I think the new CBA is going to cause some teams to make some REALLY hard decisions in the coming years and it will redistribute talent across the league in new and novel ways. For instance, you can definitely sign two max guys but it's really hard to sign two supermax guys(think Boston) and still be able to field a roster around them so you either have to be very confident in the dominance of your supermax guys or you gotta redistribute the talent. Same thing applies to 3 max contract guys(think OKC when Chet and JDub get extensions) - it's a tough ask to be able to build a team around 3 max guys with the current soft cap because effectively it's a hard cap because of the competitive limitations it puts on acquiring cheap good players for teams operating over the cap. Throw another "what about" for a team with one supermax guy and TWO max guys(think OKC after SGA's next deal in '25). This is going to shake out one of two ways - either the concepts of who actually gets a max deal is going to change(so guys who get max deals today may not be getting max deals in the future) or the value of non max players is going to be lower across the board to compensate(creating a richer upper class but poorer middle class of NBA players) because the overall pool of money league wide to play players will probably not shift as dramatically as it did in the past to fund superteams. All that to say if you are a team that has talent and picks to trade(rookie scale deals for decent players are going to be one of the most valuable assets in the new CBA), you can be in a position to make some sizable trade swings in ways that I don't think were possible in the old CBA. Like - Boston may decide Jayson Tatum+current roster minus Brown is > JT+Jaylen Brown+nearly league minimum guys. OKC might have to part with one of SGA, Chet, jDub in the next two years. I like the idea of Ball but I wonder if we could aim even higher.
If we swap Jalen Green with any current all-star level shooting guard in this league we are already WCF bound.. That's how close we are because our defense is elite. Other areas of improvement is replacing Jock or Adams for a better backup center. I've been pushing for Rob Williams on the Blazers because he's on a team friendly contract plus he's one of Ime's guys from his Celtics days. He is injury prone so a trade for him wouldn't be expensive. I think a 2nd round pick gets it done. As for a championship, I think as long as we fix our biggest problem (SG), we can have the rest of our guys develop into their primes and we will be a championship caliber team. The key and problem is trying to trade for a SG that still has a couple year before he hits 30s without gutting our core. I think we can pull it off. A couple guys I'm eyeing on in case their team blows up: LaMelo Ball (2Guard, had some friction with new coach early this season) De'Aaron Fox (2Guard, Kings are going nowhere and might blow it up soon) Luka Doncic (unlikely but Mavs are struggling a bit this season and they have no ways to improve) Anthony Edwards (also unlikely but Wolves fans are in complete meltdown because of their regression after a horrible KAT-Randle trade) Cam Thomas (pure scorer, fits our timeline, but is he just an empty stats guy?) Tyler Herro (available now but he is not all-star level, think Jamal Murray when he's on fire) Brandon Ingram (available now but will demand a huge contract next offseason) Zach Lavine (available now but is on a massive contract) Jordan Poole (available now but has questionable work ethic and drive to win since he won a ring too young and got paid) Trae Young (probably available now but defense/fit issues) Devin Booker (the target most Rockets fans are eyeing but because of how well the Suns are playing, I doubt it)
Honestly if we just stick with Ime and the guys we’ve got, and replace Jalen with a good player who can shoot, we are going to be contending for a long time. We may need to make a significant move down the line to get over the championship hump, but we’ve got great bones.
