A Better DJ & Photographer

I'm not so sure that Vogel is a lame duck. With management's decision to ride out the season and evaluate our players which saddled Vogel with Payton and Vuc as defensive holes I would think they'll give him at least part of the season to see how he does with new players in those slots.

I'm confident that we will get a good pick regardless of where we end up. It's fun juggling the remaining games though :D With our 3 picks we should come away with some guys that can help us get out of the cellar next season. We have 2 decent expiring contracts to trade in Vuc and Mack and as long as Vuc is not our starting defensive hole next season I will be happy :D

I'd love to be on a position to try Doncic at the point. At 6'8 he'd be a tough matchup on offense and if we can get him in a good switching defense we are looking pretty tall out there.

So today's meaningless win knocked us from tied for 3rd to 4th place. But hey, we built some winning culture for our G league players and Mario, none of whom may be on our team next season! As long as we lose to Dallas and don't win more than 2 more games we are locked into finishing no worse than tied for 5th at this point but we'll probably get 4th.

If his injury/surgery was just minor then why did he have to sit out the entire season? I wouldn't even begin to debate back injuries/surgeries with someone that gets their information from articles. I personally know MANY people that have had back injuries and surgeries of all types and not a single one of them was one and done. More surgeries, complications from scar tissue and calcium deposits, ongoing therapy, all very common. Add in the rigors of training and playing basketball and he is high risk to miss a lot of games. I get that you are really high on the guy and you get that I am not. If we don't take him and he becomes a star I won't feel bad because we will also have taken a good player. If we take him and he spends most of his time in street clothes how will you feel about the pick? We already have Isaac as our designated injury risk and 1 on the team is enough at this point of our rebuild!

LOL I was editing exactly that as you were typing

And he could dominate in workouts and medicals then get up the next morning to tie his shoe and need 9 months of rehab before he can play again. Backs are funny like that.

I'm not at all interested in tanking for Bridges, I was simply stating that I would take him over Porter for obvious reasons to those of us that have a clue about back injuries/surgeries. I wouldn't remotely consider taking Bridges with a high pick. My personal preferences are point guards and Centers, we are/will be already heavily invested in forwards. We need to offload Vuc and start bringing along whoever is going to be our center of the future.

It's not that I hate him, I just think there are a lot of players in this draft that are as good that haven't had back surgery. I guess maybe it is also because I have never seen him do anything special other than dominate smaller high school kids.

I don't know about you guys but If we don't get one of the top few picks and JJJ is gone I'd take healthy Mikal Bridges over back surgery Porter any day of the week even if we had to reach. Plus Bridges is a SG/SF and Porter is a PF so factoring in minutes distribution it's Bridges every time!

Yeah but the best players will sign with the best teams 1st then the other teams get the leftovers. It might work if only non-playoff teams could sign rookies though.

The problem with that is the draft is the only way some teams can get a good player.

Agreed!

Dude, no disrespect but I'm pretty knowledgeable about back injuries and they just don't do well with the rigorous jarring backs get while playing basketball. There are great prospects that should be strongly considered before possibly damaged goods. I'm not hating the kid at all, I just don't want to see us blow a great lottery pick on another guy that possibly spends more time rehabbing than being on the court. Isaac is our designated player for that. Let me give you a good comparison. You are looking to buy a used car 1 year old with 15,000 miles on it. There are 2 identical cars except one was in an accident, the frame was damaged, and was repaired, the other had no accidents. They are the same price. Which one do you buy?

We did, but we basically started the same guys that sucked the year before.

I agree on everything you said. As far as Gordon banking on a rookie to help turn things around I think anybody in the top 5 will at least help. Indeed there are no LeBrons, but there are PGs that can shoot and play defense and there are centers that play defense as well. I'll have 1 of each please! Getting rid of EP was a big step in the right direction and getting rid of Vuc will be the next big step. Who in their right mind would keep a center that doesn't play D in the modern NBA? I know he scores but he just doesn't contribute to building a winning culture with his scarecrow defense.

I would in a heartbeat. Everything Isaac does relies on athleticism and I can see him having ankle problems his entire career. We are going to want him to add weight which is going to be even harder on his ankles. 2 top 5 picks in this draft would so change this team in a positive way.

I will be hated for this but I WOULD trade Isaac and next year's unprotected pick for the Sun's pick. Personally I think he's great but I don't think he is durable enough or ever will be. I'd rather take a fresh shot at 1 of the guys with a little more meat on their bones.

Steph seems to miss some time every year with ankle issues.

Can't trade him, he's a restricted FA.

What else could we possibly do to develop our players more at this point?

It also requires that your management make smart decisions and not trade away your best players for scraps or give stupidly over paid contracts to bench players, and coaches that don't start people because of their contract instead of their performance. This year's draft is quite a bit better than most and we are reasonably sure to get a good NBA ready player in the top 5 if we don't take Porter. A lot of the mocks do have him dropping to us at 4 or 5. One has us passing on him to grab Porter which I seriously hope doesn't happen. I would be madder than when we passed on DSJ last year and had to be subjected to another season of EP.

I couldn't possibly imagine him outperforming Doncic in workouts LOL. All I've seen of Porter so far is that he was bigger than most players in high school and was able to take advantage of that. What little I saw in the tournament made me think he's not worth the risk.

He WILL be able to play, the question is how much will he be able to play? Back injuries and basketball don't go well together. Besides, he really hasn't shown anything that great to take that risk when there are so many other players that will be available in the top 5 that did NOT have back surgeries.

We don't need the number 1, it would be great, but top 5 will do just fine as long as we don't waste it on Porter.