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Be patient and trade Fox over Castle or Harper. tbh
I'm not sure i would either, I was just answering in the spirit of the question.
Be patient and trade Fox over Castle or Harper. tbh
I'd trade the 2 and Castle for the 1. Perfect fit big three with Wemby/Flagg/Fox. Wont happen though.
List of players I'd trade the 2 for:
SGA
Paulo
Ant
Players I might trade the 2 for depending on other assets and factors.
Amen Thompson
Trey Murphy
Frans Wagner
Giannis
If we didn't already have Fox guys like Brunson, Haliburton, Cade Cunningham and Luka would be on the maybe list.
Just take Harper. The lottery gods love the Spurs so one of the remaining Hawks pick will probably land top four so there's no need for aggressive trades.
Realistic dream offseason:
Draft Harper
Trade Dev and the 14 for John Collins and a future first with some protections.
Re-sign Tre Jones and let CP3 walk.
Pretty much this. The Fox acquisition certainly makes the fit with Harper more complicated...but you also make that trade every day of the week and twice on Tuesdays. Young, All-Star caliber player in his prime who actually wanted to come to San Antonio...and we didn't sell the farm (and in fact, unloaded some undesirable contracts like Zollins).
Obviously, Harper is highly touted but also remains to be seen how he pans out. We have a body of work from Fox to look at, and Castle is coming out of the gates strong.
If the Spurs keep #2 and do end up taking Harper, you gotta give it a season or two to see how the cards play out and hope for the best...but Spurs also need to make other moves to shore up other positions (mainly PF and backup C)
Castle already showed that not only does he have the potential to be something more he's already an elite level glue guy. I know we don't typically see that term coincide with star potential but I think its what will make this 3 guard rotation work. Castle looks like he can connect the dots between Harper and Fox until Fox ages out. He doesn't have to be on the ball as much as people think. He really only needs to improve his 3pt shooting by about 6% better to make it manageable. Obviously we'd love to see it significantly better but even just a small improvement in 3pt shooting moves the needle a lot in that regard.
With Fox, Castle & Harper running the break, it’s likely Wemby could relax in a lawn chair and never cross the half court line, thus saving his energy. This could be easily the fastest scoring team in the league.
manu was pretty ball dominant as well. his career usage percentage was 24.5%, while TP's was 25.5%
james harden was able to play SG alongside westbrook and with durant also having the ball a lot. somehow kyrie and luka coexisted. lebron and wade coexisted.
its on the players to accept some of the off-ball duties, but its not unheard of for ballhandlers to share the floor. it helps a ton if they can space the floor and defend
A big no to resigning Tre Jones.
Yeah, just stagger minutes if you have to. With three solid starting guards (and other players who can handle the ball), a backup PG becomes trivial unless there are serious injuries.
Harper and Castle are years away from being effective primary ball handlers. Tre on a three year deal still makes a lot of sense as it allows the Spurs to ease them in as primary players which is very much the Spurs way. Spurs don't throw their prospects into the fire day one. It always a slow ongoing process.
Years? They could probably both do it tomorrow if need be. They wouldn't be at their peak, but I think either/both could do it right away if need be.
Castle looked his best in a secondary ball handler slasher role and I suspect Harper will be the same in his first few seasons. Tre Jones allows them to grow into primary ball handlers slowly which fits the Spurs way.
Entering the season with only one veteran primary ball handler is asking for trouble. There has to be a backup plan of some kind for injuries and under performance
You’ve been listening to too much NBA media. Every time CP was in the game with Castle, the ball would be inbounded, CP would flip the ball to Castle, and assume an off ball position. Only when Wemby went out and Fox had his surgery did Castle assume more of a scoring role. Because he assumed a secondary/learning role at UConn, lazy ass NBA media assumed that he couldn’t run the show. He absolutely can.
Jones had his years and he is not an upgrade. No need to go backward.
While it's important not to confuse "who dribbled the ball up the court" with "who was our primary ball handler/playmaker", I was impressed with Castle in that primary role. There was definitely a step back from CP3 and Fox, but that should be expected. CP3 is an all time great and Fox is an all star PG whereas Castle was a rookie. I think this is born out by some high level numbers... CP3s AST% was 34.8, Fox at 30.8, Tre was at 30.1, but Castle was next on the list among players who played real minutes at 22.8, indicative of both him being a rookie and that he was playing a lot of combo guard. His TOV% wasn't bad either. 17.1 for CP3, 11.6 for Fox, 16.3 for Tre, 13.4 for Castle.
harden reached his full potential when he left okc.
