gobullschi wrote:The Pelicans were 7-23 to start the year last year and just missed the playoffs. Everyone needs to settle down a bit and stop panicking over the current core. Coby is learning how to play a point guard, Wendell is learning how to be a playmaker and play drop coverage, Lauri is being aggressive on the offensive end, and Patrick Williams is starting. The results won’t be good in the beginning but after 30 games, we won’t recognize this team. Billy is developing the players we have, which is the reason he was brought here. RELAX.
The Eastern Conference got a lot better this year and the Bulls are basically the same team as last year. Let these guys develop, get another lottery pick, and let AK work some magic with all that cap space.
Sign Lonzo and Drummond.
Extend Lauri (if he continues his solid play)
Lonzo Ball / Coby White
Zach LaVine / Chandler Hutchison
Patrick Williams / 2021 1st
Lauri Markkanen / Patrick Williams
Andre Drummond / Wendell Carter Jr. / Daniel Gafford
No thanks to Lonzo and Drummond.. but I agree that people need to relax. What was done by GarPax is done (with the draft selections and trades). The old core is obviously not high-ceiling, but they are also bad fits for each other, and coupled with their inexperience and career losing for 2 bad coaches, it's just made everyone look even worse than the potentially serviceable players they can be.
Guys just become much better at 25yo. That's a fact. Who the hell thought Kyle Anderson and Bertans would become very solid players? The Spurs sure as hell didn't.
The principle problem is that Wendell/Lauri/Coby are mid/late FRP talent. Hutch is 2nd rd caliber. And now 3-4y in with some of these guys, Artunas has to make tough decisions of which guy to pay, which guys to keep another year, which guys to trade for turds. You can't just flip the whole roster and come out on top. You know for all their struggles, Wendell and Lauri are about 1-2y from being fairly consistent "NBA veterans", so you're so deep into that process already... Do you just dump them all for crap?
Tyson Chandler was 1y away from stabilizing, and right as he hit his mid-20s, we decided to go for 1y of service out of Ben Wallace and PJ Brown, which had a ripple effect on the next disaster of a season.
With cap-space, with star FAs off the board, I think you have to explore the TJ Warren Suns type of trades. Hornets are gonna want to open the PG spot for LaMelo, so they might be very eager to let go of Rozier for cap. If you can get some asset tossed into that, it's better than signing Lonzo to an offer sheet.