2020 Off-season Discussion

[JMAC3]

With the Batum stretch, I think we are in pretty good position to secure some nice draft picks in 2021 and 2022. Hayward will be a mentor to get us through this rebuild and we'll be making some noise when LaMelo is up for his 2nd contract. 2023 season should be the target date to have a playoff team. Still not happy about us backloading the Hayward deal though.

That isn't what you sign 120 million dollar players for. We could've signed a few cheap vets like the Hawks did with Vince Carter the past couple seasons.

Vince Carter is a good locker room guy, but he doesn't play so he doesn't really help them on the floor. Hayward is still a good player and will make the game easier for our young guys. I have no issue signing him for his skillset, I am just upset about the waiving of Batum. Frustrated we could not find a way to make that work, will make Kupcheck job harder next two offseasons, so will have to see if he can make the best out of it.

Will have to see how the product looks on the floor, but I do not agree that you can not put competent NBA players around your young guys during a rebuild.

[JDR720]

With the Batum stretch, I think we are in pretty good position to secure some nice draft picks in 2021 and 2022. Hayward will be a mentor to get us through this rebuild and we'll be making some noise when LaMelo is up for his 2nd contract. 2023 season should be the target date to have a playoff team. Still not happy about us backloading the Hayward deal though.

That isn't what you sign 120 million dollar players for. We could've signed a few cheap vets like the Hawks did with Vince Carter the past couple seasons.

Vince Carter is a good locker room guy, but he doesn't play so he doesn't really help them on the floor. Hayward is still a good player and will make the game easier for our young guys. I have no issue signing him for his skillset, I am just upset about the waiving of Batum. Frustrated we could not find a way to make that work, will make Kupcheck job harder next two offseasons, so will have to see if he can make the best out of it.

Will have to see how the product looks on the floor, but I do not agree that you can not put competent NBA players around your young guys during a rebuild.

There are a lot of competent players to be signed that aren't 120 million dollar players. This is clearly a "win now" move, most likely because MJ made Mitch do it. I never said anything about not putting competent players around for the rebuild.

A short list of unrestricted free agents that are competent players and not that expensive.

Rodney Hood (signed for 10 million)
Derrick Favors (signed for 10 million)
Justin Holiday (signed for 6 million)
Avery Bradly (signed for 5 million)
Wes Matthews (signed for 3 million)
Dellevedova (signed for 2 million)

We signed Hayward for nearly the entire yearly salary of all those guys combined, or we actually did if you add in Nic's waived contract.

On top of giving Boston a 30 million dollar TPE, which they can use to sign a very good player.

There is literally no logical reason why we did these moves.

[Braggins]

I remember like a few weeks ago Dy_Nasty making a post about our cap situation where he said something like it was so good that it would be really hard to mess it up and then this happens lol. Dy jinxed us.

[JMAC3]

There are a lot of competent players to be signed that aren't 120 million dollar players. This is clearly a "win now" move, most likely because MJ made Mitch do it. I never said anything about not putting competent players around for the rebuild.

A short list of unrestricted free agents that are competent players and not that expensive.

Rodney Hood (signed for 10 million)
Derrick Favors (signed for 10 million)
Justin Holiday (signed for 6 million)
Avery Bradly (signed for 5 million)
Wes Matthews (signed for 3 million)
Dellevedova (signed for 2 million)

We signed Hayward for nearly the entire yearly salary of all those guys combined, or we actually did if you add in Nic's waived contract.

On top of giving Boston a 30 million dollar TPE, which they can use to sign a very good player.

There is literally no logical reason why we did these moves.

I mean of course you can sign a bunch of bench players for the same amount of money and a lot of these guys took discounts to go to contenders.

[yosemiteben]

I would not have signed Rozier. I would not have signed Hayward, but if I had to I would have had the cap space to do it. Never in a million years would I have stretched Batum.

But I definitely would have given a huge deal to Kemba to keep him, so it's possible that we're in a better spot now than we would have been if the team did what I actually wanted the summer of 2019.

