Badonkadonk wrote:Johnny Bball wrote:xAIRNESSx wrote:I always find it interesting how so many feel that picks, tanking and cap space are a panacea to fix all our problems.
You cannot beat the mystery box. The mystery box can be anything you dream it is. Or that you feel entiteld to.
There's a few people that are realistic picks being currency, but that's the exception to the rule.
It's the absence of a strategy more than a strategy.
It's completely detached from the reality that if you're bad enough to statistically "compete" for a top 3 pick, the only thing you're guaranteeing is to be bad for a long time with no clear path out, especially in time for it to be worth the while of a top pick in the first place.
Yeah, I'm fine with the Poeltl trade if we aren't going to move Siakam (and weren't say offered Mikal Bridges for him before KD came on the market or whatever) because we probably aren't going to be a bottom 10 team with a guy putting up 25-8-6 (you can do it with a young player who's lazy on D like Lamelo or the Lebron Lakers if AD is the only other good player on the team and he misses half the games, and even if you moved Van Vleet we still have Scottie, Trent, OG and Precious who were all comfortable starters for the Lakers pre-deadline).
But we're very unlikely to make the 2nd round this year even if we sneak in, so I'm not sure why we didn't just take the best deal on the board for Van Vleet and OG (assuming he wants to explore free agency, if not you pay him 30M a year and he's always moveable) and then try to turn those assets or draft a PG or Combo Guard (Siakam, Barnes, Poeltl and a combo like Mitchell/Herro is probably just enough ballhandling/structure to survive this summer.
At some point we need an elite guard. I don't think the Poeltl deal hurts that a ton, since we needed to spend an asset on a center anyways at some point, but instead Masai seems to have bet on Poeltl being a pick and roll partner Van Vleet needs to be a top 30 player again like he was last year, and we get a 3rd guard in the draft this year I guess. If we do hit on that player in the mid-teens or can trade the pick for that guy, the team looks intriguing again. Not a lot of bad minutes in this rotation:
Poeltl 28- Achiuwa 20
Siakam 33 - Boucher 14
Barnes 33 - OG 15
OG 18 - Trent 30
VanVleet 32 - Guard16
and the guard takes Boucher's minutes some nights (Barnes gets the backup 4 minutes) if he's genuinely good, and at least 6'5 or so.
The championship upside isn't there unless Barnes becomes a top 20 player in the next couple years, but you're in a good place if a star comes on the market and the team will take 2026-2028-2030 unprotected picks and one of Van Vleet, Trent, OG or Siakam along with Koloko for that player, which feels like a competitive offer.
Oh, I guess these first 60 games were just a figment of their imagination and the team isn't fighting for a play-in spot.
