Snakebites wrote:Crymson wrote:Snakebites wrote:We collectively need to stop being prideful about the assets of our 14 win team.
I understand that I'm changing the subject a bit here, but this roster could easily have doubled that win total had it a competent coach instead of being subject to the most outrageously destructive head coaching the NBA has seen in a long while.
I'm not saying that the roster wasn't plagued by holes or inadequate to the task of making a push for the play-in tournament -- it was both of those things -- but Monty took that poor roster and sabotaged it to depths literally never before seen in NBA history.
My point is that while the roster has problems, it's not on its own merits the utter disaster it's being named. It needs to improve significantly in one way or another in order to do anything meaningful, yes. But it's not the trainwreck this season made it appear. Its dumbfounding catastrophe of a head coach saw to that.
Yeah it is changing the subject.
And it’s moot.
I don’t think Ivey and Duren have the value most on this board think they do. If we can turn them into a pair of useful well fitting pieces like Bridges and DFS for the cost of a pick downgrade I’d do it without hesitation. It’s time to start building a team.
I wanted to come back to this post from Snakebites. What is the perceived value of Ivey/Duren from outsiders? Higher or lower than at the start of the season?
For me Ivey feels like an obvious regression. While he showed signs of life late last season, this season he struggled with... everything. There is still obvious potential there, but also reason for concern. Would you trade him for the 5th in this years draft? Would somebody else give up the 5th for him?
Duren I think still has value. He's not the defensive presence we want, but he's a solid double-double guy. The shooting is a limiting factor, but at least he's a C so it's somewhat acceptable. However, he get's bullied by bigger C's and I dunno what the hell he's gonna do with this new bread of Chet's & Wemby's. Against Embiid or Giannis? No chance.
For a while C was the least important position. Embiid & Jokic were having MVP battles, but up until this past season neither of them had a ring and the league was still being dominated by LBJ, KD, Stef, Kawhi etc. If you were building a roster, those were the guys you had to worry about getting past. With those guys aging out and with the rise of Sabonis & Sengun the entire paradigm is shifting in front of us. Zingis is 7'2" on the best team in the league. The C position is back in a BIG way.
How does Duren stack up?
My fear is that as the league shifts back towards size/height that Duren is going to have more and more matchup problems. At least most of them are currently out West, but he may be another example of Weaver simply being a decade behind in terms of his talent valuation. In 2014 Duren is great. Today? He might be power forward who can't shoot.
For a minute people questioned Cleveland going with twin towers and then Minny made their bold move and people definitely questioned that. But both those teams may actually be a little ahead of the curve in terms of preparing for what is coming.