Tank World Order V (Rise of the Phoenix)

[YogurtProducer]

Do you think Scottie coming back has been a net positive for the team? After all, he's taking away shots from the hyper efficient Jak and Ochai.

No, things don't just remain the same. They're generally improved when players get to play with other good players.

And you know who's shots get reduced?

Mitchell, Boucher etc

Honestly is the argument that adding our better player doesn't make us better?

Is he going to replace them while being on the bench, or do you seriously expect us to be running an IQ/Mitchell tandem on the regular?

You don't just look at FGA taken and subtract and add with no thought put into it. Boucher probably loses some for sure, but he only takes like 7/g, I highly doubt that IQ and Mitchell will be sharing the court so much that those FGA will be shaved off while they play together. IQ isn't playing 40mpg, and Mitchell is his replacement.

Boucher is also the only real consistent scoring threat from our bench, so the cutback for him will be limited. So unless Mitchell and Boucher give up 100% of their shots, those 15FGA are going to have to come from somewhere besides bench players. IQ/Scottie/RJ/Jak/Ochai or GD depending on the SL will be where those shots will primarily have to come from as that's who most of his minutes are shared by.

Lastly I never said that adding him wouldn't make the team better, I was criticizing the incredibly simplistic concept of adding him = net positive only. This isn't just moving numbers from one place to another, you need to take into account when and where those numbers are coming from.

What are you even babbling about?

Where in Duffs post did you even get anything about IQ/Davion playing together?

[Kreamy]

Really wish we insisted on a 2025 pick swap with Indiana in Pascal's deal given the quality of talent and first round picks we got back. Could have just outsourced the tank to them.

[Shwaguy]

Sitting Jak to allow someone like say Chomche to get minutes is an easy way to edge us towards losing without trading or making up injuries. Is Chomche super raw? Yeah, but that's kind of the point.

As much as I'm on board for trading Jak, I don't think it is entirely necessary, limiting minutes is a much easier option. Trading Jak would be a much more long term move.



I was a little bit disjointed in my response and could've been clearer

There have been more than a few people arguing that because our diff means we are "better than our record" so I was just using the Pistons as an example. They are rocking a better diff than us, and we lost to them twice, both with and without Cade. Everyone kept saying how they would be much worse than us this year, and we lose to them regardless. They've also beaten better teams than we have in the Lakers and Hawks, healthy or unhealthy we should be beating teams like the Hornets and Pistons if we are better than advertised.

I don't put stock into us being "competitive losers" against good teams. We are competitive yet lose in the last quarter or few minutes all the time, so yeah, until the good teams decide to take the game more seriously we're in it, but it isn't some indication that we are much better than what has been shown.

The garbage dumpster raptors team beat the 72 win bulls, but that wasn't some precursor to the team being good lol. I'm not comparing that team to the current year one, but just being close, or winning games doesn't dictate future success. We had the C's this year within 3 points, by no means does that tell me that we can hang with the C's on a regular basis.

Competitive losses to me are good for the tank, it shows guys are playing hard, and that they care. Also a lot more entertaining to watch, I just won't put stock in them meaning anything, we have been competitive overall this season, with both good teams and bad ones. Doesn't mean much.

You can't just gift players minutes in the NBA that aren't ready for them.

I just find it odd that you discredit all our wins as teams not taking us seriously and how they're all mid and NRTG is somehow only relevant for good teams but then also ignore the injuries which obviously have played a significant factor in how the season has gone. Saying stuff like "healthy or not, we should still beat them" makes no sense at all. The Pelicans were a 49 win team last year and now are 4-18 because of their injuries, you think it doesn't matter for them? The Sixers injuries have them at 5-14. Why are our injuries being downplayed when you see the impact they have had on other teams?

You absolutely can, if the point is to artificially inflate the loss column. Chomche isn't out there because he is NBA ready, but rather because you know the falloff from Jak to him will be big enough that you still get to have RJ/Scottie showing how good or bad they are, while also kneecapping the team at a key position so it doesn't result in too many wins that put you into play in/mediocrity territory. The east is pathetic this year, we need to adjust for that.

Net rating is meaningless (mostly) for this team because it shows a number with no context, sure if we keep the game close for 3 quarters then drop the ball in the 4th then it shows when the game is on the line we will still lose. And that's fine, we're a young team, but it also doesn't mean that because the numbers are close together, that we are "competitive" with those teams.