Maybe Rozier and Hayward are BFFs, and signing Rozier was a long play to get Hayward. And maybe we were going to make an imprudent godfather offer to Hayward next summer anyway so we're not spending more on him than we would eventually have. Maybe they play great together, and all the pieces fit great and things just work together perfectly and we'll end up happy about this. All of that is possible.

It's also very possible that Hayward is Batum 2.0, we suck and don't have enough cap space to fix it, and the train wreck we're all worried about will materialize.

I just don't believe in our ability to set a big picture strategy and so whether or not this works out for me is really up to chance. We don't know how good Ball will be. We don't know how Hayward will work out. We don't know if Monk or Bridges or even Graham will be long term pieces worth retaining. What we do know is we have decided to forego many paths to build this team in a way that has decreased flexibility and forced us to depend on our current pieces notwithstanding all this uncertainty.

I suppose how good you feel about this deal ultimately comes down to how willing you are to bet on our current roster as being an acceptable roster long term. I personally don't find our current talent level acceptable and so am not at all happy with this decision. We'll see how it works out.

[JMAC3]

I would not have signed Rozier. I would not have signed Hayward

You holding out for Giannis and Anthony Davis?

Or you would of played hard ball and gotten that protected 2025 first from Philly and Horford? When you have an opportunity to trade fo a guy that is owed 81 million over next three years that is 4 years older than Hayward you do that for 27th overall pick in a draft 5 years from now.

Or maybe you would signed Brandon Ingram to an offer sheet just to have Pelicans match 19 seconds later.

It's also very possible that Hayward is Batum 2.0, we suck and don't have enough cap space to fix it, and the train wreck we're all worried about will materialize.

When will fans of this franchise learn their are two types of guys we can sign in free agency to big deals. Our own restricted free agents and guys who are about to sign their 3rd contract that are 28-30 years old. We aren't stealing away a young star with restricted rights, we aren't signing a top 10 player in the league.

We have to find value in the margins and take chances on guys that maybe are coming off an injury or had a down year because it is less competition.

Next offseason would of been the same, we would of been looking at guys like Lowry, Derozan, Drummond, Aldridge... those are guys that we will be able to slightly overpay and get them to come here. We aren't stealing away Lauri Markkanen or Jon Issac.

[yosemiteben]

I would not have signed Rozier. I would not have signed Hayward

You holding out for Giannis and Anthony Davis?

Or you would of played hard ball and gotten that protected 2025 first from Philly and Horford? When you have an opportunity to trade fo a guy that is owed 81 million over next three years that is 4 years older than Hayward you do that for 27th overall pick in a draft 5 years from now.

Or maybe you would signed Brandon Ingram to an offer sheet just to have Pelicans match 19 seconds later.

These seem like super random questions so I'm not sure what your broader point is. I wouldn't have even attempted to sign any big ticket FAs until we had a core that we knew was worth building around. Your questions are irrelevant to me.

It's also very possible that Hayward is Batum 2.0, we suck and don't have enough cap space to fix it, and the train wreck we're all worried about will materialize.

When will fans of this franchise learn their are two types of guys we can sign in free agency to big deals. Our own restricted free agents and guys who are about to sign their 3rd contract that are 28-30 years old. We aren't stealing away a young star with restricted rights, we aren't signing a top 10 player in the league.

We have to find value in the margins and take chances on guys that maybe are coming off an injury or had a down year because it is less competition.

Next offseason would of been the same, we would of been looking at guys like Lowry, Derozan, Drummond, Aldridge... those are guys that we will be able to slightly overpay and get them to come here. We aren't stealing away Lauri Markkanen or Jon Issac.

I don't see what your little spiel here has to do with anything I said. I never said anything about the type of signings or wanting to sign different types of players. I don't understand why we're signing any marquee FAs right now.

[JMAC3]

These seem like super random questions so I'm not sure what your broader point is. I wouldn't have signed any marquee FAs until we had a core that we knew was worth building around.

You would be fired in 1 year if you were NBA GM. You can't have 60 million in cap space next summer and not try and sign a major major upgrade for the second summer in a row.

If I started a basketball team and said hey I want you to be the star player, but here are a bunch of 6 graders to play with against grown men for the next two years. My reasoning, we will be able to get you good players to players to play with in 2-3 years if we do it this way. Is Basketball going to be very fun for you the next two years? Probably not.

