Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

I’d quickly lose interest if its Oubre and Plumlee being attached to Hayward for us. Gotta try and get Rozier or PJ from them

 

it puts a lot of eggs in the nunn basket, which worries me. but it probably costs nothing in future picks (hell, maybe we get one in this case), and as much as i like rozier's fit, that's a lot of future salary we're taking on for a non-allstar.

oubre and plumlee both expire after next year and could both theoretically play roles for us (plumlee starting c to save wear and tear on AD, oubre utility 25mpg wing). worst case, they're very tradeable assets next year.

anyway, lots of time for these things to percolate. i expect russ will be dealt around the draft or just prior to FA, as that's when everybody's talking and teams will have to start getting more realistic about their offseasons.

 

And the more I listened to Pete (Lakers Film room, employed by Lakers, and X and O's expert), and Darius (been covering Lakers since 08), I get more peeved at Frank.

Rob, do better!!!

 

roll it back with the right coach, and Westbrick is probably our best player

 

That makes sense.

The problem I have is we need to add talent if we want to compete next year, one of the few ways we can actually do that is with who we would get back in a Westbrook trade.

Plumlee and Oubre gives us depth but Rozier gives you the guy that can step up when Lebron/AD are injured.

 

yeah, i'm not going to pretend to know what's exactly best here (we're in a tough spot), but i felt we did better with an ensemble cast even WITH AD/lebron injuries last year, so i'm ok with trying that again.

but in the proposed trade, you're hoping that THT and nunn either break out and are reliable or you can trade THT/nunn for a guard who can score and competently play pg.

 

Been given some thoughts to our rumored trade options....

1) My favorite deal is Charlotte with GH and Rozier for Russ. That's the best package we're currently hearing. Rozier is a great fit next to Bron. When healthy, GH is an absolute great piece and can even be our third best player. You just have to account for not having him every night and try to come up with a playing schedule to protect him and limit some wear and tear. I do that by locking up another big time wing by dangling THT, Nunn, and potentially picks. If Charlotte counters with Oubre or Plumlee, I'm willing to give the 2029 pick to ensure it's Rozier instead. But I don't lead with that and see if we can get it done without the pick.

2) Runner up is the Indy deal. We get two good players. One with his own injuries and the other is as one trick as they come. If Hield isn't hitting his shot he's worthless on the court. That's all he does and is streaky at it. Still it fills two of our needs, so I do it. We probably lose a pick in this one. I'd love to expand this one out to include THT, Nunn, and the other pick for Turner but word is Turner is now staying.

3) NY. Serviceable, overpaid players. They're a step down from the other two.

4) OKC. We'd get a decent backup big, but the biggest win here is a large trade X to use when the opportunity presents itself in the season. They also have a dozen young guys, maybe our scouts know something about one of them.

5) Houston. No to Wall or Klutch.


Since Rob has to get it done this summer to save his own a**, I think we're moving all available pieces. Based off that, here's what I would do:

- Trade Russ to Charlotte for Hayward and Rozier. (29 1st might be required)
- Offer THT, Nunn, 27 1st and 29 1st to Detroit for Grant. See if he's changed his mind about his envisioned role and if that's a competitive enough offer. That's a lot of money at the spot going forward, but you can dump GH next summer. But if we end up losing one of those picks in the Charlotte deal, this is definitely out.
-If Detroit declines, crawl back to Sacramento and make nice. Get Barnes for THT and Nunn. Shouldn't take a pick unless they want one out of spite. My thinking is THT is leaving next summer regardless, would rather get a better fit with our roster. A big wing who can play and defend multiple positions and usage rate is high enough to protect us against any games missed by GH. And with Rozier (34 MPG), there's not enough minutes to justify Nunn.

So if Rob can swing that then we can construct something like...
AD/McGee/Gabriel
Bron/Thadd Young/Tristan Thompson
GH/Barnes/Stan
Reaves/Rivers
Rozier/GP2/DJ

On a roster like that, everyone but DJ and McGee play multiple positions on the court which gets them minutes. Factoring in missed games by AD, Bron, and GH everyone will get plenty of PT and the roster can utilize flexibility easily.

AD can slide down. Gabriel down. Bron up. Thadd up or down against a Paul George type. TT up. GH down if the other team's SG is slower. Barnes up. Stan up. AR up/down, depending on matchup. Rivers down. Rozier up. GP2 up.

 

For what it’s worth sports talk here in Charlotte has been discussing a Russ for Hayward swap. This morning they speculated about getting a thirds team involved and even mentioned the Hornets being the team to give up a pick to make it work along with guys like Plumlee and Oubre. No talk of Rozier but most folks definitely aren’t shutting down the thought of this.

 

saw this floating around too. I haven’t really evaluated it but I wouldn’t give up our picks for this.

My thought right now is mainly that the talk out there reinforces that Russ’ expiring contract has value and once folks stop posturing teams will be interested.

Rob is just going to have to do the work and get us a good deal.

 

I feel like we’ve got a good chance of pulling off a deal with Charlotte.

I’d also prefer to only part with one pick to the Kings if that deal ever surfaced.

 

I don’t agree that Russ is finished and I think he bounces back next season. For all the talk of his athletic decline he is still in the top percentile there.

But it’s probably going to be on a new team. For all the talk of how terrible he is, he is still a top tier playmaker, rim attacker and finisher. A proper offensive coach could make that work - Vogel just didn’t know what to do with him and the positions Russ could succeed in were counter intuitive to Vogel’s overall coaching scheme.

I agree with Cranjis sentiment here:



Instead we can all be happy to get some injured junk back and/or pretend players like Rozier/Brogdon are better before we turn on them like we did with Schroeder.

 

I like this a lot. Interesting idea to double stack Hayward and Barnes.

 

If we can patch things up with the Kings, I’d be good with bringing in Barnes too. If we can create some depth maybe we can weather injuries a bit better.

 

I'm hoping that's our over correction next year. Every year we have something we course correct too much on, next year I want it to be expecting players to be out there all season. Instead of expecting 82 games out of Ariza, I'd rather expect 45-50 out of AD, Bron, and (in my trade scenario) GH. If you can have players who are capable NBA starters whenever you need them to be, you're in such a better spot than we were when Rob expected Ariza to be Lazarus.

 

We just went through two seasons of Lebron and AD missing significant time. This year our top FA signing didn't play in one single game, and now folks think it's some kind of good idea to trade for Gordon Hayward, a guy that has played in 52,44 and 49 games over the last three seasons, at 30 mil a clip?

GTFOH and put that pipe down please.

 

I don’t even tknow that we have to end up with Hayward but we will see. It really comes down to who else we were getting, how well The new team fit together including how the bench looks.

as of now, I think the market for Russ’s expiring may be better than what we’ve assumed.