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lol….We have no business overpaying for a dude on the last year of a contract….period! Put the lipstick away and let the pig go on its way! BTW, varying perspectives are a good thing
Yes, because you historically value getting a bargain over actually improving the team. It's obvious through the way you grade trades and throw out proposals.
lol….We have no business overpaying for a dude on the last year of a contract….period! Put the lipstick away and let the pig go on its way! BTW, varying perspectives are a good thing
I tentatively agree, but there's hidden value in taking a guy off the market and putting him next to Wemby for a year, plus promising we'll max him next summer. If we suck ass and he leaves, okay I see your point. No way we trade for him without a verbal agreement he'll resign with us, though.lol….We have no business overpaying for a dude on the last year of a contract….period! Put the lipstick away and let the pig go on its way! BTW, varying perspectives are a good thing
Imagine teams stacking up on bigs to try and counter Wemby and then we play Markkanen at C against backup bigs while Wemby sits.
Opens up so many options.
People don't understand how rare it is to have a legit 7 footer shooting 40% from deep on high volume. And he's also an above average athlete.
It's just Lauri, Porzingis and KAT in the entire league. The rarest archetype every team wants to have.
Let’s not conjure up some of Laurie bashing post during the demar trade a few years back; some of posting here have to be right at all cost! The hypocrisy
As LeBowen mentioned elsewhere, Lauri fits in nicely with a CP3/Vassell/Castle/Lauri/Wemby lineup because that lineup only has one weak spot in spot important aspects. That's 4 good shooters in the lineup. That's 4 good defenders in the lineup. That's 4 (relative to their position) good ball handlers in the lineup. We don't need Lauri to be all of those things, because the rest of the lineup is all of those things. That's the beauty of the fit. The Spurs don't need to sit around and wait for the perfect player with 99 ratings in every category to emerge like this 2K Create a Player. Lauri is a fit *because* of how he fits. That sounds like a ridiculous statement, but folks need to think about the rest of this lineup and then think of how Lauri fit. A puzzle piece isn't the entire picture all into itself, it fits because of the pieces around it.
Wemby is the ultimate chess piece; place a brook lopez piece as a stop gap this year if Utah gets cute. I’m not oppose to giving market value for the talent but killing our future viability is not worth it.
So just to be clear, Markkanen would not have been mentioned as a target three years ago. In fact he was an option three years ago, and the idea was meh to most people. I don't think you need all the answers right now. A "concrete plan" shouldn't require a list of targets for each off-season. I think targeting some uncertain player is how you end up panicking and trading away a top-10 pick because the one player you wanted was picked in front of you and then showing your ass because the trade you built your entire off-season around didn't end up materializing. The point of having SO many picks is that you don't have to freak out about any individual opportunity. If the Spurs have to pay seven picks to get Brown in two years when the Celtics buckle under the weight of the new tax rules, you can handle it. Or if Trey Murphy starts to blow up and the Pelicans are listless due to Zion falling apart, then you can make the trade then. Or maybe Embiid is just done by deadline 2026 and Paul George asks out. Or, you know, a lot of things.
The Spurs have to continue to trust their drafting ability or excise that whole department and replace it. They can't retain it while simultaneously using its lack of success to justify making huge trades. So practically, the Spurs should trust the draft, because it's still the most sustainable way to build a strong roster, even when intending to make huge trades. Even in a fantasy scenario, though, I prefer to hope the Spurs magically figure out the draft than cir vent it. Of course, I've spilled a ton of digital ink talking about the more direct moves I would want them to make. But when I see threads talking about the Spurs trading "it all" to complete a Castle, Vassell, __________, _________, Wembanyama lineup, I feel like we're missing the point. IF Stephon, Devin and Victor all work out, the team should be trying to fill the other spots sustainably rather than acquiring players that should warrant emptying the war chest between them. Those are guys who will be too expensive to keep. The Spurs should use some of that chest to bring in good players to fill those positions now, but the bulk of it should be used to fill in the rest of the roster. The Spurs are never going to be a second-apron team. That's just the reality of being in a small market. They're going to have to be okay with the bulk of their rotation cycling out every few years. If they're smart, they will trade those pieces before they expire for picks they can use to keep things going, or for the right types of role-players to strike.
I say all this as a person who's probably gotten a couple more gray hairs trying to wrap my head about the Mark situation despite being apathetic to his potential acquisition. There are multiple paths forward. Mark represents one genus of paths, but there are others. While I worry about the FO's ability to find a good path, that doesn't mean I don't believe the path they choose won't have options to put it all together. They have to do what makes sense to them, or else they're going to do it even worse.
Last edited by Chinook; 07-04-2024 at 02:58 PM.
Does Lauri play anywhere close to a 7 footer? I feel like we're talking about Risacher again here. Markkanen doesn't block shots and he is a good rebounder but not a glass-cleaner. Defensively, he's very bad. You can't possibly expect him to be a defensive anchor, can you? As a C we'd get destroyed. He really is an Andrea Bargnani in terms of his height not being utilized.
This is a great point I brought up in another thread. Right now, Lauri and Naz are the two ideal, and realistically attainable, wing targets that I think fit this team. But 3 years ago, no one would have said either of those guys. There will be some other wings who emerge in this mold. Jalen Johnson is a guy who maybe could emerge into that, for example (Johnson isn't the shooter that Lauri or Naz are, but Naz wasn't always the shooter he is now either). Things change.
But one thing is certain, whoever does emerge will have their own flaws, and if they emerge the way Lauri has... he will be just as expensive as Lauri is now. The only way around this is to 1) draft that guy or 2) identify and acquire that guy before he emerges from his cocoon. Both things are easier said than done.
