I think how this finals is playing out, it really shows how important roster balance and strong defense is in contributing to winning championships! That's why the saying goes offense wins games, but defense wins championships! Our team has great offensive potential, but is also unbalanced and without true defensive depth or two-way balance. Our players are not strong enough defensively to hold their own against the opposition and sustain leads by shutting down or even slowing down the opposing team's scorers. Really aside from a 35 yr old Durant, our defenders are pretty mediocre at best, and we rely too much on our 35 yr old Durant to be that defensive anchor for us!
This just puts too much pressure on KD at his age for us to ask him to anchor a defense AND also be an elite clutch player late in the 4th after being worn down and having to do too much. Our team is also too old, too unathletic, and too small against most younger, bigger, faster, more physically dominant teams, yet Jones still keeps beating this same strategy of targeting low-end athletic finesse players expecting a different outcome after we've continually been embarrassed in the postseason by the very attributes he's stubbornly ignoring perennially. It shouldn't be so difficult to understand what changes need to happen to his strategy and fitness mentality. Especially when we've suffered from repeated examples of the things we've lacked that he's repeatedly chosen to not add/address. This draft doesn't have star potential, but it very clearly has all three of the attributes we need in low-cost role players that we could easily add to bolster our depth and our future simultaneously if he only exercises a minimal amount of creativity and assertiveness. Hopefully, he's had an epiphany stemming from our large-scale samples of shortcomings that'll motivate him to look at things differently for a change.
Regardless, our top priorities
that are available to us should clearly be to...............................
1-
Defensive balanceSecure a strong, athletic, highly switchable rim-protecting center that can play off the ball in a utility-type complementary defensive role.
2- Secure a strong, athletically explosive very switchable jumbo defensive wing that can take that pressure off of our big three and lockdown elite opposing wings and forwards. This is also critical because in adding this, it'd dramatically reduce pressure as well as war and tear throughout the games for our big three, freeing them up to conserve more energy on the defensive end and be more potent and impactful offensively in later stages of the game. I believe that in taking this additional pressure off of our big three, they'll experience less early exhaustion/ wear and tear, and also having an easier time outscoring the opposition and maintaining leads through having a legitimate lockdown defender or even two that can limit opposing teams scoring more.
3- A playmaking floor general-type guard that can keep our bench engaged and grow with our core into the future post-KD. I have this as the 3rd most critical need and not at the top simply because there are easily identifiable available options even outside the first round, and even into the post-draft undrafted two-way ranges that can fill this criteria sufficiently. Now for these three critical needs that MUST BE ADDRESSED!! I have these clear options easily available in our ranges, And all three are very possible with a little genuine effort and willing creativity.
1- ATHLETIC DEFENSIVE CENTER- Yves Missi or Kel' el Ware.
2- ATHLETIC YOUNG WING WITH SIZE AND HIGH MOTOR (preferably with a strong defensive skillset) Ryan Dunn.
3- HIGH IQ, GIFTED PLAYMAKING FLOOR GENERAL WITH POISE AND IN-GAME PROCESSING ABILITY. Tyler Kolek.
Again there are mechanisms for us to secure these three players, or at the very least in a worst-case scenario, two of the three and a solid alternative for the 3rd option left apart from the other two. This possibility is very legitimate only due to so many teams viewing this as a poor/ shallow draft and teams looking to trade down or even out for future assets alternatively. The importance of utilizing this is paramount in setting a strong foundation heading into free agency which is far less guaranteed that we'll successfully be able to address all three of our needs as easily as in the draft wherein we don't have to convince players to sign. But only need to acquire the pick for that range the player is in.
