...for Shooting Guards I like: OJ Mayo JJ Reddick JR Smith Kyle Korver Lance Stephenson Chase Budinger (SF'ish) ...for Centers I like: Larry Sanders Nikola Pekovic Robin Lopez Tiago Splitter Timofey Mozgov (kinda) *but I am not so sure if any of them are attainable for the Blazers though
Not sure I would spend a lot of money on any of those guys as two guards. There are some good jump shooters in that group, but none that gives us what we need, which is someone who can attack the basket . (Although to be fair I have not watched Lance play) Right now I love Lillard as the back up SG for about 10 minutes, and Nic another 10 minutes. Don't get me wrong all these guys would be OK, but for how much. The centers are more intriguing....
That's what I was thinking. He'd be great a contender, but with the current change in the luxury tax looming, I can't any contenders dropping serious money on him, nor can I see a rebuilding team investing up to $10 mill on a player that has proven to be an ancillary asset on rebuilding teams as is. He'd be a fit for Memphis, in that they need perimeter shooting, and they did make the Gay trade to skirt the luxury tax and open up some cap room, but I think the intention there was to re-sign Tony Allen, and honestly, I'd take Allen over any of the other SG free agents. He might lead the league in missed layups, but his defense is significantly undervalued in a game that places too much of an emphasis on just one side of play.
Was gonna say... isn't he the type of player that the Jazz value more than anything? For whatever they have to pay him in salary, they'll easily make up in fan support (ie: attendance, merchandise, etc.). I mean, let's not play dumb here... they've always been the sort of organization that plays to their fanbase. Not only is Hayward a valuable player, but he's a valuable "Utah" personality. Hell, come to think of it, I don't know their cap situation, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to make a play at Redick.
Oh believe me, I don't think he's even close to getting that type of money. Just repeating what he publicly said he wants.
Well, it IS a fair point, isn't it? But regardless of the competition, Maynor has been an enormous upgrade and helps make those around him look like borderline NBA players. I like what I've seen from Claver and think that next year he may actually be a semi-valuable bench player for us. So I think with those two we have 2/3rd of a bench unit. Leonard is about 0.5, given that he now seems semi-effective on the offensive end of the court when he has a PG who can get him the ball in position to score. Still need a "Microwave" off the bench. But we're so far ahead of where we were prior to the deadline!
Like I said at the beginning of the season, I think our bench has a lot of good individual pieces. Players that when teamed with better players look pretty good. The problem was they played poorly with each other. Mainly because the lack of PG, but also because there was no go-to scorer that they could lean on. As others have said, we only needed one or two additions to make the bench decent. We now have a back up PG, and when Lillard moves to SG we have that too. Now we just need to figure out how to get Lillard a rest.