Fox will likely be leaving about that same time in the development curve of Castle and Harper. We probably don’t want him turning into 35-40 USG% Harden, anyway.
1. Cooper.
2. Cooper
3. Cooper
I think your right, abut I don't see Harper being ready to take full control for a year or 2. Let him grow and show while sharing the ball, refining his other skills, and leading the bench. Fox will obviously have to lose more and more ball dominance and/or minutes once Harper is ready to take more control, but hopefully the philosophy will be sharing, cutting, and finding that open man. All 3 of these guards can do that and that might be best case scenario for a few years, barring some godfather offer to move one.
Could also just as easily say he reached his full potential once he was made a full time starter. I'd bet money that if OKC had a do over Harden would've been starting in year 3 when it was clear he was in the early stages of a superstar trajectory. But ownership drew a line in the sand over how much they would spend and Presti had to abide. If Harper is as good as we hope, he will have plenty of opportunity to show it during his rookie contract and the Spurs can adjust accordingly. That's whats known as a good problem.
Once Harper has his sea legs in the NBA I expect Castle would have his usage dip a bit. Castle getting thrown in the fire late last season particularly after the ASB when the tank was on was awesome for his development, but he should damn well know that is not the ideal usage of his skill set going forward. I'd expect him to have a much better balance between his defense and offense going forward.
Looked into this further, and those picks are each the worst pick of CLE/MIN/UTH, guaranteed to be bad. I can inequivocally say absolutely not to 3 picks for #2 this year.
Funny enough they mostly only played together at the end of games
My preference is to keep Castle, draft Harper and roll with Fox, Castle and Harper. I would trade Fox before any of Castle or Harper (but that likely doesnt happen so it’s moot and Im fine with 2 seasons of Fox being here with Castle + Harper where then trading Fox becomes more acceptable).
1) What would you realistically require to trade Castle? A young all star caliber player that fits a position of need better, a swap where SA lands Flagg or a star (Giannis level) where SA doesnt have to give up more than 2 non Harper picks in addition to Castle.
2) What would you realistically require to trade pick #2? A young all star caliber player that fits a position of need better, a swap where SA lands Flagg or a star (Giannis level) where SA gives up no extra draft capital in addition to pick 2.
3) If you were forced to trade one of them, which would you choose and why? Castle because despite loving Castle and knowing what we know, if Castle was somehow tossed into this draft, I believe Harper would still go 2 and Castle would go 3.
But again, keeping Castle + Harper should be priority unless the value is so good to pass up on and risk so low (not gutting entire future for Giannis for example) that you cant say no.
seems like you wasn't there from 2004 to 2006...Funny enough they mostly only played together at the end of games
1) I don't think I'd trade Castle by himself. I don't think he's a bad fit at all, so I doubt there's a prospect I'd prefer over him. Like, I wouldn't trade him for anyone in this draft besides Harper or Flagg. But if the Spurs were trying to trade for a star and the other team assigned enough value to Castle to save a lot of draft capital, I'd strongly consider it. Like if it's Castle and one unprotected first for X versus three firsts and a swap, I'd probably prefer to trade Castle. Though truth be told, I don't think there's a trade I'd support that should require the Spurs to give up that much.
2) I wouldn't freak out if the Spurs traded down, provided they get good draft capital for doing so. I am on the hype train for Harper, but I don't have such a strong opinion as to not give the FO the benefit of the doubt if they went in a different direction. You could sell me on Bailey, Edgecomb or Johnson. It would be harder to sell me on Queen, Kon or Malauch unless there are serious pieces going in with those guys. None of this where the Spurs are moving down for guys like Cam Johnson or Herb Jones. There isn't a win-now move for which I would be okay with the Spurs trading 2.
3) Castle, definitely. He had some great eye-test moment, but the numbers simply aren't good. There's a real chance that he's at the peak of his trade value, especially if the Spurs leverage the negotiations well. There's very little reason to trade him, of course. He doesn't have to become a star to still be a valuable member of the team. It's all about if the right opportunity rises. I can't really anticipate what that opportunity would be. Best I can come up with is Luka making it clear to LAL that he's not going to stay. I don't think you could pass that up if adding Castle helps the Spurs keep a sustainable pool of future assets.
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