There are some times that the mechanics don’t look terrible. Im thinking he ends up at 33%. I also hear you guys on his level of competition and I acknowledge that. Things that set him apart. 1. He isn’t just a great athlete. He is among the top 3-5 most explosive and coordinated athletes to ever come into the league. Speed, explosion, ball handling, dexterity all elite elite. I don’t actually know if I’ve ever seen anybody faster with as tight of handle. 2. Measurable as far as length/height same. Will be able to guard 1-3. 3. Great passer. Will be elite rebounder for position.
Feel like I've posted this four times now, but he shot 77.4% from the FT line (24 for 31) in the OTE playoffs, along with improving his 3P% from 25% to 30%, both which followed a late-season rework to his shot mechanics. It's a pretty small sample size, but there's some reason for hope there. I think it would be pretty surprising if he ever became a great shooter at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him become passable enough to keep defenses honest. In any case, if you're picking Amen you're definitely hoping he's your primary ballhandler and playmaker for others, and I think it's a bit less important that those guys are really good shooters. Luka, SGA, Young, Fox, Morant, Butler, DeRozan--none of these guys are better than about league average at the 3P line, and a few of them are honestly pretty bad shooters. You still want to see Amen become at least good enough that guys respect his shot and don't sag way off of him, don't get me wrong, but it's not like he necessarily has to become a sniper or anything with his insane athleticism.
The Toronto Raptors are a "lock" to re-sign Jakob Poeltl, according to Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report. Poeltl, an unrestricted free agent, could command a salary in the range of $13-$15 million per season. The Raptors are also unlikely to bring back Gary Trent Jr. next season.
If Houston is targeting a defensive C in FA, and this rings true, basically leaves us with Brook Lopez and Bismack Biyombo as targets (I'm not considering Naz or Plumlee as defensive game-changers) SLIM pickins
Would love to get Brook, but if he's not interested-- --Drew Eubanks from the Blazers has improved his defense a lot this season and the Portland fans seem to really like him. Good rebounder and shotblocker, all around hustle guy who plays hard. I think he'd be great if we're just searching for a different look backup who can play 20-25 minutes.
that is definitely grim. I’m happy going after Lopez but given that he and Sengun can’t be on the court at the same time, the cost, and his age, it’s not a perfect fit. He’s also unlikely to want to come here relative to a contender. More and more it seems to me that we are gonna have to work a trade if we want an impact defensive big. Maybe Mark Williams is available for KJ and the Clippers’ pick?
Y’all think Nets are desperate enough to get there picks back to give up Spencer, Cam, Claxton for like KMJ, Tate, Tyty, 2024,25,26 Nets 1st, and Nix to lead their tank KPJ/Dewiddle Green/Christopher Wemby or Miller/Cam Jabari/Tari Sengun/Claxton If Harden comes just get Cam and Claxton
I'd be hesitant to give back all those picks since Rockets don't really have any of their own. I think if you get Claxton, you have to start him (and he's a UFA the following year IIRC). He could be the roaming 4 on defense, but neither he or Sengun can reliably hit the 3 (yet). You can argue Jabari can't hit those either (and I would have doubts about Wemby in Year 1...and who knows with Miller right away). Some interesting ideas there, but not sure I'd like that deal. And honestly, maybe BKN doesn't either, though if they also trade Bridges for multiple picks, guess they'd be an interesting tanking team.
This was probably thrown out before, especially in those John Collins threads. I don't want John Collins (yuck at that contract), but I might consider something like KJ (maybe + #20 pick) for John Collins + #15 pick + more picks (but ATL doesn't really have much). I'd like to either take someone like Lively @ 15 (if available), or possibly even flip it plus other stuff (I'd like to keep #20 in the Collins deal to help with this flip) to maybe target guys around #10 (Taylor Hendricks?). That's what I'd like anyway, though Rockets would probably prefer flipping for a vet or who knows what. Collins might even be alright (especially as a vet?), but I assume with his mutated finger, there's no way he's going to shoot well from 3...and he'll be making 25M+ per year for several more years. It could be good if they strike out on other guys, but you'd probably have to do this kind of deal on draft day. Eh, just a thought. edit: Oh and I'm assuming ATL just wants to give away Collins. I thought they've been trying to move him unsuccessfully, so I'm kinda treating him as a negative value (I'd prefer to just do KJ <-> Collins+#15 honestly, instead of giving up #20 pick for HOU too). If they don't like that, that's fine, and I'd just look elsewhere.
