Going Commando Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I think you're overrating Nurkic's potential. He's never played more than 18 MPG. He's a big lumbering center who is a weak defender that turns it over a lot and can't stretch the floor--Al Jefferson without the post game. He's a career back up in today's NBA. Plumlee is actually athletic and a passable defender and he doesn't hurt you on offense. He finishes well, sets good screens, and is a quality passer at the position. He is capable of playing 28 MPG. He's a lot easier to play than Nurkic and I don't think Portland actually has long term plans for Nurkic. This move was all about team payroll. Plumlee's going to get a big pay bump this summer and Portland is already on the hook for 137 million next year. That's higher than Cleveland. Their luxury tax bill will be enormous and they couldn't afford to keep Plumlee. Nurkic gives them an extra year of a rookie contract and they moved up like 15-20 spots in the draft for their trouble. Nurkic himself isn't a great fit for their team because their defense is so awful and Plumlee was arguably their best defender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skin'emAlive Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Plumlee is a guy who I wanted to back up Marcin going in to last year's offseason. He's a good player that rebounds well, runs the floor well, and can sky. He's really athletic and can fill a lot of rolls. Nurk is barely seraphin level, and mbp has an elite hook shot. But Portland is locked in to lilliard, McCollum, and maybe crabbe, so salary has to be cut somewhere. Turner was a terrible addition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destino Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 We need a try hard back up center that no one has heard of. It seems like every team has one, including us, but for some reason ours is making more than our starter. The guy we should be paying, and not nearly as much as is Mahinmi making, is a 6th man that can score. I think Ernie panicked because we didn't need a high price player added. Consider this, would we better off with Mahinmi at 15.9 million or the following players for essentially the same price all signed this past offseason: Seraphin 2 million Hibbert 5 million Sessions 6 million Waiters 3 million Mahinmi, if he gets back to how he played last season, is the better player. Also I freely admit some of those guys aren't any good, but we're talking about bench players here playing limited minutes. I think those guys would make a deeper team, more secured against non season ending injury, and provided a much more potent scoring punch. And we wouldn't have needed Nicholson who still has 3 years on his deal after this season. This isnt all hindsight being 20/20 either, Ernie's choices weren't normal front office approaches to building a bench. He went with a defensive center as the team's major bench acquisition. Doing so forced him to rely on unproven 2nd round draft pick (satoransky), a bust (Trey Burke), and a known bum in Thornton for his back court depth. I can think of some teams that have done things similar, but it's not the norm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Going Commando Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I think quality beats quantity in your rotation players Des. A playoff rotation is only like eight deep or at the absolute most nine. And it's also a format where the chasm between good role players and weaker, more unreliable ones becomes huge. Given that, I like Mahinmi over the guys you mentioned because the man is a good starting caliber player we'd be able to bring off the bench. The issue isn't with his game/fit or the money he makes, it's that he got injuries in both knees and didn't play. I also think a defensive-minded center like him is extremely valuable for us. Gortat is a passable defensive player and solid rebounder but the reason we play him is because of his offensive value. We need a good defensive center that can guard pick and rolls to balance out our front court and have match up flexibility. I've spent most of the season looking around the league for a quality defensive center who might be available and Nerlens Noel is one of the only ones I've found. I can't believe how few of them there are, but there is a real scarcity of them in the NBA. I'd be open to trading for Nerlens Noel, but the issue with him is the upcoming payday this summer, and what it'd cost us to get him from Philly. I think he ends up making a lot more than Mahinmi. Also he was injured for almost as long as Mahinmi, and he's got the serious knee injuries in his medical history too. Bismack was another option this summer, but he's actually slightly more expensive than Mahinmi and not quite as good. I don't think he is the same caliber of pick and roll defender. Our only other option was probably keeping Nene, who is a good pick and roll defender and could play back up C. But we're playing the same game with his health as with Mahinmi. And Nene caused intangible locker room problems here with his attitude. And Mahinmi has a better chance of being a long term contributor than Nene, who is probably close to retirement. If we hadn't gone after a defensive center, then the only other move I would have liked was going for a sweet shooting PF like Ryan Anderson. But he was expensive and has an extensive injury history too. And it would have been really hard to play good defense with Ryan Anderson and Jason Smith as our back up C. That's the issue Houston has with him. I'm more comfortable spending our money to get a defensive center. Gortat is aging and we need to be ready for a decline from him. And Mahinmi can be a big part of a really good big man platoon. If we do end up having that, it's very valuable. It'd give us a major advantage over Boston, Indy, and Toronto, who are all very weak and undersized in their front line. Cleveland's also undersized there now, although they do have quality. TBH, I actually don't hate that we went cheap on bench perimeter options this past offseason because it forced us to play Oubre and Satoransky. I believe in their potential and those guys are the key to us fielding a good bench in the future. We needed to play them and just deal with their growing pains. Has it cost us wins this season? No doubt. Will having two rotation players as inexperienced as them hurt us in the playoffs? Probably. But we're not going to win a championship this year. We're not even going to beat Cleveland so we're either a second round or ECF out. Thus we've got to develop these kids so that we have them when we're actually ready to contend in two seasons or so. Another consideration in how to allocate our money is that we've got All Star caliber starters at PG and SG. Wall and Beal play so many minutes and bring so much offense to the table that you can scrimp on back ups at their position. I'm not saying I'm against acquiring a back up guard in trade though, just that I don't have a problem with the decision to spend our money on getting another really good center this summer. What I'd do is look for a cheap but reliable shooter to play SG and phase Sato into the back up PG role. And I don't think we necessarily need to trade for this kind of player. A back up SG is probably the most common type of player, so you might be able to get a street free agent to work this season. And then in the summer I'd seriously consider using our pick to draft Josh Hart from Villanova, who I think could be an ideal long term solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destino Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I