First game against DEN, it was competitive and went to OT, but we also got outscored in the 3rd, the 4th, and in OT. They had a clear adjustment made after the half where their offence started to pick up, and they had a massive defensive shift in the latter half of the 4th. I will quote this endlessly because it is always relevant

"I think the good teams win even when they play bad, and bad teams always find a way to lose games, even when they’re up." - Nikola Jokic

Being close matters in horseshoes and hand grenades. If you want to ascribe some future success to current competitive losses, be my guest, but I don't see the translation. And as for injuries, every team deals with them, we are not an outlier. Not all injuries are created equal as well, Embiid being out is more impactful than us losing RJ/Scottie/IQ combined. He has missed 15/19 games and PG has missed 9/19 games, both players would immediately and irrefutably be the best players on our teams had they been on the roster. And yet they are only half a game behind us.

NOLA was missing damn near their entire rotation, they were putting out lineups that would have made our end of season rosters from last year, look like true playoff contenders. And so on. RJ has missed 3 games, and Scottie 11, IQ is the biggest impact to our roster from a games missed perspective. I do not believe and will never be convinced that missing players like KO/BB would have any impact on the results of these games. You do not add without taking away from someone else.

But if I replace Embiid with Drummond, yeah that kinda has a pretty big impact. What if IQ was healthy all year, do we get to see Ochai blossom like he has? Does Gradey? You can't pretend that just because our players were injured that immediately means that we would win these close games. Both Gradey and Ochai are playing better basketball this year than IQ did last year, so at best it's probably a wash, maybe we win a couple close losses, but there is no reason to think that the inverse isn't true. Maybe we lose that 3 point win against the heat/kings.

You can't play the what if game, it's pointless, we lost games and we've won games. But acting like picking up wins in the beginning of the season is some predictor of future success is a fools errand. The Spurs won 3 of their first 5 games last year beating a Suns team back to back that went 49-33, they went on to win 19 more games the rest of the season. The rockets won 6 straight in the first 9 games last year, and then 11 straight in the last 20 games, they were 41-41 picking up those 11 wins almost exclusively in the back half against tanking teams. And so on and so on.

I didn't discredit our wins as teams not taking us seriously, I "discredited" them as being almost exclusively against bad teams. I simply don't think that teams like the celtics winning by 3 is any indication that we are anywhere close to their level because we got close in one game, we still lost.

You will not learn anything meaningful about Scottie or RJ while they are playing with Chomche on the court weighing them down.

[Scase]

You can't just gift players minutes in the NBA that aren't ready for them.

I just find it odd that you discredit all our wins as teams not taking us seriously and how they're all mid and NRTG is somehow only relevant for good teams but then also ignore the injuries which obviously have played a significant factor in how the season has gone. Saying stuff like "healthy or not, we should still beat them" makes no sense at all. The Pelicans were a 49 win team last year and now are 4-18 because of their injuries, you think it doesn't matter for them? The Sixers injuries have them at 5-14. Why are our injuries being downplayed when you see the impact they have had on other teams?

You absolutely can, if the point is to artificially inflate the loss column. Chomche isn't out there because he is NBA ready, but rather because you know the falloff from Jak to him will be big enough that you still get to have RJ/Scottie showing how good or bad they are, while also kneecapping the team at a key position so it doesn't result in too many wins that put you into play in/mediocrity territory. The east is pathetic this year, we need to adjust for that.

Net rating is meaningless (mostly) for this team because it shows a number with no context, sure if we keep the game close for 3 quarters then drop the ball in the 4th then it shows when the game is on the line we will still lose. And that's fine, we're a young team, but it also doesn't mean that because the numbers are close together, that we are "competitive" with those teams.

First game against DEN, it was competitive and went to OT, but we also got outscored in the 3rd, the 4th, and in OT. They had a clear adjustment made after the half where their offence started to pick up, and they had a massive defensive shift in the latter half of the 4th. I will quote this endlessly because it is always relevant

"I think the good teams win even when they play bad, and bad teams always find a way to lose games, even when they’re up." - Nikola Jokic

Being close matters in horseshoes and hand grenades. If you want to ascribe some future success to current competitive losses, be my guest, but I don't see the translation. And as for injuries, every team deals with them, we are not an outlier. Not all injuries are created equal as well, Embiid being out is more impactful than us losing RJ/Scottie/IQ combined. He has missed 15/19 games and PG has missed 9/19 games, both players would immediately and irrefutably be the best players on our teams had they been on the roster. And yet they are only half a game behind us.

