AtLaS

Trae needs to get it together, period. Cant be shooting 20% from the field. Love Trae, but right now the criticism is warranted.

I like it honestly. 5 straight years, 5 different NBA champions. Hopefully will be our turn soon. I hope our best shot wasn't in 21, we really could have won it all if Trae didn't get hurt in game 3. We were up 5 in the 4th quarter and he already had like 30+. Would have went up 2-1, and we won game 4 on top of that. We would've had 3 chances to eliminate them and we could've absolutely beat the Suns.

I hope not. We still barely lost and we shot 17% from three on the road. If we shoot just 30% from three (still bad) i think we win pretty easily. I can't see us shooting as bad as we did last night very often.

The volatility of our shooting gives us a very high ceiling, and a very low floor. Because of this, there are no guaranteed W's on our schedule even if a team is load managing it's top 4 players. The Hornets were very clearly the inferior team but we just couldn't make a damn shot. I thought we got good looks for the most part, we only had 12 turnovers. Should've been a fairly boring 10-15 point win if we just shot average. We will have plenty of these games this season. Beat a top team, then lose to a bad team when we can't shoot. Hopefully we minimize the amount of games where we shoot 10% from three.

Hornets suck and we can't beat them. They are so clearly an inferior team. Once again, we give a team confidence because we can't make anything.

I'm loving the immediate sprint towards the basket when receiving the pass on the perimeter. Great job by Saddiq, JJ has done it a few times too and we've gotten layups. It's hard to defend.

I been telling y'all all offseason how good JJ is. Dude has unlimited potential.

We are shooting 10% from 3 as a team and still on pace for 100+ points. This is an easy win if we could just shoot like 25%.

How did Hunter not get that rebound. That is horrible.

We need a top 15 defense. We need to shoot better from 3. Primarily Trae needs to return to 2021-22 efficiency. We do those things and we can easily make a top 4 seed. If not we will be about .500 again IMO

It's on Trae too. JJ can't move too much or it's a moving screen. The key to a successful screen is the runner has to run very close to the screener, like Trae needs to almost touch JJ's shoulder. It's kind of on both of them though, JJ ran down too far, and Trae ran up too high making it easy for his defender to dodge the screens. It's preseason though so I won't get too worried about it, Quin can fix that with one film review.

Most don't even have Trae in the top 20 players anymore so he can't be overrated. If we get a top 4 seed, 50+ wins and a decent showing in the playoffs he will move back up. Not being considered for a top passer though is the only disrespect. He's a top 3 passer in the NBA.

JJ such a good passer. Really sees the floor, that is pretty rare.

I think that's where we disagree. Trae wasn't an above average 3pt shooter last year. Murray isn't an above average 3pt shooter. Hunter is maybe average at best. If you look at our 3pt% rankings against the league, Hunter is the 113th best by %, Murray is 118th, Bey is 99th, Trae is 130th. That's horrible. Only Bogi is in the top 30 (he's 29th) and you can't start Bogi with Trae/DJM. Then you add Capela who is absolutely useless outside of 5 feet. The lane will be clogged and teams will force us to make open 3s, which we don't consistently do well. Better shooting teams will beat us, period. Now, if we had Curry/Klay at the 1 and 2, then you can get away with only having 3 of 5 shooters. If we had Myles Turner or KAT at the 5 instead of Capela, then we could add Siakam to this roster just fine. But we don't. The fit is bad unless many other subsequent moves are made, IMO.

Jalen is making $3m this year and we don't have to give up anything to play him. He's also 21 years old. For Siakam we have to sell the farm and pay him 50m+ next offseason to keep him since he will be a UFA. If we trade for Siakam we need to trade for Miles Turner next.

Why is this conversation coming back up? You can't win with Siakam in this lineup unless major changes are made to the roster. You have to have 3pt shooting at 4 of 5 starting positions in the modern NBA. We are also going to have to pay him 50M+ next year which will be a horrible contract, and we would have given up a lot of young pieces to do that. I've said 100x I actually love Siakam as a player, he just won't fit with THIS roster. He'd be great for the Warriors or Celtics. We already have shooting issues, it will get worse with him on this roster. We need to be focused on KAT or Embiid or someone who can address those needs.

Of course he is a reason they haven't went past the 2nd round, but I disagree that he can't be a winner. That can be said about virtually any star player who hasn't won yet. What have Siakam (without goat Kawhi) or KAT won? To make a trade, someone has to be available. The reality is Jokic, Giannis, Steph Curry aren't available for trade. So who are these championship pedigree guys, who are in their prime that we can realistically trade for that will take us to the next level? So much of winning has to do with circumstance. You think Giannis beats Brooklyn if both Kyrie AND Harden didn't get hurt? Hell they might have lost to the Hawks. People would look at him entirely differently. Jokic had virtually the exact same resume as Embiid before this year. Once again, I wouldn't sell the entire farm for Embiid, but am not going to say that I wouldn't even consider trading for him if he was actually available.

