Banks2Pierce wrote:Slartibartfast wrote:
If that's not enough to put together a Durant-magnet, we should try a different approach.
Look at our bedfellows:
Durant's the only worthy guy and everyone has room for 1 player. Horford and Dwight aren't moving the needle for him, I'd guess. There is a lot of value next summer in having room for 2 maxes and a competitive team because the alpha class of free agents will be deeper, including the potential for Durant again. Think comparing 2016 FA to 2017 FA is apples and oranges. We also don't know what the hell will happen, but I'm guessing people will wheelbarrow money to these OK FAs and only have the 1 max room next summer. The trade thing hasn't happened yet and doesn't look close to breaking, but it has to eventually.
Charlotte, Miami, and Atlanta don't have the BKN picks and are much more susceptible to losing chunks of those 48 wins to FA. I know you will say that #3 can't even get Gordon freaking Hayward, but the #3 pick ultimately has a 33% chance of being an All Star and 2 more are incoming.
I just don't understand how trading IT AND Bradley is better than the flexibility approach. I get that we can get caught holding the bag in 2018 if they are both still here and expecting 20m contracts and maybe that's why I probably trade Bradley, but not both. Don't think it'd be that hard to get to 2 seed level while still having a handful of exciting prospects and cap flex. The more I think about it, the more a Bradley trade can satisfy multiple things. Room for young guys to play and maybe not even losing wins. IT is a different ballgame. He goes and we'll be cavemen on offense. Trading IT and getting Rubio somehow would perk my ears up, though.
IT is the one that makes the caveman offense possible - it's his presence (and to a lesser extent ET) that allows Brad to field a bunch of stonemasons.
As long as IT's here, it's going to be the IT show with everybody else playing D, rebounding, filling lanes in transition and chucking endless 3s. Unless you can replace ET (and/or Sully) with someone with enough stature to start and push IT back into more of a 6th man, king of the 2nd unit role.
The #3 pick isn't going to be that guy. With IT here, he's going to either battle the roleplayer army for a niche in the starting line-up (highly unlikely), or battle Smart/KO/whoever for the chance to be ET's heir as the focal point of the 2nd unit. Most likely he'll be fighting Rozier/Hunter/Mickey for the roleplayer scrap minutes.
Even trading AB means very little. He creates room for a young guy to play, but with IT in the backcourt, that young guy better be ready to defend multiple positions and play off the ball. So basically we'd be starting Smart no matter who we drafted.
Conservative punting scenarios change this team very little, and open up very little room for high-level asset development unless we're drafting a high-level defensive big man who can crack the rotation (and here comes ryaningf with a Bender screed).
So we'd be looking at a near identical team next year, with all of our hopes for a different result pinned on everyone else getting a little worse and there being more people for IT to try to recruit.
I don't think IT's so good that we need to stay in the holding pattern with him as the face of our high-end mediocrity.
If we can't add pieces better than him now, I say hand over the reins to some guys who will be better than him and/or more valuable in the near future.
Consider - who will be more valuable next offseason. An expiring bargain contract IT or a promising young guy coming off a big rookie season?
