My bad, the phrase wasn't even similar, but you straight up said he was better you ing degenerate.
Look at this , this is an actual candidate for the worst take of the year.
Of course I'm going to take offense when you're the resident nerd who reminds the teacher she forgot about homework.That wasn’t an opinion, it was an incorrectly stated fact. I think I mentioned it, you took offense instead of dropping a simple “my bad”, and you began pursuing me throughout the forum like The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Going around topics acting like your word is the law, despite spewing nonsense in every other post.
If you just did it to me and just did it once, I would've ignored it, but you're a ing re who feeds off these things.
Another reason to avoid Giannis is to avoid the compulsion to continue to give all these past their prime superstars max deals. I could see a future where maybe we have won a le with Wemby, Fox, and Giannis - and then we have 34-year-old Giannis expecting (and getting!) a 4 year, $300M deal. No thank you. ... But not you, Wemby. You can have all the billions.
I want to spend the next decade arguing over who to draft at the end of the first round, not concocting trade deals to right the ship.
What the Spurs actually need is what the Celtics did a couple of years ago: we need the Derrick White's, JRue Holiday's, healthy Kristaps Porzingis' of the world and not players on max contracts. These are all players who are borderline All-Stars and can drop 20 on any team at any given night while being positive defenders. You need to stack your roster with those type of high level role players and they cost a lot less.
Boston got White from us for #28 and a swap. They took on Porzingis and received 2 picks for him. Then they packaged one of those picks with another pick to get Holiday. At the end they got those 3 guys for basically 2 picks and 1 swap and even got a low first rounder from the Grizzlies back. Their warchest was reduced by 1 first, 1 swap, 1 second round pick for 3 championship pieces. The players they offloaded were Gallinari, Muscala, Richardson, Robert Williams and Brogdon.
That's smart GMing.
That's the whole reason why I'm saying get a player like John Collins.
I see the 2024 Celtics as a very good example on how to construct your roster.
2022:
Stars: Tatum and Brown
key role players: Horford, Smart
supporting cast: Robert Williams, Josh Richardson/Derrick White, Grant Williams, Pritchard
They needed more defense and playmaking, so they moved Richardson for White who's an obvious upgrade. That team made the finals and lost to the Warriors.
In the offseason they took on Brogdon in a sign and trade deal and received a first round pick for him.
2023:
Stars: Tatum and Brown
key role players: Horford, Smart, White, Brogdon
supporting cast: Robert Williams, Grant Williams
that team lost in the ECF against the Heat. One problem was that Robert Williams is injury prone and was only available for 4 games in the entire playoffs. Brogdon missed the playoffs completely. Something also seemed to be off in the locker room between Tatum/Brown and Marcus Smart.
They proceed to trade Robert Williams and Smart for Jrue Holiday and Brogdon for Porzingis. They also let Grant Williams go who got sonned by Jimmy Buckets in the postseason and received 3 second round picks for him.
2024:
Stars: Tatum and Brown
key role players: Horford, White, Holiday, Porzingis
supporting cast: Pritchard, Hauser, Kornet
now mind you:
Holiday: 2 time All-Star
Porzingis: 1 time All-Star
Horford: 5 time All-Star
and White never made an All-Star team, but he was close once and is an All-defensive player.
Those are the player types you need to add if you already have 2 stars and we have them in Wemby and Fox. Castle and Harper might even get there as well. We do not need a max player, we need as many Al Horford's and Derrick White's as possible to form a strong 8-man rotation. That's how your team keeps winning even if guys are injured. You won't experience any drop offs, cause all the other guys can pick up the slack with higher usage.
I'd agree and OKC would be the next example since they've done similar moves. Shai is the only star but the have a higher level of supporting players behind him in Jalen and Holmgren. Not to mention, they're still young and have drafted extremely well.
Think this offseason will be about filling out the roster with more supportive players via the draft or FA/trade who won't break the bank or hinder this progress. With only 9 current players under contract (I don't think they'll pick up Branham or Wesley options unless a trade happens and depth is needed or their salaries), the Spurs will be busy filling out that roster.
Those options have already been picked up. It’s a weird thing about the rookie FRP contract. First two years are absolutely guaranteed. After year one, you have to decide on the year three option, and after year two, you have to decide on the year four option. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two players who didn’t get the four years from the Spurs: James Anderson, who broke his fifth metatarsal, and Josh Primo, who broke his zipper.
Edit: upon further review, big man washouts Ian Mahinmi and Livio Jean-Charles got 3 and 2 years, respectively. They were non-optioned after year 2 and year 1, respectively. Mahinmi, likely a lot of others who didn’t stick in SA, carved out a career afterwards, 618 games in his case. Livio, not so much after that injury.
It doesn't change your point, but for accuracy White was traded for the swap and what became #25 (Wesley).
I agree in getting a player like Collins though hopefully he could be re-signed cheaper
Fake Luka has his year 3 option picked up, but then was waived in Year 3 pre-season and did not have his 4th year option picked up.
