re: Joe Dumars knows what he's doing?

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If you can trade the expiring contract of Poole and Hawkins for literally anything this offseason, this roster can be pretty good.

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While i agree, you have to realize someone has to want them. and no one wants them.

The only teams that are willing to make a trade for an expiring Poole is going to be a team likely not interested in winning next year.
ANd i'm not interested in dumping him to someone if it costs us assets. I'm fine giving up assets in a trade of Poole if it means we are getting back a quality player, but i'm not just getting rid of his expiring salary for nothing. If you're going to do that, then just release him and eat the cost. I'm sure they could come to an agreement for a buyout. Either take $25M and go be a FA, or you can keep your $34M contract and we don't want you at the facility and we'll try to trade you at some point but no guarantees. I think there's something called "set off rights" as well where we can release him and let him resign somewhere and reduce our cap hit. If he were to resign for say the MLE at $15M, then we can reduce our cap hit of $34M by half of the difference from $15M and a minimum contract, so basically about $6-7M set off amount.
I think this is the likely outcome for Poole this offseason. We aren't going to be able to trade him, and he's still a young guy that wants to play, and we aren't going to play him, so I would think he'd rather just be a FA and go sign where he wants. At worse, the MLE is up to $15M and i would think plenty teams would take him for $10-$15M.

The other thing to consider is if you do trade for a $40M/yr player, who's he going to start over? Murray, Herb, Trey, Zion? I assume this isn't a starting caliber 5 we traded for, and i would be pissed if we spent $40M on any 5 in the league. The only guys making close to that at the 5 that might be available are Gobert, Bam, KAT, and Sabonis. I'd prefer we find 3rd string 5 to play with DQ and Missi. I'd love to find a way to get Bobby Portis for that role, or maybe John Collins. You know, a backup big who can actually shoot.


What i'd love to do this offseason is trade Zion for OG, even though I think OG is way overpaid. I would rather a guy who can hit a 3 and can actually play defense.
Get Portis or S&T for Collins. Looney's team option can be exercised if needed at $8M and Hawkins as well at $7M to make the trade work. I'd go Collins as i'd expect it to cost less to acquire him than it would for Portis.

PGs: Murray/Fears

Wings: Trey/OG/Herb/Bey

Bigs: DQ/Missi/Collins/Karlo

That's 10 guys that matter and need minutes.
the rest of the roster isn't important
Keep DJ, Peavey and McGowens are under contract, don't really care about the 14th and 15th roster spot as long as it's a minimum guy.

That roster (with Poole and a 14th minimum guy) is about $201M. The tax line will be at $202M. Anything you get from a Poole reduced buyout is savings.

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5. He's a better than average defender and an active rebounder.

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Certainly, a better rebounder than our PF.

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While i agree, you have to realize someone has to want them. and no one wants them.

The only teams that are willing to make a trade for an expiring Poole is going to be a team likely not interested in winning next year.
ANd i'm not interested in dumping him to someone if it costs us assets. I'm fine giving up assets in a trade of Poole if it means we are getting back a quality player, but i'm not just getting rid of his expiring salary for nothing. If you're going to do that, then just release him and eat the cost. I'm sure they could come to an agreement for a buyout. Either take $25M and go be a FA, or you can keep your $34M contract and we don't want you at the facility and we'll try to trade you at some point but no guarantees. I think there's something called "set off rights" as well where we can release him and let him resign somewhere and reduce our cap hit. If he were to resign for say the MLE at $15M, then we can reduce our cap hit of $34M by half of the difference from $15M and a minimum contract, so basically about $6-7M set off amount.
I think this is the likely outcome for Poole this offseason. We aren't going to be able to trade him, and he's still a young guy that wants to play, and we aren't going to play him, so I would think he'd rather just be a FA and go sign where he wants. At worse, the MLE is up to $15M and i would think plenty teams would take him for $10-$15M.

The other thing to consider is if you do trade for a $40M/yr player, who's he going to start over? Murray, Herb, Trey, Zion? I assume this isn't a starting caliber 5 we traded for, and i would be pissed if we spent $40M on any 5 in the league. The only guys making close to that at the 5 that might be available are Gobert, Bam, KAT, and Sabonis. I'd prefer we find 3rd string 5 to play with DQ and Missi. I'd love to find a way to get Bobby Portis for that role, or maybe John Collins. You know, a backup big who can actually shoot.


