Desperate Robin Lopez salary dump coming

I think we should find out how much Indy wants for Granger. If he's healthy, the guy is one of the best scorers in the league. He would be a great third fiddle.

 

I think Batum & Iggy probably handle the duos of Westbrook/Durant & Wade/Lebron as well as any other pair of wings in the NBA.

That team is no championship favorite, but it sure looks well balanced. Obviously having a better C would be nice, but other than that it seems pretty faultless. I think a move to bring in another vet swingman would make some sense, I'd really like to see Vince Carter as a guy who seems to just make the offense flow better when he's in games, surprisingly good defense (according to all of the analytics), and his jumper was $ last year. I really feel like that'd be a second round team, unless McCollum just doesn't provide the scoring punch we expect.

 

I like Iggy. I like Granger. I think we need to make one more play for a third fiddle. Preferably a guy in his late 20's who can provide some scoring punch and provide a consistent third option on offense. I had hoped the Batum could be that guy, but he's just too inconsistent. Let him be the versatile player and bring in another scorer.

 

Also keep in mind that adding Iggy would give us another valuable chip to deal if a team has a troubled star. We would have Batum, Iggy, Aldridge, Lillard and Lopez as a starting 5. Then you have a bench of CJ, Barton, Claver, Leonard, DRob. That's not a bad 10 man rotation!

 

Wow - he started all 82 games for them last year. Huh.

 

How is Iggy a consistent better option as a 3rd scorer? 55 out of his 80 games, he was under 15 points, 21 games under 10. Looks just as inconsistent

 

It's not his scoring but ability to attack the basket and defend. He is a much better upgrade than Matthews. Our defense would be significantly better.

Offensively, Iggy is better at handling the ball and distributing than Matthews. Having Iggy, batum and Lillard be our distributors would be a nightmare for other teams to defend.

 

He improved a LOT last season. He went from a back-up to a starter, played more than twice as many minutes as he had in any previous season and put up a career best PER of 18.9. Think about that, his playing time more than doubled and he put up better numbers against starting centers than he did against back-ups. That's not just improving, that's what many people would call a break out season.

His solid play was also one reason Anthony Davis, even when healthy, didn't play more minutes. I'm not claiming Lopez is a better player than Davis, Davis is certainly a MUCH better long term prospect, but NOH as a team performed better when Lopez was on the court than when Davis was. Davis, a skinny rookie, got pushed around a lot, especially on the defensive end, by bigger, stronger players. Lopez did not. If you go to 82games.com you'll see that Lopez posted positive numbers for both Net Production (how he played compared to his individual opponents) and On Court/Off Court. This shows that he not only outplayed other starting centers, but his team performed better with him on the court than off. On a team as bad as NOH was last year, that's actually rather impressive. NOH only had one other player (Eric Gordon) with positive numbers in both categories (Davis was -0.3 in On Court/Off Court).

Yeah, he's not perfect. If he was, he wouldn't be young, cheap and available for nothing. Still, I like this move a lot. Especially combined with Olshey's other moves. This would give the Blazers three centers that are:

Young
Cheap
Healthy
Have GREAT size
Can Shoot Free Throws

It gives Stotts a lot of options at the center position. Lopez has proven he's a capable NBA starting center (BTW, our starting center last season had an On Court/Off Court of -5.7 compared to Lopez' +1.4). He's not a great offensive player, but he knows his limitations and doesn't try to do more than he's capable of (high FG%, rarely shoots more than 10 feet from the basket). Yes, he needs to rebound better, especially on the defensive end (82games.com shows he averaged 10.4 REB/48 compared to his opponents at 11.1 REB/48 - so he's not getting totally owned by other starting centers, but I'd like to see that go from negative to positive). Leonard, is by far the best offensive player of the 3, Withey has been called a 1 trick pony by some, but that 1 trick is very valuable and hard to find (blocking shots at a very high rate without committing fouls) and Lopez is the most experienced (but still young and improving). It will allow Stotts to go with offensive/defensive substitutions as the match-ups and situations dictate. And, since all 3 are good FT shooters, none will be a liability in close late game situations.

Plus, the addition of TRob, will allow Stotts to go with a smaller (but still very long) line-up with Aldridge at the 5 and TRob at the 4.

I'm liking everything Olshey is doing. He hasn't hit a home run, yet, but assuming we get Lopez, he's put together a nice string of ground rule doubles with the draft (all 3 players he got were GREAT values at where they were selected and will make our bench a lot better - and younger and cheaper). And, he's done it all without giving up anything of value. He's managed to retain our best players and add a lot of young, cheap depth, and possibly a new starting center. Hard not to like that.

BNM

 

I think there are two key things: he creates a lot for teammates, definitely moreso than Batum and probably as much or more than Damian. So I think he is sacrificing some points for assists, as he was really the only guy who drove on that Nuggets team. Second, when surrounded by good shooters he is great at driving to the cup. That Denver team had absolutely no good/great shooters. Lawson and Galinari are OK, but Miller isn't good, Brewer is terrible, etc. If Iggy's got McCollum, Lillard, and Batum outside I guarantee you his scoring becomes easier next year.

 

That we know of. Robinson, CJ, and Crabbe all have potential to be home runs. Of course all three could turn out to be busts, but I think they were all good choices. We will see.

 

let's just hope the Lopez deal actually happens!

 

I was just gonna say, you guys are all acting like its been confirmed/finalized

 

Better, to be quite honest.

Don't forget Crabbe, Withey, maybe Tyrus Thomas, maybe Dorrel Wright, or whoever -- we're not done yet so the jury is still out.

 

We're trying to think of other moves if this one does come to fruition. What else can we do? We're stuck in this Dwight Howard imposed holding pattern.

 

Were getting him for free basically right? Can't argue with this move either. Serviceable big man, I'll take it.

 

Adrian Wojnarowski @WojYahooNBA 1 minute ago
Free agent Jose Calderon passed on chance to sign w/ Kings, clearing way for Sacramento to complete 3-way deal w/ Pelicans, sources tell Y!

 

That's good news.

 

We still have picks? LOL

 

We are robbin' fools!


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