YogurtProducer wrote:PushDaRock wrote:YogurtProducer wrote:What would you realistically even offer?
Would be a BALLSY risky trade, but the upside of a IQ/Ball/Ingram/Barnes/Poeltl lineup makes you almost WANT to risk it.
At worst - Ball is an oft-injured, low effort player
At best - Ball is an all-nba talent giving you 22/7/9 a night. Moves IQ to more of a spot up role, further lets Barnes focus on being a menace defensively and Ball and Barnes when running would be lethal.
I really think him in a new situation would unlock him to. He wouldn't need to shoot 19 times a night, he would have better guys to playmake for (and somehow he still is at 10apg in CHA with those bums in only 32mpg), etc.
ASK OUT BALL. I wanna see it happen
Edit: and, we would have IQ/Ball/Barnes/Poeltl all locked up on solid deals through 2029.
He's played 36, 22 and 47 games the last 3 years. He's made of glass and gives little to no effort on D. Maybe a change of scenario helps but he really hasn't shown much in his career to indicate these things will change.
His USG last 2 seasons is at 34% and 36%. He's needed to dominate the ball to put up the numbers he does which aren't even that amazing especially when done so inefficiently. His best skill is his passing but again if he's not dominating the ball, those assist numbers will drop a lot. That's really not a fit in this offense where we don't want anyone dominating the ball outside of when we need a bucket in the half court from Ingram. You would need to be extremely confident in him completely changing the way he plays for him to fit in. Then, there's the question of his effectiveness and production on a winning team even if he is willing to change his play style.
Yeah the injuries is a huge issue - but that is also a big reason why you get an all-nba potential talent for cheaper than you would if he was healthy. Definitely plays into why it would be such a massive risk.
Ball just screams to me a guy that is eventually gonna get onto a team that is not a complete freaking trainwreck and people are going to go "how did we not know this guy was elite?"
He has huge usage, and poor efficiency, but that is significantly because he teammates are ass. His organization he plays for is ass. Look at how much better guys like Barnes / Barrett / IQ / Dick look this year when they all go down a peg in the pecking order. I can only imagine what Ball might look like where he doesn't need to have a 35% USG. It isn't like he is selfish, hes 100% a willing passer and from what I have seen he doesn't hijack possessions.
But his impact is clear. Charlotte is constantly better with him on the floor. +6 last night to, just only played 28 minutes for some puzzling reason.
He takes some of the dumbest shots I've ever seen. There's way too many possessions where he dribbles the air out of the ball and takes a fadeaway 3.
In a best case scenario, he's still a significantly worse bootleg version of James Harden. Even getting close to the Philly version would be really good for him and I don't think that's too likely.
I'm not that convinced about his on/off splits either. It's +13.6 in on/off per 100 through 8 games this season and last season it was a +6.6, but previous years it was -3.4, +1.7, +0.8 and +1.7. They should obviously be better with him on the court but he's going to need more of a sample size to convince me he can be someone that drives winning in an impactful way.
