Doncic is 25, what do you mean Jazz arent on that timeline? Of course Ainge would care since they have more assets to trade for Luka than the Lakers. If they knew they could have offered Nico a better asset package than AD, Max Christie and a pick. You are right Pelinka is just lucky but the reason Harrison reached out to him is because of their decades friendship which no other GM has. It is unique to Pelinka. Pelinka is also the one who got AD in the trade prior and AD was the reason Nico wanted to do the trade. Not sure why you think Pelinka didnt deserve credit. If he was the Wolves GM Luka would be a Twolve and the trade would have been for Gobert and Divicenzo instead of AD and Christie. Hell if Pelinka was our GM Luka would be a Rocket by now, maybe for Amen, FVV and picks or w/e. Nico didnt trade Luka to the Lakers, he traded Luka to his lucky buddy Rob Pelinka. If you are the reason the trade happened you deserve credit for it, its that simple. Even if you wanna argue Nico was obsessed with AD and would always trade for him no matter what, well Pelinka was also the one who traded for AD so he still deserves credit.
I want to say Stone was in the top 5 last year as well and moved up a bit this year. He's been excellent, and there can be small arguments about the rankings but that's fair.
I have trusted his moves and see his and the management team’s vision. One thing that continues to baffle me is not signing a vet point backup or a 2. CP3 would have been a great addition for many reasons. Do they really expect Sheppard to play big minutes and be a part of the postseason run? I can’t imagine they would trust him considering his poor play last year and an uneven summer league. Perhaps this is why Holliday is there to fill this void under a team friendly contract. I would believe they will deploy Sheppard in regular season games and continue to monitor track and assess him. They can’t possibly think this current roster thats thin at guard can seriously make a deep run? To me it’s one of those teams you look at and see it’s not good enough and missing some pieces. Nice try but The current product isn’t it.
If they really feel that it’s needed early in the season we can sign somebody. I’m sure there are a couple decent players available. By the time we get to midseason, we will have a lot of players available to trade and we have significantly valuable trade assets. We can go get a guy.
I agree. I think they should have tried to sign a vet combo guard for the bench, but they are determined to give Reed a shot, which I think is pre-mature. I hope they are correct, but I do think they have plenty of assets to make a coarse correction later in the year. If Reed fails they may look to Okogie who at least defensively will work out pretty well.
Udoka wasn't hired last year, he was hired the year before that so that move has nothing to do with EOY for last season.
Im sure they know more than we do and privy to more information. Maybe they know something about guys like Brogdan or it may just come down to money. Okogie isn’t great driving to the paint and no mid range shot. Strictly a 3-D guy similar to Ariza although the 3 has been missing past couple seasons. I hope there’s a contingency plan.
He has to be in the running for sure, but this is an end of season award, if KD stays healthy than he is a front runner. DD
realizing JG was the weakest link of the young core from the beginning and finally including him for KD package seals the deal for me
Why? Terrible season to spending for three years. You either give it to Sam Presti again or give it to Chad Buchanan.
I assume this is for the 25-26 season. Impossible to say this early, but if Detroit has a monster season next year (which doesn't seem like a stretch), then Trajan Langdon will be in the conversation, even though it was his predecessor who made it all happen. Otherwise it is likely between Stone, Presti and Gansey in Cleveland.
I doubt it's an award that can be won multiple times in a row. Presti should be out of it. He has a decent chance at it, basically because Udoka is identifying, picking player targets for him. Udoka should win Co-GM of the Year as well.
The roster doesn't have to be complete today - just by the time the playoffs start and they have enough assets to get just about any deal done. We still have the trade deadline and the buyout market ahead and I think this will be a desirable destination for players in that buyout market .... they'll actually be able to offer a minimum deal to a player after ~38 games since NBA contracts are prorated and they do have an open roster spot. As for Shepard, I think it's fairly obvious that they are betting on him contributing in a big way, otherwise they would have gone a different direction in free agency. I don't know how I feel about it .... it's a gamble to be certain but not as big a deal as some might think. The good thing is that even if he flops, they have plenty of time to fix the situation and can still do that without giving up any of the other young guys - even Capela or DFS could be part of a deal - Capela is trade eligible December 15 and DFS on Jan 15th (not that they plan to move either one, just that it's possible). Stone still has lots of options ....
Mr. Stone has received near limitless praise for his maneuvers remaking the Rockets this summer, yet ends up 4th in the voting. The more things change, the more they stay the same for the Rockets.
