cl2117 wrote:redslastlaugh wrote:I think Sam's been disappointing. He is a specialist who is excellent in his role and his fit with Jayson Tatum is absolutely elite, but also we have such a thin eye of the needle we are trying to thread thru the salary cap aprons/taxes and Sam at $11 million per for three more years after this, looks like an overpay under the new CBA...
I am not sure we could trade him and get a good asset back, so it's we had Jrue, KP, Horford, Kornet and now Hauser where we bring the talent in but talent going out doesnt return us any assets.
I wonder if the back spasms he had last season are still bothering him this year?
It's also been 8 games. We can't make sweeping judgements, everyone is adjusting to life without JT/KP/Jrue, I think he needs 1/4 of the season before we starting judging too harshly.
I think we could get an early 2nd and cap space for Hauser at this stage. There are holes in his game you can focus on but he's a pretty automatic 40% 3PT shooter who can hold his own more often than not if you hunt him defensively. That's worth $11m a year. Plus he's not an oddly shaped piece, he can fit in anywhere given that he can plant himself in a corner and you're almost maximizing his value, every team can always use more of that.
I think those for of us who are a bit disappointed in Sam (and I include myself in that), really it's probably our own fault for having some unrealistic expectations for a guy who is already operating well above the level most ever thought he would. Take out those expectations and Sam has been fine for his contract and that's with him playing poorly.
Good points. Eight games too small a sample.
My disappointment is a bit unfair, I admit. I wanted to see him do a few new things this year, draw more FTs, use the threat of his shooting to get guys flying by on the shot fake and spray the ball around, and to play better off JB as this year's main driver. Sam's chemisty was beyond awesome playing with JT. On the other hand, I think Sam and Jaylen have only displayed OK chemistry, not bad but a little disappointing.
And then, I have the general frustration of extending the supporting cast of the 2024 title team, and then getting destroyed by the tax-apron unwind. Like, I've talked about it too much, but we signed all these players and if we can't keep them, I want to trade them off for a gravy train of picks and prospects coming in.
We had the Paul-KG title window from 08-13 and when that window closed Danny moved our veterans for beaucoup assets coming in! Ainge obviously got the Brooklyn trade for Paul/KG, but he also got picks/prospects for Rondo, Jeff Green, Jordan Crawford, etc ... This version, we've done some decent cap management -- removing KP's entire $30M for only two seconds going out is impressive -- but fundamentally we dismantled a team full of valuable winners and got basically nothing in return!
So, in Sam's case, I want him to either be a valuable contributor to another playoff run or to an asset who other teams will bid for, so we get some good stuff as a return for developing him to the point of championship contributor.
But also, he's a week off a 21 point, 7 3pt make game, so I don't want to overreact, lol