re: Zach Lowe Expects Pels to be Sellers at Trade Deadline

quote:

---

for example one of my favorites is sending Okafor + Melli + however many 2nds they want to SAC for Bjelica.

---

He is the perfect target. However, he has been playing so well lately, they may not part with him.

Bjelica is a low risk/high reward type of deal


And the thing this has over the Love/Horford ideas is that if it doesn't work on the court, you're not tied down with a player that isn't a great fit on a massive contract



I am all about going out & finding all kinds of low-level role players and sticking them next to BI & Zion & see what I get

quote:

---

No way you trade reddick or favors

---

I can see favors for the right deal just because of overall fit with Zion now playing. Doubt we ship JJ.

Homeboy thinks this is a good trade for Pels (I guess he's acting GM in fake trades for Pels)

T-Wolves: Ball, Hart, 2021 1st, 2-2nds
Pels: Covington


LINK

That’s among the worst trades I’ve ever seen.

I wouldn’t make that trade for KAT

quote:

---

He’s a great defender and his shooting 45% from 3. How is he not an asset.

---

re: marcus morris, i'll let this guy explain it

quote:

---

Marcus Morris Sr.
In terms of 3-and-D forwards, there might not be a better player on the market than Morris. He has turned himself into a very good shooter in recent seasons, with the sort of game-to-game and year-to-year consistency upon which a team can rely in the playoffs. Even this year on a dysfunctional Knicks team, he’s hitting the highest percentage of his 3s of his career on the highest volume of his career. And it’s not like New York has some sort of high-level distributor who’s getting him a whole bunch of wide-open looks from the corner. He can knock down tightly-contested jumpers and create his own shot at a pretty decent clip – he can get to his spots in pick-and-roll and generally has been New York’s best all-around offensive player. That’s not exactly a high bar to clear, but he’s been legitimately very good this season.

On the other end of the floor, he’s got the positional size and versatility to defend the strong-link superstars from a number of teams. He’s not going to shut down a LeBron James, a Kawhi Leonard, a Giannis Antetokounmpo, but if he’s defending those guys, it’s not a three-alarm fire. You don’t have to send panic help to Morris when he’s matched up with one of those guys, which has a ton of value for a team looking to upgrade their defensive prowess in those situations. The salary cap ramifications are particularly important in Morris’s case. He makes $15 million on a one-year contract and will be an unrestricted free agent in July. A team landing in the tax would have to send out at least $11.92 million in salary to trade for him, while a team outside of the tax gets a slight break – that team would only have to send out $10 million. For the top-end title contenders, cobbling together the sort of money it takes to get Morris without trading any significant rotation players is difficult, but not impossible. Doing so while attaching an asset that entices New York to move him makes things harder.

Any team holding his contract at the end of the year will have Non-Bird rights as he goes into free agency – they can sign him to a contract starting anywhere below $18 million, assuming they don’t already have cap space. $18 million should be more than enough to re-sign him, but whether it’s the Knicks or another team, they run the risk of him walking away for nothing. Any conversations they can have with him now, months before that decision gets made, are hard to trust – we saw how he rejected the normal decorum of the league and spurned San Antonio after they traded Davis Bertans in order to secure him on a deal they had already verbally agreed. If you’re another team and you get word that Morris would be interested in re-signing, how can you trust him to keep that word in the summer? So much can change between now and then, both with that team’s on-court success and his motivations and desires.

Perhaps under normal circumstances, a team would trade a late first-round pick or two second-rounders far enough in the future that they might be valuable. However, there are a number of other quality forwards on the market who are easier to salary-match, won’t cost a first-round pick, and don’t come with the immense uncertainty of Morris’s impending free agency.

---

are we positive that Covington is as good as he is being hyped up to be? The Twolves are playing worse defense with him on the court right now and he shoots 35% from 3, it isn't like he's a knockdown guy, and he's not a good scorer from 2 point range either

It just seems like teams + the media are valuing him very high because he's one of the few names on the market

Covington is an excellent defender, and when he is on the court for whatever team he's playing for, the team is far better than when he's not. And he has a great contract.

This is from today from ESPN article:

quote:

---

Pelton: The Portland Trail Blazers sending this year's first-round pick (with protection in case they miss the playoffs and win a top-four spot in the lottery) to Minnesota for Covington. The Timberwolves are too far from competing right now for Covington's complementary skill set to help them, but his game and contract ($36 million over this season and the next two) would fit perfectly in Portland next to Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.

---

If that's all it takes to get Covington, then we should be sending them something like the '21 Lakers 1st and Miller.

This was also thrown out:

quote:

---

Marks: I am going to circle back to the Nuggets. They have the right mix to get a deal done and not disrupt their chemistry. Would a package of Gary Harris, Malik Beasley, Juan Hernangomez and a future first-rounder be enough to pry Jrue Holiday from the New Orleans Pelicans? That would give the Nuggets an All-NBA defender to play alongside Jamal Murray and a reliable fourth-quarter presence. It would also put the Nuggets into the luxury tax for the first time since 2009-10.

---

I don't think that is attractive enough, but if Jerami Grant is part of it, i'm all for it.
But you see, when Jrue plays like he did last night, i wouldn't want to trade him for almost anyone. He was a nightmare defensively for the Cavs, and when he's hitting his shots, he's easily the best player on the court almost any night b/c of what he does on both ends of the court. I still think Gary Harris can be that 3&D guy we are looking for to play the 1/2 position with Lonzo. he wouldn't have any pressure on him outside of playing hard defense, which he does, and knocking down open 3's at a high rate, which i believe he can do. If you have both he and Lonzo knocking down closer to 40% of their open 3's and also playing good D, that's exactly what we are looking for from those positions to match with Ingram and Zion. Then we just need that final piece, which i think Jerami Grant fits perfectly into along with Jaxson developing his outside shot.

I think that kind of lineup would also put a lot of pressure on Ingram to be the primary ball handler late in games, which i don't have a problem with at all. That next piece we would need is a 6th man that could create his own shot, or shot for others, when needed. maybe NAW can become that guy. I don't trust Lonzo with the ball in his hands with under 7 seconds left on the shot clock. He's just not there yet to be able to create an efficient look when forced by the clock. I have become very confident in him catching and shooting open 3's in rhythm.

Yeah, any Jrue trade right now (as opposed to the offseason) needs to be a significant overpay. And the Denver trade isn't.