2020 Off-season Discussion

[fox2jk]

Graham, Rozier, Hayward and PJ. Something to build on for sure.

Still need more help underneath.

[316Hornets]

Zeller isn't terrible and we drafted a couple spot minute bigs. Somebody like a Willie Cauley Stein would be perfect

[JDR720]

Read on Twitter

[JDR720]

You dudes just want to tank and mad the team signed a star that isn't named Kevin Durant. We still have some trade assets to improve the team further.

I mean, if we're going to tank, do it in a shortened season that has no fans in the stands and the next draft looks to be stacked.

This is, by far, the ideal time to tank our faces off.

We're just tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and somehow expecting that it'll work this time. Why would this be any different than our previous failed attempts to cut short the rebuild and try to make the playoffs?

What is better.

Entering the season after this one with a 31 year old Gordon Hayward and Ball. While limiting our cap flexibility a lot.

or

Entering the season after this one with Ball and, say, Cunningham. While having cap to actually make a good veteran signing that is younger and better than Hayward is?

Obviously, #2 is better. Fans coming back to the game, with a legitimately good core of high potential youth with the flexibility to sign veterans around them.

Signing Hayward ends that scenario.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

You dudes just want to tank and mad the team signed a star that isn't named Kevin Durant. We still have some trade assets to improve the team further.

I mean, if we're going to tank, do it in a shortened season that has no fans in the stands and the next draft looks to be stacked.

This is, by far, the ideal time to tank our faces off.

We're just tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and somehow expecting that it'll work this time. Why would this be any different than our previous failed attempts to cut short the rebuild and try to make the playoffs?

What is better.

Entering the season after this one with a 31 year old Gordon Hayward and Ball. While limiting our cap flexibility a lot.

or

Entering the season after this one with Ball and, say, Cunningham. While having cap to actually make a good veteran signing that is younger and better than Hayward is?

Obviously, #2 is better. Fans coming back to the game, with a legitimately good core of high potential youth with the flexibility to sign veterans around them.

Signing Hayward ends that scenario.

Tanking was never something this FO was planning on doing. MJ as an owner hated the last tank. Even last season the team didn't tank, they were trying to make the playoffs in a down year. This rebuild was never ever ever going to be a tank job, no matter how much sense that made to people here.

[316Hornets]

You dudes just want to tank and mad the team signed a star that isn't named Kevin Durant. We still have some trade assets to improve the team further.

I mean, if we're going to tank, do it in a shortened season that has no fans in the stands and the next draft looks to be stacked.

This is, by far, the ideal time to tank our faces off.

We're just tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and somehow expecting that it'll work this time. Why would this be any different than our previous failed attempts to cut short the rebuild and try to make the playoffs?

What is better.

Entering the season after this one with a 31 year old Gordon Hayward and Ball. While limiting our cap flexibility a lot.

or

Entering the season after this one with Ball and, say, Cunningham. While having cap to actually make a good veteran signing that is younger and better than Hayward is?

Obviously, #2 is better. Fans coming back to the game, with a legitimately good core of high potential youth with the flexibility to sign veterans around them.

Signing Hayward ends that scenario.

We were never in the position to tank. We were a 10th seed in the playoff hunt last season. Our front office would never tank like other teams do. There's too much risk for a small market putting all their chips on a reward for being dogcrap.

[Liver_Pooty]

You dudes just want to tank and mad the team signed a star that isn't named Kevin Durant. We still have some trade assets to improve the team further.

I mean, if we're going to tank, do it in a shortened season that has no fans in the stands and the next draft looks to be stacked.

This is, by far, the ideal time to tank our faces off.

We're just tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and somehow expecting that it'll work this time. Why would this be any different than our previous failed attempts to cut short the rebuild and try to make the playoffs?

What is better.

Entering the season after this one with a 31 year old Gordon Hayward and Ball. While limiting our cap flexibility a lot.

or

Entering the season after this one with Ball and, say, Cunningham. While having cap to actually make a good veteran signing that is younger and better than Hayward is?

Obviously, #2 is better. Fans coming back to the game, with a legitimately good core of high potential youth with the flexibility to sign veterans around them.

Signing Hayward ends that scenario.

