That's the thing. We could do both. Vuc's a great passer too. He averages 2.7 ast in ORL's offense. Off the bench. Edit: We could actually do it better since you have to guard his 15-17 footer.
Man, ORL's front office is bi-polar. They STILL can't decide if they want to win now or rebuild. They give away young players like Harkless and Tobias Harris for practically nothing. Trade Oladipo for Ibaka so Ibaka can play next to Vucevic, then bench Vucevic. This is why Scott Skiles quit, walked away and left millions on the table after one season coaching that train wreck. If there's one thing I think the world can agree on about Scott Skiles is the man HATES to lose. He was coaching to win, realized Payton was a lost cause, wanted to bench him, but management forced him to play Payton because they "needed to develop their young talent". You can't develop what doesn't exist. The absolute best thing you can say about Elfrid Payton is he's a poor man's Ricky Rubio. Like Rubio, Payton can't shoot to save his life. His career 3FG% (.288) is actually worse than Rubio's and his career FT% of .576 is very Dwight Howard-like. Rubio is a better passer and a better defender, but because he's not a scoring threat will never be a successful NBA staring PG. But at least Rubio can make a FT. Do you really want a guy with a career .576 FT% running your offense with the game on the line. Remember, the Hack-a-Shaq rules don't apply to the payer who has the ball, you can foul him with impunity. So, Skiles quits and they bring in a defensive minded coach, who, within 16 games, realizes Skiles was right, Payton is a lost cause and benches him in favor of D.J. Augustin. I'm pretty meh on Vucevic. If the Magic are blowing it up and having a fire sale, Ibaka is the one I want. He's the perfect stretch 4 to put next to Nerlins Noel. He's shooting .422 from 3-point range, and while not the DPOY candidate he once was, he's still light years better than anyone we have and combining him with Noel would give us elite level rim protection. BNM
I like Vucevic but he's not the 5 we need. If that's our only option, then great but I'd rather move him in a 3 way deal to the Kings with change and have Cousins come to Portland if possible. If not, I still prefer Noel. Vuc is a pretty good 3rd option if we can't get the other 2 however. He's a really good player.
Ibaka is in last year of contract; I don't think he would want to stay there. (Although, will the new CBA make it really really profitable for him to stay?) Ibaka and Green for Crabbe or Turner (their choice) plus their choice of Leonard, Davis or Aminu. If Payton is an elite defender then we throw in their choice of Napier or Quarterman for him.
As things stand, the odd game from Plumlee aside (and he will be used at 4 if we replace him), our centers do not offer much defense, scoring or rebounding. Vucevic is not good defensively but at least he scored and rebounds which will naturally improve us. It won't take CJ, and they won't take Crabbe because they have the same player in Fournier. I think they might take Aminu to rotate with Gordon and Ibaka, could be interested in Plumlee and might be foolish enough to take Meyers. Turner would not be a bad get for them either.
Vucevic can score and rebound but in watching him move around the paint, it looks like he wouldn't average over 1.0 block per game as the only center in an under-6' basketball league at the YMCA.
That's not his game..you need to pair him with a shot blocker but he gives you what Lamarcus Aldridge gave us...only probably more rebounds..to me Vucevic is Kevin Love light without the 3 pt shot but better than Love on D.....20/10 guy is what I see..3rd option so our guards have some energy to play even mediocre defense. I guess I'm mostly high on the guy because I've seen him play enough to admire his skillset...Dame CJ Mo Chief Vuc....lot of options there IF they can work on a string on defense.
actually his D numbers are improved a decent bit this yr and I believe he ranks higher than anyone we have and he can score and rebound. I'd rather get a more D oriented C but if we can't he'd be an improvement over the garbage we now have, no I would not give up CJ of Vuc, for Payton and Vuc perhaps and we'd need to add perhaps a guy like Plumlee or Ed. agree, we need some consistent offense from the PF/C area, Plums pretty much is a pick n roll threat only and has no low post game and his rebounding is meh. At least VUC can score and rebound and he's on a really good contract at 11-2 mil per for this yr then the next 2 after. Not a perfect choice but way than what we now have IMO and probably reasonably attainable.
Fournier and Crabbe arent the same player. Fournier is 2 inches taller and can handle the ball and pass. Fournier and Crabbe would be a solid wing group to pair with Ibaka and Biyombo in the frontcourt.
They are very similar IMO. Most importantly though, both Fournier and Biyombo make ca. $18M per year, then you are adding Crabbe on the same amount and Ibaka will command close to $20M per season if they extend him as well. That's overkill, none of them (aside from maybe Ibaka at best) are top players.
Actually if we could make it happen, Noel and Vucevic could work together. That would force Noel to play at power forward but he can defend all over the court, he has no mid-range game but that would be compensated by Vucevic being very good from there.
True. It would be a significant risk since Noel has not worked under similar circumstances before. Even then we would have two different centers to rotate and each of them could clock 25-30 minutes without playing too much together. They are both better than what we have.
I'm totally on the Noel bandwagon. But he got eaten alive by this dude. Noel didn't look like he had a clue what he was doing.
