Solved: What We Need to Win The Championship This Year!

TLDR early summary: Trade CC, Nene, Frazier, and Clark along with and while using our trade exceptions to bring in extra salary to trade, along with FRP(s), seconds, and cash if we have any, for Love, Noel and Okafor. Change rotations and minutes to suit MDA’s needs. Our small ball closing lineup that MDA will continue to go to becomes Russ-Harden-Gordon (I prefer House)-Tucker-Love. The defense will not be top 10 this year anyway, so we should give Harden and Russ a 5 that can actually shoot 3 pointers but still rebound. While Love is not a great defensive player, he is still a great rebounder and 3 point 40% shooter as a small ball 5.

Long Version:

Trade CC ($14.9m) plus (Clark & Frazier) ($2.8m) plus salary filler ($8.3m), plus a FRP (and a 2nd RP also if necessary) for Kevin Love. For what it’s worth, I never wanted to move CC until now. But with Russ here and his 3 point shooting, we have to have a 5 that can shoot the 3 at a high percentage, rebound, pass and has some size/weight when MDA goes to small ball to close out quarters and games, as he will surely continue to do! Tucker just won’t do as that 5.

Pick up salary filler by using trade exceptions to acquire players (3.6m <Thon Maker-Detroit, Allonzo Trier-NY>, 3.2m <Yogi Ferrel – Sac> 1.5m <D. Melton- Mem> = 8.3m total), or

Sign and trade either Shump or Faried for the extra 8+ million needed (can they be signed and traded immediately?)

Using the ESPN trade machine, I used PJ in the salary to show where the trade exception players or sign and trade Shump or Faried would be used to make the trade work.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y3s527tb

Then we need to trade Nene for Jalil Okafor, salaries match but NO will need to be enticed to give him up, so hopefully a second RP or two, plus cash if we have it, will do it. If not, find a similar player elsewhere.

Next we need to try to take in Nerlens Noel (1.6m = James Ennis TE) into our other available trade exception to keep, from OKC to help them save salary to get out of the tax (assuming they still need to).

Then our roster is:

Russ – Rivers – Clemons
Harden – Gordon – McClemore
Tucker – House – Sefolosha
Love – Noel – Anderson
Chandler – Okafor – Hartenstein

Now we know MDA is going to play small ball during crunch time, so let’s build out the minutes to suit his style and personality because as long as he is coach, it WON’T change:

Minute distribution:

Russ – 34
Harden – 36
Tucker – 32
Love – 32
Chandler – 12
Gordon – 30
House – 24
Okafor – 18
Rivers – 12
Noel – 10
240 minutes/game

Now we need MDA to use rotations that make sense, help our weaknesses, but that still pleases his need to play small ball in crunch time. The only way to do this successfully is to preplan and stick to it, because we all know that MDA is not an in game great adjustment coach. So here are my suggestions:

1st & 3rd Quarters:

PG – Russ (5 minutes), Gordon (4 minutes), Russ (3 minutes) = 12 minutes
SG – Harden (9 minutes), Rivers (3 minutes) = 12 minutes
SF – Tucker (4 minutes), House (6 minutes), Gordon (2 minutes) = 12 minutes
PF – Love (4 minutes), Tucker (4 minutes), Noel (4 minutes) = 12 minutes
C – Chandler (3 minutes), Okafor (4.5 minutes), Love (4.5 minutes) = 12 minutes

2nd & 4th Quarters:

PG – Russ (5 minutes), Rivers (3 minutes), Russ (6 minutes) = 12 minutes
SG – Gordon (3 minutes), Harden (9 minutes) = 12 minutes
SF – House (6 minutes), Gordon (1 minutes), Gordon (5 minutes) = 12 minutes
PF – Noel (1 minutes), Love (3 minutes), Tucker (8 minutes) = 12 minutes
C – Chandler (3 minutes), Okafor (4.5 minutes), Love (4.5 minutes) = 12 minutes

Different Lineups 1st and 3rd Quarters:

Russ Harden Tucker Love Chandler = 3 minutes
Russ Harden Tucker Love Okafor = 1 minute
Russ Harden House Tucker Okafor = 1 minute
Harden Gordon House Tucker Okafor = 2.5 minutes
Harden Gordon House Tucker Love = .5 minutes
Harden Gordon House Noel Love = 1 minutes
Russ Rivers House Noel Love = 1 minutes
Russ Rivers Gordon Noel Love = 2 minutes
= 12 minutes total

Different Lineups 2nd and 4th Quarters:

Russ Gordon House Noel Chandler = 1 minute
Russ Gordon House Love Chandler = 2 minutes
Harden Rivers House Love Okafor = 1 minute
Harden Rivers House Tucker Okafor = 2 minutes
Russ Harden Gordon Tucker Okafor = 1.5 minutes
Russ Harden Gordon Tucker Love = 4.5 minutes
= 12 minutes total

For injuries, fouls or other situations where you need to play different players, you still have Clemons, McClemore, Thabo, Anderson and Hartenstein.

