Michael Kidd-Gilchrist anyone? Still young, still a good defender. We could waive Melo to make room...
I am not defending Melo at all right now. His ball stopping and his defense are an issue but there is one statistic I thought was quite interesting hes shooting 47% from 3 making 1.8 a game so far. that’s pretty good
The problem is that this NO won't give up Melo because of all the drama of being the team who "gave me a chance". The bench is in trouble because of injuries/COVID and lackluster play: Zach: MIA Nassir: not 100%, doesn't seem to be favored by Stotts when he was healthy. Hood: maybe will never by 100% Simons: Despite being "the most gifted" ever seen by NO is not having any impact. CJJ: rookie Blevins: Really? Melo: Really? Kanter: Delivers on offense as expected, zero D. GTJ: The lone dog on the bench. The whole team needs to adopt his attitude. Gile: The man deserves real minutes. With Nurk unable to show anything like he is capable of, Giles should be battle tested.
First - there is no need to waive Melo to "make room". Portland only has 14 active roster spots taken, so there still is 1 roster spot still available. Second - NO will not fill the open roster spot, because it will push Portland into the Tax. Cutting Melo would not help financially - so it's a non-starter.
Hmm. Let's just pretend that's not true so we can at least consider what players might do for us. I'm sure there's some financial shenanigans that can be done if we really like a FA.
Bruno Caboclo, anyone? Waived by Houston. Only 25 years old. Primarily a C now - 6’9” w/ a 7’7” wingspan. His natural position. Can’t hurt to take a chance on him given what’s available.
We cannot sign him as we will go to luxury tax which is forbidden. We will continue with Kanter and Giles as our bigs. Zach and Nurk again let us down. Once more they are not there and at this point i don't care about their luck, they are never there when we need em.
https://www.theringer.com/2021/7/1/22558854/clippers-rumors-free-agency-kawhi-leonard-paul-george the author is writing in context of Dame being traded to LA but if Kawhi has wandering eyes, why not Portland? He's now already got the Chauncey connection. How hard is it for us create capspace? We'd have to get rid of CJ for nothing and Nurk/Roco probably and work around Powell's extension. Far fetched but fun to think about
S&T for Leonard with CJ + going back to LAC. Better for them than losing him for nothing and it balances us out tremendously. Far fetched of course, but that could work.
If Kawhi is leaving, it's better for them if they blow it up. I think we could facilitate some kind of threeway that gets them young talent, much in the same way we have talked about Siakam.
it's better than the team they had in LA and they prolly woulda won this year if not for Kawhi's injury. while it's fun to fantasize and we would undoubtedly be a contender, i don't like Kawhi. He seems like a shit teammate and his injury history is worrisome. He's also in line for a ~200 mil supermax beginning at age 31.
S&T would be best for all parties involved and allow Leonard to get an extra year guaranteed. But doubt they would want CJ if they're losing Kawhi. They'd be ripe for a rebuild. I'd try to swoop in and land George if that were the case.
If Kawhi decides he wants out, their best move is to get what they can for PG and jettison bozos like Pat Bev and Morris.
