Poll - Yak deal. Good or bad. Top 6 protected 2024-26

[Thaddy]

Birch was a +3.6 on-off. +3.6 OnCourt.
Koloko is a +10.9 on-off. +8.6 OnCourt.

We are a borderline lottery team with a scrub and 2nd rounder as our primary centers. Poeltl has approximately been a +10 plus/minus player when the Spurs weren't a complete tank job.

We aren't going to convey a lottery pick next season. We will finish in the top 6 or the play in this year, and add depth plus another year of development for Barnes, Achiuwa, Banton, and Koloko. OPJ is back next season. We cannot be worse unless there is a talent shift back into the East. It's a good deal. Vote abysmal if you didn't read this post and you are an emotional teenager.

I gotta love that 53 people .... didn't read the original post and or...

Or they just disagree with the rationale behind this move in isolation.

I don't see how we add needle moving depth unless its through the draft because we don't/won't have assets to trade come off season and contracts are up, and this move worsens our pick this year. We have 3 pending UFA and 68 million to spend all while we lack consistent shooting and the entire bench is bottom 3 in the league. Is it that hard to believe some might not care to chase a bottom seed in the playoffs and get embarrassed by the Celtics/Bucks in the first round? We're also one injury to Fred/Siakam away from going back down to the bottom of the East with how many minutes the starters have to play just to stay competitive

Don't think people are arguing we got worse but we didn't exactly position ourselves to be atop of the East with this move any time soon unless you expect guys already on the roster to take some major leap and organically turn into star players. We'll see what happens in the off season

Is 68M the real number we have?

It looks like it's enough to get everyone back. Fred will likely want 30M or jump ship to the Magic, Poeltl wants 20M, that leaves 18M for Trent but we can dump Boucher or trade him for a smaller contract so we can pay Gary and sign our first rounder. Boucher's skillset isn't needed on our team with Achiuwa available and the draft looking forward heavy. We could have gotten back some 2nds for Boucher if we trade him for a guy like Graham, a trade like that is likely available in the off-season though.

Poeltl - Koloko
Siakam - Achiuwa
OG - 2023 1st
Barnes - Trent
VanVleet - Banton

If Koloko, Achiuwa, and Banton show improvement we could have some strong bench pieces. The pick should be high enough to pull in a stretch 4 like Hendricks in our projected range.

[seanbig]

Honestly getting a center has been a must and saves our 68 guys from having to bang - but it’s gotta suck realizing your guards aren’t that desirable- one doesn’t play defense and the other is too short and has no float game

Actually they both suck finishing layups

[ForeverTFC]

Imagine we drafted

Bane>Flynn
Kessler>Koloko

Having Barnes/Bane/Kessler/GTJR/Precious As your young guns and Siakam/FVV/Yak As your vets...That would be a team i could get behind...Man the difference just 1 or 2 draft mistakes can have on your team

A lot more than 1 or 2 mistakes. Thad himself was a worthless pick-up. So was Birch. So was OPJ. So was Hernangomez. Svi. Yuta. etc. etc. And not getting an actual C like Claxton when he was clearly available last offseason. Or even getting any kind of C in the 2021 offseason. We needed one back then too, lol.

Just so, so bad.

Just so, so clueless.

[Kingsway_fan]

Another treadmill trade adding to team's unathletic talent and poor shooting...

[Thaddy]

Honestly getting a center has been a must and saves our 68 guys from having to bang - but it’s gotta suck realizing your guards aren’t that desirable- one doesn’t play defense and the other is too short and has no float game

Actually they both suck finishing layups

Gary's been rapidly improving his finishing ability, look at his stats this year vs the year before. Inside the 3P line he's shooting over 50%.

[TorontoBarneys]

Imagine we drafted

Bane>Flynn
Kessler>Koloko

Having Barnes/Bane/Kessler/GTJR/Precious As your young guns and Siakam/FVV/Yak As your vets...That would be a team i could get behind...Man the difference just 1 or 2 draft mistakes can have on your team

A lot more than 1 or 2 mistakes. Thad himself was a worthless pick-up. So was Birch. So was OPJ. So was Hernangomez. Svi. Yuta. etc. etc. And not getting an actual C like Claxton when he was clearly available last offseason. Or even getting any kind of C in the 2021 offseason. We needed one back then too, lol.