You can say the Sixers did it right by tanking for 5 years to get Embiid and Simmons, but guess what... after all those years of losing they never learned how to win and it shows when the games start to really matter.

[yosemiteben]

These seem like super random questions so I'm not sure what your broader point is. I wouldn't have signed any marquee FAs until we had a core that we knew was worth building around.

You would be fired in 1 year if you were NBA GM. You can't have 60 million in cap space next summer and not try and sign a major major upgrade for the second summer in a row.

yawn

The whole "I'm smarter than you, you just don't get it" schtick is a tired look, why don't you drop that please.

I'd be focused on stocking our draft assets and leveraging the one thing Mitch has proven to be good at - drafting. I'm not saying we should sit around and do nothing, I'm saying we should be following Presti's lead and actually doing something with our space and assets other than overpaying FAs in the first year of a rebuild.

I don't know what you're referring to with your second summer comment - we chose to let Kemba walk (something I already said I wouldn't have done). This is the first summer of our rebuild. There was absolutely no reason that this was necessary.

I was not a fan of letting Kemba walk, but we did and that meant we should have committed to a multi year rebuild. There is no other defense to that decision.

[JDR720]

Our core players right now are...

19 year old Ball. More than likely not going to be good for a couple seasons at least. Lots of potential though.
22 year old Monk. He may or may not be good, very inconsistent. Turning 23 in a few months.
25 year old Graham. Was good last season, but is he a 1-season wonder? Turns 26 in a few months.
26 year old Rozier. He is good, but he turns 27 in a few months. Too old to be a significant future piece.
22 year old Miles. Inconsistent, but has some potential. Not sure what his role is. Turns 23 in a few months
22 year old PJ. Probably our best prospect, at least in terms of potential to be good the soonest.

A few other younger players, the Martins and the other bigs we picked in this draft, but they are unknowns.

Ball, and maybe PJ, are the players I can feel comfortable saying we should build around. Monk and Miles are in make or break seasons. Due to their ages and impending contract status Graham and Rozier should be trade bait.

There is no way we should think we can win with this current core, unless things change significantly. Our #1 priority should be finding another top prospect to grow with Ball and PJ. Preferably a wing scorer.

I envision Ball as a "robin" because I doubt he is ever a high scoring player and PJ as the "glue" and secondary scoring option. We don't have a #1 scorer on this team.

Hayward is a "glue" player, the 3rd or 4th best player on a top team...like he was in Boston. Signing him, at this point, makes no sense. We are a team of prospects that need to figure out who is worth keeping or not.

[JDR720]

To put it another way:

If Hayward was 25 or 26, signing him could've made some sense. He does a lot of things well, and he is still young enough to be good when our plausible core is good enough to compete.

Signing him at 30 (soon to be 31) makes no sense. From a current competition standpoint, or a future standpoint. He isn't good enough to make us good on his own while our youth develop. When our young players are good, he'll be old and less effective. So, basically, he is a waste of 120 million.

[SWedd523]

I would not have signed Rozier. I would not have signed Hayward

You holding out for Giannis and Anthony Davis?

Or you would of played hard ball and gotten that protected 2025 first from Philly and Horford? When you have an opportunity to trade fo a guy that is owed 81 million over next three years that is 4 years older than Hayward you do that for 27th overall pick in a draft 5 years from now.

Or maybe you would signed Brandon Ingram to an offer sheet just to have Pelicans match 19 seconds later.

Holy defeatist mindset Batman

When you go into it having already lost, you end up doing dumb **** like signing dudes to massive contracts that you can't actually afford to pay, leading to having to commit the biggest contract stretch ever.

I mean, you could literally sign nobody and have a better mid-to-long-term outlook.

It's also very possible that Hayward is Batum 2.0, we suck and don't have enough cap space to fix it, and the train wreck we're all worried about will materialize.

We have to find value in the margins and take chances on guys that maybe are coming off an injury or had a down year because it is less competition.

If by margin you mean the above actions then those are the kinds of margins I wanna hang out in.

Next offseason would of been the same, we would of been looking at guys like Lowry, Derozan, Drummond, Aldridge... those are guys that we will be able to slightly overpay and get them to come here. We aren't stealing away Lauri Markkanen or Jon Issac.

