JeffS17

Other young guys. Again, I think we just disagree if Collins is worth a max or not. I'll be very happy if we keep him for $20M but max isn't worth it imo... if we pay Collins the max and Hunter/Cam pan out to best case scenarios, we won't be able to pay them and his contract will not be easy to ship. I think the difference in our opinion is just how much we think Collins is worth which leaks into the other discussions.

Yeah, it's true we might have to pay him a max if we want to keep him. I just know not all max contracts are the same, i.e Lebron max = insane value; Westbrook supermax = no chance to contend John might develop into a guy that is more than worthy of a max but if he doesn't continue to improve every year, we'll be in a bad spot. It also does hamper our ability to pay our young guys (especially if we want to bring in a star/superstar). Every owner talks about willingness to go into the luxury but few will do it when it's time to write the checks.

lol... then why do we talk about contracts being good or bad value then? If everything is in fact by definition at market value... that's a cop out argument, and it doesn't even apply to the NBA because it's not perfectly free market and the players are not commodities.

Roughly $30M per for Collins right now. I think it would start a little less and escalate.

Paying a max to a player that doesn't deserve one and then dismissing a contract as tradeable is not how you build a winning franchise... you're acknowledging he's not worth max but saying who cares if he gets it? I don't want a contract that we have to mortgage our future to trade. You make decisions like that over and over and suddenly you have a perennial 1 and done playoff team because you mismanaged your cap situation.

It also makes no sense for us to ship Bogi until Cam proves out. And I still stand by Gallo being better value than a max contract Collins. The argument that other teams are willing to max John as proof of his value is bunk. Only one team has to do that to force a max. And the team(s) that value him at max might not have assets we need back. I really hope we don't max Collins.

Damn, lol... maybe he will be ready for at least a portion of the road trip...

Interesting stuff, we went hard on the Bogi deal but if the contract is tradeable we are really no worse off. There's value to having a guy other teams want because you can trade for players you might not have otherwise gotten in FA. But I know we added that kicker and it's a guaranteed 4 yr soooo... we'll see. I see Bogi as our failsafe if project Cam doesn't work out, but I would love if we could package him + picks + whatever for a superstar SG in the future (the more I actually watch Lavine play I wish we could land him). JC was right to be upset with Pierce imo, Trae was definitely overused in the past and we pretty much ran nothing for Collins (except PnR lobs...)

Cam and Hunter on the floor simultaneously makes our defense infinitely better. Yes, Dunn is a good defender but he's not healthy right now so I'm not really considering him. I understand offense is easier to quantify and judge but I think people undervalue/underrate Cam's defense when claiming he doesn't deserve minutes anymore.

I know lol I saw as well. I thought it was obvious my commentary was not about him actually getting fouled and moreso the foul baiting he has leaned on more this year.

Trae was getting legit fouled this game with no calls. Also, as long as the foul baiting is getting called for Steph, Dame, Luka, and every other guard in the league, it should be getting called for Trae too. I agree with you though that it's not fun to watch and I hope they address it this offseason. There needs to be some judgement if the shot attempt is legitimate. Lunging forward and shooting with your body at a 45 degree angle to the floor shouldn't be considered a shot attempt and it should be an offensive foul imo. There are probably exceptions to that but I think that's the judgement refs should have. It's an easy thing to call once or twice and then guards change their behavior and stop foul hunting.

Snell is shooting absolutely lights out and it's amazing to see, but I wouldn't go so far as to suggest he deserves Cam's minutes... Snell isn't creating his own shots and when we start to play teams with locked-in defenses, he's not going to get these open looks to make, and he's not shooting contested shots (part of why his % is so high). With that said, we absolutely need Cam on the defensive end. He's head and shoulders above Snell and that is where we will win ball games. You can miss a lot of shots and win if you are holding teams to <20 a quarter. Add in the context that Cam has been playing injured and he's young/impressionable and been without a real coach, and I think we need to be a little more patient. I'm not suggesting he has to play 35 min/game but he should absolutely be getting 20-25+

What your numbers fail to display here is game to game variance. Also, even if we have a 60% chance to win all of these games (thats actually a little higher than odds makers would have us), the odds we win 6 in a row is (0.6)^6 or about a ~5% chance. So even by the numbers we should be very happy not dropping a game in 6 straight, regardless of opponent!

