sco wrote:To me, for a while there I was (as I often am) fooled by his decent stretch of outperformance, only to be followed by a regression to the mean to end the season. And the real question now isn't whether or how much he improved, but is he good enough to cement the job of the Bulls starting PG (or SG I guess) going forward?
He's probably the 4th best player on a contending team.
Clippers: behind Kawhi, Harden, PG13.
Minny: behind Ant, KAT, Gobert.
OKC: behind SGA, Jalen, Chet.
PHO: Behind KD, Booker, Beal, and I'd argue Grayson Allen is more important because they need tough D.
BOS: Behind Tatum, Brown, Jrue, probably White because again you need defense more than a 4th scorer.
But I don't think that means you trade him for a low return. I look at how San Antonio handled Dejounte who also isn't a #1 on a contender either. They didn't just let him walk in FA. They signed him, let him start, let him pile up a ton of stats on teams that lost most of their games, and then traded him for a major haul (3 1st rounders). I don't think we're really maximizing Coby's value for a trade, and I think the same happened for Lavine and the same for Markkanen.
The irony of that is that Murray's value didn't really explode until they got rid of Derozan.