don't have a problem with the quality argument, but the bench needs to score primarily. Sacrificing bench scoring almost entirely for bench defense makes no sense. Jason Smith, god bless him, is our most reliable scoring option off the bench at the moment. As much as he's grown on me lately, that's terrible. (And Mahinmi is likely to eat away his minutes) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillUnknown Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 presented without comment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonArtest15 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 So who do you guys think we'll target at the deadline? Barton Crawford Williams And (Derrick) Williams, true the sample size is VERY small, but he's put up 7 and 12 in his two games as a Cav. They got him on the cheap. He could have certainly helped a bit here, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destino Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 2 minutes ago, StillUnknown said: presented without comment Sounds like Miss piggy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOSKINS_08 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 3 minutes ago, RonArtest15 said: So who do you guys think we'll target at the deadline? Barton Crawford Williams And (Derrick) Williams, true the sample size is VERY small, but he's put up 7 and 12 in his two games as a Cav. They got him on the cheap. He could have certainly helped a bit here, I think. I'd be happy with Jamal Crawford but I have no idea what it'd take to get him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llevron Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Crawfords scoring off the bench makes us pretty damn dangerous. I like that option the most. Honestly with him and what we have now I can see us winning the east. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonArtest15 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 23 minutes ago, GOSKINS_08 said: I'd be happy with Jamal Crawford but I have no idea what it'd take to get him. I think he'd be the cheapest to get out of the 3 and probably wouldn't take a future 1st round pick to acquire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skin'emAlive Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Ignoring the salary and injury issues, the biggest problem with mahinmi is that best case scenario ( and optimal scenario) is that he is a huge defensive presence that can guard the paint and guard the pick and rolls. That doesn't sound like a problem until you realize this means he should probably be playing more minutes than Marcin in the playoffs where we will absolutely need that skill set. Specifically, he would be playing the crunch time minutes over Marcin, would he be ok with that? I'm not so sure. Ian is clearly an offensive black hold that needs to be spoon fed from wall. Marcin isn't that far off from that description either; just kind of opposites. I think we will just have to live with what we have because I see no scenario that Gortat is shipped out from this organization. So wishful thinking is that when we do trade for a 6th man at the deadline, it's with the 2018 1st, and not the 2017. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skin'emAlive Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 (edited) As for who the 6th man should be? Crawford would be wonderful beside Sato, whose defensive energy has been great. Lou Williams would be great too. A half season rental of Ibaka might be nice if the price is right, though I doubt that Orlando would take Nicholson back. I would be ecstatic to steal bojan bogdonavic fron Brooklyn. I guess we could throw Will Barton in the mix. But seeing as how nurk and soon possibly Wilson and gallinari could be gone, I think he's off the list. Could also say screw the defense, and trade mahinmi for okafor. Provides a scoring threat on the bench with a rookie contract and room to grow. Edited February 13, 2017 by Skin'emAlive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonArtest15 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Speaking of Okafor, I just posted this in the NBA thread... Does Jahlil Okafor Have A Place In Today’s NBA? His stock is at an all-time low...I wonder if he could be had for anything other than a 1st round pick in return? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TradeTheBeal! Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I'm starting to like the idea of the #3 seed and playing a free-falling Raptor crew at #6. I'll have my broom ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skin'emAlive Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Here's the thing about Okafor: He can get his own shot and has an array of post moves to get them. On a team that is just not going to be able to afford another great facilitator, this is important. The question would be, can he hit a wide open mid range jump shot? Ive seen him burn us a handful of times already to believe he can. The John Wall effect is real and everyone that can hit an open shot plays better here. One year ago Markeif Morris was talked about as a bust who had terrible efficiency from deep. Now look... His rookie contract and age (21) leads me to believe that he would be a better buy than keeping both Marcin and Ian at the salary they are at right now. At some point ( Otto Max) we have to decide whether to keep Marcin or Mahinmi. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skins199021 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 What do you all think about trading our 2017 1st, Nicholson, burke and a 2018 2nd to the Nuggets for Barton and Chandler? Then you go small with the bench and go with Sato-Barton-Oubre-Chandler-Mahini Barton and Chandler's deals would be up by the time we need to resign Wall again Not sure if that gets it done, but just a thought Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor703 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 No. Stop trying to trade our first round pick lol 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillUnknown Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 "they can't criticize your ability to draft, if you don't draft." 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 3 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said: I'm starting to like the idea of the #3 seed and playing a free-falling Raptor crew at #6. I'll have my broom ready. Patiently waiting for that home and home to start March. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrypticVillain Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 6 hours ago, RonArtest15 said: I think he'd be the cheapest to get out of the 3 and probably wouldn't take a future 1st round pick to acquire. Please don't sice me like this. I've been wanting him to be on our bench for some years now. We could really use him right now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRobi21 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillUnknown Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 one wizard's pregame idiot left Westbrook off their top 5 pg's, the other left off Harden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillUnknown Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 these people are paid to give their opinion on basketball related matters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TradeTheBeal! Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 15 minutes ago, StillUnknown said: one wizard's pregame idiot left Westbrook off their top 5 pg's, the other left off Harden Never heard of em. #coastalbias Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now