Joe (10 mil) + Josh + Shaedon can get you a player making ~36 mil. That's Siakam/Simmons/Towns territory.
Because if he's healthy, he's a better SF than anyone else on our roster. He may be old, but he's a knockdown shooter who simply knows how to play the game.
I guess it depends on what you expect from Ant as a SG and what you expect from this defense if run by Chauncey. I think Ant will be better than CJ. I think Grant is the best forward we've had since LaMarcus. I think that we will be able to play really aggressive defense with Hart, Nas, Thybulle and Justise because they're all pretty interchangeable defenders that can guard anyone on the perimeter and hold their own in the post. So I see this team being much better than any of the Dame/CJ/Stotts era teams and when the best of those were healthy we weren't scraping to get into the playoffs we were scraping to get HCA. That's not the stated goal of Cronin and I don't think this guy spins bullshit to placate fans. If Cronin really likes Shaedon then this comes down to one thing... I think Ant is better now than CJ was last year... so I completely disagree with you that he will have little trade value. I think going into next season, looking at making a little less than 20M, if Shaedon has popped that Ant is going to have very high trade value to any team looking for a scoring PG to put them over the top. I think that's when we would make a big time move. I mean do you really think a 23 year old Anfernee Simons playing better than CJ McCollum on both ends of the court and getting paid less than two thirds of the money CJ does will be anything less than a huge trade asset? That would make Ant a borderline allstar in his early 20s making under 20M. I don't think that Nurk has positive trade value at that price but I don't think it's negative either so if we had a chance to get a more versatile impact big in another trade, I think Nurk would be easy to dump. I think we'll extend Grant on something that might have the same kind of trade value that Nurk does. For Grant anything around 25M a year or more is going to mean we're betting on his on floor value and not his trade value because he won't have any. I think with a player with Dame's kind of offensive gravity, you'll see the best Jerami Grant on offense of his career and him reengaged on defense like he was when he was a defensive stopper inside and out on Denver. If Grant and Ant can both give us an efficient 20ppg, and that 20ppg gets Grant as invested on defense as he was with Denver then he's a really valuable piece to have on the floor. So I think we will be at 4th-6th in the West until Shaedon really pops, which I think will happen by the end of this season or next. I'm really high on him. Then with the best back court in the league, Jerami Grant and another impact player at a position of need that we get by trading Ant and other pieces, we'll be contending.
He's likely out till Jan/Feb. So if he gets traded at or near the deadline, he's not actually gonna play much.
I said, I think there will be a real battle for playing time between Thybulle, Nas and Hart... but if they all come out at pretty even there should be 20+ minutes a piece for each of them and 15+ for Shaedon. I don't think getting that many meaningful minutes stunts the development of anyone. When you're getting 10 minutes one game and 3 the next, that's when your development gets stunted. I was saying that if we get Thybulle he has a good chance at starting but so does Nas and so does Hart. The only difference between Thybulle and Hart when compared to Nas is that they have shown that they're durable. Nas is like a bull in a china shop made of china. So I don't mind having guys who compete with him for PT because the likelihood is for a good chunk of this season Nas won't be available to play any time.
You keep saying this, but what do you actually base this "likely" timeline on? Nov/Dec seems more realistic considering he didn't have any other damage in his knee and hes already jogging.
I'm giving him a full year based on his age. What is the point of rushing him back? At age 34? I've seen 9-10 month recoveries, but I think it's much more likely they play it safe than rush him back.
