.

That said, Charlotte is not going to attract a lot of free agents so maybe they take on an Ayton - especially if they do not get Wemby like you mention

Gambo has a few tweets about how Monty and DA do not get along. Monty been done with Ayton since the Bucks series
Ayton didn't like that Monty was not at his signing

Why didn't the Suns take turner if that was an option? Maybe it wasn't an option

I still think it will be Ayton to Detroit unless the Pistons take Dray and Poole

Thanks man!
And you might be right that Turner wasn't a sign n trade possibility for us with Indiana. I get that Charlotte likely won't attract many (IF any) high level free agents, But should they really need to with the theoretical consolation (post missing Wemby) If they could reasonably still field a starting lineup of Scoot/ Lamelo/ Hayward/ Bridges/ Ayton (trading for him. But in free agency, upgrading their bench won't be nearly as critical as bench level players are honestly not that difficult to obtain IF you have cap space. And at only 88 million in guaranteed cap, they surely would.

I agree with you on the distinct possibility of an Ayton to Detroit deal. I will again say though that I seriously doubt they would send back Bogi in the deal because Weaver's looking to make the playoffs, and losing Bogi would be counterproductive to that goal for them. I could absolutely see a Wiseman/ Burks/ filler type of deal. Hayes hasn't been that good again recently, but is still a young guard with upside that'd make the salaries match and he has good size at 6'5 so he could end up a reasonably good Payne replacement in time? I think that value return is much more palatable for them to agree to. Even though I'd really prefer more value, I'm just not sure Ayton could pull that value currently now? Still, due to the overall value gap involved, I would require the pistons 31st pick (as I'd still be targeting Coulilaby) coming back to recoup a bit of what we lost in the trade. And If we're really unlucky and Coulilaby - https://www.tankathon.com/players/bilal-coulibaly
is already off the board, I'm pivoting to Trace Jackson Davis- https://www.tankathon.com/players/trayce-jackson-davis Or Dayron Holmes perhaps??

[lilfishi22]

The funniest and actually kind of realistic Ayton trade destination would be Brooklyn. They were a below .500 team after the trade that got swept, I doubt they just want to run it back. They could view Ayton as a upside gamble and they had good results with Bridges.

Claxon plus some combo DFS, Dinwiddie, Harris, or O'Neal could work. Other than Claxon I doubt any are in their long term plans. Claxon is a nice yet limited player so I doubt he's a real building block kind of guy.



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I am sure the market for Ayton will be pretty decent. A team will think that if he is the top dog, not behind Booker and KD - but a true 1/2 option - a team might want to "try" as the talent is there.

I still think Detroit or Charlotte

Hope you're right and we're just more down on his value than reality

[lilfishi22]

Damn, I’m old enough to remember when a few us were called Ayton haters. This entire board has gone against him. It’s honestly sad. Ayton is a good dude off the court, treats fans with total respect and goes out his way to cheer people up. It sucks that it just hasn’t worked out.

I think if he was drafted on another team, he probably would be close to being out the league. Book, CP3 and Monty’s system was able to hide all his flaws. He’s had all the resources in Phoenix to be successful. I wish him well.


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Simple fact is, he's a great guy to have on a team with low/no stakes ie rebuilding/borderline play-in team where he doesn't need to be more than a fun loving guy who occasionally wows you with a great game. Like if he was on Detroit, nobody is gonna care that he's putting up 12/9 on a random night because the stakes are so low anyway.

But on a team with real title aspirations and you got real basketball sickos like Book, like CP and like KD, you gotta bring more than a jovial attitude especially at your price tag.

[Frank Lee]

Charlotte just inked up Richards and have that tuff young albatross Williams who started the last 15 or so games, yanking down double digit RBs and a block or two with regularity.

They have C covered nicely at a third of the cost



Keep moving folks, nothing to see here

[Slim Charless]

Charlotte just inked up Richards and have that tuff young albatross Williams who started the last 15 or so games, yanking down double digit RBs and a block or two with regularity.

They have C covered nicely at a third of the cost



Keep moving folks, nothing to see here

I've been saying the exact same thing for weeks and yet there's constantly posters talking about moving him to Charlotte. Same thing with Detroit, they have like 3 centers including two of which are highly drafted rookies. Neither team is gonna trade for DA.