re: Pels 88 vs Mavericks 85 Final / Preseason Game Thread

Is it bad that Fear's joking but I mostly agree with everything he's saying?

No one can determine who really won that trade yet, but I will say everyone on this board is not going to want to admit it might have been a mistake until it is absolutely blindingly apparent it was a mistake. It's the way of this board.

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It's all hypo and no wrong answers.

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You certainly don't want to hamstring the future in favor of the present, but shouldn't you want to accelerate the timeline considering AD's development? Would we really be talking about AD as possibly ready to take the leap to 3rd best player in the league if 3-4 of the top 6 players on the roster were on rookie deals?

It seems to me that the acceleration turns out to have been a good decision even though it was done for non basketball reasons and could have turned out to be detrimental.

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i'm not going to go back and divine what particular players would have/could have been available

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You should try, then you might see why we focused on the positions that were "easy" to get. Here are the SFs ranked by PER last season to make it easy to come up with a list. SF SG I included SGs too because there are some on there that can play SF. Just picking the younger "legit" ones off the list:

Paul George
Kawhi Leonard
Jimmy Butler
Chandler Parsons
Gordon Hayward
Nicolas Batum
Danny Green
Arron Afflalo
Demar Derozan
Klay Thompson


That list has 3 players that aren't going anywhere (George, Leonard, Derozan), 2 players where a hostile RFA bid was made and failed (Hayward, Batum), 1 player we tried to trade for but were laughed away (Klay Thompson) and 2 that I could see us possibly target with a hostile bid next offseason if we can clear Gordon off the cap (Butler and Green)

If Afflalo could play SF full time (not sure if he can at 6'5) he was certainly attainable if you don't have assets/salary tied up in Jrue or Tyreke. Other than that or beating Dallas to the punch and stealing Parsons, next year is really the first time to have a legit shot a young wing.

Is Afflalo + Tyreke + MCW/Burke better than Jrue + Tyreke + whoever we get at SF next season. That is an interesting question, especially if in both scenarios you get Asik and he handles defensive deficiencies from a shorter SF.

Getting a SF first is a good idea in theory, but unless you're happy with Tyreke or Afflalo as your starting SF, it wasn't really practical.

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I like Davis, Anderson, Asik and Reke. I would like Gordon a lot more if he'd stretch the floor. The team has 3 guys who all want to do the same thing on offense (get to the basket). Tyreke is the best at doing that and is pretty good at drawing the defense in. Gordon doesn't look to pass when he drives. I really don't like Holiday on this team. He's not a great shooter and isn't a good fit next to Reke. That's just my opinion as an outsider. You've got a lot of talent, let's see how they mesh.

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A fair assessment

Couple of thoughts:

Jrue shot very well last season(39% From 3 even after a somewhat slow start) and he's been a 36.5% 3 point shooter his whole career. Doug Collins offense and well philly didn't help him very much.

I agree on Gordon but I think he's slowly getting better there.

Jrue/Tyreke will fit if jrue just lets tyreke play his game and he himself should play his great D/Hit 3s. Tyreke had success with a far worse ballhog and sieve on defense(roberts) so i think he'll be fine with jrue.

Hopefully we can turn EG into a decent 3.

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Getting a SF first is a good idea in theory, but unless you're happy with Tyreke or Afflalo as your starting SF, it wasn't really practical.

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2012...draft harkless instead of rivers
2013...keep #6, draft giannis

now you go:

vet PG to be named (pick one)
giannis
gordon
evans
harkless
anderson
davis
asik

i be a lot more excited about that team than the one we have, plus you have a potential 2nd star next to davis, on a rookie deal

ETA: plus best player available at #10 this past draft

Captainnnnnn Hinddddsight

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Captainnnnnn Hinddddsight

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startling insight...
this entire discussion is hindsight, unless you have a time machine

the topic was a discussion of the pro's/con's of the holiday trade in particular, and the acceleration strategy in general. if you cant see there there is a legitimate alternative to the path the team took, then so be it

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i think we can agree though that harkless>rivers, especially since he plays a position of need

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Sure, but that's kind of irrelevant to your initial point that Dell went after the wrong young veterans.

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he's a wing/PG hybrid

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Like who? The ones coming to mind for me are Magic, LeBron, Chris Webber, Grandmama, Anthony Mason. All of those guys were pretty skilled offensively even when they were the same age in college.

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subtract holiday/rivers, add harkless, giannis, and the 2014 pick (saric? payton? warren?) and i think that's your team. no need to keep SF shopping

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I like Payton, but don't think anything else you've listed here solves the SF problem. Improves it maybe, but doesn't solve it to the level it would be solved with $10-$15 million in cap space next offseason.