So with improvement from our young guys, the number 3 pick and added depth in the draft we were suddenly going to go from the 9th pick before the lottery this year to suddenly being one of the 3 worst teams in the league? If that were to happen than our young players essentially did not improve at all, which is bad. Also who, with all our cap space next off-season would sign here? Not saying I agree with the contract, but I love the signing.

[Liver_Pooty]

If you guys think we would be in lime for a top 5 pick next year without additional freak luck from the lottery Gods youre wrong. Unless PJ, Miles, Graham and the Martin twins show literally zero improvement which would be exponentially worse than this signing itself.

[JMAC3]

I agree this would of been a great time to tank and you could argue that a team can always get better with a tank.

Ex: Backtrack a few years ago Utah gets Donovan Mitchell with the 13th pick to go along with Rudy Gobert. Should they have tanked the next two seasons to try and get two more top 5 picks?? I mean that would be an elite team.

Ex: Memphis has Jaren Jackson Jr and Ja Morant, should they tank for two more top 5 picks and have an elite young core?

Ex: Boston lost Hayward. Not sure Tatum and Brown can win a championship this year.... maybe they should tank and get a top 5 pick to go along with them. Probably will be better long term.

[JMAC3]

So with improvement from our young guys, the number 3 pick and added depth in the draft we were suddenly going to go from the 9th pick before the lottery this year to suddenly being one of the 3 worst teams in the league? If that were to happen than our young players essentially did not improve at all, which is bad. Also who, with all our cap space next off-season would sign here? Not saying I agree with the contract, but I love the signing.

This is how I feel.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

I'm going to rant about this a bit more.

You know who got tons of top picks and was terrible year after year? The Clippers.

Top picks year after year doesn't mean ***** by itself. Winning teams win, with or without top draft picks.

We've talked about ways to build a winning team before, and it's clear that tanking CAN work, but draft picks are a crapshoot and there are no guarantees. It's also clear that other approaches work ... but all we ever ******* hear on this board is 'LETS TANK ANOTHER YEAR! Oh, NEXT YEAR is going to be OUR YEAR in the DRAFT! WOOOOOO!'

[Braggins]

I agree this would of been a great time to tank and you could argue that a team can always get better with a tank.

Ex: Backtrack a few years ago Utah gets Donovan Mitchell with the 13th pick to go along with Rudy Gobert. Should they have tanked the next two seasons to try and get two more top 5 picks?? I mean that would be an elite team.

Ex: Memphis has Jaren Jackson Jr and Ja Morant, should they tank for two more top 5 picks and have an elite young core?

Ex: Boston lost Hayward. Not sure Tatum and Brown can win a championship this year.... maybe they should tank and get a top 5 pick to go along with them. Probably will be better long term.

Mitchell/Gobert, Ja/Jackson, and Tatum/Brown, are all far better two man combos than Hayward/Graham and they are all also younger. This doesn't help your argument at all. The entire point of this being bad is that we don't know if we have the foundational pieces yet to be in a position to make a move like this. All those examples you just gave are of situations where the team already has the foundational pieces. Even if LaMelo is the man, this still is premature because Hayward will be 33-34 years old by the time LaMelo will possibly be good enough to lead a team, so there is no point right now to be trying to put win-now pieces around him that are already in their 30s.

[316Hornets]

If there was a Lebron type player in next years draft, I'd understand tanking.

The important thing is that we don't trade any of our future 1sts. As long as we keep adding young talent, then we can compete.

[James Gatz]

I agree this would of been a great time to tank and you could argue that a team can always get better with a tank.

Ex: Backtrack a few years ago Utah gets Donovan Mitchell with the 13th pick to go along with Rudy Gobert. Should they have tanked the next two seasons to try and get two more top 5 picks?? I mean that would be an elite team.

Ex: Memphis has Jaren Jackson Jr and Ja Morant, should they tank for two more top 5 picks and have an elite young core?

Ex: Boston lost Hayward. Not sure Tatum and Brown can win a championship this year.... maybe they should tank and get a top 5 pick to go along with them. Probably will be better long term.

All these examples have two players that are fringe all-nba guys at their ceilings. Lamelo is huge gamble and PJ does not have that upside, I like him but I'd be surprised if he ever made an all-star team.

So with improvement from our young guys, the number 3 pick and added depth in the draft we were suddenly going to go from the 9th pick before the lottery this year to suddenly being one of the 3 worst teams in the league?

