We aren't that far away

Melo will make $34 mil (when adding trade kicker) next season.
Melo plays no defense. We know that Dame and CJ are not the best defenders. Now we add one more.
Melo is on the wrong side of 30
Melo 's wife won't live in Portland anyway.
I think we need a solid defender at the #3 spot.
Is there a guy in the league you would want right now for some of our scrubs? Can we trade 3 first rounders to get in the lottery?

 

I've been on the Melo to Portland bandwagon in the past, but I'm off it now. We don't need guys on offense that hold the ball.

On defense, he's garbage. This team needs defense. It can score, just fine.

As for defense vs scoring, Turner is a good defender, but an awful fit because his man clogs up the lane because he can't shoot.

We have to add

A real back up center.
A vet wing defender who can stretch the defense.
A PF to either replace Vonleh or come off the bench
Just more quality depth. Unless you have have all world players, which we don't, you gotta have better players than Meyers, Aminu and Napier giving you real playoff minutes. We get better when those guys move down the depth chart

 

Chandler is simply too old, sorry. I actually like going to get Baynes. Can't remember who suggested him.

 

Chandler is old but still put up a 16 PER this year. As a backup next yer he'd be perfect imho.

 

We need high flying athletes who aren't scared. Like physically imposing ones. It's amazing how physically overmatched we look. Noah has the tools, but he doesn't know how to use them.

 

I like someone like Baynes over Chandler. Just the way I feel.

 

sorry but we can't afford to pay an OLD and injury prone Tyson 13 mil per the next 2 seasons at his age, we have Davis back for one more season and by then one of our PF/C draft picks should be able to be a capable backup to Nurk and we need have a guy like that on a rookie contract

 

Yeah get to the solution how you like but Nurk and a quality backup center make me not worry so much about Game 1.

 

A la the Bucks

 

Ya, Nurk's addition did wonders two cover up the Dame/CJ deficiencies. Imagine if we added 2 long armed freaks who wouldn't get intimidated next to em. Moe too has the tools, but he's passive half the time.

 

Man, what I would do to land Kristaps. There's talk of him being completely fed up by the NY front office. He's not a freak athlete but he's HUGE and not intimidated by anything.

 

Would NY be willing to let go of Porzingis if we let em dump Noah on us?

Crabbe + 3 picks + Noah + Ezeli for Joakim Noah + Porzingis + O'Quinn. They dump a ton of salary and get 3 picks.

Who says no?

 

The first thing I thought about when I saw that quote was, "Are they really that close?'

People refer to last years series and how close it was but it really wasn't. The Warriors won in 5 and Curry didn't play the first 3 games. So though the games scores were fairly close, it never felt like the Blazers were really threatening to win the series.

The same applies to game 1. Not that Golden State doesn't respect Dame/CJ but it looked like they were very sloppy, (tons of TOs early) and not that engaged because they know Portland can't beat them. If Nurkic was playing, maybe they would be a little more concerned and Jusuf would also create some actual mismatches. At halftime, the gf and I were talking about the game and we both surmised that Portland had no shot....and the score was tied.

The issue was, Dame/CJ had 48 of 56 points. We thought what the Warriors probably thought. There were NO WAY they could keep that up and score 96 points to keep the Blazers in the game and there was no threat from anyone else...as there really hasn't been for 2 years now. So when Golden State finally got bored of toying around and the game really mattered in the 4th quarter, it was a 15-2 run and the game was over.

Despite heroic scoring from Dame/CJ, it never really felt that close and though Nurk would help, and Noah would be better not having to play out of position, there is nothing about Aminu, Harkless, Turner, or Crabbe that is scaring the Warriors now or later outside of a rare explosion. Since that is 4 of your top 8 guys, and Vonleh isn't expected to score, that is a lot to make up for from Dame/CJ and Nurk....if he even plays.

 

NY

 

I disagree about Napier. I think he's a very good backup point guard.

 

What makes him very good? 13 PER. 3 teams in 3 years. Not a great defender.

He's a nice guy to develop, but we need an upgrade there.

 

How far are these dudes from contributing, though?