We have three starters above 20 PER. This is a big deal; most championship caliber teams have three starters at 20+ per, with one at about 24 or higher. Right now, Dame is sitting at 23.7 for the season but since Nurkic has come along, he's been much much better. CJ as well. We don't have the bench of a champion but we are seeing something start to coalesce. It's very exciting and the stats are bearing that out.
I personally don't think we use them (maybe we keep one?); I think we use them to sweeten trades of our bench pieces to others for more talented vets.
I don't know, I'm not sure trading young assets under cheap, long term control for a couple quick fixes is the right move. I do agree we need more vets however.
Our Bench is paid too much, obviously, but the players I think are not as bad as some. We have Crabbe, Aminu and Turner as our core bench and honestly that isn't too bad. One has been a starter over half his career and the other two are fringe starters on some teams. Add Davis as a backup big and I think it is above average. With that said, I think we need to dump a salary or two and use our picks to try to really nail a solid back up center and back up SG or SF (Crabbe would fill the other spot) with great D.
Are you talking about bench players with large contracts? If this is the case then I am not sold that a mid-late first round draft pick is going to be the deal maker. IMO either they are going to want the player or not. (ET or Crabbe) Not sure the Memphis or Cleveland pick is enough of a incentive. Same with the next tier (Harkless or Leonard) I say this because they all have 3 years left on their contracts. One year would be a different story. But if you are talking Aminu or Davis you may be right. Both are decent players with good contracts. A pick could be the difference.
Agreed. We need to continue to develop one more season in the hopes of getting a couple good vets to sign for the Vet Min or MLE next summer. Trading for vets on large contracts is a good way to make what we're building blow up in our faces. All of our money is going to be tied up in Dame, CJ, Crabbe/Turner, and Nurk...and maybe Vonleh (?). We can't afford to make a big time trade - we need to make use of Rookie salaries and Vet Min salaries.
Yeah Aminu and Davis are definitely who I mean.... we got a good Aminu game but I'm not sure he thinks he's a bench guy. And Davis may never be the same.
This summer I hope we trade both of them, plus Turner. If we can also send out Meyers thought would be the cherry on top.
Naw, I just don't like mediocre players without any upside. If you don't have any potential for improvement you better be damn good (Dame, CJ). And if you're mediocre you better have some potential upside (Vonleh). I don't see any point in wasting minutes on mediocre players that don't have any potential to become a lot better. Aminu and Ed are both mediocre players who have hit their ceilings.
I think he has accepted that starting is not in his future. He certainly should anyways. My biggest frustration with Aminu is when he takes the 3. Sure I realize he makes some big shots, but nonetheless.....in crunch time, when the game is on the line and you have Dame, CJ, and Nurk on the floor.......don't fucking shoot from deep. I love Terry but he gives everyone too much free reign to shoot when they are wide open. Players need to know their role. Aminu did it again last night with 2 minutes left and Denver was making one last charge. I know a lot of you have a problem with Dame and CJ and their hero ball moments, but I still want my best offensive players taking the shots down the stretch. And now with Nurk in the mix, our 5th option on the floor should only shoot it when he has a high percentage shot. Aminu can be good role player off the bench with some better instructions from the coach. I realize it is tough when they leave him wide open, but there is a reason why they do.
Not just that but I was reading on other forums and apparently, the Blazers are playing at a 60 win season pace since Nurkic arrived, having 14 wins and 5 losses. Would've been more too if it weren't for that Washington game.
I'm just going to debunk the notion that getting rid of these contracts will be hard. Brooklyn would probably give their BOS pick for Crabbe, thinking that they could turn him into a 16ppg scorer on 45/40/90 shooting. They need anything they can get. They'd also give an asset for Harkless, who is a local product (from Queens), and who's 23 with unfulfilled potential and who's $9M isn't a problem. If we're really set on shedding salary, we could easily trade Harkless, Crabbe, and Leonard to Brooklyn for one of their first round picks (25th?) and a cheap player like Kilpatrick. This would be a great deal for them as they have way too much cap space and won't attract free agents in the next few years, because they can't improve their team via their own draft picks. And because they don't have their own draft picks is why they would jump at the chance to take on 2 young, proven players for a late pick. We really could trade away $36M and get a pick back by dealing with Brooklyn. We could then turn around and trade a 1st, Turner, Davis, and Ezeli to Sacremento. Sacremento doesn't have their 2019 first (unprotected to Philadelphia) so we should trade our lottery protected 2019 first. They'll also have a shit ton of cap space with no power in the free agent market. Therefore, adding 2 rotation players to get a little better makes sense, even if those players are overpaid. Adding a pick in a year with which they have none makes sense for them as well. And since their trading nothing in return, it makes all the sense in the world for Divac. Sacremento is the best destination to offload Turner and Davis by just giving them a draft pick. With that, we would've shed $62M or so in salary, and swap out our 2019 1st (which should be lower than 20 in a less-talented draft) for the 25th pick. So with that, we'd probably have the 15th, 19th, 25th, and 26th picks. So hypothetically, we could take Justin Jackson 15th, trade 19th and 26th for 16th and take Justin Patton, and take Caleb Swanigan 25th. So we would have this lineup with $38M or so in capspace ($45M if we traded Aminu somewhere along the way). We'd have 5 good young prospects in Nurkic, Vonleh, Patton, Swanigan, and Jackson, with tons of flexibility. Lillard / McCollum McCollum / Kilpatrick Jackson / ? Aminu / Vonleh / Swanigan Nurkic / Patton There will be ways to offload our contracts without giving up a higher amount of picks, because Brooklyn and Sacremento are in very weird positions. That would put us into play for someone like Millsap, Ibaka, Hayward, or even Griffin (If Paul leaves, as Olshey did draft Griffin). It'd be unlikely that we'd land any of those, but we'd be in play with a more formidable appearing team than last year (since we have a core of 3 good players instead of 2). But if not, it puts us into a position for a package of 2 to 3 of the following players: Wings: Thabo Sefelosha, Tyreke Evans, Danilo Gallinari, JJ Redick, Tony Allen Forwards: James Johnson, Ersan Ilyasova, Taj Gibson, Amir Johnson, Patrick Patterson, Zach Randolph Centers: Mason Plumlee, Andrew Bogut, Kelly Olynyk Our hands are not tied at all. We have flexibility. We can really do whatever we want to do this summer.
First:::: Well written. I see Vonleh, Crabbe and Turner coming on & improving themselves due to the Nurk effect as is they were part of an equation.