Yes. We had 23 wins last year. Bulls had 22, Knicks 21, DET 20, Hawks 20, MIN 19, GS 15.

GS, MIN, and ATL will all easily be better than us without Hayward. Bulls and DET likely would as well.

Also we need to consider Lamelo will not help us win games next year. He will a 19 year-old PG with issues shooting and defending. So either we will only play him backup minutes in order to win more games or play him a lot minutes to develop him and lose more games.

[driveandkick]

I agree this would of been a great time to tank and you could argue that a team can always get better with a tank.

Ex: Backtrack a few years ago Utah gets Donovan Mitchell with the 13th pick to go along with Rudy Gobert. Should they have tanked the next two seasons to try and get two more top 5 picks?? I mean that would be an elite team.

Ex: Memphis has Jaren Jackson Jr and Ja Morant, should they tank for two more top 5 picks and have an elite young core?

Ex: Boston lost Hayward. Not sure Tatum and Brown can win a championship this year.... maybe they should tank and get a top 5 pick to go along with them. Probably will be better long term.

Right... and hell look at the way the lottery works now. I've already seen someone say "we'll just be picking ninth next year again" bro we were supposed to pick eighth this year and went top three! I agree the draft is the best way to build a contending team for teams like us. But it's so hard to nail so many draft picks in a row and put together a serious run. Hayward is a really good player, we had a chance to bring him in so we did it. Do we still need more? Yes. But you made a great point. I think we pick in the 8-10 range next year and that presents the opportunity to bring in another really good player.

And holy hell I love the commitment we're making to LaMelo. We're giving him the team and surrounding him with high quality players. We fumbled six years of Kemba because we could never find any good players to put around him. I see this as the team making sure they don't make that same mistake again. If you're a team like us and you can bring in a player of Hayward's caliber, it's really hard not to do it.

[driveandkick]

If there was a Lebron type player in next years draft, I'd understand tanking.

The important thing is that we don't trade any of our future 1sts. As long as we keep adding young talent, then we can compete.

Right. People are criticizing the fact that we are stretching Batum. It's very likely the alternative would be giving a team a future first to absorb one of our big contracts. I'd much rather stretch Batum than give an asset.

[LofJ]

I'm still holding out hope we signed Hayward to later trade him to the Pacers for Turner plus dead weight (Lamb, McDermott). I think I may have Stockholm syndrome.

[JMAC3]

I agree this would of been a great time to tank and you could argue that a team can always get better with a tank.

Ex: Backtrack a few years ago Utah gets Donovan Mitchell with the 13th pick to go along with Rudy Gobert. Should they have tanked the next two seasons to try and get two more top 5 picks?? I mean that would be an elite team.

Ex: Memphis has Jaren Jackson Jr and Ja Morant, should they tank for two more top 5 picks and have an elite young core?

Ex: Boston lost Hayward. Not sure Tatum and Brown can win a championship this year.... maybe they should tank and get a top 5 pick to go along with them. Probably will be better long term.

Mitchell/Gobert, Ja/Jackson, and Tatum/Brown, are all far better two man combos than Hayward/Graham and they are all also younger. This doesn't help your argument at all. The entire point of this being bad is that we don't know if we have the foundational pieces yet to be in a position to make a move like this. All those examples you just gave are of situations where the team already has the foundational pieces. Even if LaMelo is the man, this still is premature because Hayward will be 33-34 years old by the time LaMelo will possibly be good enough to lead a team, so there is no point right now to be trying to put win-now pieces around him that are already in their 30s.

My point is that you can always tank more. and get greedy and keep trying to get more picks. You have to draw the line somewhere.

If you want to say that you would of wanted to tank for one more year I get it. However, you have to understand that plan doesn't have 100% success rate. You could draft a bust, you could get the 8th pick and end up just getting a role player.

[JMAC3]

Yes. We had 23 wins last year. Bulls had 22, Knicks 21, DET 20, Hawks 20, MIN 19, GS 15.

Yeah on paper it looks close, but you have to remember that the regular season was cut short by 17 games. You have to think there would have been a great margin of separation in a regular 82 game season.

[CuseMayne]

Sigh...

So what's the deal with our cap space for this year now? Do we have a MLE that we can throw at a solid C? If we're going to try and win this year, I think we should go after one (Baynes would be ideal).