Minnesota Sports Forum

"Would you rather have Bennett or a pick >10 next year in another draft largely not considered that strong?"

Haven't heard anyone say 2015 isn't a strong draft. It's just not what 2014 was or looks to be. Personally, I'd rather have the pick instead of Bennett. I still believe that Flip isn't that high on Bennett. Not to mention I like how Flip has drafted thus far.

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:So with Love complimenting the Cavs roster before the draft and with LeBron naming every Cav in his letter but Wiggins and Bennett, we had our answer all along? Love was always going to Celveland for the 1st pick to team up with LeBron? So all those posts about Boston, Golden State, Chicago, Klay Thompson, Nikola Mirotic, Dion Waiters, Tristan Thomspon were a waste of time? K, just checking.

Its a good questio and I think the answer is...Sort of. It seems like Flip is a straight shooter. I bet when the Cavs asked what his price was for Love he told them. So for all this time the price was probably about what we are getting now. I bet this was communicated to LeBron hence the letter. So why has it taken so long? I think for one thing both the Cavs and the Wolves wanted to avoid the 30 day waiting period and maybe they had a couple teams somewhat interested in facilitating that. It never really materialized and so they finally had to have Wiggins sign to finish the deal.

The return for Love is Wiggins Bennett and aprotected 1st. Not bad. Anything else they get out of that is Flip taking what he got from that trade and turning it into something else like if he gives up part of the package for Young. Young right now is outside of the initial package. Let's see what Flip does now.

Ford's thoughts on next year's draft:

"The 2015 draft doesn't appear to have a franchise-type player right now. There is no one guy to hang all of your hopes on. No one worthy of tanking the season over ... yet.

But that doesn't mean it will be the 2013 NBA draft either. There is talent here. Lots of it. And for the first time in a while, much of the talent stands 6-foot-10 or taller.

Overall, the 2015 draft class is rounding out to be a pretty solid -- somewhere in the middle of 2014 and 2013. The bigs are the appeal, but there just isn't a lot of star power here outside of Mudiay. Luckily it can get better. You also have to factor in that some players that we're not talking about will rise -- they always do. Vonleh and Nik Stauskas weren't listed as lottery picks before 2013-14 season, for example."

A draft without a franchise guy is not a good start. He said it's going to be between 13 and 14. So is a top 5 player in a bad draft really not worth more than a top 20 player in a good, but not great draft? Considering we'll already have 1 pick in the top 10, I don't see how a second pick in the teens to 20's in a decent draft is better than a top 5 talent in a bad one. I'll take a top 5 guy in a bad draft over a late lottery/non-lottery pick in a decent but not great year every time. We'll just have to agree to disagree though. We all know which side of the Bennett issue you are on.

I think I've seen two questions posed on this thread today.

Will the roster Cam documented in his post win 40 games? I would say no. I think they will be very entertaining, but also will make a lot of mistakes typical of very young teams. I also think we would be out-rebounded every night. That said, I would probably enjoy watching them win 35 games more than I enjoyed last year's team.

Do I prefer Bennett or a likely >10 pick? This one is easy for me...I take Bennett. I mostly throw out his rookie year and think his play in the NBA will eventually look more like the guy we saw at UNLV then the fat guy who played for the Cavs last year. I like his size and length combined with sweet stroke on his jumper...a very nice combination. I see it as unlikely that Flip could find a guy in the draft teens with more potential than AB. I still prefer trying to land Young using a combo platter of existing players and 2nd rounders, but if that doesn't work and Flip really wants him, give them the Miami pick.

Looks like it will be a simple love for wiggins+bennet+a 1st round pick. I think a couple of non guaranteed deals will come our way.

We need to trim down the roster after and a deal with sixers for young would have to be a seperate deal.

Anyone think we can make a trade for young without giving up bennet? 3 of our guys that I could see the sixers would be interested are shabazz, bud and luc. Bazz gives them a scorer with potential. Bud, because he gives the shooting that they dont have and luc because luc has been the mentor of embiid since his college career and is an expiring. I cant see the sixers being interested in barea to be honest. Just not a fit for them.

