He opted out of his contract with Milwaukee. If we need rim protection we play both Collins and RoLo togethet and lock up the paint. I say it is worth the MLE
I disagree with that. If Nurk gets into foul trouble or is unavailable, I don’t trust either of those guys to bang with bigger centers like Jokic, KAT, Valanciunas, Adams, Embiid, etc. Gabriel is closer to a three than a five, unless it’s a small ball lineup. Zach is also two months removed from surgery. I’m assuming he’ll be good to go, but insurance is always a plus. I think we need to add a bigger center, whether that’s Lopez, Cousins, whoever. Collins is versatile, and can play next to them if need be.
I'm convinced that the only way for Zach to breakout and be what he was billed to be is to put him full time at Center. Let him guard the rim and be the pop guy/ offensive rebounder on offense. Not gonna be a starter with Nurk here obviously, but let him run that position for at least 20 mins by himself as a backup. And find him ~8-10 mpg at PF. Getting a guy like Cuz or Rolo would force Terry's hand into playing them, and relegating Collins to PF where he is not as effective. My thinking is more about enabling Zach than anything.
You have to address the defense, our team was an embarassment last year on the defensive end. You want to sign Milsap (old, past his prime, non factor in last years playoffs) and bring Zach off the bench and who exactly plays defense? Don't forget you're playing Dame and CJ 40 minutes each, both play only one side of the ball, you have to offset this. Last season the entire defensive load fell on Zach, that's what got him in foul trouble and then injured. Need to bring another defender to our front court to defend the rim behind Dame and CJ. Otherwise its just another year of getting scored on at will which is painful to watch
Zach was in foul trouble because he tried to contest every shot he had no chance of blocking. I liked his help defense on the perimeter, but I wasn't at all impressed with his play under the hoop this past season. I think he's a career bench player unless he makes some massive improvements that I'm not optimistic we'll see.
Milsap is a good defender--even "past his prime". Zach playing as backup center wouldn't have "the entire defensive load on him." Sounds like a defensive-minded starting PF solves all the problems you've identified.
We don't have an interior defensive problem, that's a misnomer. Our problem is that we're in the bottom two in the league in three points given up and three point percentage. It's our perimeter D that's broken and I am completely convinced that you can't fix that perimeter D with Dame and CJ playing any time together. I realize that people think it would cause problems on offense but I think if CJ were injured or traded that our defense would be fantastic with Gary playing all of his minutes. I also don't think a team needs two guys on it that can get their own shots at an elite level as long as the guy that can is surrounded with guys who can make shots when set up to do so. Don't get me wrong, I think we could get a PF that can get buckets and defend for CJ which would solve every problem we have and leave us with the MLE to strengthen our bench.