In fact based on this current season I would play Clemons most of Rivers minutes until Rivers shows that he can consistently contribute like he did in spurts last year. When Ego is like 0 for 4, 5, I would play McClemore for the rest of his minutes because I have never seen Ego become hot once he has a bad start. He may hit 1 to 3 pointers a game after that, but his percentages will stay trash for that game. Times where we need more shooting than athleticism, I would play Anderson in Noel’s minutes so that we have another floor spacer. I would play Thabo when House or Tucker is in foul trouble or stinking it up out there.

This is Russ and Harden’s best chance to win a championship this year. They are both over 30 and it’s reasonable to assume that they will not get much better than they will be this year and maybe next year, even if they stay the same for a couple of more years…but we know that in 99% of cases father time wins in the short run, or at worst in the long run. Love is 31 on a 4 year deal, but we are trying to win THIS year, or at worst next year…or this Harden era for a Championship may be over for good as new players and teams emerge as better competition.

So if Tilman is ever going to pay the tax, he better do it this year and next to try to win it all. If it doesn’t work out, he can get out of the luxury tax by trading Harden, Russ or Love in the last 1 or 2 years of their contract to save his money and start the rebuild. Harden and Russ need a #3 man and because of MDA loving small ball TOO MUCH, the only logical choice is LOVE because teams will have to stay on him and honor his 3 point shoot. Currently teams can back off of Capela and Russ, that’s too much.

And we also need to trash the all switching defense. I would rather them play a solid mixed man/zone defense that focuses on no layups and no corner 3s, and forcing teams into midrange or long 3 point shots. Our team should stop guarding teams/players at the high arch or 4 feet beyond the 3 point line unless it's individual players like Curry, Lillard or Trae. Then you just have to have hustle and energy for the transition defense to get in place!

And I know, random trade idea…….but it’s also about strategy and rotations and minutes, not just a random trade.

FLAME AWAY!

 

I hope what you are saying isn't true, but even if he does, the bottom line is that MDA is not going to play him most of the time down the stretch if we need points. MDA has consistently shown this. I would like CC to be stronger on box outs and dunk the ball more instead of going for layups which he always misses, but I would be fine with him as is playing 35 minutes a game. If he was playing 35 minutes a game, he would average 18 and 12 or better and that is sufficient for what we need out of the position at his price tage. The problem is MDA will never play him that much consistently no matter what because he loves small ball in close games. And we lose on rebounding and post ups against us....hence Love would be better to use with Tucker at the 4 instead of small ball Tuckerwagon 5. IMHO

 

I get that point of view, but we can't deny that Love is still a rebounding machine, and as a team we suck at rebounding. That alone, rebounding and this reducing second chance points, is just as good as getting a good defense player. Players like Kawhi and PG aren't available at all or with what we have to offer. Plus, other than rebounding, our main defensive problem is strategy and effort, not just who's on the roster. imho

 

My point of view is that MDA's biggest weaknesses are his undying love(pun intended) of small ball, and his inability to coach defense. My two solutions are to get Love to be his small ball 5 because of the reasons already mentioned, moving Tucker to small ball 4 permanently. Doing these two things helps MDA to POSSIBLY win a championship.

We still have to recent MVP's, so once the team starts to play better, we will always have a punchers chance even without changes.

 

Nope! It's a random trade, rotations, minutes, and defensive strategy change thread.

 

I agree with most of what you said, except that I think strategy and effort are a huge problem. By that I mean a coach should use a strategy that works best for the players that he has, not what he wants. If you don't have the players to run a particular defensive strategy effectively, while that may be a better defense theoretically, it's not the best defense to use for the current team. And effort is all about coaching (well of course players first), but the coach should be willing to sit anyone, including superstars, that don't give effort on defense. Lack of ability is one thing, you can't fault a person for that. Lack of effort should have consequences on playing time.

 

Lol, started this while watching the Miami debacle. Pretty much finished it before the game was over, but left it and didn't decide to post it until today when I added a few final thoughts.