I would send all 3 to them for thad and keep bennet but not sure they would accept.

longstrangetrip wrote:I think I've seen two questions posed on this thread today.

Will the roster Cam documented in his post win 40 games? I would say no. I think they will be very entertaining, but also will make a lot of mistakes typical of very young teams. I also think we would be out-rebounded every night. That said, I would probably enjoy watching them win 35 games more than I enjoyed last year's team.

Do I prefer Bennett or a likely >10 pick? This one is easy for me...I take Bennett. I mostly throw out his rookie year and think his play in the NBA will eventually look more like the guy we saw at UNLV then the fat guy who played for the Cavs last year. I like his size and length combined with sweet stroke on his jumper...a very nice combination. I see it as unlikely that Flip could find a guy in the draft teens with more potential than AB. I still prefer trying to land Young using a combo platter of existing players and 2nd rounders, but if that doesn't work and Flip really wants him, give them the Miami pick.

The problem is if Martin/Pekovic go down for any lengthy period of time - and that's very possible - I just don't see how this team can put up enough points on a nightly basis. 25 wins seems about right to me.

Q12543 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:I think I've seen two questions posed on this thread today.

Will the roster Cam documented in his post win 40 games? I would say no. I think they will be very entertaining, but also will make a lot of mistakes typical of very young teams. I also think we would be out-rebounded every night. That said, I would probably enjoy watching them win 35 games more than I enjoyed last year's team.

Do I prefer Bennett or a likely >10 pick? This one is easy for me...I take Bennett. I mostly throw out his rookie year and think his play in the NBA will eventually look more like the guy we saw at UNLV then the fat guy who played for the Cavs last year. I like his size and length combined with sweet stroke on his jumper...a very nice combination. I see it as unlikely that Flip could find a guy in the draft teens with more potential than AB. I still prefer trying to land Young using a combo platter of existing players and 2nd rounders, but if that doesn't work and Flip really wants him, give them the Miami pick.

The problem is if Martin/Pekovic go down for any lengthy period of time - and that's very possible - I just don't see how this team can put up enough points on a nightly basis. 25 wins seems about right to me.

We won 31 games two seasons ago with Rubio and end of the bench guys playing meaningful minutes. I just don't see the team being as bad on offense as you, I guess. That's even if/when Martin and Pekovic go down at some point. I also think after a Love trade, we'll be a deeper team than last year, which is a positive.

With this month waiting period I forced myself to stay away but this news has me too excited. It's unfortunate we're losing Love but I already had him off the team next year so I see it more as trading away 1 year of Love than trading away a guy who will be our best player for many more years.

Between Rubio, LaVine, Wiggins, Bennet, and Dieng we would have a young player at every position with the potential. I know potential is often overrated but this is the first time in a long time it feels like we have multiple players with elite potential.

That could be a very bad situation for Lavine as someone who has the talent put up points. If this teams ends up needing him to score points I see Flip having a hard time trying to develop that part of his game.

I'm hoping for 25 wins but I can see this team going for stretches tough losses especially with history having us expect (like Q mentioned) Martin, Pek, Bud, etc missing stretches of games due to injury.

If the deal ends up as reported today, I'll be very happy, if Flip ultimately deals either Bennett or the Miami pick plus a couple unwanted contracts for Thad I'll be happy. Either way, kudos to Flip.

As for next season, I'm not going to fret. We are clearly now in rebuild mode. Flip has elected to take the long view with a series of long-ball swings. I like it. No matter how many wins we get next season, the good news is that we will have more young, high upside talent on this roster than we've ever had in franchise history -- Wiggins (19), LaVine (19), Bennett (21), Dieng (23/24), Ricky (yes, still only 23/24 with lots of potential improvement). And I wouldn't give up on Shabazz at age 22.

If we end up with 30 wins next season as I suspect, we'll have a pretty high lottery pick to go with a Miami pick likely in the 14-19 range.

A lot of terrific building blocks. I don't know how things will turn out in the end, but I have nothing but praise for the way Flip has handled the situation he inherited.