And we wouldn't have needed to stretch Batum to do it. Sounds like a much better plan

All they had to do was wait one year

[Diop]

Next offseason would of been the same, we would of been looking at guys like Lowry, Derozan, Drummond, Aldridge... those are guys that we will be able to slightly overpay and get them to come here. We aren't stealing away Lauri Markkanen or Jon Issac.

And we wouldn't have needed to stretch Batum to do it. Sounds like a much better plan

All they had to do was wait one year

I think next year was probably the original plan, but the availabilty of Hayward made them change their course.
I'm not giving Mitch the MJ excuse, he's here as he can stand up to MJ. Cho got burnt, Mitch can too if it turns to crap.

I'm guessing they must think they can trade away Rozier at some time to create space next off season.
I was all about a youth rebuild, but I'm settled on sitting back and watching what they can create from here.

[JMAC3]

The whole "I'm smarter than you, you just don't get it" schtick is a tired look, why don't you drop that please.

This isn't a personal attack on you, just saying I don't many GMs who can take a team over with high picks and a lot of cap space and say to their fan base "maybe check out for a few more years because we aren't trying to win more than 25 games".

I'd be focused on stocking our draft assets and leveraging the one thing Mitch has proven to be good at - drafting. I'm not saying we should sit around and do nothing, I'm saying we should be following Presti's lead and actually doing something with our space and assets other than overpaying FAs in the first year of a rebuild.

Knicks and Thunder picked up 1 first rounder combined this offseason for taking on a bad contract in Horford and it is 5 years away. Not sure where you are getting the idea that all these teams wanted to trade first rounders for space. OKC also included Danny Green who some thought might net a first rounder by himself so Horford dump probably was worth half a first round pick max.

I don't know what you're referring to with your second summer comment

Saying doesn't sound like you want to spend this summer or next on any meaningful players. You want to sign cheap place holders until you get young superstar talent. But that would mean bypassing 20 million this summer and 60 million next summer. There are no young difference makers in free agency because their teams keep them. Hence why for us we will constantly be looking at guys slightly older or resigning our guys.

[Liver_Pooty]

Well, at least we didn't pay Kemba.

[Diop]

Well, at least we didn't pay Kemba.

that would have been terrible for him and us.

[JMAC3]

Our core players right now are...

19 year old Ball. More than likely not going to be good for a couple seasons at least. Lots of potential though.
22 year old Monk. He may or may not be good, very inconsistent. Turning 23 in a few months.
25 year old Graham. Was good last season, but is he a 1-season wonder? Turns 26 in a few months.
26 year old Rozier. He is good, but he turns 27 in a few months. Too old to be a significant future piece.
22 year old Miles. Inconsistent, but has some potential. Not sure what his role is. Turns 23 in a few months
22 year old PJ. Probably our best prospect, at least in terms of potential to be good the soonest.

A few other younger players, the Martins and the other bigs we picked in this draft, but they are unknowns.

Ball, and maybe PJ, are the players I can feel comfortable saying we should build around. Monk and Miles are in make or break seasons. Due to their ages and impending contract status Graham and Rozier should be trade bait.

There is no way we should think we can win with this current core, unless things change significantly. Our #1 priority should be finding another top prospect to grow with Ball and PJ. Preferably a wing scorer.

I envision Ball as a "robin" because I doubt he is ever a high scoring player and PJ as the "glue" and secondary scoring option. We don't have a #1 scorer on this team.

Hayward is a "glue" player, the 3rd or 4th best player on a top team...like he was in Boston. Signing him, at this point, makes no sense. We are a team of prospects that need to figure out who is worth keeping or not.

Is the goal to go from worst to first? I know we all want to win a championship as a fan base, but you don't have to have the winning pieces from day 1. You can slowly build the team and eventually become a winning franchise by drafting well year over year. You don't have to tank until you have 3 top 5 picks on your team and then say okay we are contenders now.

Again if you want to sell the fan base on being bad for the next 3-4 years then I don't know how long you or anyone else would be holding the job. We have money to spend right now because we have young players, if you wait too long to spend your money all you're going to do is end up paying your young players and not have much left over to add outside help.

