My first targets are Schroedder and Brook Lopez. I'd throw the max/3 years at Lopez, doesn't matter if he is overpaid Sengun is on a rookie deal so they balance out. Schroedder is a nice character guy, Rockets already got him before and he was great. Very gutsy, try hard guy reminds me a lot of Beverly except he doesn't talk so much smack and can actually back it up. Ever since he fumbled the bag he's gotten nothing but vet mins so I think a 10M contract gets him signed immediately. If Rox pay like 10M for DSchroede and 30M for Brook Lopez that leaves 20M to sign other spots, maybe Cam Johnson at 3 or something.
Yeah sign with 35 years old Lopez, cut 20 years old Sengun's minutes. For what? Maybe for play in. Then 2 years later Lopez 37, and Sengun goes to other team in free agency. Absolutely ridicilous. If Sengun starts and gets min 30 minutes, that's ok to sign Lopez. Otherwise no.
Yeah sign with 35 years old Lopez, cut 20 years old Sengun's minutes. For what? Maybe for play in. Then 2 years later Lopez 37, and Sengun goes to other team in free agency. Absolutely ridicilous. If Sengun starts and gets min 30 minutes, that's ok to sign Lopez. Otherwise no.
Replying to the bolded parts: 1) I don’t think that’s the market rate at all. You’re saying we should overpay him, so how can an overpay be the market rate? The team that needs him most (Nets) are publicly capping it at $24-28m and that’s what they’re saying to scare teams away. 2) We have to spend on someone does not mean we have to spend it on anyone. In the absolute worst case scenario, we can sign someone to a big one year contract to meet the minimum and give ourselves another year to decide. There are no NBA teams that can afford to be more patient than us except the Wizards. We’re not in a rush or close to getting screwed. 3) There are lots of free agents and it’s subjective. You can pick whoever is your favorite next target from the pool. We’re still talking about a - in his prime - 16ppg shooter who plays just decent defense for 66 or less games per season. A shooter like him who is a lock down defender like OG would be worth $30m to a contender. I’d really love it if you’d address how he’s not been healthy his whole career and the number of games played and minutes player is so low. A 4-year overpay for an injury prone player with a limited ceiling and does not address our top two needs (rim protection, floor general) is bad for our future. It will barely affect the Nets, they would go from 30 wins to what 27 wins? 25 wins if we’re lucky? Why are we taking this massive gamble when our own future is rock solid. Let them lock into an expensive role player and mediocrity. We’re good, we have cap space, a few decent picks and a boat load of highly talented youth. We don’t need them to marginally drop in order to build a title contender, but this contract gone bad will throw a wrench in our ability to retain someone team-controlled later. We don’t have an owner who will be willing to pay lots of tax.
You’re just not confident enough in Sengun. Starting Lopez on day 1 doesn’t mean he’ll start for two years - unless Sengun fails to earn the starting spot. Sengun will beat him out within 6-18 months and then Lopez will be an amazing backup for him. Lopez starting for one season or less would be amazing for Sengun’s development. He’s never ever had a mentor, even Jokic in the playoffs praised DeAndre Jordan’s locker room impact.
For free agents: Vet point guard. Then: Bruce Brown (sg /sf) Grant Williams (pf). ...Then if time, throw a high offer to the Nets for Johnson or Lakers for Reeves, they'll match but at least you force them into using their cap. ----- People may not going to like this, but if we're really going by meritocracy, there's going to be games where you need vet guys over the high draft young guys to win games. For better defense, For Bari/Green going against tougher match ups in practice Learn from the vets who play at their position. Profile archetypes aside, while Jabari tries on defense, his current defense is below average. Both Bari and Green need to be at least neutral. Play against vets at their position and earn the damn starting job. If Bruce is behind Jalen and Grant is behind Jabari, best believe the young core will try harder on D, because capable backups are at hand. Nothing lights a fire, like someone breathing behind you to maybe take your minutes. No more Silas softy coddling, more tough love in phase 2. A hurt ego is temporary, but they'll be better for it. This is the evaluation. If high draft rookies can't outplay their vet backups by their 3rd-4th year, that tells you how much they should get in rookie extension.
If you decided Reaves was worth a gamble with your asset and cap space then I would imagine LAL are looking for some win now type players, good contracts, and some upside. With that in mind: KPJ, Tate, Christopher, and/or Garuba KPJ- headliner of the deal on a sneaky good contract that needs to be guaranteed every off season. Upside. Win now Tate- win now, good contract, not a lot upside Christopher/Garuba- rookie contract, little upside
How are we going to sniff the play-ins without a rim protector? That’s mandatory in the NBA. Udoka especially likes to play with 2 very good rim protectors. The only way to overcome this is to have the best offense in the league but we’re not close to that. Even then, teams like the Kings are lame duck teams that are hopelessly fighting to progress in the playoffs. It’s really unfair to the guys to go into this season without a rim protector. All the defenders jobs gets way harder, all the defenders will look worse than what they should be vs league average. I’d be shocked if Ime allowed us to go into the season without one. At least a Nerlens Noel off the bench or something is the absolute minimum imo.
