ImNotMcDiSwear wrote:Bridges has made enormous strides over the last month or so. I'm starting to doubt the certainty with which I held Ayton>Bridges. Bridges is indispensable. Ayton is very useful, but his motor, focus and intensity come and go. Watching us finish this game with a small ball lineup, I find myself wondering what a future without Ayton might look like.
Depends on the matchups and what kind of other Cs we have. Last year in the playoffs I remember everyone felt if Ayton was out or in foul trouble or fouled out we'd be screwed and any minutes he had to sit were tough. Obviously with McGee that will be different. But he can also only play so many minutes. So you just have to decide how good the alternatives might be. He just had a bad shooting night last night. Tonight a couple were close and rimmed out and a bad turnover but obviously a lot of our guys have a lot of bad turnovers at times. Still one of the most efficient players in the NBA. I know he gets a lot of assisted alley oops and stuff but a lot of bigs just dunk it and finish and stuff. He has more moves/range than most or at least many of them (the ones that don't shoot 3s).
But like I've been saying, if he doesn't agree to less than a max I can see our team wanting to try and find a guy getting paid a bit less who maybe doesn't have nearly the versatility or upside because Ayton is still only 23 and learning, adding stuff like hook shots, etc....and we'd just have to hope we can remain one of the better teams. Will be hard, particularly once we move on from Paul, so you usually pay the premium players. He's better than some guys who have gotten maxes in the past but there are also probably players better than him that didn't get it. I don't know about #1 picks better than him though. #1 picks worse than him did.And a number of others like Otto Porter, etc.
