I like all this except I'm not sold on Lyles and Turner. Kinda feel right now like they're mediocre NBA players. Can see potential greatness in Looney. Can see Kaminsky fitting here from day 1. And I like Grant as a big point guard.
1. He is a great shooter. Has length to be a good defender. And has deflated stats because he is stuck behind players who have seniority. 2. Somewhat of a long list. Any of the SFs Johnson, Winslow, Oubre (I would take Booker before Oubre), Myles Turner, Bobby Portis, Kristas Pop, Willie CS, Kevin Looney 3. Kaminsky I would be ok with, but I see him being a clone of Olynyk (which I am not too high on). You can see #2 for other bigs 4. This I am not sure. Future first maybe, or part of a bigger package. I would also have no problem trading down, since I feel like there could be some really good second round pick ups. Rashad Vaughn, Michael Gbinije, James Blackmon.
The only way i can see this scenario playing out with that package is if by the off chance the 76er's end up retaining the Lakers pick and have their own so hypothetically they would have two picks in the top 6ish. That being said I would give up anything besides Howard and Harden to be able to move up to get Russel. Granted I go to Ohio State so I may be seeing this with my homer glasses on but I think I'm being very subjective. With Dragic now gone and Rubio seemingly more and more off the table, I don't see any real opportunities to get a true upgrade to the PG position in the near future.. Unless you count Lawson, who I think is very good but after hearing about how the Denver team is acting these last couple weeks it's starting to turn me off on him, Hard for me to believe he isn't involved. D'angelo plays our system to a T. Shooting a very good percentage from 3 with high volume, Ability to get in the paint at will, and willing and EXCELLENT passer. Only downside is defense and althought he's not terrible, not great either. To the people that say we'll take too big of a step back. First off you may have to take a step back to get to championship contention eventually if this team proves it's not enough to win it all. Secondly if we get a commitment from Smoove then I think we need to move a PF as DMO is looking more and more like he can't play center and I don't see the need for a talented 3-man PF rotation. It would be a risk, but could turn out to reap HUGE rewards. Even if you don't like Mchale's X and O's you cannot deny his staff has done an excellent job in the player development category, Harden, Dragic, Lowry, Parsons, etc. (Seems like he got he most out of Lin even if that wasn't very much) and to have a guy with that much skill and potential locked up on a rookie deal could make the opportunities endless for Maori. It may take more though I was thinking NOP pick(hopefully in 11-12 range)+DMo/Jones+Future 1st round pick
Teams in the top 5 of the draft very seldom trade out unless they're getting an established star. Boston and Garnett / Allen come to mind. Maybe if you managed to get draft picks for Dmo and/or Tjones to package with the NO 1st and NY 2nd. Maaaaaaybe you'd sniff the top 5. But we'd probably be breaking precedent. Nobody likes giving up that future star on 4 years of a cheap contract. The Knicks used to be that stupid, but, again, only for a star, with available cap space.
