Adrian Woj: Free Agents would love to play for Ime Udoka

Draymond is really not a good player. He does some dirty work on a stacked team. He would be pretty useless on any other team. He has probably sacrificed some for that team, but I doubt his production would go up much elsewhere. His value lies entirely within GSW. Other teams that need to establish a defensive identity could find cheaper options.

 

Seriously dude? In his prime, Donkey was easily the best defender in the NBA and still GSW’s best passer. Did you forget how he single handily pinned Capela as a lob threat through smart defensive positioning. You can debate whether he is a good offensive player or not, but he is definitely a good player.

 

seriously

I get that we have all been through **** and want to be positive

and I think Udoka will be a good coach for us

but ….
#1 what free agents are there out there ? (There’s like 3-5 really good players )
#2 what free agent leant want a part of some of this 60 mil cap space .

I also agree with @Corrosion we are in a good position . However , I think it’s just potential .

And I also agree with @Nook that the biggest factor is whether or not we get #1 …. And that boils down to luck

so far stone has been more lucky than good . Getting green was luck , there was a 50 percent chance we lose the pick . Tanking last year gave us odds we ended up hitting . Will we get lucky again ? Either way we “earned” a strong asset , will it turn into a great asset ?

Are we in a strong position to improve or do we just have nowhere to go but up ?

stone as a first time guy doing this terrifies me . Being bad isn’t brilliant . Neither is getting picks for harden . He’s gotta prove it more than drafting several guys who look pretty good .

 

seriously

I get that we have all been through **** and want to be positive

and I think Udoka will be a good coach for us

but ….
#1 what free agents are there out there ? (There’s like 3-5 really good players )
#2 what free agent leant want a part of some of this 60 mil cap space .

I also agree with @Corrosion we are in a good position . However , I think it’s just potential .

And I also agree with @Nook that the biggest factor is whether or not we get #1 …. And that boils down to luck

so far stone has been more lucky than good . Getting green was luck , there was a 50 percent chance we lose the pick . Tanking last year gave us odds we ended up hitting . Will we get lucky again ? Either way we “earned” a strong asset , will it turn into a great asset ?

Are we in a strong position to improve or do we just have nowhere to go but up ?

stone as a first time guy doing this terrifies me . Being bad isn’t brilliant . Neither is getting picks for harden . He’s gotta prove it more than drafting several guys who look pretty good .

we are throwing kids out there vs men . We had the audacity to make Christian wood a priority . We made Gordon unhappy , we purposely benched Tate (at least I think so) , there was no meritocracy on the floor.

it’s been real hard to watch .

we have to wait a couple more months and the outlook changes depending on the lottery. Let’s hold it in

 

He has actually looked really good in this playoffs. He will fit perfectly to assist these kids and cover for Harden and Greens lack defensive skills..

I believe ima can prolong his career and secondly I can’t believe I’m defending Green. Hell has frozen over lol

 

I despise Draymond due to his many dirty, dangerous plays, but at his peak he was a triple-double threat every night with elite defense. Don't see how you can say he's not a good player

 

If Draymond played for us instead we'd all love him like the GSW fans. Yesterday he provided help D for just long enough and then anticipated the pass from underneath the basket ... with his back turned while returning to defend the perimeter. Yes he got the steal without looking.

 

I agree with you… in his prime. He peaked early. Like I said, he probably sacrificed some for the championships. But he is not a good option for a team that isn’t stacked at every other position.

 

Everyone has a flaw, but no one's risk is as fatal to our cap space as Harden except Kawhi and Zion. Citing a flaw per player is not a serious assessment, you can do that exercise with a prime Michael Jordan even.

1) Harden is a PG on offense and a forward on defense. If Harden is guarding any guard, he's a defensive negative the entire regular season. Took Rivers over a year to figure that out, took MDA a few months and we know it. So if we're going all offense, give me the far younger KAT over Harden. KAT also happens to be one of the best big men shooters in NBA history and the fact that the Wolves never knew how to use him does NOT say to me that no one can (See: Wiggins). I can flip that asset in 2 years if I don't like it. I don't really like KAT, but I will take this risk over Harden. I know that some team like Miami or the Warriors would give us neutral value for him and we will never be stuck with a dead contract of a player that should be retiring.

