A few reasons to oppose D-Wade. First, on general principle. He's a clown. "It's gonna be easy..." Second, he's old. He'll be 34 for this season. Third, his health. He has missed 20, 28, 13, and 17 games over the past four seasons. I wouldn't pencil him in for 60 games this coming season. Fourth, he shot 47% on FGs last year; that's fine for a Guard, provided the Guard can hit threes. We know he can't. Fifth, after a career of impressive ORtg-DRtg, he was at -6 last season. Sixth, his USG% was 34.7% last season! That's above his career mark, and it's the highest since 2009/10 for him, when he was actually a ridiculously good player. In brief, then, he gives us nothing that we need on this team, is best when he has the ball in his hands - a lot, is looking for big $, and won't be healthy anyway. Avoid.
Oh, I get it. I wouldn't even look his way. Riles and Wade will come to an agreement. I'm more interested to see what happens with Dragic in this situation. I want to see if he get paid or not; the D-Wade contract impasse could effect the contract negotiations between Riles and Dragic's reps. Unlikely, but I hope it happens.
I didn't KNOW I get myself into trouble on Lakers boards, because I'm a huge Lakers fan, but I'm an even bigger fan of Kobe.
I wrote something that is pretty long. Apologies. The Idea I don't know what our roster is going to look like, so we might need to find a starter at Wing and Big. I take it we're drafting a Big, so we need a starter at Wing. We might even need two given Kobe's situation. So here are some thoughts on players we should pursue. I assume for now that cap will be 67.1M. We have ~37M invested, plus ~4M for Okafor. So we have ~26M to play with. Projected Wins: 14.6 (this is an incomplete roster, mind you) The Levels Bargain Bin: Vet Min Regular Grade: BAE-type money Mid-Grade: MLE-type money Premium: Big $ - Max or close to it. -If you see a player listed for a value and think that player would never sign at that level, then I don't want that player. POINT GUARD Bargain: Aaron Brooks Regular: Jeremy Lin, Patrick Beverley Mid-Grade: Mo Williams Premium: Reggie Jackson --Brooks can score and hit the three. We know what Lin offers, which is quality as a backup and spot starter but not more. Beverley offers the defense that we could use. Mo is a better PG than Brooks, but if you're looking for bang-for-buck, Brooks would be the best here by far. I'm not sold on Jackson at near Max, mind you, so my preference would be: Brooks, Lin, Williams, Beverley, in that order. WING Bargain: KJ McDaniels, Wayne Ellington Regular: Iman Shumpert, Rodney Stuckey, Gerald Green Mid-Grade: Danny Green, Monta Ellis, Wesley Matthews, Luol Deng Premium: Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris, Khris Middleton, DeMarre Carroll --This is our biggest need, in my view. We have an oft-injured, aging starter (Kobe) and a black hole (Wes Johnson?). Butler and Harris are my top preferences, but I can't see Butler leaving. Middleton and Carroll would be fine, but I'd rather take one of the mid-grade players - Green and Ellis as my preferences. I'd love to see Ellington come back at Vet Min-type money. BIG Bargain: Samuel Dalembert, Joel Anthony, Bernard James Regular: Bismack Biyombo, Emeka Okafor, Carlos Boozer, Ed Davis Mid-grade: Tyson Chandler, Brandan Wright, Kosta Koufos Premium: LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, Marc Gasol --I think that if you can snag one of those Premium players, you do it, even if we draft a big. LMA and Love are PFs, and Gasol would be a great player to learn from for a big. Biyombo is probably my favorite among the non Premiums. Scenario 1: Kevin Love (~19m) Clarkson/Brooks+2.4 Kobe/Stuckey+3.2 Randle/Young Love +8/Black/Kelly Okafor+1.7/Biyombo+3.2 -I don't love Randle at SF, at least not full time. We'd need another Center, and we'd need some shooting and defense. We'd have about 7M to do that. We could add Biyombo for ~3M and Stuckey for about the same. We'd need a bargain PG. We'd have two draft choices remaining, but we could honestly draft any position given this roster. Love likely makes attracting a FA a bit easier in the long run, but it complicates things from a roster POV for next season. Projected Wins: 33.1 Scenario 2: Tobias Harris (~16m) Clarkson/Brooks+2.4 Kobe/Ellis+4.2 Harris+4.1/Young Randle/Black/Kelly Okafor+1.7/Biyombo+3.2 -This team keeps Randle at his PF position more, and it gives us a versatile wing. We have 10M to add pieces. Biyombo is a great add again. Then we can add a more talented Wing/Guard. If we could bring in Monta, that would be huge. I'd add Brooks again. We can, again, draft any position given our depth. This approach doesn't give us one strong recruiting chip, but it does give us a strong team across the boards, and a Free Agent would understand the strong supporting cast. Projected Wins: 30.2 Scenario 3: No Premiums Clarkson/Ellis+4.2 Kobe/G. Green+2.8 D. Green+6.4/Young Randle/Black/Kelly Okafor+1.7/Biyombo+3.2 -With 26M to build, we could add a mid-range player at each position type. Ellis could handle the Guard spot. Green could be our wing. Biyombo could again man our backup C. But we'd still have a good bit of $ left to add Stuckey or the other Green. I think this is an even stronger supporting cast than in the previous scenario, and we could add a top flight player at Wing to replace Kobe. Projected Wins: 32.9 Humble Assumptions: Feel free to skip Breakout Potential: You may skip That's +6.2 wins. Scenario 1: 39.3 Wins Scenario 2: 36.4 Wins Scenario 3: 39.1 Wins But in all these cases, Kobe comes off the books and we have a max slot open.
