I'm going to lump in all the moves that were made before the draft as well. Out: Nicolas Batum | Steve Blake | Rondae Hollis-Jefferson | Cash In: Noah Vonleh | Mason Plumlee | Gerald Henderson | Pat Connaughton | Daniel Diez
I gave it a B. I was pissed about trading away RJH, but I believe that position will get taken care of, and assuming this is our bench including Gerald Henderson, it's very solid.
I voted incomplete. The draft wasn't all that spectacular, but freeing up additional cap space to sign proven NBA talent could pay MASSIVE dividends. *You also forgot to add Gerald Henderson* Now that I think about it, it was essentially Batum + RHJ for Henderson, Plumlee, Vonleh.. I'd give that an A, depending what happens in free agency. We could have a helluva bench next year or we could have a very, very young team.
The key acquisition was Vonleh. He has the highest upside on the team. I think Lillard is near his peak, he just needs to improve his defense.
A. Turned the 2015 23rd pick, an underperforming SF and a severely underperforming PG into last year's #9 pick, 2013's #22 pick, the 20th best player in the 2009 draft, two 2015 second rounders, and cap space.
For the older picks I went by total Win Shares. Batum was 7th best in the 2008 class, and Blake 17th best in the 2003 class. If we did that for 2013, Plumlee would be the second best player from that draft, just behind Gobert.
We traded exciting players for dull ones. We traded the chance to be enjoyable but get a high pick for the chance to be on the Charlotte Hornets dull mediocrity treadmill. Two lifeless and tedious franchises sucked the pizazz away from us. We look like the Washington Generals.
Something that I hadn't really thought of, but just clicked... If we re-sign our big 3 free agents, this team is much better than last year's team. There are a couple voids for sure, starting SF, and backup PG, but out bench as a whole is better.
