Justin Jaudon

I think if we could get 4 and Parsons for Vucevic/Fournier, Ross, and a top 3 protected 2019 first-rounder, I'd be ecstatic. I would do either one, depending on what Memphis wants. If they just want cap relief, give them Vuc and Ross. If they want some cap relief and some talent, give them Fournier and Ross. Either way, it works for me. Think of it this way: If they want total cap relief (Vuc/Ross), they get that plus a likely lotto pick next year, though probably not as good as what they're giving up at 4. That's a great deal for them, if cap relief is something they value. If we're starting Isaac and two rookies next year, we won't be a playoff team by any stretch of the imagination, so the 2019 pick should be good. This takes all of Parsons' contract off the board for the cost of delaying a lotto pick one more year and (probably) dropping a few spots in the draft. Plus Memphis would have two expendable expiring contracts to trade off again at the deadline if they can (not that they could get much, but maybe a contending team would throw you a late first for Vuc if they really need scoring and rebounding off the bench). If they want Fournier instead to try and make a good showing of it next year, then they get about $6 million in cap relief after Ross comes off the board next off-season, plus a solid wing on a fair contract while still getting a lottery pick from us in 2019. Looks great from their standpoint. You basically gave up 4 and saved $6 million for Fournier and likely somewhere in the 6-10 range of next year's draft. We could even suck bad enough that they get 4 again next year. From our standpoint, if they want cap relief/Vuc (better for us): We just got the 4th pick in the draft for two expiring mid-level players and a future pick. Vuc and Ross are not long-term guys here (at least, I don't think so). So even if we end up sucking bad enough, end up giving them the 4th pick next year, we used Vuc and Ross to expedite our rebuild by a whole year. Not a bad trade. Imagine building around Luka/Isaac/Gordan/Carter, with Fournier as a super sixth man. Or a lineup of Young/Fournier/Isaac/Gordan/JJJ/Bamba, for the Young fans. If they want Fournier, from our standpoint (not as ideal, but really still worth it): We just got the 4th pick for Evan Fournier, an expiring wing, and a future pick. Again, even if we end up giving them the 4th pick next year, we expedited our rebuild a full season for the price of an offense-only wing and an expiring contract. My dream scenario, we do this trade: Parsons/4th for Fournier/Ross/2019 top 3 protected first. Top three picks are Ayton, Bagley, JJJ. We pick Luka with the 4th. 6th pick, we take Carter. Later, we make this trade: Vuc/35/41 for Meyers Leonard/24 (Portland gets out of Leonard's deal and gets a valuable backup/expiring contract plus two early second-rounders for the 24th pick; no-brainer for them, really). We take Aaron Holiday (3 and D PG, short but with good wingspan) at 24. We have great young core of Holiday/Luka/Isaac/Gordon/Carter/maybe Hezonja. Still have decent vets like DJ, Simmons, Parsons, and Biyombo to form a solid bench, and provide leadership without taking too many of the the young guys' minutes. In 2020, we get $53 million in cap relief, just from Parsons/Leonard/Biyombo, all at once, to re-sign guys and help make up for any busts in that group. Damn. Can I be the GM?

Yeah, I think you have to take into account the way Houston plays offense. They thrive on exploiting created mismatches in isolations. Harden and LeBron on the same team means you have two incredible iso scorers in an offense that looks for great iso scoring. As long as Harden and LeBron also commit to being capable catch-and-shoot guys for each other when necessary (which Bron did pretty well when he played with Wade), I don't see that much of a problem.

Vuc with good D would be a borderline All-Star. The guy has proven he can score 17-18 per on pretty solid efficiency and pass very well for a big. The problem is he's not quite a good enough scorer to make up for being one of the worst defensive bigs in the league (total inability to defend PnR). So he's a negative overall. Plus he plays the most important defensive position, which makes his poor defense even more of a problem. If he were a guard, with the same offensive positives and defensive negatives he would basically be Fournier, a guy you can get away with starting by hiding him on D. But you can't hide a bad defensive 5 in the modern NBA; so Vuc, thus, should not be a starter in the league. Give him just good defense, and it changes all the math on him. Instead of being a good offensive player and terrible defender, he's then a guy who gives you a bit of everything. A good defensive Vuc is basically Horford, but probably a better rebounder.

