Fake Trade Thread #7

[Diop]

Any word on if Keegan Murray was included in the Kings fire sale? I would love to take a swing on him.

We need another shooter badly and he would fit well as a PF with Melo, Kon, and Miller.

Obviously would love to give up Miles for him, but I imagine it would have to include the Heat pick, Salaun, and atleast one of McKeely and/or Sion.

they have listed him as untouchable, i like him as a young Pf, but his stats dont scream anything exciting

[GoBobs]

We can't be buyers with this record.

This years draft pick is becoming one of our best assets.

Only question is if we will become sellers to tank harder.

[Liver_Pooty]

We can't be buyers with this record.

This years draft pick is becoming one of our best assets.

Only question is if we will become sellers to tank harder.

We have a 20 year old who is our best player right. We don’t even have to tank.

[NCHeels2008]

I am just looking forward to picking top 5 again so we can name that our new guy and decide Kon should be dealt next. You can laugh, but that is literally the tendency of our fans lmao.

LaMelo is a certifiable knucklehead who is a savant on the court. Unfortuantely for us part of being the best player is setting a standard with maturity and preparation, things that Ball seems atrocious at. I can understand the argument for keeping him, I was ready to deal Ball before we know what we had in Kon. Seeing how Ball beat out Edwards for ROTY and seeing their trajectories since, is extremely disconcerting. I think if he ever does figure it out it'll be somewhere with Vets who outshine him and make him raise his standards. The last time we had someone of similar stature to Ball was Kemba who I was ready to deal bc I was worried about his next contract. I mean before that you have to go back to Al? I probably gave you more time than you deserved in my reply.

I'd also add my desire for us to deal Ball has only been enhanced by this season where after I wanna say a good first 3 games to the season he's regressed back into the court jester he seems he wants to be.

[JMAC3]

Read on Twitter

?s=20

Said fanbase...

You must pick a side, that is what is important right now lol

Read on Twitter

?s=20

These fans smh.

[Braggins]

Honestly I would tank until the deadline or as close as they can get away with and then try to make a big splash move for a PF upgrade. That way they will be in a big enough hole to be comfortably out of the playoff race, and thus still be in the lottery, but would get a big boost in the second half of the season to give the fans something to feel good about and make them actually look forward to next season. Then in the offseason add another core player with their draft pick and then finish filling out the roster for a real playoff run next season.

If they literally trade LaMelo and try to super tank they still aren't going to make it into the bottom five records and they are just going to set the timeline back another couple years. We'll be looking at another tank next season when it become apparent 15 games into the season they aren't anywhere near being a playoff team. Theyve tanked long enough and have enough assets that they absolutely don't actually need to keep extending the tank any longer than they already have.

At this point its starting to feel to me like the front office wants to push expectations back another couple years to buy time before everyone gets fired because they don't actually have a plan.

[amcoolio]

The reason to trade LaMelo is if he isn’t on board with Kon being the franchise player and number one option, because so far this season Kon is clearly the best player, best scorer and needs to be the #1 option. You don’t start a rookie season like this, with that TS% and scoring ability, then defer to be the 3rd or 4th option. So either LaMelo is on board, and starts playing like a point guard like he did his first two years here, and becomes an elite player this way, or he doesn’t.

LaMelo has incredible skill, but even the hardest LaMelo stans know he makes too many dumb decisions and dumb shot selections. He needs to get back to how he played his all star year. Crazy court vision, full court alley oops - not shooting as many threes as he can in one game.

Brandon Miller would also be a great 2nd or 3rd option. This season is already too far gone though, as I said two weeks ago. Tank one final year. Win the **** lottery for a change, trade the pantry of picks, then go into next season guns loaded. Enough of this ****

[amcoolio]

Read on Twitter

?s=20

Said fanbase...

You must pick a side, that is what is important right now lol

Read on Twitter

?s=20

These fans smh.

What did he say that was wrong? 30 out of 30 teams would take Kon over Melo. Even if contracts were swapped.

You are blinded by what Melo could be, not what he is. He’s been bad. Really bad. And injured to boot. He isn’t the same player with promise he was in 2022. He’s devolved into Zach Lavine status in record time.