The dude has led his team to a top 3-4 seed for like 6 straight years. He's not an empty calories player at all. Sure, he hasn't been out of the 2nd round yet, but a lot of guys haven't. Jokic didn't either until this year, unless you want to count the bubble but they were smoked by LAL in the next round. He and Jokic had virtually the exact same resume until this year. But now Jokic is just so much better. The reality is every NBA player is considered soft or "empty stats" or not a winner UNTIL they win. Regardless if the price for him is too steep it's probably not worth the risk. If we can keep the core in tact and add Embiid I'd probably go for it though. We are a championship team with him and Trae IMO.

It's going to be a lot more controversial this time. For one, he's already done this before. Second, that Houston team had no other stars or key leaders of the team at that time. Embiid is the star on Philly, wouldn't be surprised if something went down between those 2. I just can't see them letting him dog it, if I'm an MVP caliber player who is trying to win a championship I'm not playing with a half-ass, unmotivated Harden. But that's probably what Harden wants, for Philly to tell him to stay home then he still gets paid and doesn't have to play. I think this is going to do much more harm than good for Harden, wouldn't be surprised if he gets the Melo or Starbury treatment after this. At the very least he's going to take a huge paycut next year. Dude is going to be humbled bigtime.

I've been saying this for years. Max salaries ensures that the very best players in the league are underpaid. Jokic/Giannis/LeBron are making the same money as guys Bradley Beal/Lamelo Ball/Paul George, etc. And since there is a salary cap, it is a massive advantage for the teams that have a top 5 player. If you remove the max salary and allow the top players to get market price as in all other sports, league parity will improve dramatically IMO.

With this new CBA and salary cap, EVERY decent player is going to be making this. Siakam is already making 37 million and is a UFA next season, what do you think he's going to get paid? I guarantee it will be close to 50 million, if not more. KAT is a way better fit, stretches the D, a legit big who can rebound, post up, and shoot lights out. Trading for Siakam ensures we are playing small ball and will be a horrible shooting/spacing team. Pretty much every player is considered soft before they win a championship. KAT is no different.

100%. A LOT of ppl have these 3 above Trae. I've also seen Kyrie, Holiday, Fox, Harden, Hali, Murray ranked above him. Trae has been getting crapped on since the Miami series last year. As if it completely erased everything he did in the year prior. He was awful in that series, but some of the rankings have just been terrible. This ranking is fair to me. I can see Fox and Hali having arguments. Hali was ridiculously efficient last year, but now that he got the big contract he will get a lot more scrutiny. He better start winning now.

Check out dude's passing from 3-4 minutes on the second video. VERY few players have that type of passing ability/anticipation. Trae is one of them. Trade Bey or Bufkin. We need to keep AJ and JJ.

This all happened at age 21 in his first chance at legitimate playing time, and right after getting Quin. On day 1 I remember a Quin interview where he was like we need to get this guy involved, he's too gifted to not be playing. JJ responded immediately. He also adds rim protection and plays passing lanes and is a good rebounder and can guard 5 positions, all things we will need if OO is starting. JC is now gone so that opens up a lot more playing time. JJ also dominated in the summer league and g-league, was a 5 star recruit and only fell b/c of the situation at Duke. He was a STEAL.

I'm totally fine trading Bufkin if they want to. But AJ/JJ is tough. I was the one who compared JJ's potential to Lamar Odom. But of course there is no guarantee. Quin really likes him, immediately began using him and he began to contribute almost immediately after he arrived. Quin gave him confidence and the dude looks ready to breakout this year IMO. Sure, he doesn't have a great jumper yet but he is a freak. We are fortunate to be in a great spot with many young guys who were drafted late and have good trade value. We nailed the JJ/AJ picks. OO has developed well and I think is ready to be a starter. OO was pretty high but JJ/AJ were not, we NAILED those. Now it's the risk factor of giving up a young guy with potential for a finished product making huge money. There is a very good chance that none of our young guys become as good as Siakam, but of course there also is a chance they will. There is also the risk that we give them up too early before another star becomes available for trade that may be a better fit. I love Siakam as a player, I'm just concerned about our shooting with him logging 35 minutes with this roster. If you look at Toronto's championship team, they had Lowry, Green, Kawhi, Gasol starting with Siakam and Vanvleet who was unconscious that year off the bench. They had great shooters at every position around him. We don't. Your post does make sense and makes me feel better about the trade, but I'd still rather go for KAT. I'll be happy if we got Siakam though. There is always risk, you have to give up something with potential to get something. I thought Collins would continue to get better as well and he didn't. A few years from now if the young guys don't get any better we will have regretted not making a trade. The question is THIS the trade we should make.