NOLA was missing damn near their entire rotation, they were putting out lineups that would have made our end of season rosters from last year, look like true playoff contenders. And so on. RJ has missed 3 games, and Scottie 11, IQ is the biggest impact to our roster from a games missed perspective. I do not believe and will never be convinced that missing players like KO/BB would have any impact on the results of these games. You do not add without taking away from someone else.

But if I replace Embiid with Drummond, yeah that kinda has a pretty big impact. What if IQ was healthy all year, do we get to see Ochai blossom like he has? Does Gradey? You can't pretend that just because our players were injured that immediately means that we would win these close games. Both Gradey and Ochai are playing better basketball this year than IQ did last year, so at best it's probably a wash, maybe we win a couple close losses, but there is no reason to think that the inverse isn't true. Maybe we lose that 3 point win against the heat/kings.

You can't play the what if game, it's pointless, we lost games and we've won games. But acting like picking up wins in the beginning of the season is some predictor of future success is a fools errand. The Spurs won 3 of their first 5 games last year beating a Suns team back to back that went 49-33, they went on to win 19 more games the rest of the season. The rockets won 6 straight in the first 9 games last year, and then 11 straight in the last 20 games, they were 41-41 picking up those 11 wins almost exclusively in the back half against tanking teams. And so on and so on.

I didn't discredit our wins as teams not taking us seriously, I "discredited" them as being almost exclusively against bad teams. I simply don't think that teams like the celtics winning by 3 is any indication that we are anywhere close to their level because we got close in one game, we still lost.

You will not learn anything meaningful about Scottie or RJ while they are playing with Chomche on the court weighing them down.

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

[DelAbbot]

Really wish we insisted on a 2025 pick swap with Indiana in Pascal's deal given the quality of talent and first round picks we got back. Could have just outsourced the tank to them.

If that happened, Pacers would do all they can to worsen their draft position and compete. It's like offshoring one's job and the offshore workers actively sabotage the work

[anotherhomer]

Vecenie posted an RJ vid but he spends the first few minutes talking about the "ethical tank", leading into what he categorizes as an RJ leap, what he originally thought of RJ coming out of Duke etc.

If the Raps traded for an ex 3rd overall pick that is actually going to play to that level, they've definitely expedited things.

Watch on YouTube

this is a good breakdown...it shows basically, raps got a 3rd overall pick, who's improved and can be counted on

i have to agree with sam that right now, tanking is likely out of the picture

Michael Grange touches upon this - if raps end up more competitive, that's good short-term but bad long-term in terms of adding more talent...that's an issue for another day

[Shwaguy]

You absolutely can, if the point is to artificially inflate the loss column. Chomche isn't out there because he is NBA ready, but rather because you know the falloff from Jak to him will be big enough that you still get to have RJ/Scottie showing how good or bad they are, while also kneecapping the team at a key position so it doesn't result in too many wins that put you into play in/mediocrity territory. The east is pathetic this year, we need to adjust for that.

Net rating is meaningless (mostly) for this team because it shows a number with no context, sure if we keep the game close for 3 quarters then drop the ball in the 4th then it shows when the game is on the line we will still lose. And that's fine, we're a young team, but it also doesn't mean that because the numbers are close together, that we are "competitive" with those teams.

First game against DEN, it was competitive and went to OT, but we also got outscored in the 3rd, the 4th, and in OT. They had a clear adjustment made after the half where their offence started to pick up, and they had a massive defensive shift in the latter half of the 4th. I will quote this endlessly because it is always relevant



Being close matters in horseshoes and hand grenades. If you want to ascribe some future success to current competitive losses, be my guest, but I don't see the translation. And as for injuries, every team deals with them, we are not an outlier. Not all injuries are created equal as well, Embiid being out is more impactful than us losing RJ/Scottie/IQ combined. He has missed 15/19 games and PG has missed 9/19 games, both players would immediately and irrefutably be the best players on our teams had they been on the roster. And yet they are only half a game behind us.

NOLA was missing damn near their entire rotation, they were putting out lineups that would have made our end of season rosters from last year, look like true playoff contenders. And so on. RJ has missed 3 games, and Scottie 11, IQ is the biggest impact to our roster from a games missed perspective. I do not believe and will never be convinced that missing players like KO/BB would have any impact on the results of these games. You do not add without taking away from someone else.

But if I replace Embiid with Drummond, yeah that kinda has a pretty big impact. What if IQ was healthy all year, do we get to see Ochai blossom like he has? Does Gradey? You can't pretend that just because our players were injured that immediately means that we would win these close games. Both Gradey and Ochai are playing better basketball this year than IQ did last year, so at best it's probably a wash, maybe we win a couple close losses, but there is no reason to think that the inverse isn't true. Maybe we lose that 3 point win against the heat/kings.

