re: Official Free Agency and Trade Thread: Latest Pels sign Charles Cooke to 2 way

Blah, blah, blah, we haven't done anything to improve...Dell is sitting on his arse. Well we added Boogie and re-signed Jrue. Maybe we make another move to upgrade, but people have unrealistic expectations thinking it is easy to just sign/acquire star players. We have a very tricky cap situation, not for this year, but going forward.

Barring a trade, our improvement this year is going to mainly come from implementing a system that maximizes Boogie/AD (we don't know the ceiling for this yet), hopefully Jrue improving with a worry fee, healthy offseason, and incremental improvements from role players becoming more comfortable.

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our improvement this year is going to mainly come from implementing a system that maximizes Boogie/AD (we don't know the ceiling for this yet), hopefully Jrue improving with a worry fee, healthy offseason, and incremental improvements from role players becoming more comfortable.

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Thats the thing that NBA fans have forgotten. That teams can just get better with the same players. Not all success comes from the checkbook. Some comes from the gym.

The Clippers are definitely not making the playoffs.
The Grizzlies are still a good team, but they will probably have trouble staying above .500, which means they aren't making the playoffs.
The Jazz while they have gotten worst, still won't be a bad team b/c they are coached well and play good defense.

The Blazers are a better team than they were last year.
The Nuggets are a better team than they were last year.
The Thunder are a better team than they were last year.
They all finished ahead of us.

I'd say you know the top 4 seeds.
GSW
Spurs
Rockets
Thunder

I think the next tier is
Blazers
Wolves
Nuggets
Pels

I really think those 3 are ahead of the Pels but i don't think the Pels are in the next tier below of teams that will struggle to be at .500 unless they surprise people or make some big changes.
Jazz
Grizz
Kings
Mavs
Clips


So to be honest, i think we are the 8 seed at best at this point.
I too am getting impatient about not signing anyone or doing anythign yet. Just out here hoping we make a nice trade in the near future.

and i think giving up a first for 1 year of Lin is retarded, even though i like him as a player. Pretty sure he'll opt out after next year. Only way i'd give up a first for a year of him is if they take back bad contracts like Asik or Qpon.

Clippers lost Chris Paul, JJ Redick, and Jamal Crawford. Other than Blake Griffin, those were all of their best players.

Their roster right now is:

DeAndre Jordan
Blake Griffin
Danilo Gallinari
Lou Williams
Patrick Beverley


With a bench of ???????????????

They have no real ball-handler / facilitator. I don't know how much they drop off, but they certainly are not nearly as good as they were.

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Clippers lost Chris Paul, JJ Redick, and Jamal Crawford. Other than Blake Griffin, those were all of their best players.

Their roster right now is:

DeAndre Jordan
Blake Griffin
Danilo Gallinari
Lou Williams
Patrick Beverley


With a bench of ???????????????

They have no real ball-handler / facilitator. I don't know how much they drop off, but they certainly are not nearly as good as they were.

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David Aldridge? @daldridgetnt
Clips, looking to bolster wing after Redick departure/Crawford trade, have engaged Grizzlies in potential s/t for Tony Allen, per source.

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I don't think the Clippers are a playoff team at this point, to be honest. They got way worse.

But its the NBA, you never know.

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I really think those 3 are ahead of the Pels but i don't think the Pels are in the next tier below of teams that will struggle to be at .500 unless they surprise people or make some big changes.

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I don't think there is any definitive reason to say that the Blazers, Wolves, and Nuggets are better than the Pels.

Also, the Pels will add at least one if not two more players who will be in the rotation.

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will be pretty worthless outside of offensive rebounds and his defense

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so he wont be worthless

Clips will still be good. Losing Reddick and Crawford doesnt matter when you add Gaillinari and Williams as the latter are >>> than the former.

They arent done in FA either.

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I think one thing people are forgetting about the Wolves is that that team cannot shoot worth a shite. It will be a defensive team, Thibs style, with still some very young players.

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Butler is good, but I don't see how adding him is going to add 20 wins, which is what a lot of people are acting like is going to happen. Rubio and Teague are probably about equal in regards to wins added.

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I don't think there is any definitive reason to say that the Blazers, Wolves, and Nuggets are better than the Pels.

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The Blazers finished 7 games ahead of us. after getting Nurkic, they finished the season 18-9. a lot better than what we did after acquiring Cousins.

The Wolves got one of the premier wing players in the NBA, a veteran PF, and a veteran scoring PG to go with a team that only finished 3 games behind us, and their two young superstars are 1 year older and just got a ton of pressure taken off of them on the offensive side of the ball.

the Nuggets lost Gallinari, who has missed at least 20 games 4 of his 5 years in Denver, and added Milsaps. They got better the second half of the year, and finished 6 games ahead of us.


We haven't added anyone, granted we don't know what kind of team we will be this year after having time to adjust to the Cousins trade, nor do we know if we will add anyone of importance to this team, but i'd say those 3 teams are clearly better than us at this point.