So: Layman/Hood/Kanter at $25 mil vs Turner/Harkless/Leonard at their current salary. The difference may not be earth-shaking, but there is no doubt in my mind which is better. The real issue, however, is that it doesn't matter if Kanter is a huge upgrade on Leonard or not. There is no room here for a basketball related decision. It's all about dollars and cents - and IMHO that rarely ends well for anyone who cares about the team winning. We will just have to agree to disagree.
Of course I'd rather have Layman, Hood, and Kanter. You can't play that game though because everything from 2016 would be different from that point forward. Besides, lets say it was possible. Next year you'd be complaining about how we aren't contenders and locked into a different set of slightly better players. We would still lack the top end talent to compete. Between those expirings, having all our future 1sts, and some young players we at least have a slight chance to add a big upgrade next year.
And a -10.9 net rating. Defense has been worse than advertised. Holy hell, that dude has some bad habits.
They were really forcing the ball into him last game, and he was really forcing some bad attempts. I wish they'd just run the damn offense when he's in. And as others have said, run Zach next to him and find out if he can make up for some of Kanter's Ole defense.
Curry is expendable because of Simons. Unless they’re grooming Simons to be a point guard. He could take all of Turners minutes.
Simons can't guard anywhere close to the level of either Curry or ET yet...he's going to be great when he learns to defend at this level...he's not there yet
Enes has made ~90 million in his career already. Will be 27 in may. Guys say the right things all the time, so you never know,but he's spoke glowingly about this organization and his time. I wonder how cheap we'd actually be able to keep him at. He's a backup C in the league. You might be able to get away with starting him, depending. I can see us fi doing a way to keep him for like a 5-6 per year deal,potentially
If the Blazers want to take it to the next level as contenders, they need to not worry about paying luxury tax in order to build a contender....Cleveland paid a ton of luxury tax to put enough around Lebron to win a ring...all the contenders venture into luxury tax land if they want the ring...in my view, we'll have to pay to keep a bench as good as we have now
Its gotta be with the right players though. Might sound super obvious but some teams spend a lot and get not much out of it.
If this team gets to the western conf finals....I think it's safe to say it's the right players and with Nurk back it's a contender...I doubt Jake will be back and Meyers and ET will be expiring ...if they can turn Meyers and ET into a good bench player we'll be good
Man I wish paul allen was alive he would have loved this team and figured out a way to keep kanter or Curry
Hopefully $5.5M (tax-payer MLE). I dont consider him a backup at all. Hes a top 15-20 C. Better off the bench for a contending team but could start for one if he comes back. But if we could sign him for the Tax-Payer MLE and sign Hood for the Non-Bird Exception ($4.3M) we'd be set.
This would be the ideal scenario. Especially with Nurk possibly being out for awhile. Honestly, I don't think it's that unrealistic.