To me that’s easy to say in hindsight. But it’s a Kuzma thread and I suggest we don’t worry about it and detail the thread. Ingram is gone and no use getting caught up on woulda, shoulda, coulda’s.
Yeah. Ingram was the only player on our roster that had a chance to be an all-star. There's no way we could have kept him. And as Khmrp pointed out, the main objective after trading AD was to open up another max slot. Ingram's salary (while small) was still too much to make that happen. Obviously keeping Ingram over Kuz would have been amazing. I'm not sure if anyone on this board, given the choice, would have elected to keep Kuzma over Ingram. But the fact that every person on this board knew Ingram was better than Kuzma...the Pelicans obviously knew too. If it was an option to keep Ingram over Kuzma, then obviously we should have done that and gone hard after DeAngelo Russell with the smaller max slot. But it was never really an option.
This is on Vogel - these last 5 games showed that Kuzma can play if we give him the freedom to handle the ball and make plays - but we're not doing that for him. You need to give Kuzma opportunities to do that stuff - you can't always put him with LeBron or AD - heck, don't put him with JUST AD ever - that doesn't work. We need to re-watch that OKC game and see how we played Kuzma in that game and then try and replicate that during the non-LeBron and non-AD minutes. Let Kuzma go PnR with Dwight...let Kuzma go in the post - let Kuzma CREATE- we need to develop him in that area. We keep putting him in lineups with effing Rondo wtf do you think is gonna happen? So sick of this man - Kuzma can PLAY - and instead, we might end up trading him for efffing Derrick Rose because we couldn't figure out how to use him
Watch us just let him go somewhere else and see him put up Ingram numbers SMH I hope they can figure it out
There were several times where Kuzma had solid looks at the basket, but then tried to do too much and overpassed. Sit him down and tell him to score. That is his job when he goes out on the court and right now for whatever reason he's trying too hard to create for others.
his teammates have basically said that's what they are trying to get him to do we'll see how this works out. Some great signs, and some great stinkers along the way. Wouldn't be the first time we used a player wrong.
Listening to his interviews, looking at his wardrobe and hair, he doesn't strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe that's the problem. He tries to think on the court, when he should just play ball.
On a bad team, he definitely will. And that's fine. He just is such a horrible fit with this team, it's painful to watch. If he does put up those BI numbers, I hope people don't overreact and realize that was never going to happen here.
He can ball. No doubt. When he wants. And never with AD. And if he's not getting buckets, he's typically not doing anything else. That inconsistency and incompatibility means he has to get gone. Whether it's in the next two weeks or this time next year. If you can get Rose for the next year 1/2, I do it without any hesitation. Yes, there's injury concerns, but he is putting up numbers similar to his MVP season for $7m and change. If people call Kuz a bargain, that's a hijacking. It pushed Rondo much further down the rotation and gives us the ability to sit Bron (buying him more seasons with us) and not have the ball completely stop. Both are "rentals" because I don't think either will be here still after their contract is up. And so what if in that process Rose does give hurt? I'd rather make that sacrifice than continuing to burn out Bron and risk him injuring himself. I'll settle for Collison. Happily. That's assuming he's in game shape and hasn't lost a step. But let's be clear, that is settling. The other option is killing it and the biggest difference between now and the last time D Rose put up these kind of numbers, he has a J now. But in the case we go with Collison, I still look for a wing upgrade by moving Kuz. Ideally we can get Rose and Morris, I just don't see how to make that work with our available contracts.
Didn't Rose recently move into their starting rotation? The only way they'd trade him to us is if they had inside information that he was going to be chronically injured imo He's one of their best players from what I can see... he was only on the bench to provide a catalyst for the second unit.
It's all depending on if they find a deal for Drummond. They're still shopping him, even after things fell apart with the Hawks. If they do that, they're committing to the rebuild and a lost season. Rose will be wasting away there if that happens.
It stinks to watch our good talent go away though because they are a poor fit with a system heavily designed a single aging player that really dictates how our system runs. The practical side of me looks at that objectively and thinks it's a poor risk. Put limited skill/specialty skill pieces around a 35 year old back of prime superstar with high mileage, run him 35 minutes a game, have him play perhaps the most taxing position in the league, ship out all of your developing talent, and have very little in the pipeline if it falls apart. LeBron is a great player, but is this a 2 year run? 1 year? I can't imagine 3 yet. We have some talent in the G League, but our roster has holes, and our two big aces won't always come through in the clutch. Do we have the right pieces around those 2? Are the holes in our roster less than other teams, or can we overcome them? We very well might, and I guess that's what makes this game great. You have to play the games. When it counts, who will step up in a tight match and who will falter. We have way too many unknowns on this team to know for sure.
Kuz has been making this a harder decision than I would have thought. Great games followed by stinkers. He's making equal cases to keep him and to trade him lately. I really thought it was pretty cut and dried to keep him at his salary point and with little chance of getting a better player back in return.
Annoying as his game is, i just don’t see how trading Kuz makes us better. We’re depleted enough at the wing position as it currently is. We need additional talent without losing what we already have.
You're introspective today. What's going on? You're not in your feelings are you? Stop it and make us laugh?
I feel you man, but isn't that just another way of saying "he's inconsistent?" All these guys are exceptional basketball players, that's why they're in the NBA. Even guys like Mbenga had the occasional night (okay, maybe not Mbenga). But what separates the mice from the men is the ability to set a standard, and consistently reach it every night, with the few exceptions that prove the rule. 3rd year is make-or-break IMO and Kuz just isn't proving to be reliable. It stinks but it's becoming undeniable.
