CoolBreeze44 wrote:Okay, so who would you get rid of to "balance the roster"? It's one thing to say improve the roster, but someone has to leave for that to happen. Are you going to just jettison the potential of RG3? Are you going to cut someone who might have trade value?
Take your pick from:
1.) Hummel
2.) Budinger or GR3. Get rid of one and give more minutes to the other
3.) Turiaf
None of these guys have any trade value. They might serve small roles on any given team, but none are impact players that we couldn't live without. And none of these guys are part of any core going forward. You could argue that GR3 might be - but if that's your take, then you should be in favor of dumping Bud to give him some minutes because he's not playing right now.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Okay, so who would you get rid of to "balance the roster"? It's one thing to say improve the roster, but someone has to leave for that to happen. Are you going to just jettison the potential of RG3? Are you going to cut someone who might have trade value?
Take your pick from:
1.) Hummel
2.) Budinger or GR3. Get rid of one and give more minutes to the other
3.) Turiaf
None of these guys have any trade value. They might serve small roles on any given team, but none are impact players that we couldn't live without. And none of these guys are part of any core going forward. You could argue that GR3 might be - but if that's your take, then you should be in favor of dumping Bud to give him some minutes because he's not playing right now.
As you say we could live without any of these guys, I feel we could live without a 3rd point guard for a month.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Okay, so who would you get rid of to "balance the roster"? It's one thing to say improve the roster, but someone has to leave for that to happen. Are you going to just jettison the potential of RG3? Are you going to cut someone who might have trade value?
Take your pick from:
1.) Hummel
2.) Budinger or GR3. Get rid of one and give more minutes to the other
3.) Turiaf
None of these guys have any trade value. They might serve small roles on any given team, but none are impact players that we couldn't live without. And none of these guys are part of any core going forward. You could argue that GR3 might be - but if that's your take, then you should be in favor of dumping Bud to give him some minutes because he's not playing right now.
You do realize that when you cut someone in the NBA you have to pay their salary since it is 100% guaranteed? So cutting Bud means we are paying him 5 million dollars to not play for us and then have to drop another million to balance the roster. I also don't know what implications his PO would have for next year if we would have to pick that up as well. I also don't think we can cut Ronny while he is injured. So you'd be cutting either Hummel or GR3 while Hummel is playing significant time for us right now in the frontcourt and GR3 was a steal in Flip's mind of being a first round talent taken in the second round. Again, you would really choose 1 of those options to enable us to get a 1 month rental player to try to win when we have zero chance at making the playoffs? This is the Western Conference where it is going to take 50 wins to make it. This is not a 50 win team when fully healthy so why make such a short sighted move? As a GM, you just can't make moves to try to improve the team's play for a month if it costs you an asset you want to keep long-term like I believe Flip does with Robbie and GR3.
khans2k5 wrote:You do realize that when you cut someone in the NBA you have to pay their salary since it is 100% guaranteed? So cutting Bud means we are paying him 5 million dollars to not play for us and then have to drop another million to balance the roster. I also don't know what implications his PO would have for next year if we would have to pick that up as well. I also don't think we can cut Ronny while he is injured. So you'd be cutting either Hummel or GR3 while Hummel is playing significant time for us right now in the frontcourt and GR3 was a steal in Flip's mind of being a first round talent taken in the second round. Again, you would really choose 1 of those options to enable us to get a 1 month rental player to try to win when we have zero chance at making the playoffs? This is the Western Conference where it is going to take 50 wins to make it. This is not a 50 win team when fully healthy so why make such a short sighted move? As a GM, you just can't make moves to try to improve the team's play for a month if it costs you an asset you want to keep long-term like I believe Flip does with Robbie and GR3.
As a GM, you have a responsibility to give your team the tools it needs to win. I don't expect to see Rubio back on the court until sometime in January at best. I don't think it's "short sighted" to give your core guys the best opportunity for sucess. I like Hummel and have stood up for the guy on here. But he's completely replaceable. GR3? He was a mid second round pick that can't find minutes on a 3-10 team with tons of injuries. Turiaf? If he's hurt, get an injury exception. If he's not - get his butt on the court! Budinger's contract? There's always options. It didn't stop them from getting rid of JJ at the start of the year.
