Wally_West wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:51 am
KD trade didn’t fuck this team. We were damn undefeated in the regular season with him starting, then took Denver to 6 with CP’s corpse, who missed multiple games, and Ayton turning into current version Nurk and quitting on the team (also missed games).
You're sort of combining three things there:
- how the Book/KD team played late last season
- how the current KD/Book/Beal team is playing now
- what our future prospects look like
The first one, which you focus on, wasn't so bad. The latter two are very bad. In that sense, yes, the KD trade has fucked this team big time.
Wally_West wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:51 am
What doom this team was all the moves after. Trading CP for Beal, which was understandable at the time, fucked us. This dude isn’t a winning player. Just sulks after every play, lazy. All talk. Doesn’t fit with Booker or KD. Now we’re hoping Jimmy trade will help us get rid of his huge contract. Better if we just paid CP for another year and see what we could’ve gotten for his expiring deal. Worst case was letting him walk but would’ve gotten us under the 2nd apron or maybe both aprons at least.
The Ayton trade. Not trading him for Myles turner when we had the chance. Ooof. Idk what was happening with the sabonis deal but that would’ve been fantastic too. Settling for the Nurk trade was another roster killing move. I love Grayson. Best player in the trade but that trade made us smaller and worst defensively. Would’ve been better keeping Camara and trying to rebuild Ayton’s rep than trade him then. Letting him walk too might’ve been better.
Tampering for Drew EwwwBanks???? Which cost us a 2nd?! GROSS. Should’ve kept Landale, which was the damn plan until we tampered. Gross all around.
I agree with you that all of the moves you listed (CP3 for Beal; Ayton for Nurk/Grayson; Drew Eubanks) also hurt us. The common theme between the KD move and these other moves is poor present and future asset management. Throwing away first-round picks and swaps for win-now players who don't even fit together. Flipping existing assets for new assets that also do not fit well with our team. Overvaluing unimportant assets like a backup center to the degree that it cost us a draft pick.
I don't agree that we should have kept Landale. He asked for too much money, and after leaving he immediately got badly hurt and has not been very good since. I don't regret losing him given the details.
Wally_West wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:51 am
Last year, we were a roster of guards who were all defensive liabilities with Centers who were unplayable, that also were defensive liabilities. This year, we doubled down that!!! We got smaller with Tyus, who’s a horrible defensively, and we still have centers who are unplayable, that are dog shit definitely(mainly Nurk). Nurk was mostly good last year until he regressed at the end of the year, especially in the playoffs. I thought maybe his wrist injury and Ramadan were the reason why but looking back, it’s because we squeezed all of the juice that was left of Nurk. He is now Shanghai Sharks level rotation player. Get him off this team. I love Tyus too but it’s clear why he’s a career backup.
I definitely agree that we have erred in acquiring too many below-average defenders and expecting them to play together, which has led to our team having a poor overall defense that isn't going to cut it if we wanted to be a contender. It's pretty glaring when you look at our starters:
- Tyus: undersized, minus defender
- Beal: decent defender, actually tries / works hard; slight plus
- Booker: better than he used to be, but mildly minus defender; too small to guard SF
- KD: good defender, slightly too skinny to guard biggest PFs but very long and smart defense; plus defender
- Nurk: big minus defender, foul machine, sucks
In total, only KD and Beal are average or above-average for their positions. The other 3 starters are minus defenders. Most of our best defenders come off the bench (Royce, Okogie, Dunn, Mason sort of). I like Tyus more than you do, but since we rarely let him run our offense anyway, we basically are playing an undersized spot-up shooter in his spot. We would probably be a better and more balanced team if we started bulldog defenders alongside Book and KD, something like (Okogie, Booker, Royce, KD, Mason) and then a microwave-heavy bench of (Tyus, Beal, Grayson, Dunn, Oso). I wish we could try that. But even that wouldn't fix this team because we'd still have the iso-heavy shitty ass offense that teams can easily stop.
Wally_West wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:51 am
Really think Beal for Jimmy swap and getting rid of Nurk would do wonders on this team lol, might be in minority on that cuz everyone wants blow it up but this team would be night and day different. Lol
I mean, sure, I would be happy to see either / both of those moves. Beal for Butler would be a big plus. Nurk for anything would be a big plus. The issue isn't that I (or others?) think these moves are bad moves. The issue is that Miami will want us to pack in future picks with Beal, and probably nobody will take Nurk without us bundling picks until next year when he's expiring. So you can't just wish away these players in deals that no other team would agree to make. I've reached the point where I no longer want to bet any more future assets on the current team. I would rather punt and give away players (KD) to get back future assets (picks + youngs).
