MasterIchiro wrote:How about Evan Fournier? His style fits Nic Batum's and we have to maximize Batum's value if we want to get any kind of return on the investment, whether wins or trade value.
Fournier is averaging a career high 17.8 PPG to go along with 3 assists. He hit 38% of his threes in a crappy lineup. He hit 46% from the field. His contract is 17 million. I'd also like to get a backup PG in the deal so I would target Shelvin Mack.
My proposal is Marvin + Lamb + 2018 top-3 protected 1st for Fournier plus Mack. The lineup would be:
Kemba
Fournier
Batum
Kaminsky
Cody
Mack
Monk
MKG
Graham
Hernangomez
This proposal boils down to whether you think Fournier can step up as the missing #2 scorer between Kemba + Batum and average near 20 PPG. Is a #2 scorer worth pick 10-12 in this year's draft? Is there a different #2 scorer you would target for the 2018 1st? Lamb turns into Mack in this deal and that's lopsided in their favor but they'd be moving a proven #2 scorer so one might expect to pay a premium for that. Lamb turns into Mack, a decent backup PG. You also have to consider Lamb is gonna get expensive and the team is capped out so they could lose him for nothing. Mack is an upgrade.
I like Fournier and really wanted us to try to sign him so we could let Batum walk and avoid his insanely bad contract, but I feel like we are giving up way too much in that trade. Fournier is a good all around offensive player, but he far from being an elite scorer and his defense limits his value. Lamb is at least nearly as good as Fournier by himself. Also, Fournier + Batum would be a horrendous wing pairing on defense and starting Frank at PF would only exacerbate their defensive issues.
I still like the idea of trading for Fournier, though. If we are giving up our lottery pick for him I'd want them to take back Batum and I still probably wouldn't give up Marv (it would be difficult to match salary at that point anyways). We could start Lamb or MKG with Fournier (i'd probably go with MKG tbh). I'm not sure what a workable deal would look like, but Id start with something like Batum + 10 for Fournier + Mack/Augustine + 2nd round pick. I actually really want to keep our pick this year and would rather trade a future 1st, though. I'm not really sure if Fournier is really worth a top 10 pick even if we are also getting rid of Batum. Its hard to say.