d-train wrote:BNM wrote:BlazersBroncos wrote:
I don't think Hood+Little+Filler gets you Covington. We would at least have to add a future 1st rounder. And I would happily do so. Especially if Simons and to a lesser extent Mario show some scoring abilities off the bench, making the loss of Hood easier to swallow. I still doubt MIN bites on the above deal plus a FRP. Covington has tremendous value.
But, a team with Bazemore, Covington, Zach, Hassan and Nurkic probably would be the toughest in the league. Those guys are all pitbulls.
Sorry, meant to include pick(s) in my post - whatever it takes to make it work. If MIN decides to move Covington, they will be looking for a package that reduces long term salary obligations, includes cheap young talent and most of all draft picks.
I wouldn't mind acquiring Covington at a good price. However, I don't believe he is a difference maker. I wouldn't overpay for him. I wouldn't trade any possibly important future assets for a player I don't expect would make a difference in what the Blazers could accomplish.
I could not disagree more. I think Covington is exactly the kind of 2-way forward the Blazers need and have been lacking at the forward positions. He was 1st team all defense in 2017-18 (his last full season), beating out all of Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Draymond Green, etc.
Look at the top teams in the West that the Blazers will face in the post season. Who guards LeBron? Who guards Kawhi? Who guards Draymond? Who guards Harden? Covington can guard those guys far, far better than anyone we currently have on the roster.
Plus, he shoots above league average 3FG%. Imagine him getting the open looks Aminu and Harkless have been clanking for years. He's not Kyle Korver, but he's better than what we've had. He's not great at creating for himself, but neither were Aminu and Harkless. He just needs to knock down open shots to be better offensively than those two. Aminu and Harkless were our best defenders at the forward spots, but they are gone and their defense needs to be replaced. Covington is an upgrade defensively over those two, as well as an upgrade offensively, but more importantly, he's a huge upgrade defensively at SF over anyone we currently have left on our roster.
In 2017-18, Covington led all small forwards in both RPM and DRPM, and that includes LeBron, KD, etc. He was second to only LeBron in RPM Wins, and remember that was the season LeBron played all 82 games, averaged 27.4 pts, 8.5 reb, 8.3 ast and led the Cavs to the finals. That's how impactful Covington's defense is.
His ORPM was +1.21, his DRPM was +4.24 for as total RPM of +5.45. Compare that to last season's Harkless (-1.05, +1.69, +0.64) and more importantly Hood (-0.16, -0.46, -0.62) and Bazemore (-2.31, +0.15, -2.16) and keep in mind, Hood and Bazemore are both shooting guards that will be playing up one position. They are going to get killed by by all the bigger SFs.