nate33 wrote:I think it's fair to argue that if Deni was on the team last year, we would have won a few more games. Exactly how many more, it's tough to say. Interestingly, if we had won 5-7 more games, we would have have moved down to the 5th worst record (where Philadelphia ended up) and would have jumped up to the #3 pick.
With the #3 pick in hand, I don't think it would have been too hard to trade up for #2 and landed Harper. Maybe the #3 plus the #18 plus Champagnie would have done it.
So, going into this season, instead of Bub, Tre and Riley, we would have Harper and Deni (and no Portland 2029 FRP):
PG Harper/McCollum
SG Bilal/McCollum
SF Middleton/Whitmore
PF Avdija/Kyshawn
C Sarr/Bagley
The rebuild would already be over. That's a team that should win 30+ games right away, and 50 games after a couple years of seasoning and the acquisition of a good free agent center. Heck, Avdija would probably be an All-Star in the East.
Well it's early September, so I guess free association is in season.
Deni pushed Portland, almost single-handedly, from 21 wins to 35 wins. I'd say he was responsible for 9 of those extra wins. In the same minutes, w/ us he would have had the same effect on us.
Say, if Kuz had been gone & Deni had played all his '24-5 minutes and most of Kispert's minutes -- so that he got the same minutes more or less as in Portland -- he'd have taken us from 16 to about 25 wins easily.
Take a look at our pre-trade deadline record - 9-44 - vs. our post-trade deadline record - 9-20 - to see what i mean about Kuz's effect.
Then too, if Alex had played 900 minutes instead of 1800, & the extra 900 had gone to Valanciunas & Holmes, we would likely have won another 8 or more games easily.
In short, keep Deni & play our strongest line-ups consistently (instead of feeding minutes to the young) & we'd likely have won close to 35 games -- as Portland did.
edit -- oh yeah... goodbye Tre Johnson, hello Cedric Coward.