Just so, so bad.

Just so, so clueless.

Agreed, considering your complete lack of any argument.

[pingpongrac]

Honestly getting a center has been a must and saves our 68 guys from having to bang - but it’s gotta suck realizing your guards aren’t that desirable- one doesn’t play defense and the other is too short and has no float game

Actually they both suck finishing layups

Gary's been rapidly improving his finishing ability, look at his stats this year vs the year before. Inside the 3P line he's shooting over 50%.

GTJ converted shots from 0-3 feet at 58% (1.3 attempts) and shots from 3-10 feet at 42% (2.0 attempts) while he had a .188 FTr last season. GTJ has converted shots from 0-3 feet at 73% (1.9 attempts) and shots from 3-10 feet at 49% (1.8 attempts) while he has a .239 FTr this season. He has made massive improvements when it comes to finishing inside as well as a pretty sizable jump in FTA.

I feel like most posters rarely do any research before making claims in such absolute ways on this board lol.

[Thaddy]

Honestly getting a center has been a must and saves our 68 guys from having to bang - but it’s gotta suck realizing your guards aren’t that desirable- one doesn’t play defense and the other is too short and has no float game

Actually they both suck finishing layups

Gary's been rapidly improving his finishing ability, look at his stats this year vs the year before. Inside the 3P line he's shooting over 50%.

GTJ converted shots from 0-3 feet at 58% (1.3 attempts) and shots from 3-10 feet at 42% (2.0 attempts) while he had a .188 FTr last season. GTJ has converted shots from 0-3 feet at 73% (1.9 attempts) and shots from 3-10 feet at 49% (1.8 attempts) while he has a .239 FTr this season. He has made massive improvements when it comes to finishing inside as well as a pretty sizable jump in FTA.

I feel like most posters rarely do any research before making claims in such absolute ways on this board lol.

Trent could be a 25+ PPG scorer on Fred tier efficiency if we go into a rebuild and his value will soar. You don't just give that up for 2nd round picks. I'm glad the FO didn't make a panic move at the deadline. We filled one of our needs, and that should make a lot of the other guys better.

For reference we had Siakam covering Kessler the last time we played the Jazz and we got destroyed with Kessler recording a 17/14/7 block game against us. When he was matched up against Poeltl he was a non factor, we should blow these guys out tonight considering they also lost Conley.

I expect Poeltl to find Trent for a lot of open looks, having a big man screen for you as a shooter rather than a lanky forward like Barnes or Siakam will make a big difference in creating open looks.

[Tom_Foolery]

Anything to dump Birch

[OakleyDokely]

Imagine we drafted

Bane>Flynn
Kessler>Koloko

Having Barnes/Bane/Kessler/GTJR/Precious As your young guns and Siakam/FVV/Yak As your vets...That would be a team i could get behind...Man the difference just 1 or 2 draft mistakes can have on your team

A lot more than 1 or 2 mistakes. Thad himself was a worthless pick-up. So was Birch. So was OPJ. So was Hernangomez. Svi. Yuta. etc. etc. And not getting an actual C like Claxton when he was clearly available last offseason. Or even getting any kind of C in the 2021 offseason. We needed one back then too, lol.

Just so, so bad.

Just so, so clueless.

Imagine we drafted Jokic! We'd be a dynasty!

Or we could have drafted Suggs over Barnes, Skal over Siakam, Swanigan over OG and we would've been the Hornets.

Going back in time and inserting the best possible pick at your draft slot every time isn't how the draft works unfortunately.

[Raps in 4]

Imagine we drafted

Bane>Flynn
Kessler>Koloko

Having Barnes/Bane/Kessler/GTJR/Precious As your young guns and Siakam/FVV/Yak As your vets...That would be a team i could get behind...Man the difference just 1 or 2 draft mistakes can have on your team

A lot more than 1 or 2 mistakes. Thad himself was a worthless pick-up. So was Birch. So was OPJ. So was Hernangomez. Svi. Yuta. etc. etc. And not getting an actual C like Claxton when he was clearly available last offseason. Or even getting any kind of C in the 2021 offseason. We needed one back then too, lol.

Just so, so bad.

