sunskerr wrote:sunskerr wrote:While this has nothing really to do with our slow start and I expect us to be fine this year record-wise, I still don't think our current roster is enough to win this year. Couple of teams got significantly better. The role players we got are nice, but they will not be the reason we will win or lose a championship.
I think we need a major player acquisition to genuinely be a threat if Mikal and DA aren't taking that next offensive step, and Booker for some reason has stalled in his 3 point shooting development. With the added depth it makes sense to look for a major piece, but unfortunately I don't see any player available.
The logical upgrade is for Crowder. His offensive efficiency has really dropped off. Booker and Johnson as well but not as sharply. There must be upgrades at PF that could be made but probably not until Dec 14th.
Yeah, hopefully there are some names at PF. I think Thad Young might be a better player than Crowder, but the spacing would be terrible. Kevin Love is playing very well so far this year, but I'm not a salary cap wiz so I don't know what details go into that. I know those are the guys that are basically mentioned all the time, but if they were here I'd envision either of them playing easily north of ~24 mpg and either (at least in Love's case) starting and also absorbing basically all of the backup C minutes.
How is Kevin Love playing well? He is shooting 21% from 3 and 44% from 2. His efg% is 39.5%. Plus he said he really loves the group he is playing with in Cleveland according to our announcers.
Who do you think got significantly better that is a contender? I still think Utah is the best team and who knows how we do last year against them if they are healthier and knock off the Clippers in the playoffs.
I think the Lakers are clearly worse without KCP, Caruso, Schroder, Kuzma and Harrell and having Westbrook, Monk, etc, instead.
If Kawhi comes back I think the Clips are the best team but they are off to a horrible start..worse than us. I guess that leaves Denver who may be better than us when healthy. A backcourt of Murray and Barton with Morris off the bench is certainly a lot better than Campuzzo and Rivers. They added Jeff Green but he's playing awful too.
That doesn't mean I think we win it all or necessarily the west because it requires health, luck, and everyone clicking, but I think we are probably fine just have a few guys with slow starts. I think Bridges has looked great and Ayton had a couple of games with lower rebounding and points than you'd like, but he's looked good overall and really good the last couple of games.
I like the McGee addition and I think Shamet will end up looking better. Jalen Smith looked pretty good out there and it was his first time ever playing decent minutes when things mattered.
TWolves look pretty good. I don't think Dallas is looking good and Portland doesn't really scare me despite the big loss to them.
The Grizzlies are probably the team people shouldn't sleep on. They are good and deep, but I don't know if they are quite WCF good yet.