Final_quest

Teams strike out in free agency all the time. I don’t know why they spent up to the tax line three years in a row but not last year. Maybe they wanted to keep a balance open for a possible move with the TPE. They did actually get better at a lot of things as the season went on.

Because Murray was Huerter’s replacement and if you also keep Huerter you commit to $200M in payroll the following year. It would have been a really bad idea. We already had to cut JC. You honestly believe we should have made our cap commitments higher and on par with the top 3 teams in the league? Like you honestly believe that would have been the smart move?

We had a starting front court that dropped off in productivity and was overpaid. We had a back court that couldn’t defend and was redundant on offense. It takes a lot of dissonance to maintain spending on one more bench player was the problem. If we went into the tax we would be the worst payroll in the league. Piss poor strategy is everything you are saying they should have done. Commit to $200M in spending with a very unremarkable roster.

He’d be a good fit with Trae. Cutting, shooting, and defense. If they get #5 from Detroit, could we get Clingan there and then you have Risacher, Jalen, and Clingan on the front court.

Those trades for Gafford and Washington were on target. Killer moves. I think the Knicks might regret signing OG to a huge contract, but the Villanova guys are gonna sustain that franchise. We could have moved Collins when he had value. That was a huge miss. Collins was completely fumbled from the signing to the timing of the trade.

Would that mean they trade us Fournier as part of the deal and we waive him? Or do we just trade for cap space and create another TPE like we did with Utah and Collins? I’m also guessing we will want Grimes or Fontecchio as part of the deal.

I literally quoted it. "Be on the lookout for an offer from Detroit". You might mean a scoop from Supes isn't a rumor?

I really feel like last season was the first season out of the past 4 where we didn't have excitement going into it and a feeling like the FO made a good effort. 2020-2021: added Capela, Bogi, and Gallo 2021-2022: Paid everyone on the team and added Delon Wright. (No one was questioning running it back and we were predicting a finals run.) 2022-2023: Traded outgoing contract for Murray. Huge move. Even though it didn't work out, I still applaud the effort. 2023-2024: Made an all out blitz to get Siakam. There was no way we could have kept the roster together when we owed 2nd apron money on a play-in level team, still I think they made a credible effort to get a real talent on the team, Siakam. Last year they ran into a brick wall with payroll and not enough talent to support the spend. They still tried to pull a rabbit out of their hat with Siakam. I think saying Ressler doesn't care, or we're not trying doesn't match the reality. There's a lot of valid criticism they deserve, but let's not overreact. When I see the teams with KD, Steph, Giannis, Lebron, and Kawhi paired with other all NBA talent as basically the only teams paying the tax, I'm even more confused. We wanted to act like we got a much better player than we did, and then call the FO cheap skates. It's a little unbalanced to me.

I was just giving another plausible scenario on the question, "What were we trying to do?". Besides the goal changed as injuries mounted. But just to help you out on reading front office language... All the teams that don't have much chance of getting into the play-in say their goal is to make the play-in. Teams that are play-in level say their goal is to avoid the play-in. Teams that are top 6 say their goal is to win the championship. Your stated goal at the start of the season is what's called a stretch goal.

We're gonna hear a lot of rumors in the next few weeks. Assuming we get the #5 pick and #1 pick maybe we're looking at Castle, Sheppard, or Risacher paired with Clingan or Sarr. Filler from Detroit would include Isaiah Stewart $15M, Fournier $19M, Grimes or Fontecchio.

Not going into the tax is assuming failure? That's pretty dramatic. Murray and Young were like 25 years old. I get Phoenix going all in. Hawks acquire Murray after a .500 season and they are now contenders? No one even projected anything like that. No one. Kevin Huerter would not have changed the team projection one bit nor would he have changed the outcome much in real life either. We didn't know Murray wasn't on the level of KD, Kawhi, or Lebron? That's pretty close to a lie. We should have thought of him like that and spent $200M on payroll? You can't be serious.

That's a good way to say it. But it seems like not everyone is sold on Sarr. Their analysis could be in a draft with no future stars, get the guy who is gonna anchor your defense and be a secondary facilitator on offense. Risacher is an exciting guy, too. But I've seen people questioning his defense projecting him to be an average but not good or great defender. It's pretty nerve racking. I've been all over the place with what I think we should do.

