James Butler.....come on down! I'd Love getting Butler and Kevin here....but MIN isn't giving up Butler and Gibson just for CJ.
I almost always love your posts, but you've gone off the rails here. Neil drafts for the future, and appropriately so, especially considering where he is drafting. So, it's more like Neil traded a mediocre center for a good center. (Good Job, Neil) Neil obtained a player for 2018-19 or 2019-20. Miraculously, that player was good enough to play in 2017-18. (Good Job, Neil) Neil obtained another player for 2019-20 or 2020-21. Player has shown good things in SL 2 years in a row (Good Job, Neil) One Year Later. Neil obtained a player for 2019-20 or 2020-21. Dude has shown that he is physically capable of playing right away if need be (Good Job, Neil) Neil obtained a player for 2020-21 or 2021-22. Dude has shown that he is definitely going to be worth the wait. (Good Job, Neil) Neil has problems, but not the ones you addressed. #WaitingForAnImpactPlayer
Okay. That could be an interesting exercise. Rank the players on our team from first to last in terms of talent. 1. Dame 2. CJ 3. Nurk Those are the easy ones. 4. Aminu 5. Turner 6. Harkless That's basically our starting five and our first guy off the bench. 7. Collins 8. Curry 9. Baldwin 10. Simons 11. Layman 12. Trent 13. Meyers 14. Swanigan 15. Stauskas That's how I would rank them. I think Trent and Layman are very close in terms of talent as of right now. That might change. I gave Curry the edge over Baldwin and Simons because he has actually averaged nearly 13 ppg in his last season. So my issue is that after you get past the first 7 players, there's a big logjam of talented guards that need minutes.
I think I see where you're going with this, but I guess I come at it from a slightly different perspective. A) I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that Simons and TrentJr were about as good as could be picked where they were. In other words, this isn't a Nolan Smith/Luke Babbitt reach. B) You use the dearth of "reliable centers" as a hit to roster creation, but I don't know that I trust Stauskas, Simons, Curry or Trent any more in a real live NBA game than I do Collins and Swanigan (and to a lesser extent, Leonard). Yes, there are bodies with potential, but Collins is by far the most potentialiest of those 7. C) I'm on the "we'll miss Ed" wagon as much as anyone, but your same minutes concern w/Dame and CJ (They'll play 72) can be also extended to Nurk/Collins. I think they play 60+ mpg, which doesn't leave a ton of room for SmallBall Aminu and Hark--much less Leonard. Personally, I think he's both stocking up on pure shooters and hedging against a CJ move or injury. But I think the very way we brought in many of the new guys (either on short contracts, or minimums that don't hurt us, or both) makes it so that, if Stauskas super-suxx, he goes the way of PapaG. If Simons spends Caleb Swanigan time in the G-League, that doesn't hurt us a ton. If Curry gets injured again we have options. I think the tight 9-man of Dame, CJ, Baldwin/Curry, Turner, Aminu, Hark, Collins, Nurk (with Layman and Leonard maybe getting run, and Trent and Simon if someone fails) is still pretty decent, and we're worried about Stauskas and Swanigan on deep bench duty...
On paper there is a log-jam. In reality, Stauskas is pretty much just a practice player, and Simons and Trent are too young to trust with major minutes. Our functional backcourt is Dame and CJ with Baldwin and Curry absorbing most of the remaining minutes. If we get the Curry from 2 years ago, that will work. If Curry isn't the same player he was before his injury, backcourt depth is actually a problem. Edit: Actually, I suspect Trent's future is at the 3 - but that is just a guess at this point.
That's our 2nd unit not the 1st unit. But also see Cj in that 2nd unit also like last year and use Curry and either Trent or Nik as he did Pat and Napier. You might see Baldwin in the mix also. But that's why you have a training camp to find out what Stotts rotation will be at the start of the season. This all speculation on my part.
well then that pretty much sums up your take....I disagree...Chief is very, very talented as a 4 and an elite defender.
I was just today thinking that I kind of like our ridiculous log jam at guard. We are tooled up better at the guard spots, IMO, for this season than last season; and we drafted two players and kept another who may well continue our strong guard play for years to come. Granted our front court is somewhat worrisome. We'll have to see how things unfold. At the moment though, the NBA is a guards and wings league, so maybe it won't hurt us so bad.
I’m worried about our front court. If Nurk or Collins go down we’re done. We can’t add any more free agents. So we’re relying on a trade or one of Biggie/Meyers. Aka We’re fucked.
speed and 3 pt shooting....we're going to run and gun this season...we actually have some fast break finishers and in Baldwin a guy who can throw an alley oop pass on a dime.
I see the frontcourt as a much bigger problem. http://www.82games.com/1718/1718POR2.HTM Aminu has a decent win% at power forward (58%) but he is a net negative PER when comparing him to his opponent. Harkless is a horrible power forward. His win% at power forward is 35% and an even worse -9.2 PER when he's playing the four. Layman actually plays his best ball at shooting guard (yay another guard!), but he's a net negative at all three positions that he saw time. Collins was a disaster last year.. and surprisingly he never saw time with Nurk (at least not according to this), but he was a massive net negative compared to his opponents. He played much better defense at power forward though. I still think that's his future position and it's concerning that the team isn't playing him with Nurk. Meyers is a center. Plain and simple. When they played him at power forward it was an unmitigated disaster. He put up a PER of 11.4 at power forward last season, and his opponents put up a PER of 48.4 at power forward, for a whopping -37 PER. He should never play that position again in his life. Conversely, his play at center was a wash. Swanigan's best position is center.... and that's unfortunate because he can't defend a chair. He put up a PER of 23.9 at center, but his opponent put up a PER of 42.6. That's no bueno. If you go strictly off these numbers then these are the positions that our players should be playing: Layman- shooting guard Aminu - small forward Harkless - small forward Collins - power forward Meyers - center Swanigan - center So if we could go out and get a decent power forward, like Love, we would be set. Dame/Baldwin CJ/Curry Aminu/Harkless Love/Collins Nurk/Leonard/Swanigan
Love would be more exciting to me if we had a better defensive player at the 2. Having CJ and Love on the floor at the same time seems troublesome on defense.
i dont see a logjam anywhere. when I think logjam I think guys fighting for the same time on the court with similar talent. we have a bunch of average/bad NBA players who wont play much. Eliminate them from the equation. If we had Nurkic and a similar C on the team and a really good backup, that's a logjam. We have a clear top 5-6, then whoever comes in just needs to not be terrible. im depressed about next year. And really, if we are even thinking Layman is a significant player next year we are screwed anyway.
