2016 Rumor Mill: Trades and Players to Watch

Yeah I personally would love KD to the Warriors....that also means the Warriors would have to unload Iguodala. I wouldn't mind having Iggy on this squad too. I prefer Barnes cuz he's way younger and more potential....I believe this also means Ezeli would be available? I would love to snatch up Barnes and Ezeli actually.....that would be my ideal summer.

 

Yep. I'd sign him. However, with Horford being on the trade block and probably looking elsewhere, he's my first target during the summer. I would have probably made my first call to Whiteside, but I love Horford's game and impact on the court.

 

http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/stor...nthony-five-most-overrated-players-league-nba

Interesting piece on ESPN this morning regarding the NBA's most overrated players. Whiteside is mentioned first. For those without insider, here's the gist of the Whiteside explanation:

-Heat allow less points and grab more boards with Hassan on the bench. Reasoning behind this is listed below

-Rebounding: Reason for discrepancy is Whiteside, while grabbing many boards, rarely boxes out his man, which results in an increase in the opposing center's rebound total. He is heavily reliant on his athletic ability for rebounds, even when situational circumstances dictate he should just stay home and box out his man.

-Blocks: High accumulation of blocks attributed to his constant willingness to help, even when his fellow defender is in an advantageous position. This often results in leaving his man open for easy layups and dunks.

-Overall, a superior athlete, but lacking in IQ. Makes mention early in the article of Javale McGee (Implying Comparison between the 2)

Personally, I'm still on the fence with Whiteside (although I lean towards offering him the max), and I just thought I'd share this to show the other side of the argument. It's something to think about.

 

I understand that side of things, but my major concern is that with our extremely poor perimeter defense, Whiteside's effect on this team won't be enough to justify the amount of money he'll certainly command.

If you look at the NBA's top 5 teams in terms of defensive efficiency right now (SA, Boston, GS, Indiana, Atlanta), none of them have a player more talented than Whiteside anchoring their defense. What they have is above average perimeter defenders (Leonard, Avery, Green, George, Schroeder, etc.) and high IQ defensive centers. The idea is that these perimeter players make getting to the hole at least somewhat difficult so that their Center has more reaction/assessment time to get in proper defensive positioning.

My fear in tying up so much money to Whiteside is if it adversely affects our ability to address our perimeter defense as we should. If the D12 season taught us anything from a defensive standpoint, it's that our defense will be compromised no matter how willing/athletic of a shot blocker/rebounder we have if we allow the path to the basket to be so easy.

Perimeter guy let's his man waltz right by, Whiteside will leave his man to help, ball gets dropped off to Whiteside's guy for the easy dunk. Whiteside looks at his perimeter defender and flails his arms in this "WTF" type of look. We've seen this type of scenario far too many times these past few years.

 

@EJones06 10 win teams aren't likely to pick up Al Horfords and Kevin Durants. Whiteside isn't perfect, but he's reasonably obtainable and provides what we need on both sides of the court.

 

I'm not necessarily suggesting those two. But my point is, I think a guy like Festus Ezeli or Zaza Pachulia at 10-15 million dollars less than Whiteside could be a lot more effective defensively. That way, you could use the remaining $ you save to offer multiple deals to good perimeter defenders that will be FA like Evan Turner or Arron Afflalo to name a few.

Even if we whiff on Horford or KD (which is likely), it doesn't mean we HAVE to give a MAX deal to the next best guy. I still think there's value in bidding high for solid players that will improve our overall depth, particularly on defense.

 

He's not a good fit. Fools gold if you will...

 

anyone keeping up with the dwight howard rumors. i know houston shot them down, but it's an interesting situation. clutchfans' resident insider (who tends to know things, historically), said that they won't offer him max this summer, and that his agent reached out to dallas (who wouldn't commit to max, but are interested) and the lakers (who simply weren't interested-BURN). anyway, given morey's all-out pursuit of durant coming in the summer and houston's return to earth after an anomalous season, i'd expect them to be open to moves.

 

Yep. Heard that. Also, he's hearing Hassan to the Lakers this summer; DeRozan also extremely probably. JVG and S. Brooks also interested in Lakers job.