LaMelo needs to wake the **** up

[JustBuzzin]

LOL

Here comes the LaMelo vs Kon beef.

[JMAC3]

LOL

Here comes the LaMelo vs Kon beef.

Legit only Hornets would do such a thing. If we had Tatum and Brown after 2 weeks half the fan base would be pro 1 and con the other. It is just hilarious behavior for a poverty franchise.

[SWedd523]

strawman arguments galore in here right now sheesh

[amcoolio]

We have never had a Tatum level player so that comparison is hilarious. LaMelo has been bad for a few seasons now, this isn’t a sudden thing. Players his age have taken leaps… Cade, SGA… he is playing increasing worse, lower IQ basketball despite having more talent. He’s having games that are inexcusable for a franchise player. Please explain why that is. Coaching? Injury? We are just tanking and he knows that so it doesn’t matter? What is your reasoning? Even if he had no other players around him, why is he playing brain dead basketball?

[Braggins]

I don't think LaMelo has been terrible. I think his outside shot is just in a slump.

His turnover rate has stayed the same while averaging a career high 9.3 assists. He has the second highest rpg of his career (only -0.1 reb worse than his career high). Hes tied with his career high 2pt fg% and his current free throw rate would be the best of his career. If the 3s were falling at his career normal rate hed look really good right now imo (would help if he got a little better whistle as well).

Heres what his stats would look like right now if he was just shooting his career average from 3pt (36.1%)

23.3 ppg ~ 6.6 rpg ~ 9.3 apg ~ 1.3 spg ~ 3.6 tov
43.2% fg ~ 36.1% 3pt ~ 87.5% ft ~ 57.1% true shooting

[JMAC3]

We have never had a Tatum level player so that comparison is hilarious. LaMelo has been bad for a few seasons now, this isn’t a sudden thing. Players his age have taken leaps… Cade, SGA… he is playing increasing worse, lower IQ basketball despite having more talent. He’s having games that are inexcusable for a franchise player. Please explain why that is. Coaching? Injury? We are just tanking and he knows that so it doesn’t matter? What is your reasoning? Even if he had no other players around him, why is he playing brain dead basketball?

I am not saying LaMelo is Tatum though, sorry should have known that would be the direction people would immediately want to take the convo.

The point is Hornets fans are anti talent, we did the same thing Brandon's rookie season. As soon as he looked good it became Brandon vs LaMelo, which side are you on. I just don't think majority of teams do this, but it is a common theme every year with this team/fanbase.

We are winning 19 games and arguing among ourselves who our best player is, because that is the important to settle right now lol

[amcoolio]

I am not anti talent. I just don’t see the point of continuously mashing a square peg in a round hole. I realize most of this is on the team, they failed LaMelo. But LaMelo is not escaping fault for his disaster. He’s 24. He’s been in the league 5 years. He’s playing worse defense than he ever has. The kind of defense that flat out loses basketball games and makes the coach sit him in the 4th. It’s embarrassing and I don’t get how you can’t see that. You just said yourself in the around the nba thread how mark williams and PJ magically got better defensively away from the Hornets. Maybe it has something to do with how incredibly deficient LaMelo has been. And no amount of talent will make up for it if he keeps playing this way. I mean he’s letting random white dudes cook him

[Braggins]

It seems like everyone right now is playing about as bad defensively as possible. I think a lot of that is on coaching and the general void of defensive talent kind of compounding on itself.

I think the problem is that the team is bad with LaMelo and completely awful without him. He clearly makes an impact, but the team is just not good. The roster is very poorly constructed even though it has some interesting talent at the top. They need to put together a roster that is good with LaMelo and still decent if he cant play. They have the assets to do it, but they so far are simply choosing not to do that and have if anything indicated that they want to get even worse despite already having a million extra picks.

I don't put hardly any of the blame for how this season is going on LaMelo or Miller. Its mostly on the front office and coaches imo.

[JMAC3]

We won 21 games, decided the issue with the team was guys like Rozier, PJ, Hayward. Okay cool, let's see what happens. Won 19 games the next season.

Decided guys like Nick Richards, Mark Williams, Nurkic were the issues. Now we are on pace to win 19 games.