If the young guards and forwards (KJ/Bari) continues to play like sieves, even a Bam can't erase all those mistakes. Whomever the center would be in constant foul trouble. Naz seems to off the table as Wolves re-up him. Not against rim bigs there are usually on the cheap end. Or an overpay for Lopez. Or maybe Usman is unlocked. My list above wasn't exhaustive.
That’s a given, but a rim protector is not a bonus help. It’s a core function. Every player on a good defensive team is having their mistakes erased. 99.99% of good defensive teams in NBA history have a rim protector. No coach has been able to overcome the absence of it to achieve a good defense. In order to get to winning, only elite offenses have been able to overcome it. We have lots of inexperienced players. The rim protector is the father of the defense, it’s what allows the defender to force a scorer into their non-favorite shot. NBA history is littered with champions who didn’t have an above average SF or PG or perfect spacing. It’s really critical to know what are the fatal mistakes building a team. I understand your list is not exhaustive but trust me, we will be failing and draining a lot of effort on defense without this. We won’t have an elite offense with this roster, an above average offensive signing and Udoka. Goes without saying everyone else has to play defense too.
Sengun can only back-up to Jokic and Embiid, no one else. If Lopez is any good, comes to Houston and shows that he is OK to start instead of Sengun or Jabari. JGreen/Sengun/Bari/Tari+23'Pick (Amen) is a championship core, to be backed-up by Cam,TyTy and KPJ as a 6th man if possible. Any vet comes to Rox should accept to be bench player. If not, good luck to them. As there is no chance that Houston can get Jokic or Embiid, there is no player to start over Sengun in NBA except the mentioned duo.. You put JGreen/Sengun and Jabari as the first three and choose the remaining 2 later on. Simple.
All valid points. The health is a concern, but outside of last year where he missed half the games, the time missed is something I can live with. I'd like it to be better, but we have guys that we might need to step in every once in a while to test their progress. As for the number of minutes he has played so far in his career, I just don't know enough about the Suns' coaching philosophies to explain it. I actually do watch most of the Rockets games and would have a hard time explaining Sengun's minutes. My price to offer was in the $25-27M range. When I say the market price, I was referring to his BORD$ valuation of $26M. And this was all in response to the report saying that the Nets would be comfortable with a 4 year $84m contract. Well, of course they are comfortable with a $21M price because it keeps them out of the luxury tax (or only slightly over). The point is to make them uncomfortable. They are capped out whether they sign him or not. We cannot allow them to operate comfortably when we own their picks. We can be patient. We have the ability to offer this amount and proceed negotiating with other players while they make their decision. We don't have to wait around for them to decide. If they already have deals in place with FVV and Lopez, then maybe they don't make this offer, depending on how they prioritize each player. If the price is too high for you, that's an understandable position. Personally, I would not let the Nets set the price.
Yeah fair enough. We’re at a super subjective part of the discussion and I can see how a person with a different view of how to build the team could value him higher. I just hope that if we overpay someone, it’s not someone who has to have the best season of their career in order to just barely meet the valuation. Those BORD numbers are whacky if you review the full list. It’s telling you the player value if they repeated their previous season and it’s only correct for the next season. It’s not telling you the player’s 4-year value or how their value would carry across to another team. For example FVV’s numbers being dramatically inflated by his minutes. On the Rockets if Cam is taking more shots than Sengun or Green, it’s a catastrophe so he can’t replicate the offensive volume. I hope we prioritize defense more than shooting because shooting is a small proportion of what was wrong last season (a sub category of offense) while defense was 50% of what was wrong last season. Maybe we get everything, who knows. Personally I’d rather have Grant Williams guarding the opponents best player every night. I’d rather have a PG and C as priority over that. An expensive shooter feels like a luxury to me, but who knows. Many ways to skin a cat.
Let me say that I would ultimately expect the Nets to match that offer of $27M. They pretty much have to because they can't replace him with the MLE and Bridges has already expressed his thoughts on wanting him to be back. Teams that may be offering most or all of their cap space to Cam might hesitate offering if they think the Nets will ultimately match and they will lose out on other players while they are waiting to find out. We have the luxury of offering and proceeding with any other plans while we wait. Also, feel like our shooting was a major problem last year. A lot of the defensive stuff can be taught, and it can be taught to anybody. Stop arguing with refs, get back in transition, go under the screen, etc. I'm hoping a new coaching philosophy will improve the defense over time no matter who is on our team.
"There will be moves out there to try and steal him away from Milwaukee. I don't think this is locked down. Houston is a serious suitor. But I think Brook Lopez would like to stay there. He wants to win. He's in his mid-30s. I think if they give him a representative contract that equals his market, I think he stays but it's not a done deal.” “The 76ers have been focused on this for months now. Daryl Morey has been working all angles. There’s a confident tone in people’s discussions with the Sixers in recent days that they’re gonna be able to get this done. I don’t sense it’s a done deal yet. I don’t sense there’s a final decision that’s been reached. If it has, it’s been kept pretty quiet. … Again, we have the Rockets lingering here. The Rockets have been linked to many other players in sources that I have talked to. I don’t think the Rockets are banking on getting Harden. I think the Sixers are and I’ll just sorta leave it at that right now.” “Sixers have focused largely their entire offseason on getting this deal done. I think they're willing to give him the pay increase up to at the max contract or near the max. The question is years. The Sixers are motivated to find middle ground here and are confident they can get it done.” —Windhorst
