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I remember TP always gave props to LaVine.
Honestly? I'm kind of meh about throwing that much at a borderline AS. I'd rather Portland do that, and have him stunting Anfernee Simons growth and not Vassell and Primo's. Portland will have to shed some salary, though. They have less cap room than we do.
I remember TP always gave props to LaVine.
Yeah, I'm on the fence with LaVine.
On one hand, he's got ties with DJ and the Spurs are hard pressed to bring big name FAs into San Antonio...so I wouldn't mind them making a pitch but we'd probably have to overpay.
On the other hand...I wouldn't put him in the top tier of players and while he would undoubtedly improve the team, I don't know if he is the type of talent to make us contenders again. We'd also be trying to fit a star 2/3 onto a team that is already loaded with 2/3s.
Dame and LaVine would be such a horrendous defensive backcourt pairing. And while LaVine is definitely better than McCollum, I don’t think the gap is so wide that this pairing would make them anything more than Second Round fodder (depending on who they draft).
Trying to build a championship contender with two Guards as your best players is the hardest route imo. Unless they’re the two greatest shooters ever like Steph and Klay and surrounded by great defensive players, it almost never works. Not since the Bad Boys Pistons, and the league’s changed drastically since then.
But he’s from the PNW so I could see why he’d be interested.
Last edited by BatManu20; 05-10-2022 at 10:37 AM.
Golden State?
You quoted me right as I was updating it. Like I said, unless you’re the greatest shooters of all time like Steph and Klay, and surrounded by great defensive players like Draymond and Bogut, it doesn’t work. And even then, the one championship that Golden State won without KD (2015), they lucked out with the Cavs losing both Kyrie and Kevin Love in that series due to injury. Otherwise they almost certainly win.
DJ and Lavine complement each other nicely. No decision about this roster should be made because we have Josh Primo and Devin Vassell. That’s an absolute joke.
if and when they become solid bench players we wil be paying them both 15mm at extension time. Or we can spend 35mm now on an NBA AS.
Lavine's baseline is probably getting us into the top 6 in the West. His peak will be getting us to #4 in the West, no higher, and getting bounced in the second round, if not the first. THAT is why I have some concerns about signing him. He's not a transformative player. He won't get you into the Finals. He won't even get you into the Conference Finals. He's not worth derailing a couple of development projects.
I would feel better about signing him if we hit lottery gold, a top 3 pick. That way, a few years of playoff losses won't be the end, they'll be the platform on which a star might be born, and Lavine can just fade into the background as a #2 or #3.
Devin Vassell is going to be better than Lavine. He's not now, but he will be.
Anyway. this may all be academic. He's supposedly selected his landing spot already.
He is a no brainer with the top 3 pick.
I don’t see that with Vassell. Nice stroke when he’s feeling it, but limited offensive game otherwise. The early hype regarding his defense is remains just that.
Vassell is a 3 level scorer. He is a really good defender, and it's not like Lavine has played defense for most of his career.
The worst thing about LaVine is that he is hurt almost every year. He's played 478 out of approximately 634 games in his 8 seasons. I say approximately, because everyone didn't play the same number of games in the bubble year, but everyone played at least 70, so that was what I used, and that might actually help his % of games played if it was more games played for Chicago. I also accounted for the 72 game season in 20-21. His games played % is a shade over 75%. That's Kawhi territory, and another reason I'm cool to signing him.
Dame got like 1 and a half good years left. SAS fits Lavine's timeline better.
Lavine played 60 out of 65 games during the bubble season. Not every team played 70 games, as many didn't even go into the bubble. In total, Lavine played 185/219 regular-season games over the past three years. That puts him around 85 percent. To put that in perspective, Murray's played in 201/225 games over the same span, which is right around 90 percent. That's probably enough of a difference to be statistically viable, but we are talking about missing 12 games a season as opposed to eight. I don't know how many of those absences were due to COVID, but wouldn't panic over that.
If we were lucky enough to get Lavine i’d hope we manage his minutes and games best we can. Play a healthy Lavine 60-65 games a year 34 mins a game, few if any back to backs. When Lavine is out Primo can play backup and Vassell can start.
You are right about the bubble season. I was going off what Bill and Sean said on the telecasts, that the bubble was to get teams to 70 games so that the local TV contracts. were met. Spurs played 71 games. Looks like they only invited teams that had a chance to play in at #9, and almost no one in the EC could make that jump.
You can't just ignore large amounts of games missed earlier in his career and paint a complete health picture. That's pretty much the definition of cherry picking, and shoe horning your data support your conclusions.
Three seasons is a massive sample size for current trends. If a player missed most of their first few years but comes back and plays 82 games for three seasons, they don't still carry the "injury prone" label. That's not Lavine, but part of why he's become a good player is because he's been healthy and was able to spend off-seasons improving rather than recovering. That he's currently injured again is a concern, but I am not concerned that he missed a bunch of games on his rookie contract. Murray also missed a bunch of games. Both of them have stayed healthier recently, and that's part of why both are All-Stars. But just like I don't think DJM is a health risk because of his big injury, I don't think Lavine is one because of his big injury. Both guys tore ACLs. The difference is that Lavine's was in the middle of the season and Murray's was in the beginning of the season. DJM missed one full year while Zach missed half of one season and three-quarters of the other.
This is correct. Even mentioning Primo or Vassell in relation to whether we should pursue Lavine is laughable.
Windhorst literally stated the opposite today. Seems like Lavine is closer to being in play than ever before.
LaVine on the team makes attracting another good player easier imo, since today's NBA FAs all want to team up with each other and . Lebron and KD would probably join for the vet min with a Murray/LaVine backcourt /s
I wanna see how the draft lottery plays out next week. If we jump into the top 4, could impact thoughts on adding him.
I don't remember that. Interesting if so. I wonder what TP liked about his game back when he was playing as Zach has gotten much better since then.
No brainer for me. You can build a playoff team with Lavine to complement DJ and Jakob both are 2 way high impact players. Once you get that high usage volume 3 point scorer it is much cheaper to build the rest of your roster.
Agree. With the top 4 pick, I’d push for a potential Seattle-Trio, which would jumpstart the Spurs into top 4 in the WC imo. Then maybe another package to get another caliber, while still plenty of young players in the back burner.
We won’t have cap room to do that. LaVine, at $40M/yr, would be it. He’s already said he’s giving no discounts. The only way this works is if we jump into the top 3 picks. I don’t believe Ivey would even do the trick to elevate us to contenders. Only one of the three bigs could turn that trick.
I like Lavine a lot, but that route, for me, would all depend on what the Spurs could put around him. Him gobbling up the cap space probably means not much in terms of other complimentary pieces.
If that's the case, Spurs better draft a long 3 or athletic 4 who hopefully can shoot. I like(d) Murray, White, Walker, Vassell, Primo, etc...and then we go and add McD and Forbes who fell right into the same zone. Good god, enough with the guards.
I typically support going for the best talent available, but we also don't need to be putting together a Pee-Wee team.
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