WMC 24-25: What To WMC About Now? PLAYOFF TIME!

The last sentence is what drives me nuts about our front office. We constantly bring in guys for a season or less and then lose them for nothing.

 

It's like all my concerns about this approach are playing out in front of us.

We now pretty much have to get Kessler or someone to make this all okay.

 

Gotta let it play out. My guess is with the Lakers not making moves yet, they're just waiting on confirmation from Duren and Walker with Walker being their first option. I think Pistons are going to match or else they lose their "robin" to Cunningham. Utah can afford to lose Walker so it might not be as high up there for him.

My only gripe is this better not be a situation of the Lakers not being able to fill out the roster with good valued players when guys like you mentioned: Goodwin, Tim Hardaway Jr., Ellis, and maybe Smart are getting signed to very low contracts. Goodwin+Ellis at $15 million total is a steal. If you're going to let Smart walk, that's a type of move that they can justify.

 

I'm hoping for Kessler, John Collins, Sandro, and Grimes. Find some trade for Ayton + Vando with a first round pick for another rotation player. Re-sign Smart.

Frontcourt: Kessler, Collins, Sandro, Hayes

SG: Reaves, Carr, Bronny, Grimes

PG: Luka, Smart

SF: LaRavia, Adou

*$20 million salary player

 

Our roster scares nobody

 

Well it scares us,

 

Super Saiyan Luka and we make the play-in. Let's go, woohhhoooo.

 

Looking for defense on this roster after WK

Going to be first to 130 points and we'll be a bottom half defense...probably bottom 1/3 unless the Thiero and Carr surpass anyone's best case scenario for either of them this season.


There is no veteran leadership on this roster. Luka isn't that type of superstar. Austin isn't that guy, either. There's no on the floor or locker room leadership. Smart had to hype up Ayton DAILY and he was our starting C then. The kind of gimmicky s*** we're going to have to do for him this year as backup...can't wait.


We are thinner depth wise and still missing two starters, we are worse defensively, worse shooting, smaller, lack leadership, and lack assets to address these concerns.

We dropped from a 3rd seed to probably a 6th seed in Luka's prime. Perfect timing.

Yippie!

 

Or we can choose to focus on the positive and admit we knew the first season sans Lebron would be a huge adjustment.

Things could easily be worse.

 

I just don't agree with being worse defensively, shooting or smaller.

Kessler is the better defender of the 8 guys (the 4 in and 4 out). Only Sexton is worse defensively than Kennard, Rui and Bron (of today, that picks his spots). We're better defensively

We got shooting too. Smart and Bron were bad shooters. Kennard was great but was low volume. But yeah the 2 best shooters were Rui and Kennard. Sexton, Grimes and Mamu all shoot though, so we got more perimeter players who shoot better. I'd say we're at least neutral there.

We got size too. The tallest 2 guys of those 8 are Kessler and Mamu. Grimes is like Smart's height no? So we really just lost size with Sexton vs Kennard. It's not like Luke used his size or anything. We got better there too

Edit: lol didn't notice it was the WMC. Sorry

 

Yikes

When you put it like that it's not so rosy

 

when you lose a player of lebron's stature, the usual result is plummeting to the very bottom of the standings. dropping just to 6th would be a minor miracle in historical context.

my wmc is still just the length of contracts and player options. nobody else was doing this. it would be different if we actually nabbed all the very best FAs, but comparable guys like wade and ellis got less money per and less guaranteed total than the guys we signed. this WILL come back to haunt us in at least one case. which one, i don't know, but i feel pretty certain we're going to be cursing about at least one of the deals. probably grimes, even though i'm a big fan of his game, his health has been iffy, and as svtzr said, he's never been good on both ends simultaneously.

i'm also still upset about losing smart at that price point. he was definitely a heart and soul type leader last year, and we could have used that again.

 

All legitimate concerns

Contract years and player option are out of place

Better for 3 years and the last a team option