The question isn't whether we can live without a 3rd PG for a month. Even if we can't get an exception (which I'm hoping we can), the question is whether we'd rather live without a 2nd point guard for what could be 2 months or more in order to keep Bud or Hummel or GRIII.
LaVine has a ton of potential, but he's not a PG. And Rubio's injury looks horrible, he definitely looks to be out a long time. How many times do you want to see Wiggins have to deal with a stagnant offense that doesn't know how to get him the ball in scoring position in his first year? How much of his development are you willing to waste to hang on to Chase Budinger? Same for LaVine, who could blossom at the 2. How much do more do you want to see him restrain his natural scoring instincts while trying to play a role that doesn't fit his skills? And what about Dieng, Bennett, and Muhammad? Wouldn't you be willing to give up Bud or Robbie to help get those guys a chance to play in a more organized offense that plays to their strengths? Are you willing to let the cancer of losing continue to eat at this franchise and shape the culture of this young promising group of guys we have in order to keep Robbie Hummel around?
I'm all for keeping GRIII. But there's no reason why not to buy out Bud. Taylor's paying him anyway. Sure, it's another million for the backup PG, but isn't it worth it to help develop the, what, 20-25 million we've got invested just this year in all our young high draft picks? Otherwise you're not really doing everything you can to help make that much bigger investment grow. Taylor's a businessman, I hope he recognizes that.
Of course, a 2nd PG would not get us to 50 wins or help us make the playoffs. Even with Rubio, this team would have trouble making the playoffs, especially with Martin and Pek injured. But getting a backup PG for Mo might be the difference between our young guys consistently getting more opportunities to do good things with the ball offensively. It might mean several more competitive games where every play matters later in the game and we get to really test our young guys. It would probably mean at least a few more wins which would help keep this team from getting sucked back into a losing culture. And if we moved Bud in the process, it would mean more time for LaVine at the 2 where he can concentrate on what he does best, scoring. It would also mean the chance for GRIII to get some floor time, because he certainly isn't with Bud on this roster, even with Martin out.
Would some of you guys really rather have Chase Budinger than that?
Or, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, do some of you guys actually want to lose? If it's the latter, if you think tanking for the lottery is the way to go, then there's a team out there for you--the Sixers. You could make an argument that's one way to go, but I disagree. Even if we get a PG and try to establish a more consistent offense, stay more competitive in games, and win a few more, we'll still be in the lottery this year. And in my book, developing the young guys we have and helping to establish more of an expectation of winning is more important than a few more ping pong balls in the hopper.
At some point, you have to stop dreaming about the future and start working for the present. And with Wiggins, LaVine, Muhammad, Bennett, and Dieng, I think we've actually got a pretty good start. I don't want to tank a season completely with these guys because we aren't willing to let go of Robbie Hummel or Chase Budinger.
Drew, the results you're looking for aren't going to be achieved by some journeyman point guard who can't make an NBA roster. Frankly, I'd give up Bud for just about anything, but you're not going to get a PG for him who can make much of a difference from what we're seeing. I'm not for tanking, but I'm also not for making an unnecessary change to get us more competitive in a couple games until Ricky comes back. And for Christ sake, he sprained his ankle. He's not being fitted for a prosthetic. If he's not by the new year, we can have another discussion about what to do in the meantime.
On Rubio's injury, I don't know man, he's not even out of the boot or putting weight on it. It looks T-Hud bad. But we'll see.
On the PG, I actually think it would make a difference, at least in terms of player development, and that's the most important thing right now. We're not going to trade Bud for one. But cut Bud and sign one of the guys on the list in my original post. A PG like that wouldn't be a great player and wouldn't make a HUGE difference, and for most teams, adding a backup PG free agent right now wouldn't amount to much at all. But most teams have 2 or 3 PGs. We're different. We basically have one PG right now (and I'm sadly confident it'll be a couple months until Rubio is back), and a rookie SG we're trying to force into playing backup PG. And you've seen our offense when we do that. It's terrible. Bringing in a vet or a guy who just knows how to play the point could help the whole machine run a little better. It's the most important position on offense. He doesn't have to be a great player, he just needs to be a guy who can play a role that we don't have anybody to play and which is necessary for our young guys to develop. And we'd be getting Bud out of the way to make a little playing time for LaVine at the 2 (now that Martin's out) which would suit him better and maybe GR III too. I love Corey, but limit his minutes a little if we can stay competitive and let's see what a rotation like this would look like for awhile. I think it'd be more balanced and we'd see our young guys start to grow better.
