I don't think this is entirely true. I have never heard them say this....have they? I agree with the first part, they wanted and needed a ball handling wing to help Dame and CJ out, meaning in some situation they would play together and other situations Turner would play guard with either CJ or Dame. I also agree CJ is not a point guard, although like Blazer's Roy said...... he surprised me with his improvement last year. However Turner is not a NBA PG either, and I don't think Terry or Neil care. Even though many on this board want a true back up PG in the game with the 2nd unit, the coaches seem to just want "guards" who can bring the ball up court and initiate the offense, and more importantly....score. Based on Terry's tenure with the Blazers, if you can't score, you can't play in the Blazer back court. Bottom line is it is probably useless to to label our backups PG or SG. I think Terry is more like Jack Ramsay when had "guards" playing together. (Hollins, Davis, Twardzik) or even Phil Jackson with the triangle.
No need to get fixated on positions. They only matter on defense, and only some of the time. If the Blazers start Dame, CJ, and Turner, they're playing 3 guards on offense. Turner can guard any of the opposing PG, SG, or SF depending on who merits the better defender. If the Blazers start Aminu, they're playing no traditional PF. 3 guards, 1 SF, 1 C. With that lineup, it really won't make much of a difference which of the 3 guards or Aminu switches onto an opponent. We've got them covered.
I also wouldn't be surprised to see a lineup of Dame, CJ, Turner, Crabbe, and Aminu (or Leonard) play a decent number of minutes together over the course of the season.
Would you trade him for a package of Andrew Wiggins, Kris Dunn and Zach Lavine/Gorgui Dieng? (Throw in a swap of Asik and Pekovic, because Pekovic's contract expires in 1 year.)
Is Okafor a "potential star"? Is Al Jefferson a star? Is Enes Kanter a star? What current or recent "star" is Okafor like?
I think he is talking about doing it in small stints. It works both ways, if you play a team who has 3 really good perimeter scorers and 2 bigs who's main strength is protecting the rim, why not go small for a while? How is their PF going to guard Crabbe on the perimeter? Plus if their defensive minded bigs are the ones shooting the ball in order to take advantage of the match ups...that means their really good scorers are not...I like that trade off. Again in small doses.
I like Wiggins' talent, but I don't think he's a surefire superstar and I'm not much of a believer in the other players. I actually don't think the Pelicans can deal Davis for fair value--it's close to impossible to build a title contender without a top-tier superstar and the Pelicans have one, who's young. No one with a more consistently healthy young superstar (KAT, for example) will trade that player. The best a team could do beyond that is offer a whole smorgasbord of young prospects, with the hope that one pans out. But if the Pelicans made such a trade, they'd basically be the 76ers and I think I'd rather be the Pelicans right now than the 76ers.
There's no price for Davis and Towns right now. No one in their right mind would trade either of them, even if Davis is missing below 20% of games. They're players you have to build around.
Or Turner. Opponents have to match up with us, too. I don't imagine their PF is going to have a good time guarding Crabbe or Turner.
I wouldn't. The Pelicans have basically Davis and a bunch of bad contracts and crappy players. The Sixers have very enticing young prospects, even if Embiid turns out to be Oden 2.0. If Embiid can have some semblance of a career then the Sixers will already be better than N'Orleans when Davis leaves in free agency.
Umm Crabbe? Leonard? Even AMinu can hit the three at times, just streakier... Not everyone on the team needs to be an outside shooter IMO...
They had to because we had poor depth at the PG position. It's precisely why we brought turner in and Shabazz with the hopes he can develope into a solid backup PG option.
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding on their part about strength at a position and having your best players log minutes at a position. We could put dame at center and he would score 25 but he couldn't defend the other center or rebound at the clip we would want or block shots etc. but because dame was playing center you could say our best player is our center. CJ can play point guard to the extent that he can bring the ball up the floor and pass it but he doesn't run the offense. That's the major difference between dame and CJ. I'm hoping turner is a better playmaker and distributor. I think crabbe's game would improve drastically if he was playing with someone who knows how to hit the open man.
20 mins ago – via RealGM Colangelo also talked about his support for how Okafor publicly criticized reporting about the 76ers trying to trade him. “Absolutely not,” said Colangelo when asked if he’s comfortable entering the season with their three centers on the roster. “We’re not going to make a bad deal just to make a deal. I think we can be a better basketball team if we can distribute that talent better. Maybe take one of those assets and address other needs on the roster. I think right now it’s best to say we like all of them, we want to see if we can make the most out of each of them. At the end of the day, the reality says one has to go at some point but only when the deal is right. 4 hours ago – via SoundCloud Bryan Colangelo on 76ers big men – “probably one has to go at some point”
