Amen will never reach his potential if his usage as a PG doesn't increase. Fox may be better now, but Amen is our potential superstar and DPOY, Fox is not. We aren't winning anything this year with Fox. Amen needs to get his playing time at PG this year and soon, not only to prepare him for next year, but to potentially unleash Jalen without expending valuable assets to bring in Fox. We need to find out about our players before we have to pay them. Amen is not a SF or SG and will not re-sign if he is relegated to a SF role.
I don’t disagree with his potential and usage point you made. I think with this year under his belt we can evaluate in the offseason what direction to go. As I said perhaps in a couple years he can be a dominant or very good player. I don’t believe implementing him now is a good idea since this would mean a reset of what this team has tried to build with Fred past 1.5 years. Where would Fred go? Certainly not to the bench. Trade for who? What if the team gets worse after the move? Any such moves seem premature at this point and probably more prudent to ride with this iteration than make any drastic changes like that. Like it or not Fred can hit 3’s and stretch defenses. He is more proficient than Amen with an elbow pullup. Amen doesn’t have those in his bag at least not consistently. I think the more prudent move would be to tactically change how much FVV touches the ball in the front court set
This is exactly who I think Fox would be for this team. It would be very akin to adding CP3 to those 2018 Rockets although let me be clear, I’m not saying it will yield the same results as CP3 and Harden are far superior players to Fox and Green. However, I do think there’s similarities in how CP3/Harden’s skills had so much overlap that people thought it wouldn’t work when in actuality, their overlap is exactly what made them a dominant partnership. CP3’s gravity as an offensive player allowed Harden to do what he truly does best which is isolation scoring while also being able to spell Harden from being the offensive initiator for a full 40 mins a night. And similarly, Harden opened things up for CP3 because teams had to focus on stopping Harden first. Now this brings me to De’Aaron and Jalen. De’Aaron fixes two of Jalen’s problems within this offense. De’Aaron increases the pace which will allow the team as a whole to play faster consistently (something Jalen been asking for the past two years) and his gravity as a scorer will open up easier opportunities for Jalen on the perimeter. Jalen’s worst games have come against teams that could load up their best perimeter defenders on him knowing there isn’t another dynamic perimeter threat to worry about. This also prevents us from giving up one of our biggest assets in Jalen and getting another look at him where he can play uptempo more consistently and also with a younger, more dynamic guard. If it fails, you put Jalen in a trade to get a better backcourt partner for Fox. And the Jalen-FVV backcourt issue is solved.
Bingo! This fanbase and their hatred of Jalen is blinding them from seeing how much better we’d be if we just tried to replace Fred first before trying to even touch one of our young core who is currently in rotation.
Those are solid points. I do think to prepare Amen to make significant progress early next year he needs much more time on the court without FVV. Right now, Ime is limiting his minutes way too much and it is too often with FVV on the court. That pretty much relegates him to the dunker spot. It's probably good for winning games this year, but counter productive to preparing for when we will be real threats to contend. I think this year should be more about development than playoffs, but that would be a hard pill for Ime and most fans to swallow. I'm just a patient fan and want us to build this team for a decade of contention and we have to find out who to pay and who to trade soon. I would be ok with status quo until Feb. 1, after this very tough stretch, to decide to go all in on the playoffs or rotating to development at the cost of a few games here or there. I hope I'm wrong, but I think we will drop to only a few games above .500 by then. Winning the next 3 games is very important. We know what Fred is and that he will not be our PG past next year at most. In the meantime, decisions will have to be made on Jalen, Jabari, and Tari. We also don't know if Fred and Dillon are going to move toward their norm this year (FVV to the positive and Dillon to the negative). One thing I do know is that Fred is never going to play "fast".
I don't see Fox as a replacement for Green, I see him as moving on from FVV who I just can't see being on this team going forward. You have to get more for your money, especially when it's ~30% of the cap. Fox is the exit strategy .... and you worry about Jalen after the poison pill is no longer an issue.
It really is about cost other than FVV, you would have to re-coup the assets by trading Fox by the deadline next year or the opportunity cost is even greater than letting FVV walk. Fox wants Max money for a position that our best player aspires to play. Who do you give that max money to, Fox or Amen? Jabari and Tari also will have to be decided on by then. Is Fox our PG for our title runs? If he is one of your Max players, who is the other one? You can only have 2 and fill out a competitive roster with the new Apron rules. If it was FVV and maybe our own FRP in 27, I might do it just to see if he would help unlock Jalen and help us maybe have a chance in the first round of the playoffs. Anything more and I punt. I'd love to move on from FVV and the sooner the better.
Regarding the shooting, Jalen has been getting worse year-over-year every season, while Fox has improved the past two-and-a-quarter seasons. If you look at their respective performances dating back to the beginning of the 2022-2023 season, Fox has averaged 34.9% from three (176 games) while JG has averaged 33.2% (185 games). I guess it comes back to the same issue with Jalen's lack of improvement as a shooter--I'm just really losing faith he's ever going to improve, while I think Fox has shown evidence that he already has become an average-ish shooter. I agree there are better possible fits out there than Fox, I just wonder whether any of them will become available to us. Could end up being a "beggars can't be choosers" situation when looking for a legit all-star to add to the team.
We’re 19-9, most of our team is under 23, we have a pristine cap sheet and a surplus of high value future picks. We’re not beggars. We’re the opposite of beggars. We can, in fact, be choosers.
I really don't see the negatives. You can play Amen with Fox. Fox may want a supermax but he isn't eligible unless he makes an All NBA team, this year or next. Right now he's due 4/229 - after Next Season. If he does earn that all NBA team .... he's likely earned that supermax. First on my to do list this offseason is to move Jalen Green for a 3D type at the 2 guard spot that's cost effective and that allows you to also pay Jabari, Tari & Amen when the time comes. As for compensation - This isn't an all in move, cost matters. I'd offer them FVV, Cam & this years draft pick top 4 protected. I think he'd make a bigger impact (with a good 3D/shooter at the 2) than going the Booker route. His rim pressure us superior to all of the above - Jalen, FVV, Booker .... he makes his money attacking the rim. And even if you decide to trade him later, he's a much better player / asset than FVV or Jalen. The only reason you have a chance to get him is he won't resign with Sacramento.
So, we want to give up important assets to bring in a 6’3” sg with less athleticism with less athleticism than JG that shoots only 33% from 3 and 48% from the floor, which is 51st in the league? Brilliant!