You can't play the what if game, it's pointless, we lost games and we've won games. But acting like picking up wins in the beginning of the season is some predictor of future success is a fools errand. The Spurs won 3 of their first 5 games last year beating a Suns team back to back that went 49-33, they went on to win 19 more games the rest of the season. The rockets won 6 straight in the first 9 games last year, and then 11 straight in the last 20 games, they were 41-41 picking up those 11 wins almost exclusively in the back half against tanking teams. And so on and so on.

I didn't discredit our wins as teams not taking us seriously, I "discredited" them as being almost exclusively against bad teams. I simply don't think that teams like the celtics winning by 3 is any indication that we are anywhere close to their level because we got close in one game, we still lost.

You will not learn anything meaningful about Scottie or RJ while they are playing with Chomche on the court weighing them down.

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

I strongly disagree. Playing 4 on 5 would drag any player down. Superstars included. Chomche is that raw right now.

[Shwaguy]

I've said before, real chance we end up a play-in team without some injuries happening. Poeltl trade could do it maybe but it would be unwise to unload him for pennies on the dollar just for the sake of stacking up a few extra Ls. So that depends on what deals are out there for him.

But conferences are so unbalanced, at least 2 play-in teams from the east will still be top 10 in lotto odds. Indy and Chicago are the 10/9 Seeds in the East right now. Indy would be 9th in the lotto if season ended today and Chicago the 10th. Not as good as a top 5 pick, but really not the end of the world either.

Very feasable you can land a Maluach, Will Riley, Johnson, or even a guy like Edgecombe if he drops only a couple spots. Still comes with a 20+% chance of leaping into the top 4 as well.

All Blue Chippers IMO. Getting a significant core piece is very much on the table still then.

[KrazyP]

You absolutely can, if the point is to artificially inflate the loss column. Chomche isn't out there because he is NBA ready, but rather because you know the falloff from Jak to him will be big enough that you still get to have RJ/Scottie showing how good or bad they are, while also kneecapping the team at a key position so it doesn't result in too many wins that put you into play in/mediocrity territory. The east is pathetic this year, we need to adjust for that.

Net rating is meaningless (mostly) for this team because it shows a number with no context, sure if we keep the game close for 3 quarters then drop the ball in the 4th then it shows when the game is on the line we will still lose. And that's fine, we're a young team, but it also doesn't mean that because the numbers are close together, that we are "competitive" with those teams.

First game against DEN, it was competitive and went to OT, but we also got outscored in the 3rd, the 4th, and in OT. They had a clear adjustment made after the half where their offence started to pick up, and they had a massive defensive shift in the latter half of the 4th. I will quote this endlessly because it is always relevant



Being close matters in horseshoes and hand grenades. If you want to ascribe some future success to current competitive losses, be my guest, but I don't see the translation. And as for injuries, every team deals with them, we are not an outlier. Not all injuries are created equal as well, Embiid being out is more impactful than us losing RJ/Scottie/IQ combined. He has missed 15/19 games and PG has missed 9/19 games, both players would immediately and irrefutably be the best players on our teams had they been on the roster. And yet they are only half a game behind us.

NOLA was missing damn near their entire rotation, they were putting out lineups that would have made our end of season rosters from last year, look like true playoff contenders. And so on. RJ has missed 3 games, and Scottie 11, IQ is the biggest impact to our roster from a games missed perspective. I do not believe and will never be convinced that missing players like KO/BB would have any impact on the results of these games. You do not add without taking away from someone else.

But if I replace Embiid with Drummond, yeah that kinda has a pretty big impact. What if IQ was healthy all year, do we get to see Ochai blossom like he has? Does Gradey? You can't pretend that just because our players were injured that immediately means that we would win these close games. Both Gradey and Ochai are playing better basketball this year than IQ did last year, so at best it's probably a wash, maybe we win a couple close losses, but there is no reason to think that the inverse isn't true. Maybe we lose that 3 point win against the heat/kings.

You can't play the what if game, it's pointless, we lost games and we've won games. But acting like picking up wins in the beginning of the season is some predictor of future success is a fools errand. The Spurs won 3 of their first 5 games last year beating a Suns team back to back that went 49-33, they went on to win 19 more games the rest of the season. The rockets won 6 straight in the first 9 games last year, and then 11 straight in the last 20 games, they were 41-41 picking up those 11 wins almost exclusively in the back half against tanking teams. And so on and so on.

