I would love Marion. He would be a great fit. Still a very solid defender and has a nifty post game. He is long enough to put on most power forwards and quick enough to stay with shooting guards and a few point guards. Carter wouldn't be bad either. If he was 3 years younger, he would be a great addition. Honestly, I just want players who we can throw on to the elite players like Love, LMA, Durant, Melo and Lebron but aren't offensive liabilities ie solid defenders with good size that can hit a open jumper. The more of those types of players, the better.
I didn't realize Avery Bradley shot 39.5% from deep last year. He's be great for us. He is a RFA though and I can't imagine Boston letting him go easily. He is probably slightly above MLE money at $6M/year
None of these type of players will be signed until we get the 3rd star, except perhaps Kostas Papanikolaou. Let's say for the sake of argument that Asik, Lin, and TJones get sent out in a trade for Melo or Love. That leaves us with 4 holes in our roster.... Bev / ? Harden / Daniels Parsons / ? Love / ? Howard / ? In order I would rank them.... 1) Backup center 2) Backup wing 3) Backup wing/PF 4) Backup PG For a backup PG, I wouldn't want to commit to a long term contract. Bev is a good fit, and Canaan/Llull are still potential options. I like Nate Robinson here because he should come cheap and brings us a spark off the bench. Kostas Papanikolaou will be one of our backup wings. My guess is we use a portion of the MLE to sign him to a 4 year deal. Something like $1.5 million per year. Many different directions you could go with the other wing/PF spot. If PF, a couple of old Rockets: Patrick Patterson or Jordan Hill. If wing, Marion or Kirilenko. All of these guys will probably demand $4 million a year or so, which takes up the rest of your MLE. There aren't many good options at center this year, or at least ones we can afford. I'd roll the dice on Emeka Okafor returning for the vet min. Bev / Robinson / Canaan Harden / Daniels Parsons / Papanikolaou Love / Marion Howard / Okafor
You are talking about 2 ROOKIES that combined maybe with less than 20 mins of meaningful playing time in the regular season for the Rockets. Defense is about 80% efforts and 20% coaching. I would rather put my faith on 2 rookies that will fight for the irfuture than some old scrubs.
I can't see Minny giving us Love without including Parsons. I just can't Asik and Lin have no value to Minnesota since they already have Rubio and Pekovic. Beyond that they will be taking on salary to move a guy who was gone anyways. Lin and Asik's bird rights arent even that important since they are likely to get paid less than their current salaries for their next contract. Any scenario that gets us a top 10 player will include Parsons, there's no way around it. That said, while I like what Parsons brings to the table I wouldnt consider him a deal breaker for a guy like Love or even Melo (who I'm not so gung ho about).
Your list is not addressing the "D" part of the equation. 3 & D wise, PJ Tucker and Jared Dudley are attainable.
Ah yeah, wouldn't mind chucking some money at Avery Bradley. Doubt they'll let him go. Dude is overrated by Boston fans but a solid role player.
Also, how bad is Covington on D? He's what, 6'7 or 6'8, long arms, athletic. He should be a good defender, and his stroke is very nice. He can be the cheapest 3 & D guy out there. I'm very confident the Viper Snipers should be our backups next year; Canaan, Daniels, and Covington. It's just the gameplan needs to be heavily improved, our starting positions(PF and/or PG) needs some improvement too. If we can get someone like Lowry, we'd be amazing with Lowry-34mpg/Canaan-14mpg Harden-38mpg/Daniels-10mpg Parsons-25mpg/Covington-20mpg/Daniels-3mpg Jones-28mpg/Parsons-8mpg/Asik-12mpg Dwight-35mpg/Asik-13mpg
I love your lineup. But the problem is this : how can you dump Lin and sign Lowry while at the same time, giving Parsons a long term deal and still keeping Asik and TJ?
All good defensive players play good defense right from the beginning. Can you think of any good defenders who used to be horrible on defense? These aren't high school kids just learning the fundamentals. They are on the pro level.
Troy really wasn't bad at all. I mean the floor is Harden, so that's not saying much but in his first playoff game he was solid. Was he a stopper? No, was he a 3 & D guy no. He wasn't a liability, and a completely relevant offensively so he's fine. Covington can definitely be a very good defender, given his build. Both of these players have very good-excellent strokes.
I was ignoring the logistics of the situation, entirely and purposely. If we could trade Lin(8.3M) + Dmo(1.5M) + Bev(.9M) for Lowry on a 4-year, 48mil deal it could work fine. Toronto doesn't do that, but you get my drift. It's possible, we have flexibility, we have assets. Let Parsons be a RFA this off-season, and match whatever he gets, and let Asik expire after next season.
It would be nice to get Tucker so Harden won't suck every time we play the Suns lol. He probably is the best Harden defender out there, he really impresses me very time we play them.
Ben Wallace at WASH & ORL vs Ben Wallace at Detroit? Look, if you are going to call Daniels and Covington horrible defenders based on their less than 20 minutes of meaningful playing time in their whole ROOKIE regular season, there is no point for any further discussion.