Mo/(backup)/(LaVine for short stretches)
Corey/LaVine/GRIII
Wiggins/Muhammad
Thad/Bennett/Hummel
Dieng/(keep sliding our power forwards down to make more playing time on the wing until Pek or Turiaf are back)
You can't possibly believe 1 month is going to be a deal breaker for fixing our losing culture and prevent our young guys from developing the way they should. You think bringing in a PG who wasn't believed to be worthy of a contract from any of the other 29 teams is going to make us more competitive and speed up the development process for our rookies? Wiggins wouldn't be developing this fast without being thrust into a role where he needs to be a significant factor on offense. He was our fourth option when fully healthy and was struggling to find his place in the offense. Now he is being forced into a bigger role and it is helping his development greatly. A 3rd string PG is not going to make us significantly more competitive and they aren't going to help our rookies develop any faster because quite frankly they aren't going to be good. If they were they would be on a roster somewhere.
Glenn bought out JJ for 4 million, he's not going to add another 5 and potentially 10 million over 2 years of dead money to balance a roster for a losing team to begin with. This team should tank this year because injuries have forced that play. There is no chance for the playoffs so you play the young guys as much as possible and go for the playoffs next year with a fully healthy roster and another top 5 pick. Making the young guys have to carry this team now is only going to help them grow because they only have to do it for a month. We have a month to get their feet wet and learn how much harder they have to work to get better to wins games rather than trying to spoon feed them along. Their mental makeup has shown to me to be strong enough to tough this month out and come out better for it. I just don't see how bringing in a PG for a month is going to do anything to improve the development or winning culture of this team enough to either eat a lot of money or cut someone who has a better fit with this team long-term. This is an opportunity for the young guys to play a lot and learn a lot for a short period of time while we have the opportunity.
It's crazy that people want us to try to compete now when we are riddled with injuries and after we gave up a superstar for 2 guys with less than 2 years in the league and a role player/starter on bad teams. How about we lose just 1 more year to get the last piece we need to compete long-term. Half our team are guys with less than 3 years experience in the league. The winning will come, but not this year and that should have been pretty obvious with the Love trade.
Again, Rubio looks to be out for 2 months. I could be wrong, but when a guy is still in a boot this long after a sprain, it's bad.
And again, it's not a third string PG because we don't even have a backup. The player is not going to be great or particularly skilled, but we have a fairly important job that our offense relies on every minute Mo isn't on the floor and we have nobody who can fill it right now. That hurts our whole offense. Watch how discombobulated and chaotic our offense is when Mo isn't in there (and sometimes when he is).
I'm trying to think of an analogy here to demonstrate what I mean by we need something cheap and minor to make the valuable stuff work. Maybe it's like having a car with no headlights. You can drive it all you want during the day, no problem, and a headlight is a really basic part, way less important than many of the other parts, and dirt cheap. But without it, you can't drive at night (or at least it's ugly if you do!). A backup PG is a little like that. A little anyway. So why not dump our 3rd spare tire (Bud) in the alley and run down to AutoZone to buy a cheap headlight so we can drive at night? Ok, not the best analogy, but do you see what I mean?
I WANT the young guys to develop and grow. I'm all for the future. I think most of us agree on that. But I think NOT getting a backup PG is actually preventing them from getting those opportunities because we're throwing them out there without anybody to run the offense and get them the ball.
khans2k5 wrote: How about we lose just 1 more year to get the last piece we need to compete long-term.
No, I just can't take it anymore. Maybe some of you have more patience or something. But I just don't buy it. And I think it's false hope. How many high picks have we had now since KG left? A dozen or more? And where did it get us? I'm sick of tanking. Leave it for the Sixers.
And on the PG issue, as I said, it's not going to get us out of the lottery, it's just going to help us be more competitive, help the young guys develop by giving us a real offense, and probably win a few more games. I think that's worth cutting Bud and giving up a couple ping pong balls.
