greg4012 wrote:Tim_Hardawayy wrote:greg4012 wrote:
Let people talk about it and voice why you don't think it works.
Kevin Durant doesn't fix our offense. He's a unique talent in league history but his forte is isolation. His best moments of team success came either with a team that happened to also have two league MVP's at the time that only managed to come about due to youth (those rosters were so loaded Serge Ibaka barely gets a mention when people look back), or a team that had already won a Finals and set the regular season win record without him. He had an achilles injury which is about the worst thing you can get, and while he did bounce back, he missed a full season and half of the next 3 seasons following it.
When he was finally healthy in Phoenix last season, his advanced impact metrics actually track similar to Herro's for Miami this season, very slightly better. And this season they were almost identical (around 3 in VORP, Tyler had higher ws/48, both created value on offense and were slightly negative defensively for their teams). This is not at all to compare Tyler to KD as a talent, purely to their impact on their squads.
And this is all assuming he is a picture of perfect health and can age like LeBron is. Which is a massive assumption. And one I'm almost willing to grant just because of his unique attributes (7 foot tall, game that doesn't rely on athleticism), but still even in that best case scenario, by the numbers you aren't getting the MVP level talent he was 5+ years ago, unless looking purely at boxscore statistics which are inflated from the past few years anyways (27 ppg in this era is like 22-24 10 years ago).
That's my argument. I don't think he moves the needle for a team that wasn't getting it done with Jimmy Butler. And I think in the postseason, at this stage of their careers, Jimmy and KD are comparable as players. If we were going to shell out the dough for an older player who uses a style that could age gracefully and has had injury problems in the past I'd have rather just done it for Jimmy than reverse course with KD while also having to trade who knows what to acquire him.
There we go baby. Doesn't that feel better?
It just feels like we're talking in circles, I haven't seen the argument on why KD makes us contenders, I've seen attempts that didn't convince me, and after the last 2 playoff series with this current iteration of the roster, it sure feels like we're even farther away than people thought.
There's one poster on this board consistently pushing for a KD, or Ja, or Trae etc as if that will cure all our woes, and it always feels like its an attempt to squeeze out one more run before his favorite player starts to get older, instead of accepting that the current iteration of the roster needs a reset. And the thing is, I don't even think Bam has to go in a reset. Sometimes it happens way faster than you can predict, which is exactly what happened with Jimmy in 2019. Or look at Wade coming quick enough that Zo was able to rejoin the team and finally get his ring.
But Jimmy was 29/30 at the time, and Wade was a high draft pick. KD is great, but he's 37, and he's damaged goods. Trae (imo at least) isn't a Jimmy Butler level talent, neither is Ja Morant. Well Ja might be but he's far more unstable and that's saying something.
I'd be down for adding a KD or Ja or Trae if Jimmy were still here and we were trying to milk a couple more years of contention. But as the main piece, I'd much rather wait to see who else comes available (Giannis?...Antman?...Luka?) or just try to draft the next Wade.