Wade had a PER of 22.0 and 21.4 at ages 32 and 33, and he posted 8.0 combined Win Shares. Kobe posted 23.9 and 21.9 PERs and accounted for 16.4 combined Win Shares. Then at 34 Kobe added 23.0 PER and 10.9 Win Shares. Not bad. Don't see Wade doing that.
In brief, I don't know that we make the playoffs again next season, but we'd be pretty damn close, young, and really talented. A ripe spot for a superstar to land.
Not quoting any posts, just coming strong against the entire opposing side of the argument. I like it Real! I'm not in the camp that thinks NY is a better situation, I just understand why some would feel that way. There are too many unknowns to say we'd provide the better situation without relying almost entirely on guesswork & optimism. With that said, I believe in those unknowns. I believe Mitch will do the right thing with the #2. That might mean trading it for an established Star or simply drafting the right player. I believe in our staff, Kobe, & alumni to help turn the player we take at #2 into a better player than they'd be with any other team. Noone hits a homerun every time, but I believe the potential is there for Mitch to pull off another Clarkson with the #27 or #34. Speaking of Clarkson, I believe he's the real thing & will continue to make teams regret passing on him. I see Randle developing into a solid starter or 6th man, possibly on the level of LO. I believe all of that, but I don't know how much of it I'd believe if I wasn't a fan & that's why I can see the other side of the debate. That's where my optimism ends. I don't think Kobe can be counted on for much outside of mentoring the young guys. I wrote an explanation on why but it ended up too long so I'll post it in the Kobe thread if you're interested. I'm also not confident we'll improve the team much this offseason. Mitch said something like getting the #2 pick took some of the pressure off of them to do something "borderline". Hopefully he just meant we're not going to overpay for Rondo or something, but I took it to mean we're focusing on the young guys, we aren't trading for or signing a big name Star player/Max FA unless they fit with that group(young, don't play same position as any of the current youngsters) & that they won't consider trading young for old. If that's the case, I think they're making a huge mistake. We should be trying to put together the best team we can for this season, & if signing or making a good trade for a Superstar is an option we should do it regardless of age or position. If we want a chance at any of the top FA's next summer, we need to make the playoffs. Nearly every team in the league is going to have max cap room & that's going to allow the top tier FA's to hand pick their team. Lottery teams won't even be considered. Look at this summer. Even though there's far less teams with max space, instead of discussing potential fits with Okafor/Towns + Gasol/LMA, we're debating if a 3rd tier FA like Carroll might choose us over the Knicks. To speak directly to your post, & I admit some of this is pure devil's advocate: 1. A lot depends on Melo's health. A healthy Melo could carry a much worse team than that to the playoffs in the East. You know I'm not high on Monroe AT ALL, but if we had Phil overseeing a coach running the triangle, I'd change my mind quickly. There's no better system for a good post player to be in. Not a Carroll fan either, but he can atleast make up for some of the defense the other 2 won't ever play. 2. Randle is for all intents & purposes a rookie. We'll be lucky to get more than 26 MPG out of him. Let's not pretend he's going to come straight into the league as an allstar. He's going to need a lot of work. You can't mention the #2 without also mentioning the #4. I know everyone considers the top 2 bigs sure things, but just for kicks let's compare since 08: #2 #4 Beasley / Westbrook Thabeet / Evans Turner / Wes Johnson Derrick Williams / Tristan Thompson MKG / Waiters Oladipo / Zeller Parker / Gordon The only star in the group is Westbrook @ #4. Other than that it's pretty evenly split. I believe Clarkson will have a much better career, but as of today he's pretty even with Hardaway Jr. Calderon is fresh off being good enough to start on a playoff Mavs team. They definitely aren't loaded, they were a lottery team for a reason, just like us. But add 3 new starters + getting Melo back & thats a completely different team. 3. Agreed. Melo definitely chose money over winning. I'm sure all of Phil's rings gave him some delusions of being able to get the money & still win, but if he was in Chicago & stayed healthy, they would have just beat a Love & Irving'less Cavs team on their way to the finals. 4. Anytime Jimbo does something moronic, if I want to make myself feel better with an "atleast he's not ______", Dolan & IT are the first 2 names that come to mind. No arguments there.
New York vs. LA New York has even more flexibility than LA, but New York has an unproven coach and a nightmare of a Front Office situation. I wouldn't commit there long term, and I wouldn't be eager to re-sign there either. LA's slightly less flexibility comes with greater confidence in the FO (and I know that's sometimes hard to imagine) and a really interesting young core. I don't think you'd have to be crazy to favor New York, but you'd need to know some things we outsiders don't.
I looked at those three teams I generated in a different way. The Pythagorean Win Projections were a little better: Team A: 42 Wins Team B: 37 Wins Team C: 42 Wins
They want to attract Durant in 2016. Having a core of young talent + capspace will be an attractive destination even if they're not a playoff team. Look at Lebron in Cleveland. They weren't a playoff team, but Lebron liked their young core and they're now in the Finals. Otherwise, the FO would probably have to take a chance on Rondo or some other "borderline" star to put us in a playoff position in order to attract Durant or another legit star's interest.
The problem with that is Lebron is the only example of that happening that I know of, & it was his hometown team/a great story to repair his image after he abandoned them, and he already knew Love was on his way. I can't think of any other times a top 5 or even top 10 player left a contender for a lottery team. I don't think we have any shot at KD unless we're a playoff team already. I agree with not gambling on Rondo unless he's on a cheap contract after we've already added a real impact FA. But if you can get a guy like Love or Monta, you do it without worrying about what it does to Clarkson or Randle's development. If it makes us a playoff team and attracts KD or another franchise player, that's the move you make.