Guy blocks half a shot per game but people post highlight vids of those blocks to prove up his defense?
While we're just casuals and the idea was meh (not to me personally, but I wasn't that high on him), the problem is that our front office and scouting department didn't recognize his potential.
Because if they thought he can become what he is today, they would've surely taken him in Demar deal.
When we get back to contender status, we'll eventually need to pull a player out of our ass here and there.
Players unwanted by their teams, but then their potential is recognized.
Not even neccesarily star players, like Knicks and Brunson, but role players.
Instead, we have RC and Pop costing the ownership $26M per year combined and we're penny pinching in the second round instead of taking a flyer on someone like Furphy.
Yeah, he'll likely be out of the league in three years, but if there's 20% of him becoming a good player, you take it. It's the second round.
This is another problem. I don't feel there's enough accountability right now and as long as RC and Pop are at the wheel, noone will ever get fired or even demoted.The Spurs have to continue to trust their drafting ability or excise that whole department and replace it.
Agreed with the rest, good post.
Would be like a woman picking three guys packing four inches over one packing ten inches.
Ainge is only going to trade Markannen if he gets a deal that knocks his socks off. He can’t extend him for a month, so why not listen? I don’t think he’s under pressure to move him. How do we know Markannen doesn’t like SLC anyway? What do Finns look for in nightlife? Spas?
If the Spurs made a fair offer, I still don’t think that moves Ainge to pull the trigger. They’d have to do something like what the Knicks did, I think.
If I'm remembering the difference between your offer and my offer correctly, it's SA28 (with a Top-1 protected BOS swap attached). I'm presuming that by then we'll be good (and if we aren't, then hopefully everyone is getting fired, because Wemby is probably about to ask for a trade). So the pick will be in the 20s. So the deal breaker for you is someone like Blake Wesley.
This is what I mean by caring more about "winning the trade".
He'd be happy to stay if Jazz actually wants to compete.
He publicly said he won't accept getting shut down or tanking again.
The issue for the Jazz is that he's not a #1 guy and two upcoming drafts are too good for a bad team not to embrace the tank.
But if they tank, Lauri doesn't sign an extension and then they lose him for cheap at the deadline.
My educated guess would be that he won't sign an extension if they don't guarantee him they'll try to win games.
That includes bringing at least one more good veteran.
I agree in the conclusion (the Spurs should make a fair offer, which I've outlined what I think that is earlier) but I actually disagree that Ainge is only going to trade Markkanen for a killer deal. I think Ainge is actually fairly committed to trading Lauri, but he's effectively using the media to bid up the price for him by pitting teams against each other.
Given that the Jazz have done absolutely nothing else to immediately improve their team, and I don't think they're going to make a blockbuster trade, it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to stick with Lauri. Ainge actually has a golden opportunity to hard tank in 2025. He doesn't need to land pick #1, only top 4 or 5, to add his franchise guy, because next draft *appears* loaded with those options. So he really should race for the worst record by rolling out a bad, but exciting, lineup of Collier/George/Cody/Hendricks/Kessler with Flip and Sensabaugh off the bench. He should move Markkanen and Sexton for as much as he can possibly get, and leave Clarkson as the vet leader to teach those young pups. At the end of all that, he'll have his new lead horse, a roster full of young guys with a year of extra experience, and an unprecedented war chest of picks to build around that young stud however he wants. It's basically what the Spurs are set up to do, but on steroids because they'll have double the extra picks we have now.
I think if the Jazz do that, they set themselves up to be a real force in the back part of the decade. If the Spurs landed Markkanen and kept SA25 and ATL25, then around 2028, 2029 we're going to see SAS, Utah and OKC dominating the West.
It makes no sense for the Jazz to resign Markkanen. Also, apparently Markkanen doesn't want to resign with a team that has no chance to compete. The Jazz are trading Lauri sooner or later.
If the Spurs landed Markannen, they’d probably be a playoff team in 24-25, so I wouldn’t be married to holding onto their own pick. ATL’s pick is another matter.
No way. Injury risk. Without Wemby we are top 3 lotto team
The reason I want to hold SA25 in addition to ATL25 is that I want it to give me flexibility to move up with the ATL pick if I need to.
If we end up with pick 8 and 21, for example, can that 21 be what I need to go from 8 to 6 if I have to? And if not, I think I still want that #21 for useful prospect who will blossom around 2027-28. So for me, it's less about where that pick is projected to fall and more about the flexibility it adds in the supposedly strong 25 draft.
And other than that, as I've said earlier, Ainge already has 3 FRPs next year and has gaps in the even years in his war chest (and he has 4 picks already in 2027), so he may be looking to supplement with even year picks.
Yup. Under no cir stancesshould we include ATL picks. The Hawks are one sprained ankle to TY from being a top 5 pick in next years draft and depending on what transpires next offseason potentially again in 27. Those picks are ing gold and Ill never understand the folks here being so desperateto move them now especiallywhen we have $25 million in cap space
Surprising as it may sound, most women would much prefer three 4-inch guys (or even a single one) over a 10-inch pole that can't fit inside them.
Not the best analogy tbh.
That's not even what I'm looking at. We have 2 of those on the floor at the same time. The length alone is gonna be terrifying, at the rim and in the passing lanes. Lauri fits the whole positionless basketball theme too, as he can shoot it and attack close outs while also being 7 feet tall and mobile on the perimeter. He grabs a lot of boards too. I'd still try to sign Naz Reid as a back up just so teams don't ever catch a break.
Give me brook Lopez vs selling the farm for Laurie ( I’m a huge LM supporter ).
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