Harden was a **** perimeter defender but when the Rockets hid him he has the strength to not be a pushover when bigs got switched to him. It is quite literally impossible to hide Trae Young. Dude fails at every aspect of defense. He's Jordan Poole with more IQ on offense.
I don't really see the Poole comparison--I see him as more of the buggy 0.5 pre-alpha version of Steph Curry. The homeless man's version, if you will. Which is kind of his physical appearance as well. Agree about his defense being all-quadrants garbage though. I do believe you can hide just about anybody, however--even Trae Young--if you have the right personnel. We do not have the right personnel, and he's not good enough to justify trading the guys we've got to acquire that personnel.
Trae Young isn't perfect but if you can nab a "distressed asset" like Trae on the cheap, I think it would be a smart move. Where I think the Spurs would be foolish would be to give up a boat load of assets for him. Trae is a bad defender but also, Wemby may be the only guy who can erase a lot of the mistakes of Trae's defense liabilities and if anyone can scheme a team centric defense that highlights what Wemby does well to help Trae become more productive - I would trust Pops for that. ...but yeah, take into consideration that Trae is not really a feasible play for most teams because they don't have maybe the most dominant defensive players of our generation backing him up and adjust the price accordingly. In my mind if you can have a future core of Wemby, Trae, and one of Sochan or Keldon Johnson(personally I would keep Sochan), then I would trade anyone else on the roster plus a few of Atlant's future first(what's preventing them from tanking) for Trae and move on. Sign a few role players in the offseason and that team is well on it's way. Even if Trae ends up being a complete disaster, you can either trade him for value OR let him walk and enter the market for a max player to play alongside Wemby before Wemby is getting a max deal. It's not a bad position San Antonio is in to take in some risk if Wemby is indeed the player he seems to be
Seems like everyone including the Hawks would prefer to keep Murray over Trae, the reports on the Hawks reasoning seems like it will effect his value.
Be funny if the Hawks just can't find any takers and have to play out the string. Is there any price where y'all would take Trae Young? If it was just FVV straight-up as an expiring salary-match, for instance? I just don't know how you build a plus defense around Trae, Jalen, and Alpi. You almost have trade Green or Sengun--maybe even both of them!--if you get Young. And then the question becomes, how do you get value back that makes sense and helps compensate for Trae's defensive problems? Is Bam Adebayo going suddenly become available? I don't know even know if I'd do it, man.
If you can't hide Trae Young on defense with players like Amen, Tari, and Jabari, then you can't hide him with any team. But if you could, it would really help hide Amen's shooting.
I don't think bam is enough, i think only victor could cover for him. You need someone that teams simply won't drive against, which is basically vic or rudy. I would not be interested in trae
Why people are so hung up on wanting a street balling, no defense, ball hog is beyond me. As good as MJ was, I think him winning rings as the premier guard ruined the game. All we have now are wannabe Jordan's without the mindset.
People got obsessed with his selfish-but-effective offensive game, without realizing that he put just as much insane effort into the other end--or that he was arguably the most innately talented offensive player of all time, and most NBA players just don't have it anywhere near the way he did
Agreed 100%. Kobe literally had the closest mindset I've ever seen (even though T-Mac had the ability, he was never a cold-blooded sniper through the entire game). Too bad T-Mac was the half-assin assassin. You would be hard pressed to find many clips of Jordan being lethargic in a game. And if he did and got caught, the embarrassment factor would make him drop 30 the next quarter.
For sure. Even Kobe--and no shade--needed a ton of help to win that many rings, and was fortunate to play on the Lakers and have all-time greats like Shaq and Pao to play alongside. Because he just didn't have the same level of natural athletic ability that Jordan did.
Dame Lillard is not better on D than Young... Trae was on his way to copy Dame's trajectory before the unfortunate Murray trade threw his game off.
