I am feeling pretty good today, and look fabulous bald, so that's nice. Here is one of many off season plans I wouldn't mind seeing. Assuming the cap will be at 60 million like many predict, we will start out with about 15.5 million including our lottery pick Trade Matthews and Leonard for Gortat. New cap room is about 17.0 million Trade Batum and #1 to NOP for their pick (Oladipo) and Ryan Anderson New cap room is about 19.0 million Sign Josh Smith for 14.0 million. Is it a lot? Yes. is he worth it? Maybe. Is he as bad as some people including me think? Not even close. Smith would give us an elite forward that can create his own shot. New cap room is about 6.0 miilion. I would like to see us use this to sign Tony Allen and Jermaine O'Neal Then re-sign Maynor and Williams....I guess for whatever the hell exception we have. And bring over the Greek. Lillard / Maynor Allen / Oladipo/ Barton Smith / Greek Aldridge / Anderson / Claver Gortat / O'Neal / Freeland Is that any better than what we have? It gives us a semi big 3 and much better interior defense. Tear it apart peoples. No more responding for MM...doctors orders
Interesting. Thoughts: Josh Smith is primarily a PF. Claver is a SF/SG. Definitely not a PF. Batum is on his way towards becoming a top 4 SF in the league and he is young. I do not want to trade him.
I think Leonard and Matthews is way too much for Gordat. I also do not like Josh Smith unless he was the 3rd or 4th highest paid player on the team. I would like to swap places with Phoenix (To get Oladipo) and also get Gordat. I would prefer to use our #10, our Greek, cap space, and all three 2nd round picks to get it done. I would include Wes to get it done as well if they wanted a player instead of cap space. (They might prefer the space) I would sign Maynor as well as a Vet SG. But at the very least I would go into next season with this 2-deep. (Preferable with Wes as the starter) Lillard-Maynor Wes-Olapido-Barton Batum-Claver Gordat-Leonard LMA-Freeland
So then Lillard and Anderson (RA would come off the bench in VERY limited minutes) will be our main 3 point shooters? Smith would be horrible at SF for us. He simply cannot stretch the floor.
I can't get down with any single part of this plan, let alone the whole thing. Giving up Wes+ for Gortat is way too much. I'd only use crap players and cap space to get Gortat - and even then, I wouldn't. I'm dead set against Gortat. You could get someone like Dalembert or Pachulia, or maybe even Kaman, for half the price without giving up any players, and they'll provide at least 80% of what Gortat would give us. Giving up Nic for a role player and a draft pick is way worse than Wes for Gortat. Josh Smith? I like him, but with our team I don't like this signing at all. At all. Tony Allen is going to be "that guy" who gets grossly overpaid this summer. Great role player, but not going to be worth the contract that he gets. No to Elliott Williams. Just no. Actually, I'm okay with Maynor and the Greek...but these are just "dotting the I" things that happen when the important stuff is done. When all is said and done you've given away all our youth (except for Lillard/Oladipo...and Oladipo hasn't even shown he can play in the NBA yet), and we're left with an older team that can compete for, maybe, the 6th seed for the next two seasons.
Phoenix would never do that... Why not try to go get Deandre Jordan? Besides, the Polish Hammer gets dunked on...
These two statement kind of contradict one another. I think three 2nd round picks are attractive to move up 6 spots. (or the best young player in Europe) Phoenix wants to get rid of Gordat. Cap space is pretty valuable these days. (or if they wanted our Greek then that could be included) i don't think we are that far off from a deal. Unless they just flat out want to keep their pick.
MM -- are you planning on doing your Pre Draft thread? This draft is not as exciting as last year, so I totally understand if you scrap it for this year. I am not really feeling your rebuild plan. Trading both Batum and Wessy Wes is not a good idea in my opinion and what we get back isn't all that great, but it is kind of offset by the Josh Smith signing.
I was going to, and started one, but others decided they wanted to do it instead. So look for someone else to have one with better production value than mine ever had.
I never want Josh Smith on my team. He's an idiot and he takes terrible shots. No thanks. And for $14M? Hell no.
I think Wes and Leonard is an overpay. I dislike the Batum trade overall. And though our defense should be improved, Lillard will do nothing but shoot 3s with the spacing on the floor from that team, and IMO, we'll go as far as Lillard will take us, to an extent. Making him not much more than a 3 point shooter will hurt. Overall, we'd make the playoffs on talent, but I hate that team as a legit threat.
Odd. I read your thread disapproving (albeit only slightly) with most of the moves, but I found myself nodding with the final product depth chart. So I admire your creativity and the variety of moves you incorporated. Hopefully Olshey can be similarly versatile and not rely on one or two moves and putting all his eggs in one basket. I do have to take exception to Josh Smith creating his own shot. That is a scary proposition indeed! "Creating" shots is the biggest leak in his game, and he should stop doing it. I wish I had some advance stats at my disposal to tell you about his midrange and off-the-dribble game (anyone have this?), but I've seen enough of his clanks myself to know he sucks. He's also a career .283 shooter from deep on 1.4 attempts per game (ick) and .654 from the line (.517 last year!).
One thing about the Drexler, Porter, Kersey team was that they kept getting better the longer they played together. I thought that had as much to do with their emergence as did the addition of Buck Williams. So I would not be in favor of such drastic changes. I would not be in favor of trading Mathews since he is one of the few who has the kind of "heart" that those guys had. It's an unfortunate situation since the only guys who have any trade value are what i consider core members of the team. I hope Olshey has more imagination that me.
