2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

Yes, that would be the best of both worlds. Not sure I would have them both unprotected though, but if you are looking for a "puts us as a frontrunner" trade, then I don't know that you could make a more realistic or better one that that deal....

PF Myles Turner
SF LeBron James
C Anthony Davis
SG Buddy Hield
PG Dennis Schroeder

F Raui Hachimura
F Weylen Gabriel
C Thomas Bryant
G Lonnie Walker
G Austin Reaves

Add whatever upgrade you could get for PatBev as the icing and us being able to keep Max Chrsitie and ya, I would like our chances...

 

We started out 2-10 with a new HC, new rotation players and Lebron starting out slow. It is not some given that we would have continued like that, with a healthy AD. So all of these examples of trying to throw out the record, with or without AD is disingenuous, because it lacks context.

What you end up doing, is trying to critique the team's flaws, as if AD's presence doesn't matter. That is ridiculous, it's easy to say " Hey look how much better we'd have been with more shooting ". Yeah well look how much better we'd have been with a healthy AD.

We won a chip with the 21st ranked 3pt shooting team in the League. In a year where everyone was harping about needing great 3pt shooting. We won with size and D, in addition to AD and Lebron playing at a high level . We could do the exact same thing with Myles Turner. Rui is a nice pickup, I can see him giving us some offensive punch when Lebron sits. But he is not as good of a 4 as Turner is, and Turner can play the 5 WITH AD.

I'd be extremely happy if we moved Bryant or Wenyen for Myles Turner. We got the better of that exchange IMO. There is more than one way to win in this League, there is no exact blueprint. However again, I don't think there is a team in the West that could beat us in a 7 game series with Turner and AD anchoring our D.

I'm not saying at all that this is the only way that we could do it either. It's just the one that I prefer. I love bigs, and AD and Myles would be the best frontcourt in the NBA for years. Turner is only 26.
Bev has to go anyway to make that trade happen, win,win,win IMO.

The debate will go on and on until the deadline passes. I guess we'll see what Rob has in mind soon.

 

Who's guarding point guards in that line-up?

 

Top three team in the West

 

crap totally didn't read that part agreed

 

I can see pelinka ship out reeves/Christie to San Antonio for a player like j Richardson which is a loss for us

 

No way.

 

Doubt that!

 

No, like you always do you change the subject or the point being debated to advocate (again, yawn) the COMMON SENSE knowledge throughout the NBA that the formula that works best with AD and LeBron is in fact having good perimeter defenders and SHOOTERS...period.

No, me simply pointing out that we would have to have been 23-0 with AD playing those games (therefore it being inline with you statement we would be at the top of the West) is in fact FACTUAL and not disingenuous AT ALL.

What is disingenuous however is you trying to make it something other than what was said (written). I never said we wouldn't be better or anything like that (or higher in the West) just that it is utterly insane to suggest (which you did) that we would have been 23-0 with him in those contests and top in the West. It is much more logical that we would be 10-12 games better if we were middle of the pack in 3-pt shooting (instead of 26th in percentage and DEAD LAST in makes).

And yes we won in 2020 with average shooting, no argument there, but it is still night and day what we have now (12 points better of .349 to currently at .337) and they also managed to get that up to over 35% and over 12 makes per game in the playoffs (we are making barely 10 per game). But we also had size and good defenders on the perimeter with KCP, Caruso, Kuzma and Green- something we sorely lack now and something we are not going to be able to trade for...

Not advocating against going after Turner, and I agree that he would be one of a short list of difference makers up front and somehow getting our defense closer to where it should be but he isn't solving the shooting problems we have

 

Our defense against pgs would be our length and ability to switch everything. Technically, who would be the guy spending energy on the primary ball handler? Probably Rui

 

There isn't some blueprint, to what works best with Lebron and AD, besides them being healthy IMO. We only had that for one season, so the team we had that season did work, it's not some set in stone idea, that's the only thing that would work.
If AD missed half of that season, we wouldn't have won anything. So it's still to be determined IMO

Where did I say we would be 23-0? Point that out, bold it for me. I wrote no such thing. Sacramento is 3rd in the West right now, 5 games ahead of us. I said that we would be top 3 in the West with AD before he ever got hurt. We would be too. Top 3 is the top in the West, is what I was referring to, I didn't say first place, I've have never said 1st place at all.

Back to 3pt shooting, Without out current best 3pt shooters, it's again easy to harp on pct. They won't miss the rest of the season, and if the guys we have right now, just shoot their career averages, we'll be fine. Turner is shooting 40% and Rui has 3 pt ability,

Rui, Walker, Brown and Reaves are not exactly some small group of guys either ,
compared to KCP, Caruso, Green and Kuz

Opposing teams perimeter players were getting theirs, against them too in the bubble. Folks act like they were out there shutting people down, or something, that's not exactly what actually happened.

