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

The season ain't done. We lost 3 games to two of the best teams in the league currently. Hopefully Lebron tracks down his jumpshot sooner than later.

 

i've given up. we've played one sub .500 team (@gs). still glad we didn't send two 1sts for turner/hield. glad we're trying not to move a first to downgrade the roster from russ to mcdermott/richardson.

 

Keep the 1sts this season.

This team don't have it.

We have some decent young pieces that I think we can mold.

Outside of preserving assets, let's watch LBJ get the record I suppose.

 

yeah, there wasn't going to be a "mange your way out" solution. still think this team is better than last year's and could easily end up with a better record by the end of it. but the play-in is the ceiling, probably even if we do pull off trades.

 

A lemon

 

well, it was both. we didn't value him ENOUGH to pay the extra tax. it was incredibly stupid.

 

wow, when it's put like that, and we're paying Beverly more than we'd have paid Caruso......just wow.

 

they could've kept both to be honest, yes they choose the "wrong guy" in a sense with THT not developing as much but at the same time AC wasn't going to save last season nor this season, AC has continued to be injury prone for Chi as well. Main reason is IMO mgmt has gone "cheap", even smaller market teams are now willing to go into luxury tax. IMO they still would've let AC go even if we never traded for Brick

 

Literally the only scenario in which I see us competing this season is if we somehow pull of AD/Russ for KD/Kyrie and then another trade with Nunn/Beverley for a starting caliber big. That's not happening so I guess we're looking at another wasted season.

 

We're tanking for Wemby for the Pelicans!

 

Yup, the unfortunate reality is that I think this is one of the only things we have to look forward to this season.



Since I think this season is doomed either way, I’m also more on board with just keeping Russ. Seeing him redeem himself and save his career by being an effective sixth man and winning over the LA fans would be nice, even if we’re sub-.500 in the process. Much better than trading him for something like Josh Richardson and likely being just as bad if not worse.

Other than that, let’s hope AD stays healthy and continues to play well. Maybe bump up his trade value to give us more options this summer. Let’s hope Lonnie Walker can earn himself a nice contract elsewhere so that we have another story we can point to in upcoming free agencies about why taking a 1 year deal with us can be lucrative.

 

this feels a lot like kobe's last couple seasons

team's going nowhere so just let lebron do his thing and break the scoring record. seems like that's really the only thing he cares about these days and is content with not winning another title. if he was really going for that 5th title, i don't think he would've been content with how poorly the roster is constructed and would have demanded before the season that they trade for turner/hield even if it meant giving up the picks

 

we shouldn't cater to Bron's GM'ing ways, its one of key reason why we're in this mess

 

We are, comically, on pace to win even fewer games by then.

Even if we conclude this season is a lost cause, we have to trade him at the deadline. Just about the only thing that would make the Westbrook trade worse at this point would be to let him walk for nothing.

 

yeah, i wanted the mcdermott/richardson trade as recently as a couple weeks ago, but given what i've seen since, i'm not sure it will do much. and i agree that a russ redemption is actually good for everyone here. we don't want to be where careers go to die all the time.

re: lonnie: we'll see. i could see him staying at a discount even if he plays well, with the klutch connection helping instill the trust it takes to understand we'll take care of him on the back end.

yep. his extension showed me he wasn't actually all that concerned with winning another ring. he knew the finances couldn't work with him making that much.

 

Yeah you’re probably right about that.

But I think rushing into throwing away our picks to trade Russ in a “win now” trade is not the right move, considering we’re not actually close to a “win now” team.

But closer to the deadline, yeah we should try to convert his expiring contract into 2-3 players, ideally giving up minimal (or no) draft compensation. Not with the intention that those 2-3 players are going to suddenly turn you into a contender that late in the season, but so you have some players you can start building around (and more importantly some tradeable contracts) heading into next off-season.

But that depends though, I don’t think we should be absorbing bad contracts just for the sake of it. If the only deals out there are for terrible contracts that would be difficult to flip and/or don’t seem to be the type of players we want going forward, then I still think standing pat and preserving cap space makes more sense.

For example (injury concerns aside), I’d rather sign Myles Turner to a deal starting around $20 million then trading Russ for Randle who would make more money and be a worse fit.

 

Play it out, now is not the time to panic. I can't believe that LeBron is going to play this so-so all season. If he does, it's a wrap no matter who we get in a trade. Well unless it's Kyrie. You move Westbrook for a talent, flawed or not, most likely it has to be a guy with warts, Russ is on an expiring deal. I'd still go for Turner straight up and then see what it looks like. Westbrook can be resigned for a lot cheaper in the offseason. Russell Westbrook could be the best player available in free agency next summer.

 

I agree. I'd like to see us start making some real moves to make this a real team moving forward. I'll keep repeating that the carousel of players every summer needs to stop. The team should continue looking for moves that can be made to improve the team now and moving forward.

Especially since we are unlikely to trade either of our big stars.

Also, a few of us felt like the plan was to always keep extending the "soft deadline" out so that at some point they could just say "well, its too late to make a deal now so we might as well just let it ride."