What i'd love to do this offseason is trade Zion for OG, even though I think OG is way overpaid. I would rather a guy who can hit a 3 and can actually play defense.
Get Portis or S&T for Collins. Looney's team option can be exercised if needed at $8M and Hawkins as well at $7M to make the trade work. I'd go Collins as i'd expect it to cost less to acquire him than it would for Portis.

PGs: Murray/Fears

Wings: Trey/OG/Herb/Bey

Bigs: DQ/Missi/Collins/Karlo

That's 10 guys that matter and need minutes.
the rest of the roster isn't important
Keep DJ, Peavey and McGowens are under contract, don't really care about the 14th and 15th roster spot as long as it's a minimum guy.

That roster (with Poole and a 14th minimum guy) is about $201M. The tax line will be at $202M. Anything you get from a Poole reduced buyout is savings.

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You can forget about offsets. When a player is released, he is always signed for the minimum by the next team because of that (knowing the player will not make any more than the guaranteed amount the first team was paying). So, there will only be a minimum offset. In a trade, it would likely require taking on more long term money for a player that the trading team has lost faith in as well (maybe a reclamation project) like the Wizards did for Trae.

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I think Dumars’ worst decision was letting Willie Green start the season as head coach. I

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I'm no Joe Dumars fan but this absolutely was not his decision. Him and Gayle literally had a meeting and a day later he fired Willie. She made Dumars give him a test run and basically admitted that she was allowing Dumars to fire him/make the decisions.

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I don’t know if we’d be in playoff contention right now or not,

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We wouldn't.

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but I could pretty much guarantee at least 5 or so more wins if JB started the year as HC.

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Agreed. We had more injuries at the eginning of the season but it's pretty clear Willie had lost the team.

Yea. These wee Griffin moves. Dumars was not the one that traded Dyson for Murray .

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They are finally putting it together. DJ has been so much better than I could have imagined. Athletically I see no drop off which is incredible. His fire is so important. He is on guys arse when they blow an assignment.

The bigs are playing better. Karlo snd Yves have really grown. The rookies are improving and look confident. Fears makes 2-3 jaw dropping plays a game. Queen is figuring it out. Tonight was his best game in a while.

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While I agree, we should be a little wary of bottom-of-the-league teams making late-season runs in March and April.

The competitive context of the league changes drastically during March and April.

The majority of the wins over the past 15–20 games have been against openly tanking teams or teams that are struggling.

With that being said, there are many positives that I do think will translate to next season:

DJ looks a lot healthier than expected. This team was lacking a true No. 1 point guard who can lead a team, settle them down, control the tempo, and get them into their preferred actions.

That burden is often too great for rookie point guards, and Jose’s size limitations force him into a backup role. I cannot overstate how much more organized this team seems to be with a smart veteran point guard.

Herb looks healthy again and is back to his defensive, hawkish ways.

Zion’s overall ability to stay healthy and stay on the floor.

Karlo’s athleticism and hustle add a form of dynamism that we haven’t had at the center position (when he is playing center) since probably AD.

The combination of Herb and DJ gives us two guys who you know can be the anchors of this team’s defense, and we aren’t playing a starting lineup with four or five defensive sieves.

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we should be a little wary of bottom-of-the-league teams making late-season runs in March and April.

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Bro that’s kind of our thing.

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Utah is gonna be good.

Dallas is gonne be pretty good too.

Portland is on the up.

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I was with you until these teams got listed.

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Well it was the Pacers pick that’s currently #1 right now.

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We were never going to get the #1 pick from the Pacers... The Pacers are #1 because they own their pick. Just like Zion/ Murray would probably be resctricted if we had our pick next year.

The Pacers are purposefully tanking now that they have control of their pick. They let go of Turner after they got their pick, they didn't add any extra players after the got their pick, they have been absolutely terrible because they want to be bad.

The Pacers are #1 because they got their pick back.

Even if everything fell into place and we still had the pick we would end up like 8th in the lottery because we are the Pels. Y'all put way too much stock in that move.

There have been maybe 5-10 teams in the last 40+ years that played in the Championship and then didn't make the playoffs or were eliminated early the following year. The Pacers trade was a great trade statistically.