I didn't discredit our wins as teams not taking us seriously, I "discredited" them as being almost exclusively against bad teams. I simply don't think that teams like the celtics winning by 3 is any indication that we are anywhere close to their level because we got close in one game, we still lost.

You will not learn anything meaningful about Scottie or RJ while they are playing with Chomche on the court weighing them down.

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

It would drag the entire team to the pits… you can’t run a structured defense or offense with an 18 yr old borderline undrafted player playing C. Destroying on court player development for the sake of tanking is counterintuitive.

[anotherhomer]

You will not learn anything meaningful about Scottie or RJ while they are playing with Chomche on the court weighing them down.

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

It would drag the entire team to the pits… you can’t run a structured defense or offense with an 18 yr old borderline undrafted player playing C. Destroying on court player development for the sake of tanking is counterintuitive.

it definitely makes little sense to trade jakob unless you getting 2 quality FRPs, and Chomche is ready

what i do though is trade one of our guards, Jakobe Walter etc for Herb Jones, Trey Murphy if needed

[KrazyP]

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

It would drag the entire team to the pits… you can’t run a structured defense or offense with an 18 yr old borderline undrafted player playing C. Destroying on court player development for the sake of tanking is counterintuitive.

it definitely makes little sense to trade jakob unless you getting 2 quality FRPs, and Chomche is ready

what i do though is trade one of our guards, Jakobe Walter etc for Herb Jones, Trey Murphy if needed

If Poeltl is traded, you still have to get back a competent NBA level C back one way or another. I wouldn’t mind the idea of a deal with the Magic involving Goga Bitadze and a 2025 1st.

[Shwaguy]

It would drag the entire team to the pits… you can’t run a structured defense or offense with an 18 yr old borderline undrafted player playing C. Destroying on court player development for the sake of tanking is counterintuitive.

it definitely makes little sense to trade jakob unless you getting 2 quality FRPs, and Chomche is ready

what i do though is trade one of our guards, Jakobe Walter etc for Herb Jones, Trey Murphy if needed

If Poeltl is traded, you still have to get back a competent NBA level C back one way or another. I wouldn’t mind the idea of a deal with the Magic involving Goga Bitadze and a 2025 1st.

Lmao I would get excited for that trade just to see Magic fans lose their **** over trading their precious Goga.

[Tacoma]

Vecenie posted an RJ vid but he spends the first few minutes talking about the "ethical tank", leading into what he categorizes as an RJ leap, what he originally thought of RJ coming out of Duke etc.

If the Raps traded for an ex 3rd overall pick that is actually going to play to that level, they've definitely expedited things.

[video removed]

this is a good breakdown...it shows basically, raps got a 3rd overall pick, who's improved and can be counted on

i have to agree with sam that right now, tanking is likely out of the picture

Michael Grange touches upon this - if raps end up more competitive, that's good short-term but bad long-term in terms of adding more talent...that's an issue for another day

We sit today at 7-15, a lottery team. The combined W-L record of the 7 teams we've beaten is 49-70. So we are beating teams that are struggling badly or just bad. Does this put tanking likely out of the picture? I don't think so.

You can blame injuries for not beating any good teams yet. But we were supposed to have a bad record to start the season anyway due to our tough schedule. So maybe without the injuries, we win a few more and be like BKN or CHI with a play-in spot.

Is that a good spot to be in? Play-in for what? It's all going to depend on whether this BBQ core peaks to become contenders. Masai had said he wanted to give this group a chance, but injuries to BBQ have prolonged this evaluation.

So we're likely going to go to the trade deadline, like in prior years, to decide whether or not to tank the remaining season. Thus, I don't see tanking to be out of the picture just yet.

[ConSarnit]

it definitely makes little sense to trade jakob unless you getting 2 quality FRPs, and Chomche is ready

what i do though is trade one of our guards, Jakobe Walter etc for Herb Jones, Trey Murphy if needed

If Poeltl is traded, you still have to get back a competent NBA level C back one way or another. I wouldn’t mind the idea of a deal with the Magic involving Goga Bitadze and a 2025 1st.

Lmao I would get excited for that trade just to see Magic fans lose their **** over trading their precious Goga.

I have no idea why ORL would add a 1st. Bitadze is playing like a solid starting C. If Bitadze were playing the same minutes as Poeltl their numbers would not look much different. Poeltl scores a bit more while Bitadze has been a better rim protector. I don't think the gap between Poeltl and Bitadze is all that big.