2) All of these players are slowing down, none more than Harden. Draymond has won 4 titles as a key player. Harden could not possibly have a more winning impact on a team than Draymond who whenever he has been missing the Warriors have barely looked like a playoff team even with Steph Curry on the roster. Will not get the max anywhere, we have heard he might prefer to move on from the Warriors.

3) Jrue again started at PG and won a title and they weren't the most talented team in the league. Of course he is getting old and not capable of being a 2nd/3rd option on offense. That fits into our team nicely. Makes $33m/season and has only two years. That's not in the same ballpark of risk as Harden's contract.

4) Brooke Lopez is a top 3 DPOY candidate and at the most impactful defensive position. If that's old and slow, give me old and slow please. He will not cost anyone the max, but yes we would have to overpay to get him.

5) Paul George I would take over Harden any day of the week at this point. Both players are ageing and not what they once were but at least PG remains a two-way player who can score all the modern points and is as good off the ball as he is on the ball. He's a more Udoka type player than Harden by far. This is even with me knowing that at this current moment for one single game I would take Harden over George. But if we're committing years, give me George who will be able to do what he does and his decline has been slower than Harden's despite a major major injury. That's work, that's what off court work looks like. Critically, George has two years on this contract so the risk is nowhere near Harden's contract.

The reason I put Kawhi and Zion in there is because I'd rather have any of those 2 guys for 40 games than 62 games of a fat Harden. With Zion we could get miraculously fortunate with his health. With Kawhi there's unrivaled title experience. It's not so clear cut for me.

Again you have to have the proper context too: None of these guys will cost as much salary as Harden. We are under the cap and so it matters. No one is taking $45-$55m at ages 34-38 for one of the most abused and less taken care of bodies in the NBA. He is the worst person we can possibly overpay even if his talent is better than most of these guys at this present moment. He is one of the worst character guys on this list if he ends his career by just going home to a team that has no chance of winning a title. All of the guys on this list are ultra talented and all of them have a flaw or two, but none of them have as many risks and flaws as Harden. None.

If we land Wemby or another real star first, then there's a convo to be had and you probably jump on it. Otherwise, this contract has the highest risk of handicapping us right when we should be entering our contending window in a couple of years.

 

I get everyone wants Harden back because of nostalgia but he'd be a terrible fit defensively. 76ers fans have been complaining about his non-existent defense the last 2 seasons and it's only going to get worse as he ages.

 

Draymond being a great defender is just an anomaly, a by-product of how most of the league developed. He has excellent positional awareness and nimble feet, which allows him to show and then recover on the PnR, doesn't get out of position. That frustrated guys like Clint Capela who never could clear the roll against him.
However, stick him on a traditional post-up Center, and I think he gets toasted. They just never played Embiid enough to get exposed, and there are not many other old-school centers anymore.
I said it before: in 2018 Hakeem was 55 years old, I bet if we posted him against Draymond he would NOT go 0-27. We'd be NBA champions if we had a semi-decent post player, instead of relying on this bulshet gimmicky 3pt offense

 

I want this team to be seriously strong in a competitive WC setting and not blindly positive.

 

That's not all, the thing that has disappeared most is his ability to get to the line and right now his offensive efficiency in the playoffs is at a career low playing against the worst team he's ever faced in the playoffs and playing with the best player he's ever played with.

Harden is now the equivalent of a declining Steve Nash. He's a pretty good if streaky shooter and arguably the best passer in the NBA. He will give you nothing everywhere else and you are not even sure that like Nash he will stay in game shape.

 

Or you could just have said GSW is such an innovator that they could make use of a special player like Draymond.

I do think Draymond could have played on some of the teams just not as effectively.

 

Lol Nash was one of the best shooters in his time, Harden is an above average to good shooter but not great shooter.

 

I think he’s highly overrated but maybe that’s just me.

 

Harden is actually an elite shooter. Do you how hard it is to make that many off the dribble threes. He's obviously not all time level great like Nash. But he is an elite shooter in today's game.

You are gonna have to deal with him coming back next year dude lol.

 

Find some good defensive fits that can hit jumper.

I like Bruce Brown, Milton , Jakob Poeltl. Segun and Jakob would be dangerous duo in the league.

 

If Draymond becomes a Rocket I’m gonna have a strongly worded letter for Mr. Stone.