Euphonetiks wrote:
We also aren't rushing to re-sign Val because he doesn't space and cannot anchor a defense. Val at least has a recent season shooting 36% on 3.5 3PA/gm and has a career 79% FT%. In 2 seasons, Duren has not made a 3 and he's only attempted 6.
Maybe Duren can space the floor in the distant future, but that does nothing for his ability to play with Zion now. We already have a non-spacing hyper efficient interior scorer that we are trying to build around.
The salary difference is significant, but it always will be comparing a mid lotto rookie-scale to a 20+ ppg vet wing and David Griffin is not looking to just dump salary.
The Pels need a unicorn for sure at center, but they're still really rare. Most likely they'll have to choose between a defensive anchor or a 3pt shooter. Obviously it's damn near impossible to get a Chet, but there's not some band of future Porzingis/Brook Lopez' out there that I can see.
If we assume that the Pels are all in on Zion being healthy (because otherwise what are we doing here, really?) than which one is better might come down to Dyson Daniels' development. If he can become an average shooter and the quality defender he looks like, maybe you can throw out Daniels-Murphy-Herb-Zion from 1-4 and live with a shooter who's not a true anchor defensively in exchange for the spacing and less Daniels' 3, because there's nobody to pick on defensively apart from maybe Hawkins coming off the bench.
But not wanting Duren because he might be neither an anchor or a 3pt shooter is totally fair. This would be more of an upside play. So maybe it's a 3 or 4 way deal with a young team with more spacing at the 4 getting Duren. As a Raptors fan, I'd be interested in Poeltl for Duren with Poeltl going to New Orleans and Ingram to Detroit, and from watching both for years on the Raptors I know Poeltl is a much better defender than JV, but Detroit and Toronto would probably have to include a pick swap for the Pels to bite. Washington makes a lot of sense too, if they draft say Topic/Sheppard/Dillingham now and one of the many top SGs in the next draft, then 2024-2025-Coulibaly-Avdjia-Duren isn't horrible looking.