Turns out it was Bridges and LaMelo were the issues. We can probably trade them both and make sure to win 15 games next year. Hard to not love the plan.

Traded PJ, Rozier, Hayward, Richards, Mark Williams, Nurkic for Grant, Sexton, Tre Mann and Liam McNeely.

and yes I know we have picks too, but not doing anything with them isn't helping this team win games.

but somehow I am supposed to believe if we trade LaMelo for picks, then all of sudden we will want to use the picks and try to compete. Once our roster is capable of winning 15 games next year then that is when the front office is going to strike and buy up a bunch of good players. Seems super believable and flawless.

This is why it seems like we have no damn plan at all.

[JMAC3]

We are 4-13 with LaMelo, Miles and Kon.

We need to do right by Kon and trade LaMelo and Miles. He deserves to be 2-15 and as many shots as he wants. That is the obvious answer to turning this thing around. Trust me.

[fatlever]

No need to label guys as 1st, 2nd, 3rd...

Kon and Miller are not yet primary hubs, they can't create their own shots well enough. Both need a primary facilitator to get the best out of them... Melo or someone similar. Hopefully with the emergence of kon and the return of Miller we will start to see less of the bad shot selection from Melo. All 3 are best served to play off each other, feeding the hot hand, and taking what the offense gives. The latter is something that kon is already doing. And something that I hope rubs off a little bit on his teammates. There's no need to force bad shots when you have four 20-point per game guys in the lineup. Move the ball find the weaknesses in the defense.

In regards to the seemingly never-ending terrible defense being played by our bigs under this coaching staff, I do Wonder what degree of that is compounded by having mostly terrible perimeter Defenders. Sion just isn't there yet as an delete point of attack defender, not in the way that someone like Dennis Smith Jr or okogie or even Cody before his injuries. Melo, mann, sexton, miles, kon, miller.. there's not currently a plus Defender among that group. I spent a lot of time defending kons defense this summer, simply because I didn't see him as a traffic cone. Still, at best, he is an average defender. Sadly compared to some of his teammates though that's pretty good. Mann and this current version of Melo are two of the worst perimeter defenders in the league. And then we have the typical never-ending brain lapses from miles. Sexton seems like he tries, but it's not effective in the least. Miller is the only one who has any hope of ever being a plus defender.

Terrible perimeter Defenders plus deep drop coverage is a recipe for disaster. It's a terrible scheme that is not being helped by the Personnel on the floor.

My first goal would be to replace mann and miles on the roster with anything resembling plus defenders. Even at the expense of some of the offense. Easier said than done, but that would be my first goal as gm. I would do that long before I looked to move Melo.

I'm certainly not sold on Lee as a coach, but I would at least try to balance the roster a little bit more and hopefully get a stretch of games with our big three all healthy at the same time before making any real judgments on him as a coach. In no way am I firing him mid season as I don't know what that really accomplishes. The one exception to that would be if you could convince one of the very high profile out of work coaches to accept a job here. And frankly I'm not sure why any veteran high profile coach would join a team that's clearly tanking. It would probably take a stupid amount of money to get someone like Mike Malone to accept a coaching job here.

That is not too absolve Lee in the least. He's not blameless in this mess. There's no reason this team should not be in the top of the league in pace. There's no excuse for some of the defensive schemes we've seen. And it's hard to defend some of the bad habits we've seen go unchecked for the past 2 years

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[JMAC3]

Miami traded the corpses of Kevin Love and Kyle Anderson and zero picks for Norman Powell.

Raptors traded Bruce Brown, Kelly Olynyk, 2026 Pacers 1st and 2031 2nd for Brandon Ingram.

Hawks trade Niang, Terance Mann and Pick 22 (Drake Powell) and 2031 2nd for Porzingis

All three teams improved, because they made trades to actually improve the team.

Hornets traded Nurkic for Sexton and 2nd... We did a trade that made us marginally better at best and prioritized receiving a pick instead of actually trying to use Nurkic expiring deal to trade for a clear upgrade like those 3 teams in the East.

Toronto 12-5
Miami 11-6
11-7

Charlotte 4-13

The answers to why this team sucks are so obvious, but we keep shaking our heads like we are surprised 20 games into every new season.