[Shwaguy]

If Poeltl is traded, you still have to get back a competent NBA level C back one way or another. I wouldn’t mind the idea of a deal with the Magic involving Goga Bitadze and a 2025 1st.

Lmao I would get excited for that trade just to see Magic fans lose their **** over trading their precious Goga.

I have no idea why ORL would add a 1st. Bitadze is playing like a solid starting C. If Bitadze were playing the same minutes as Poeltl their numbers would not look much different. Poeltl scores a bit more while Bitadze has been a better rim protector. I don't think the gap between Poeltl and Bitadze is all that big.

I'm not sure I fully agree but I understand your sentiment. Don't think it's wise to normalize minutes played with big men like those two, staying on the floor is an important skill. Passing ability a big difference too imo

[ConSarnit]

Lmao I would get excited for that trade just to see Magic fans lose their **** over trading their precious Goga.

I have no idea why ORL would add a 1st. Bitadze is playing like a solid starting C. If Bitadze were playing the same minutes as Poeltl their numbers would not look much different. Poeltl scores a bit more while Bitadze has been a better rim protector. I don't think the gap between Poeltl and Bitadze is all that big.

I'm not sure I fully agree but I understand your sentiment. Don't think it's wise to normalize minutes played with big men like those two, staying on the floor is an important skill. Passing ability a big difference too imo

Assists per36:

Poeltl: 2.8
Bitadze: 2.8

Assist%:

Poeltl: 11.5
Bitadze: 12.1

Fouls per36:

Poeltl: 4.2
Bitadze: 4.1

Bitadze plays less because ORL has actual backup bigs in Wagner and Isaac.

[KrazyP]

If Poeltl is traded, you still have to get back a competent NBA level C back one way or another. I wouldn’t mind the idea of a deal with the Magic involving Goga Bitadze and a 2025 1st.

Lmao I would get excited for that trade just to see Magic fans lose their **** over trading their precious Goga.

I have no idea why ORL would add a 1st. Bitadze is playing like a solid starting C. If Bitadze were playing the same minutes as Poeltl their numbers would not look much different. Poeltl scores a bit more while Bitadze has been a better rim protector. I don't think the gap between Poeltl and Bitadze is all that big.

I kind of agree. I think Goga is underrated and underpaid. Poeltl is better overall marginally so maybe there’s a chance the Magic might be interested in this type of deal.

[ConSarnit]

Lmao I would get excited for that trade just to see Magic fans lose their **** over trading their precious Goga.

I have no idea why ORL would add a 1st. Bitadze is playing like a solid starting C. If Bitadze were playing the same minutes as Poeltl their numbers would not look much different. Poeltl scores a bit more while Bitadze has been a better rim protector. I don't think the gap between Poeltl and Bitadze is all that big.

I kind of agree. I think Goga is underrated and underpaid. Poeltl is better overall marginally so maybe there’s a chance the Magic might be interested in this type of deal.

Unpopular opinion but I think if we had Bitadze we would effectively be the same team. If it were Bitadze + 1st for Poeltl that is a no brainer. Goga is locked into a much cheaper deal and I tend to think he might be on the late bloomer Hartenstein type path where in a year from now he's considered as good as Poeltl.

[ItsDanger]

Bitadze was released by Indiana on waivers and Orlando got him for free. Been a solid player for them. But others think he sucks.

[Scase]

You will not learn anything meaningful about Scottie or RJ while they are playing with Chomche on the court weighing them down.

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

It would drag the entire team to the pits… you can’t run a structured defense or offense with an 18 yr old borderline undrafted player playing C. Destroying on court player development for the sake of tanking is counterintuitive.

I'm aware it would drag the team down, that is the point. But it wouldn't suddenly turn RJ/Scottie into scrubs.

If a single player weighs them down so much as to be bad or not impactful, then they aren't that good. Chomche would weigh the team down, it wouldn't drag RJ/Scottie to the pits.

It would drag the entire team to the pits… you can’t run a structured defense or offense with an 18 yr old borderline undrafted player playing C. Destroying on court player development for the sake of tanking is counterintuitive.

it definitely makes little sense to trade jakob unless you getting 2 quality FRPs, and Chomche is ready

what i do though is trade one of our guards, Jakobe Walter etc for Herb Jones, Trey Murphy if needed

I'm not even suggesting a trade, rather having Jak playing much less minutes. 15mpg of Chomche is likely to hamper the team enough to prevent empty wins, while giving him a look at the NBA, and not look like we are blatantly tanking.