 

You knoww as upside down our trades before rui have been

 

Yikes. That's unrealistic. And you can't put LeBron chasing guards, he plays the 1 on offense but needs to defend 3 or 4. That's why we were playing 2 or 3 of KCP/Caruso/Green/Bradley/Kuz in the title season when he was handling the 1 on offense.

I think Turner option is gone after going for Rui. But Hield would still make tons of sense. I'm still not sure if I would give a 1st for that, nor Reaves/Max. I think it's the same Pelinka's reservations on pulling the trigger

It's not a post-Lebron move and would unable to hunt anyone in the market until 2026, but it might give us a fair chance to pull out of the West. I'm just not sure with Hield we would beat Warriors, Memphis or Clippers

AHAHAHAH
Man, c'mon have some self pride. You say top of the West and now that you got it debunked, it's top 3
It's ok to be wrong sometimes

 

I've said top 3 in the West "as currently constructed" since training camp. But if that is what you want cool.

 

No one said a complete "blueprint" or the "only thing that will work" but obviously it helps and is ideal to surround two of the most dominant big men in the game with shooters and defense-oriented guards/wing players. You make yourself look more and more stupid by not acknowledging it (and we all know why because you are one of the few who still hold their head up high by refusing to admit how drastic of a mistake it was trading for Westbrook and subsequently losing all our good guards/wings in the process). It is why you also continue to fill this forum with how unimportant it is to have shooting or do what anyone with half a brain would acknowledge and every insider harps on over and over again. (Pelinka FINALLY made a move to address this with the Rui trade)...

To quote you completely you said: "If AD doesn't miss 20 games, we'd be at the top of the West too."

1) That was in a REPLY TO ME where I said "If we were just middle of the pack with this (3 point makes and shooting %), we would probably be leading the West right now instead of being 23-26 and in 13th place." So anyone would assume you meant the same with your comparison because of your inclusion of...
2) the word "too". Which means also. So of course ANYONE with any reading and comprehension ability would think that means leading the west just like I said....

Of course now (yawn, no surprise) you want to say it meant something else.

Well even your insistence we would be 3rd in the West (28-21 right now and a game in front of the Kings) would mean being 16-7 in those games AD missed, and considering we are 12-14 with him; even that is a reach....

No, there is no comparing the four back in 2019-20 (who were all getting 23+ minutes per game in the playoffs) of Caldwell-Pope, Green, Kuzma and Caruso with the four you mentioned (and yes you were obvious with your inclusion of Troy Brown Jr and your exclusion of 30-minute per game players Dennis Schroder and Russell Westbrook) defensively. They were much better defenders and if you were being honest it would be a comparison of both midgets DS and RW along with Rui and Reaves and not Walker (who is now being mentioned as being in any PatBev trade) or Brown Jr. who everyone knows is likely getting squeezed out of any serious rotation if we do make a trade.

Enough already...

 

Meh..pretty childish with the petty insults, belies your age, perhaps I hurt your feelings because I don't find anything you said that impressive. That's life, your opinions won't always be looked at as favorable as you do.

If you don't comprehend that trying to compare our team with AD, at the start of the season, and now as the team has evolved, is silly as hell, then it's all a waste of time anyway. Trotting out the win loss record with a 2-10 start, is the only weight that your take has I suppose. I get it though, 10-4 doesn't have the same ring to it as 12-14. We could have went 16-7 or 19-4, we'll never know. I know that I hadn't seen AD as dominant, as he was before the Denver game, since he was in New Orleans.


Again you have no idea who will be playing or not by the playoffs. Me either, it's an opinion . Rondo looked like crap all season but played his a** off in the bubble. This team is set up differently than that one, and I haven't seen anything to suggest that they can't get the prize with a healthy Lebron and AD either. You do, great, the players will decide who got it right.

 

i mean, sacramento is in 3rd, winning 57% of their games, and since the 2-10 start, we've won...57% of our games.

and no, you can't just dismiss 12 games out of hand, nor does sac really qualify as a 3 seed in a typical year, but technically...

anyway, we're currently in 13th and probably going to lose tonight. every team we're chasing has been near or above .500 for their last 10 games.

we need some help, either from internal growth and improved health or for some teams above us to suffer like we have.

 

You can't discount AD missing 23 games either. We played .500 ball without him, could have played .75 or better with him. We could go 1-4 on this trip or 5-0, or somewhere in between. We are about to find out.

We are more than capable of going on a 10 game winning streak. That would flip a lot, anyway we'll see. I totally expect a win tonight in Boston myself.

 

Turner would eat all of our off-season cap space for a guy who ultimately plays at a position where AD plays in the playoffs. And you want to give him 2 FRPs too. I think he'd be a nice addition but nowhere near the value you place on him. There are only so many blocks in a game.