I think we are so used to feeling like we are on treadmill because we have 1 good player and then a bunch of role players (kemba and gang) or we have an older team without much developing youth (Wallace, Jackson, Diaw). I feel like we could really put together a nice blend of older vets and upcoming rookies the next two years and by the time we have to pay PJ, Ball, future firsts Hayward and others will be expiring. But at least Ball, PJ and whoever else we draft will be used to playing with a team that is competitive and possibly have some playoff experience under their belts heading into their second contracts.

Also, I am not saying lets sell the ship and go for a title now, nobody thinks that. It is not like I am offering PJ and Bridges for Blake Griffin or Kevin Love. I still want to develop our young talent, but I think it is good to build a strong environment around them. Miami's young talent thrived this year with Butler, Crowder, Dragic and Iggy around them, I do not think we see Hero, Bam or Robinson be the player they are today if you put them on a team that is trying to win 19 games every year.

[JMAC3]

Holy defeatist mindset Batman

I am not a defeatist, just a realist. We are never signing a top 10 player from another team, nor are we going to sign Brandon Ingram or Domantas Sabonis after their rookie deal. So most guys we will be getting in free agency will be in the league 8 years (2 full contracts).

On another note, I think where I disagree with strategy with this board is that tanking is good for team culture. Young players are going to pick up the habits of those around them. Have you ever heard your income is directly related to the 5 closest people in your life? I think it is the same in sports, if you are used to losing all the time you become a loser. Whereas if you are used to winning then it is easier to have confidence that you are a winner. PG13, LBJ, Kawhi, Siakam, Brown, Tatum all had success super early in their careers and I think it helped them to learn how to win at an early age.

As opposed to the countless potential stars we have seen go to Sacramento, Timberwolves etc... Cousins, Towns, Fox, Lavine, Wiggins, Tyreke Evans all guys who looked like they could be really really good have all had really underwhelming careers and I think a losing environment from day 1 has a lot to do with it. I can also list out a billion Knicks here too if you like.

I don't think Hayward makes us some superstar talent loaded team ready to win the East this year, but I do think he shows our players and the NBA that we are committed to winning. Free agents pay attention to this type of thing, and I also think Hayward can really have a good 3-4 years here teaching our guys how to win and easing the transition for Ball, Graham and Monk. Who knows maybe we have a surprising season and Gobert or Jarret Allen decide this is type of team they want to play for. Our young guys get better with good leadership and coaching and we are competing for 6 seed in a year. then the 3 seed the year after. and then 4 years from now we are in the hunt every year. These things take time to build, you don't just draft a bunch of blue chip prospects and get there overnight (Knicks, Bulls, Twolves, Kings, Pistons will show you that it doesn't guarantee anything to be in lottery every year).

[Braggins]

I mean, you could literally sign nobody and have a better mid-to-long-term outlook.

Yep, and if you are concerned about surrounding young talent with veterans then you just overpay some solid guys on one year deals to be stopgaps without affecting your long term cap outlook.

[JMAC3]

And we wouldn't have needed to stretch Batum to do it. Sounds like a much better plan

All they had to do was wait one year

I think next year was probably the original plan, but the availabilty of Hayward made them change their course.
I'm not giving Mitch the MJ excuse, he's here as he can stand up to MJ. Cho got burnt, Mitch can too if it turns to crap.

I'm guessing they must think they can trade away Rozier at some time to create space next off season.
I was all about a youth rebuild, but I'm settled on sitting back and watching what they can create from here.

I agree, I think most thought Hayward was opting in and I bet Hornets wanted to sign him next summer to a three year deal. When he opted out we probably recognized the lack of other suitors and decided to make this move a year early and gave him a 4 year instead.

However, we stopped there. We did not go trade a first for Westbrook or Wall after. Or trade Graham to move Batum deal so we could sign Hassaan Whiteside to a multi-year deal.

Even if we keep Rozier we will still have cap space next summer, it is not like we are all of sudden hard capped and have no ability to make moves. If we want it would be easy to have 30 million to spend on a Max free agent if he wanted to come here and still keep in tact the main core we have.