Many of us are not thrilled with the depth of this team, but most the solutions I see people posting don't help depth they make it worse. Examples would be packaging our whole 2nd unit for a backup Center. We then are stuck with a good backup center + Crabbe, Watson, Barton and Claver... We didn't improve our bench we made it thinner and now have to sign guys who haven't been able to stick in the league just to fill out the roster. If you want to improve depth you need to send out less than you take in in terms of bodies. The best way to do that is to trade a starter, maybe 2 for a collection of lesser talented players, that are still good enough to make an improvement to the bench without sacrificing too much from the starting unit. To me the 2 starters we could do that with are Wesley and Nicolas. Wesley you could probably get 2 reserve caliber players for and bump CJ to starter. Nic you could probably get a slightly lower talent SF that could start and a reserve for. Then you have to decided if shaking up the starting lineup makes the bench enough better to pull the trigger. That's the tough call to make.
I think guys like Leonar_, Williams and Wright could be packaged, but I'm not sure what that would get you?
I would definitely like to see more of Claver. Certainly not for his shooting ability, but with the right combination on the floor he would help. High BB IQ, good passer, solid defender. and pretty good handles for a a stretch 4. He is long and mobile and can defend smaller players.
even thought Wright scored 10 pts I thought whatever unit was on the floor looked/played better with Claver in, wonder what their plus/minus was last night
I think we can accomplish this by trading 1 starter and not 2. But think about what we'd be losing and hope to gain. Nic is our top defender on a bad defensive team. Claver will never be an NBA player and so who replaces Nic? We'd have to trade for a starter and a quality reserve player and I doubt he'd garner that much. As to Wes, he's probably our #2 defender and a real hustle player who can shoot pretty well. CJ is a step down with the exception of ball handling skills. To me, overall, it's a step down, but maybe we can get a first round pick and defensive guard for him. Your idea has merit and is worth exploring. However, I think if we had better defensive coaching and someone to work with Meyers we will accomplish the same thing.
The problem is all of the Blazers starters are untouchable because Paul doesn't like dealing fan favorites. So how do we get around this?
Better coaching. Not necessarily Stotts but overall. Also, get a bigs coach who can work more effectively with meyers.
When was the last time our coaching staff actually developed a player? I'm thinking it was probably Monty with Outlaw...and you can only develop someone like Outlaw to a certain point. It sure would be nice if we put an emphasis on developing talent - especially since we have so many young players. What's the point in drafting guys if you're not going to develop them? We're in such a poor position right now: the roster isn't good enough to contend, no draft picks, and no contracts to use in a significant trade unless you're breaking apart the starting unit. What we see is what we're stuck with.
If he allowed his GM to not resign one of his favorites (Patty Mills) then I doubt he would prohibit his GM from trading other fan favorites.
LaMarcus should be a good example. He grew tremendously from his rookie year to now. Ditto for Batum and Wes. Freeland made a huge leap over the summer.
the only reason patty was let go was because he was in china during the lockout and couldn't come back for the start of the season.
So you are saying we shouldn't panic and dump 1st and 2nd year players? Interesting philosophy, as it seems most the rest of this board wan't to trade young talent for retreads that are on the block thinking we will get miraculously better.
I am for trading them if it can bring back productive guys. I do think Robinson and Leonard have some promise, especially Robinson but a player like Hawes would address some of the major bench issues we've been having. If the second unit had a good guard play from Williams and McCollum with a nice big like Hawes we might actually get to league average off the bench which would obviously help so much in these close games we are always in. I feel like the window is opening for this team and there will have to be some move made. Leonard and robinson both seem to still be a few years away from being consistently productive guys off the bench. If you replace their court time with Hawes and Freeland at the 5 & 4 then I think the bench gets a pretty big boost. Hopefully the market is weak on Hawes this summer and we can pick him up on the cheap but I doubt it.
I'd be careful, Orlando must really not like him as he's due over 6 mil NEXT yr, that is a VERY expensive buyout and achilles strains can be very nasty and long lasting - especially so on a huge guy like Davis