What they seemed to do was compete with the guys available. If I were to put what they did in a positive light, you could argue they wanted to prepare for next year as much as possible. playing the right way, trying to win without investing in or adding another player to the roster. Therefore deciding not to full on tank. Focus on developing positive chemistry with the players they had. I understand THEY DID NOTHING TO ADD TO THE ROSTER after cutting Collins. We got it. I'm less hung up on not bringing a low impact bench player than I am excited that they are spending more time and effort on guys like Siakam. I think the suttle, or not so suttle, implication is Ressler is so cheap he wouldn't even pay for a vet min PF to help our roster and possibly mandated NO MORE SPENDING OF ANY KIND. Therefore we can't count on him to ever fully invest in the roster. For me there are layers to that conversation that all have different answers: should we have traded Huerter for a pick, should we have cut JC, should we have been in the luxury tax the past two years, should we have signed Hunter, JC, etc. The Lakers, Suns, Heat, and Clippers all acquired stars and went into the tax to push for a title. Minnesota is headed that direction. Does it really need to be explained why acquiring Dejounte Murray isn't on par with those situations? People mad because Tony doesn't pay the tax have a big problem explaining how and when we were in a similar position as the Lakers, Suns, Heat, and Clippers, etc. When I see Lakers added Lebron and AD, Suns bring in KD, Clippers get PG and Kawhi, it doesn't ring remotely the same as Hawks bring in Dejounte Murray. The Knicks didn't go into the tax after bringing in Brunson. The Cavs didn't after bringing in Donovan Mitchell. Why should we put Murray in the same category as KD, Lebron, and Kawhi when other teams who brought in much better players didn't go into the tax either?

Think he means Sarr + Clingan or Edey. We trade Murray for one of the Spurs picks, not both.

Brad Rowland said he had not heard of any good trades for Murray yet. It’s hard to swap same caliber player to player.

I’m saying if we got a PF instead of Matthews, it would be someone like Kaminsky. Basically a low impact guy.

I take it back. You can be upset about whatever you want. A fringe roster guy like Frank Kaminsky instead of no one. I’m sure everyone would have been way more content with the season if we did a move like that. (Actually I honestly think people would have said they had no intention of getting Siakam. Instead we got Kaminsky.)

It's not like the Hawks weren't aware the roster was gonna suffer after they cut JC. You guys are saying this like it's a big discovery no one thought about including the FO. Dude. We were aware. Why do you think they tried so hard to get Siakam? Once that failed it's clear they didn't like any option available to them, and essentially went into the season with Jalen, Bey, and Mo Gueye, plus Hunter who can play some 4. All of those guys got injured for significant stretches. It wasn't pretty, especially with the injuries. At the moment we struck out on Siakam we don't know what the options available were. But I'm not gonna pretend one more backup 4, would have saved our season. Would we have been a better team with another decent backup? Sure, but the devil is in the details. Who was available and for how much? What level of player is available for a one year deal after most of the prominent signings are done? What would we have to trade, knowing we don't have much draft capital to get another option? I'm guessing a lot of people wouldn't have liked the options if they knew what they were. Even if we did execute on a move, after all of our injuries, the level of backup we would have brought in would have lead to marginally better results. That's not much to hang your hat on or spend a lot of time being upset over.

I’m not disagreeing, but we also need paint defense and rebounding. We’d go from Mitchell Robinson and Randle one night to Giannis and Lopez the next. Sarr may not provide everything we need.

From the headline that should be obvious. Had to be considerable draft capital and other players involved. That headline is for clicks and reactions.

I’m pretty sure Hunter is seen as a negative value contract. You can probably only trade him as salary filler or for other negative value players. But you might be able to find another negative value player or players that’s a better fit for us. He’s not gonna fetch an unprotected 1st round pick in the 2025 or 2026 draft. Get real.

You can set your watch to these takes.

I like Sarr, and think we should probably pick him. Although, he might play the same position of our best player outside of Trae, Jalen. Which that's not a huge deal, but then Mo Gueye could become an amazing rotation guy at the same position. Then you have Okongwu who also might end up being best as a PF, but like others I'm not sold on him as a starting NBA center.

We had to cut John Collins and there's a reason why we couldn't get anything back for him: Would you be surprised to know that the Jazz perform worse in Collins minutes than any other player on the roster? Would you be surprised to know Collins is dead last of all starters in the NBA in on/off net rating? Would you be surprised to know that Collins -7.7 on court net rating is the worst of any player on a team even close to .500? Would you be surprised to know the Jazz have a 124.4(!!!) defensive rating when Collins is on the floor? (The worst defensive rating for a team in history is 121) Collins can be productive on the offensive-end, and can even pass the eye test. But do not get it twisted he has been really far from being really good. ********************************************************* I do agree that we have a really good opportunity to pivot this year. I keep hoping to hear a good trade rumor for Murray or Capela. JC TPE expires 7/8, but we pretty much have $175M on the books after landing the #1 pick. What can you do with that TPE unless you cut some salary before then?

Extend Jalen. Just give him Cam Johnson money.