I just figure it’s either draft in the mid teens while they try to compete for the playin or we take their talent and let them try to tank just like we did. I assume they’d trade Bridges and Simmons for and picks they can get either and go full rebuild I think Brooklyn is going to match any offer sheet thrown at Cam or do sign & trade so they can get draft compensation from him now or down the line. It also gives us Claxton as a option if Sengun doesn’t work out with Udoka
Yeah, I think if you give BKN back their picks, they'd be open to just outright tanking. Not sure they could get much for Simmons (though maybe with all these picks, they can offload him), but they could rapidly decrease their payroll while picking up a ton of future picks. If they want to go that route, I suppose HOU would likely need to be involved. I'm still not in love with the idea of what HOU gets though. I think I'd prefer the value of those picks in future years (which could be used in trade deadline deals) and/or move them for pieces that fit better. I do agree that BKN is likely to match just about any offer. If it is the max, they might think about it, but they'd probably still do it. I'm open to doing a S&T with them, but I wouldn't go that hard at Cam Johnson. There are likely other options available...or I guess you can stick with KJ/Tari (possibly MIller/Whitmore/etc).
It is interesting that we are kind of uniquely positioned to save Brooklyn from the terrible situation they've put themselves in. Not only do we have their draft picks, we also have plenty of cap space to eat Simmons' contract if we wanted to. If you squint you can sort of envision a massive blockbuster trade going down involving a bunch of players coming our way and a bunch of draft picks plus maybe KPJ/Tate going to BK. The problem is I just don't think Brooklyn goes for it, not because it's a bad play for them, but because they don't seem interested in blowing it up and because coming to us begging for their picks back feels too much like the front office admitting they screwed up.
That's basically the deal earlier. For those same reasons, I'd probably not do this (I'm assuming BKN wants all their picks back, or at least most). I'm just not sure Sengun and Claxton can co-exist unless Sengun becomes like a 35% 3pt shooter at decent volume (and ideally next season since Claxton would be a FA next year). And yeah, maybe Claxton starts and Sengun is 6th man (or traded), but if that's happening, the roster will likely need some huge improvements elsewhere to be championship worthy. I'm kinda all in on Sengun (i.e., I want him getting 30-35 MPG for the next season and beyond). Not because I'm a crazy, irrational SoF, but mostly because I think you need him to reach his potential (along with JG/Jabari/<2023 draft pick>) in order for this team to get some major playoff success. Due to that, I'm not super interested in spending major assets to acquire a somewhat marginal upgrade at center (as a starter or backup). I'd rather put those resources into shooting, better playmaking from the guard/wing positions, better perimeter defense, etc. Throw a ~10M contract at a decent backup big (so we don't force Garuba to play center) and/or use a pick this year or in future drafts to get a decent big. Then cross your fingers every time a guard attacks Sengun during a PnR. I might trade all those BKN picks and use up $30M in salary cap space for a decent shooting coach though. That's much more valuable than some of these other names (assuming that could actually fix our shooting issues).
I don’t think so. It’s more like our superstar left us so we tanked and your superstars embarrassed your organization and here’s a helping hand for. We could really charge our Bench with Dewinndle, Cam, Tari, Claxton off the bench, off-season finished They can package Simmons with Bridges to SA. Detroit, or Orlando. I don’t want his ass
I just don't see Brooklyn having enough value for us to A) give them back their picks B) taking on Simmons contract (one year which kicks the can down the road on use of cap space) C) giving up player assets in KPJ / Tate / KJM or others. None of those is terrible in itself but when you add it all together, that's shooting the entire wad for what? Is Bridges alone the prize? Maybe I'm missing the framework of the deal ??
All right I'm gonna preface this to say I don't think this has any real chance of happening, because I don't think that's the direction Brooklyn wants to go, and you almost never see trades that shake up rosters this much in one go in basketball. But if it was something like: Rockets receive Ben Simmons Spencer Dinwiddie Mikal Bridges Nic Claxton Nets receive Tank Commander Kevin Porter Jr. Jae'Sean Tate Some number of their draft picks back Clippers pick I believe the cap math works out. Bima can correct me if I'm wrong and he's around. This basically addresses all three things we would ideally want this offseason (point guard, 3-and-D wing, rim protector) and sets us up with two good long-term players in Bridges and Claxton. Brooklyn gets back all most of their cap flexibility and plenty of trade assets and has a chance to turn things around after 1-2 tanking seasons. You can basically consider KPJ and Tate salary filler here, but any level of belief they have in those guys having value helps the deal. Again--no way this really happens. Just a scenario I was thinking about.
