zigzag22 wrote:Brutal loss tonight to a team that has mentally checked out already. But man, it is SO apparent that this team is still one elite big man away from transitioning from a lottery loser to a perennial playoff contender. Towns/Okafor/whatever....this team has complimentary pieces (4th, 5th, 6th best guy on a championship team) but it clearly lacks that 2nd guy (with Wiggins 1st and Rubio 3rd).
Yep, I think they have checked out too Zig. We really do have a bigs problem. Too many guys who are injury prone and/or part time players. So if we get Towns or WCS, we'll have Pek/Dieng/KG/Payne/AB/New guy.
I'm not a smart guy, but isn't that a lot of roster spots?
It is, especially when you consider Flip threw away a future first rounder for one of them unnecessarily. The Payne trade still makes me dizzy. Anyways, I would have to assume that Bennett somehow gets dumped in that scenario. Pekovic/Dieng and Garnett/2015 Draftee would get regular minutes with Payne, our first round pick of 2017 essentially, watches from the end of the bench.
But I think Flip likes all of those guys Cam. I guess we'll see what happens on draft day, but right now it's baffling.
Yeah, the bigs situation is really disturbing. We went into the season thinking we had solid Center depth with Pek and Dieng, coming off of a nice rookie campaign. We had Young as a placeholder at PF for a year or two - potentially more if we re-signed him to an extension.
Now we have the following situation at C and PF:
Pekovic - A cripple who can never be relied upon to play big minutes.
Dieng - A defensive trainwreck that regularly gets pushed around and abused in the paint.
Payne - A trainwreck so far, but....we'll keep on hoping!
Bennett - A traniwreck so far, but still young....and expensive. Not sure we can afford to wait on him.
KG - Our best and healthiest big man at the moment. Also 38 years old with all sorts of minutes and game restrictions.
That's a lot of $, roster spots, and draft picks expended for a bundle of uncertainty. What's even scarier is that Jeff Adrien might be the second best big that's played for us this season! Yet Flip felt he had no place on this roster. Incredible.
I have seen several people state they would be ok with giving KG $5M+ next season. There is simply NO WAY we can pay him that much given his game/time restrictions. He will play maybe 2/3 of games (if healthy), and plays about 20 minutes per game. If we had a solid starter to play ahead of him, I would be ok with this plan....but the reality is that we have a bunch of very mediocre assets at this spot. He needs to be a vet min guy.
Q12543 wrote:Yeah, the bigs situation is really disturbing. We went into the season thinking we had solid Center depth with Pek and Dieng, coming off of a nice rookie campaign. We had Young as a placeholder at PF for a year or two - potentially more if we re-signed him to an extension.
Now we have the following situation at C and PF:
Pekovic - A cripple who can never be relied upon to play big minutes.
Dieng - A defensive trainwreck that regularly gets pushed around and abused in the paint.
Payne - A trainwreck so far, but....we'll keep on hoping!
Bennett - A traniwreck so far, but still young....and expensive. Not sure we can afford to wait on him.
KG - Our best and healthiest big man at the moment. Also 38 years old with all sorts of minutes and game restrictions.
That's a lot of $, roster spots, and draft picks expended for a bundle of uncertainty. What's even scarier is that Jeff Adrien might be the second best big that's played for us this season! Yet Flip felt he had no place on this roster. Incredible.
Thanks for putting my thoughts to words Q! Plus, we're gonna add another one on draft day! (presumably). It's a total mess.
Hicks123 wrote:I have seen several people state they would be ok with giving KG $5M+ next season. There is simply NO WAY we can pay him that much given his game/time restrictions. He will play maybe 2/3 of games (if healthy), and plays about 20 minutes per game. If we had a solid starter to play ahead of him, I would be ok with this plan....but the reality is that we have a bunch of very mediocre assets at this spot. He needs to be a vet min guy.
Pek makes 12 million and will be doing pretty much the same thing next year in terms of minutes and games played. MLE is worth it for KG given the impact he has already shown in guys trying hard to win and how much he can help the team learn how to play team D. Also I don't normally think you should take into account the box office when signing a guy, but in this case you have to. That place was half-empty without him and they've had a couple sell outs with him. Who's going to have a bigger impact than that that we could bring in as a FA this summer? We're still not good enough to get good players to sign here for deals they are worth. Also having a guy like him guarantees the young guys get more burn throughout the year that they wouldn't normally get on a team with full strength all year.
I would caution us to be careful about making sweeping judgments after a wretched performance like last night. Things are never as bad as they appear after a game like that, and they are never as good as they appear after a big win. The truth of course lies somewhere in the middle. I think it's safe to say it would be great if the BPA we land is a big. That could help out quite a bit. Came across something interesting today. Larry Brown (who I despise) feels that the best 3 prospects in the draft are Okafor, Russell, and Mudiay - and not necessarily in that order. He says that Mudiay is going to be around SMU and he is going to help him get ready for the draft. Like him or hate him as I do, his opinion is at the very least interesting.
My top 3 is still the same. 1. Okafor 2. Towns 3. Russell if not those 3 I want us to trade down and look at the 2nd tier of bigs. Mudiay and Johnson continue to scare me.
Hicks123 wrote:I have seen several people state they would be ok with giving KG $5M+ next season. There is simply NO WAY we can pay him that much given his game/time restrictions. He will play maybe 2/3 of games (if healthy), and plays about 20 minutes per game. If we had a solid starter to play ahead of him, I would be ok with this plan....but the reality is that we have a bunch of very mediocre assets at this spot. He needs to be a vet min guy.
Pek makes 12 million and will be doing pretty much the same thing next year in terms of minutes and games played. MLE is worth it for KG given the impact he has already shown in guys trying hard to win and how much he can help the team learn how to play team D. Also I don't normally think you should take into account the box office when signing a guy, but in this case you have to. That place was half-empty without him and they've had a couple sell outs with him. Who's going to have a bigger impact than that that we could bring in as a FA this summer? We're still not good enough to get good players to sign here for deals they are worth. Also having a guy like him guarantees the young guys get more burn throughout the year that they wouldn't normally get on a team with full strength all year.
You are absolutely right about the comparison to Pek, but that is a WILDLY different scenario. With Pek, we made a mistake.....one that probably can't be remedied. If possible, we would probably trade him for an expiring. KG, on the other hand, is a future decision we can control. And saying, well we screwed up on Pek, might as well do the same with KG doesn't sound like a great decision for the team. I have said this before, but we need to concentrate on getting good quality starters before filling out the bench with mid-level, low impact players. Also, KG's impact thus far is a 1-3 record. And the "box office" thing is of no importance come next season. People have flocked to see KG because of who he was, not who he is right now. This influx of people going to see games will subside after a VERY short period of time. People hate watching a loser....and KG doesn't change our course in this regard.
What may be interesting here is if after losing the next 7-8 games, and the "shine" wears off of KG's homecoming.....I would wonder if KG reevaluates his thoughts about next season and just decides not to come back.
What starter are we getting for the MLE? The MLE was created to fill out the bench. How many starters in the league were signed using the MLE. Most are either making more or are on rookie deals. We may be 1-3, but that's no longer due to a lack of effort. If you can't see the difference in energy with this team then I don't know what to tell you. I also don't think anyone here would think the Pek deal was a mistake if he was making 5-6 million a year and that's my point. KG is not signing for the minimum and he has a place on this team to help us grow into a new era while ending his era.