Houston is so bad... we should be winning by 20+ right now.

Honestly, hard disagree from me. Gallo for $20M is a better contract than JC for 50% more in my opinion. Gallo is a better shooter and they both struggle to create their own shots well. They're both average defenders. IMO the ppl you want to pay on our squad are elite defenders and efficient scorers because trae is going to elevate everyone on offense and get them looks.

Depends what we want back -- if we were going for a good player on their rookie deal it can be easier to salary match now rather than after we sign john to a larger deal.

I don't disagree with #2, but you'll never find out if he's the real deal if you don't keep playing him. Look at how long of a leash Cam has right now. The reality is, as @Gray Mule said in this thread and @bleachkit discussed in another thread, you don't get the same investment and opportunities of a first round pick, often times even when you are showing promise. I hope we continue to develop Nathan and give him more meaningful minutes to see how he does over a larger sample size. The guy has amazing instincts on defense and has been scoring efficiently as well.

Yeah, I think Lavine is a good fit but maybe not great? It's unclear how well he can be defensively on a team that is pushing for a playoff appearance and has a defensive-minded coach. He's been really impressive on offense though -- the guy creates his own shots and has been putting up big numbers on good efficiency. I would love to swing for a bigger name but I just don't know if we will have that luxury

Ah, got it -- that makes more sense. Bogi contract will be the hardest piece to deal with but we could probably find a rebuilding team to dump. I just don't know what SG would realistically do that for us. Lavine seems the most likely for immediate impact and a team that might give up the player for a big haul. Idk how the fit is there, but it feels like we need lockdown defenders more than anything to complement Trae. Trae is going to make most guys look good on the offensive end.

I don't disagree but I also don't want us to end up with a $20M/year player on a max contract that is untradeable without mortgaging our future. I think I'm just not as high on Collins as most people here.

The hypothetical was getting a star SG right now, not in 2 years. I know our cap situation and it waterfalls out pretty favorably but the lineup the guy presented had Trae, Capela, Collins, star SG, and hunter in it. If you want that lineup short-term or long-term -- and you're maxing JC -- you're looking at ~$95-105M for trae/JC/star SG, ~$20M for capela, and ~$10M for hunter before his rookie deal is up. That's $125M minimum and leaves you with no room at all to fill out a bench. In this hypothetical, you'd have to ship bogi and gallo for expirings and fill out the bench with scrubs. I don't think it's wise to max JC. The guy is a solid player but Trae is a huge contributor to his success. We also need SOME flexibility down the road. If Cam comes back after this offseason and takes a huge leap, we wouldn't have money to pay him and Hunter, and I know you guys wouldn't want them to walk either. And a max JC contract will be hard to ship.

Trae is getting maxed, if you want a superstar thats another max contract, capela/gallo/bogi are getting $20M per... and you're suggesting we max JC as well... where exactly do we find money to pay hunter, reddish, heurter, or anyone else to fill out the roster? We'd obviously need to ship some of those guys for the SG but we still have no space with the starting 5 you mentioned. I just don't think maxing JC is a long-term winning move. He's really good but if you want to win a chip you 2 things: willingness to run up to the hard cap and you need contracts on good value, not mediocre to bad value, which is what a JC max is.

Maybe not inevitable, but it seems likely we ship him. It's clear we don't want to max him and it's very likely a team out there offers it. We also don't want to let him walk soooo the option that makes the most sense is ship him now and get value.

I do feel like a JC trade is imminent. I love JC but I feel like we were already trying to ship him this past offseason which is why we dragged our feet and ultimately failed to extend. JC having no extension and on his rookie deal leaves our options way more open-ended for where we can send him out and even sign-and-trade scenarios. The writing seems to be on the wall and Schlenk is leaving his options open. With that said, I don't know who we could realistically get back that would make sense, but I hesitate to write off all the JC rumors as journalists who don't know what they're saying. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. I don't want my homer goggles to shield me from what feels inevitable at this point,

Excited to see Hunter back out there, I really hope he doesn't have too much rust or can shake it off in the OKC game. We need the most healthy guys possible for the upcoming road trip