Just so, so clueless.

Nobody hits on all their draft picks, but this FO definitely has more hits than misses. That's why I find it so frustrating that we keep trading away our FRPs. Masai's strength is drafting, yet he doesn't play to this strength.

[pingpongrac]

I feel like there is going to be a bit of a learning curve with Poeltl for at least a few games, but I see him eventually fitting in quite nicely and giving us 25-30 minutes of very fundamentally sound C play while we make a push for the playoffs. Achiuwa and Koloko are great in certain matchups while Scottie has had some very good individual games at the 5, but our overall defence has generally suffered because of our lack of bigs.

Poeltl will help improve our half-court offence as long as our shooters keep hitting threes (GTJ is shooting 41% on 3FGA and FVV is shooting 36% on 3FGA in the last 28 games compared to 34% and 32% respectively in the first 28 games) while guys like Boucher and Achiuwa continue to trend in the right direction (Boucher is shooting 39% on 3FGA and Achiuwa is shooting 28% on 3FGA in the last 28 games compared to 28% and 18% respectively in the first 28 games). I'm just worried about how effective lineups with Poeltl can be in crunch time because of his lack of an outside shot and poor free throw shooting, though he has turned the latter around a bit more recently.

[OakleyDokely]

Poeltl up until this season was an impact interior defender and rebounder. His numbers have cratered defensively, but I'm not sure how much that can put on him considering he's playing on a very young squad, with very little talent, whose #1 priority is getting a top draft pick.

Opponents FG% against Poeltl:
19/20: 47.5%
20/21: 44.9%
21/22: 47.2%
22/23: 53.0%

Net Rating:
19/20: +5.7
20/21: +3.2
21/22: +3.4
22/23: -10.1

His interior defense from last year:

Read on Twitter

His rebounding impact from last year:

Read on Twitter

[TorontoBarneys]

He'll obviously play better here than over at SAS. We should realistically smash the Jazz tonight.

[Thaddy]

Birch was a +3.6 on-off. +3.6 OnCourt.
Koloko is a +10.9 on-off. +8.6 OnCourt.

Make your best guess on what Poeltl's +/- will be by the end of the season. We are going to absolutely race towards being above 500. I can't see us finishing below 500 and out of the play in.

Play in is going to be risky but we can probably still make it to the 6th seed.

[refshateRaps]

We beat the magic. Settle.

We are going nowhere in the playoffs against any serious team and we have now lost valuable picks to help get real support we need.

Only hope is a team with a top scorer wants OG & GTJ in a sign and trade ?

[pingpongrac]

We beat the magic. Settle down.

We are going nowhere in the playoffs against any serious team and we have now lost valuable picks to help get real support we need.

Only hope is a team with a top scorer wants OG & GTJ ?

It was a good win against an Orlando team that has been playing well for the last two months (19-13 in their last 32 games since a 5-20 start) and coming off a good win in Chicago. Orlando was on a B2B and without a few bench pieces while we were without OG and GTJ, but it's not like this should have been a sure win regardless.

We probably aren't going to do much in the playoffs unless we get a favourable matchup (like the Cavs), but there is a chance everything clicks when we're healthy. We should be a very tough team to beat with OG and GTJ back into the fold and taking those minutes that have gone to Flynn/Banton/Dowtin/Thad the last few games for example.

[Thaddy]

We beat the magic. Settle.

We are going nowhere in the playoffs against any serious team and we have now lost valuable picks to help get real support we need.

Only hope is a team with a top scorer wants OG & GTJ in a sign and trade ?

They've been over 500 since their bad start, not a horrible team and probably one contending to be play in teams with us. I think Siakam, OG, and Barnes are all going to shoot better now they don't have to expend extra energy against heavier guys. They all shoot better in the first quarter than any other quarter for a reason.

The good sign is the limited shooting is affecting things too bad. That should look better with OG in the line up. The real game changer is that you have Trent off the bench. He's still developing and could have a good chance to be a creator for the other bench pieces.

[Sanyo]

If he plays more like the way he did today against Orlando, definitely worth it LOL

[alienchild]

Don't underestimate how much help he's going to be with Koloko's development. We might end up with 2 effective 7 footers. That makes our 6-9ers even better.