Actually, I dounno how I forgot about him but Love would be better than either one I think. I take Love over Klay or Adams.
Klay. You always go BPA. Teams wouldn't dare to double Dame and CJ with Klay lurking on the perimeter ...
Any of the 3 would be great. And I'd add Love to round out the list to a solid 4. I'm guessing Adams over Valanciunas just because people are watching Adams play while V is sitting on the bench. I'd choose all of the others over Klay because Klay isn't much of an improvement over CJ, while all of the 4 mentioned bigs are huge upgrades over our bigs. (I also think Klay is overrated - much like most of the GSW team.)
That would be insanely lethal. Love would also stretch the floor plus he'd be good in the pick and roll or pop
You eliminated the best players....so I'll go with Olshey's choice and be different here..Kanter would be the missing scoring in the paint we've all wanted
He would make our shitty p&r D worse. This playoffs has been a revalation... even his coach realizes this and is benching him as a result.
Klay. I'd then trade CJ for an upgrade in the front court. Even with whomever you choose, we still don't have a championship-level team, so you go with BPA.
The more I watch guys like Klay and Durant the more I wonder why people think they're so great. Obviously they are two of the better players in the league, but I always come away thinking they don't live up to their billing. I guess this is related to what I'm talking about in the Is GSW Overrated thread. I'm not going to bother with stats, only what I've been seeing as I watch the games. Perhaps the stats are so significant as to render what I'm about to type moot, but here goes. Klay doesn't seem to be any better than CJ - only bigger. Obviously, size still matters in the NBA so you can't discount Klay with his size advantage. But skill-wise I think he and CJ are pretty equal. CJ has a slight advantage with his dribbling, Klay has maybe a bigger advantage with his size/strength. I suspect that Klay shoots a better percentage, but I think some of that is due to his size...and the moving screens GSW sets. So is he really a better shooter than CJ? When he went for 19 straight points last night it was impressive - but I thought CJ is just as capable of exploding like that. Heck - Martell Webster exploded like that! And on the defensive end I think much of Klay's advantage is due to size. People knock CJ for his defense, but when I watch him in isolation I can't find much to fault - he gives a lot of effort to stay with his man, rarely does anything stupid, and rarely gets lost. CJ's two biggest defensive deficiencies are (1) his size*, and (2) the system he's playing in. Klay will always have the defensive advantage over CJ due purely to something neither player can control. Basically I'm saying the only reason Klay is better than CJ is because he's bigger/stronger, not more skilled. Durant. I don't know how many times I've watched him play, but I've never come away feeling like he's imposed his will on a game. At his size, with his shooting touch, AND his ability to handle the ball he should be absolutely dominating. But he rarely does. People like to blame Westbrook for this, saying that Westbrook should defer to Durant. But I don't buy it - Westbrook is the better player. Westbrook imposes his will on the game. Westbrook's main fault is trying to do too much in the 4th quarter (something we see from Dame from time to time) - which, IMO, is a coaching issue. If you have a coach who'll hold Westbrook accountable and change his 4th quarter habits there'd be no discussion as to who the better player is. For as good as Durant is I always come away thinking that McGrady was better. But all too often he reminds me more of LMA - content to float through the games, picking his spots. Now I will say that during this series I've been impressed by his defense...but again, the guy is an agile 7-footer - he should be damned good at defense! *Is CJ as small as his reputation suggests? Throughout the later part of the season and the POs I kept noticing that CJ seemed to be about as tall as other SGs. Specifically I recall seeing him next to Iggy and thinking that he really wasn't much shorter. Definitely more slender, but not much - if any - shorter. Maybe it was a trick of the camera angles, but I recall thinking this on more than one occasion.
Um what? KD has been AWESOME this playoffs. He's drawing so much defensive attention. And he's played all defensive team type D. There was a play when he contested Draymond at the rim, made him miss, and blocked the shit out of Livingston on the other side of the rim when the ball bounced over there like within a second. Just an absolute beast. For Godsakes, he's averaging 28/7/3 with a steal and a block. His 3pt shot has been off a bit this year, but I'm not sure what games you're seeing. Russell's play shouldn't take away from KD's perceived dominance.