Zombie Summer of 2016 NBA Free Agency

I would be good with Horford. I still think we need a small forward that can score. I really like Chandler Parsons, and I think he might be attainable after the Mavs get smashed in the first round.

 

Small ball is the future of the NBA until the next Shaq or Moses Malone comes along and suddenly teams have to have a huge center in there to try and stop guys like that from bulldozing their way to the basket. The league is just in a down period for big centers.

 

I'm telling ya - Harkless is our SF. Aminu is trade bait.

 

That's fine, but we need help now. I would prefer Harkless stay in his backup combo spot where he plays some small forward and some power forward.

 

If Aminu accepts it mentally/emotionally sure.

Basically, one of Hendo, Aminu, Crabbe or Harkless will have to move on for us to have the right mix of minutes and players. Right now, I kind of like Crabbe better than Aminu, but let's see how it goes.

 

Aminu is a perfect plug and play guy. You can stick him at the 3 or 4 in any lineup and you know he won't hurt you. He'll always be a positive on defense but his offense comes and goes.

Whether that is a starter or not......I mean I think he's the perfect 7th man on a championship team, and his value won't drop because of the way the NBA is shifting towards versatility in the wing position.

He's a great contract and is worth a mid first if they ever did want to trade him, but I don't think you're winning a championship with him as a starter unless your other 4 starters are star/near-star level.

 

Yeah, he's a bit too me-first on the break (but getting better) and a bit too ball-stops-here in the offense to be a starter on a championship team. Those are all GREAT traits of a sparkplug bench guy though!

 

Due to being a free agent and not having the right of first refusal (compared to the other guys) I think the easy answer is Hendo as the one to move on.

 

I think the amount of minutes Stotts plays him is indicative of his value though. He's usually always in the closing lineups and at the very least he's smart enough to realize that crunch time isn't the time for "Iso-Chief".

 

Probably; he's playing great for us, and as a bench guy his athleticism won't get Gerald Wallace'd out of him too quickly, but unless we make the second round this year and really impress him, he probably won't re-sign with us. This is his big payday, and he deserves big money.

 

We already have the shotblocker who is second on the team in PER; a Mr Ed.

Yeah I wouldn't give Whiteside a deal longer than one guaranteed year.

If we have a more defensive center in place of Plumlee then we need a more offensive forward to help out Dame and CJ. Plumlee is critical when teams start trapping us. I shutter thinking of Aminu in that role.

 

Oh I'd definitely sign him for that. We're paying Anderson Varejao $20 million. If you can bring in a starter with all the cap room in this league you do it no question.

Problem is he's staying in Atlanta for that 5th year.

 

I'm just really not that unhappy with our centers. Plumlee and Davis are both solid. If we had a power forward that was actually a threat on offense, I think our centers would be more than adequate. I really like Vonleh, but one of our front court guys needs to be able to score.

 

Even if prime Shaq and Moses were in the league today not sure how much of an advantage they'd have. They'd still get massive points but don't know if their teams are dominating opponents and winning titles. DeMarcus Cousins, Brook Lopez, Anthony Davis, Nikola Vucevic, Greg Monroe all put up big offensive numbers and all of their teams are in the lottery. One borderline allstar big used to carry mediocre rosters to the playoffs. Today with the rule changes its a different game.

I'd be interested to see Shaq defending Draymond at the 3 point line.

 

Yeah, our two best players are PG's. Our next two best players are Centers. After that its all question marks.

Our 4 wings as a group have been surprisingly effective but it seems to be the position we could most easily upgrade.

 

http://hoopshype.com/2016/01/16/nba-free-agency-2016-the-top-players/

Here are your free agents. Who is the Aminu/Davis on that list?

Mahinmi? Ryan Anderson? Parsons?

 

With Meyers in the 3rd string its fine having that amount of players in the rotation. We have had an unusually small <know on wood> amount of injuries this year too. If any of those 4 or Dame or CJ get hurt then we don't have any extra minutes. It sucks having to play a vet such as Steve Blake 30mpg at SG if we lose our depth.

 

Looks like Horford has had two bad years of injury, both upper body ones in 2012 and late 2013. And he's 29, a full year younger than Aldridge. And his ground bound game should age well now that he's added a 3pt shot.

I'm OK throwing a max at him for 4 years. Rumor is that the Magic will have most interest bringing him back to Florida, but our team and fit will be a lot better. Does Neil have a good rapport with Bill Duffy?