This seems semantic (Semanic? heh), but it's not really "after year 1 and after year 2" when 3rd and 4th year options have to be picked up... it's more accurately stated as "before year 2 and before year 3" since teams have until Oct 31 to exercise rookie options - so you do get an opportunity in camp, pre-season and a little bit into the regular season before you have to make the decision. You don't have to decide right after season 1 and 2.
Teams in need of a consolidation trade (ie Rockets, Thunder, maybe Cavs) need to be kicking the tires on Giannis this offseason, not the Spurs. Our overall talent level just isn't there and after reports came out that the Bucks would be looking to "gut" the other team in a potential Giannis trade the overall talent level wouldn't be there post-Giannis trade, that's for sure. I think the Bucks GM Jon Horst is going to try to sell Giannis on sticking around w/ the Bucks in the Eastern Conference now that the Celtics are effectively dismantled for the time being and the Cavs turned out to be paper dragons.
Being gutted (no Harper and possibly Castle and draft capital) and left with a top heavy team of playoff untested (outside of Giannis) guys just sounds awful, nowhere close to a le favorite. One of the main guys gets hurt and we just turn to mush with no capable backups. No influx of young, cheap talent thanks to no picks/swaps. Be a little patient, let's push for a sustained run of 8-10 years of good to elite basketball and hopefully a couple of rings out of it.
I see a fair amount of Spurs fans advocating for pushing the chips all in for Giannis and go straight into desperate ring chase mode as if we are the Clippers who have never won . I understand the allure of wanting a deep playoff run immediately. I want #6 as much as anyone, but a sustained run of excellence built on mostly homegrown players is much more satisfying.
Why do you say the Thunder are in need of a consolidation trade?
I think their model is going to be to secure their big three and then just continually refill and flip their talent pipeline.
That’s moreso if they were to somehow come up short this year, which I expect them to win it all. Moving a Chet or JDub and draft capital and salaries nets an even better team short term in my estimation. They have so much young talent (and Topic waiting in the wings) they could get Giannis without a crazy hit to their depth imo. “Need” might be the wrong word, absorb might be more fitting.
I forgot about Sammich. Good catch. I like your semantics, too. Agreed that after year 1 or after year 2 is a bit vague.
You forgot about Spurs legend Romeo Langford!
I use to on galaxy brain Ainge for making a huge deal of getting an additional asset in the Tatum/Fultz trade, only to see it become Romeo. But then Boston trade him to us as part of the deal to get White, which helped them win a championship.
True, but to be fair, that draft was almost complete around that point. It ran out of players fast. To be sure, there are some still around - including Keldon, for example - but no one who was obvious. We slag GMs for bad picks, as we often do the Spurs, but never look to see what was available. Sometimes bad picks happen just because there isn't a lot left.
I'm out on the Giannis trade idea for the purely selfish reason that I think it speeds up our process for a 2 to 3 year window when I'd prefer to keep our young blue chip players for a possible decade long window. Having just come out of the Post-Kawhi Dark Ages, I'd like to savor it as much as possible. I'd rather go for 7 50-win seasons than 2 60-win seasons, or something like that.
I think the trade window depends on how you think about Victors health.
If you think he's only got one year, then sacrificing everything for Giannis seems dumb.
If you think he's got 5, and that aligns perfectly with Giannis, a trade makes sense. le windows are fleeting.
If you think he's got 10-15, then you're cutting half his prime le years by contending now, and it's be hard to retool around him with GIannis retiring. Keeping Harper et al makes sense.
I think the Spurs should probably think about a 10 year window.
I was about to ask Exstatic about this. Sounds a bit better with the way you put it, but I've always thought it's crappy that you have to pick up those options so early. Why do you have to decide on the 3rd year for example before that player has even played their second year? Is that so rookies get more of a chance and don't get cut too early? What's the reasoning for it?
Ulm is playing Alba right now if anyone else is interested in scouting Boa Essengue and Ben Saraf
At halftime Ben Saraf 4 of 4 from the field with 8 points. 4 assists, 2 rebounds. Looks like the best player on the court. Finishing at the rim a lot better than he did a couple of weeks ago.
Noa Essengue 5 pts 2 of 3 from the field. Definitely gets pushed around. Only 18 years old so I don’t worry too much about his coordination but I do worry about his frame not being able to put on more weight. I think his ceiling is a pascal Siakam type/level player but floor could be that of the tall skinny OKC player PokuWhatever from a few years back.
Let it be known I was high on Saraf since the beginning and had him in my higher tiers, tbh
Nearing the end of the 3rd quarter Saraf finding ways to get to the line in the 2nd half. 13 pts now. 9/10 from the free throw line. Essengue not really involved so far in 2nd half
International players really do have an advantage with their seasons extending closer to the draft. Scouts get to see them more recently and have a more fresh perspective. Could lead to some of these guys rising as we get later into June
Essengue using his length and hustle to get some big boards here in the 4th quarter
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