I don't think that would matter. He's Closer to Ainge than Dennis Johnson, as far as career impact. Solid pro, good career, one All-Star game, won championships with an All-Time great team; but no one really thinks of Ainge as a HOFer (I mean as a player; he's putting together a HOF career as a GM), just like no one will really think of Iggy that way.

I think the assumption whenever you talk about guys going into their prime is that they will continue for a few years more at current levels.

I tend to agree with you on Green, actually. I just acknowledge that we are probably in the minority there. Green may well prove it. He'll have to fix his shot. The thing about Green is that (when his shot is falling) he's a DPOY level defender while also a decent offensive player. That's HOF, if he keeps both of those things at the same high levels over a long career. Whether he seems likely to be able to do that is debatable.

Huzzah!

I'll give Bron this, though: that championship over the Warriors exceeds any individual championship Jordan won. 73-win team, three HOF players, HOF coach, 3-1 lead, all on one side. LeBron and Kyrie on the other. *****ing epic.

Warriors? Definitely. Thunder and Spurs? No. That first Spurs team that swept LeBron was up there with anybody MJ beat. The Spurs team LeBron beat? That's like MJ's weakest win (Lakers). And he followed that up by getting slaughtered by that team the very next season. That's like if MJ had lost to the Lakers with Magic Johnson, except Magic and Worthy weren't as over-the-hill yet as Duncan/Parker/Manu (well, maybe Worthy). Over-the-hill Duncan, over-the-hill Parker, over-the-hill Manu, not-yet-there Kawhi; losing to the Mavs is like if MJ had lost to Portland, but three years older Portland. Also if instead of Pippen and Grant, Jordan had Pippen and Barkley. LeBron lost to two of the weaker championship teams in recent memory (only 2004 Detroit compares, really), and he lost with what was supposed to be an unstoppable super-team of 3 HOFers (yes, Chris Bosh was a HOFer before the injuries, AKA when he played with LeBron). That Thunder team consistently got beat by an over-the-hill group in San Antonio and a mediocre Grizzlies team. They were babies when LeBron beat them; Harden wasn't even a starter yet. In essence, MJ beat the 90's version of that Thunder squad when he beat the Magic in 96. Answer me this: how many HOF players did it take to win LeBron 3 championships? How many for Jordan? LeBron played with 3 guys who are likely HOFers; Wade, Bosh, Kyrie. You can argue with Bosh as a HOFer, but only due to the shortness of his career due to injury. If Bosh isn't a HOFer, neither is James Worthy. Kyrie? he's young, but unless his career trajectory changes drastically, he's a HOFer. And he played like one in that Warriors series win for sure. Wade is obvious. Jordan won six championships with only one real HOFer beside him. Someone really has to explain to me how Rodman is considered a HOF player. Yes, he was a HOF defender and rebound-er. But as an all-around player, he was just above average. His offense was absolute garbage. Rodman is a HOFer like Ben Wallace is a HOFer. Answer me this: how many HOF players has LeBron beaten in championships? How many Jordan? LeBron beat some great players. Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Duncan, Parker, Manu (I guess), Curry, Thompson, Dray (debatable, but we'll give him this for now). 9 HOF guys; pretty darn good. But looking at it closer, Harden wasn't even an All-Star yet, and Duncan, Parker, and Manu were none of them in their primes, and two of those guys are very debatable as HOFers even in their primes. Durant and Westbrook were very young when LeBron beat them. Draymond Green is probably not really a HOFer, but he's certainly close enough). Jordan beat Magic, Worthy (yes, he was on that Lakers team, and he was still really good, as in still All-Star good), Drexler, Barkley, KJ (yes, if you're too young to know, KJ was a HOF level player), Tom Chambers (if we're going to count old Manu, we have to count old Chambers), Gary Payton, Kemp, Malone, Stockton. 9-to-10 in favor of Jordan. Taking out the questionables (Harden, Manu, Dray for LeBron, Chambers for Jordan), it's 6 to 9. Now further take away the over-the-hill HOFers who weren't really at that level any more (Duncan, Parker for LeBron; Worthy for MJ), and it's 4 to 8. Now, how many HOFers have beaten LeBron in a finals? Jordan? lol

This is the worst "LeBron is better than Jordan" post I've seen in a while. LeBron only favorite for 2 finals? Every year in Miami he was the favorite. And how does him not being a favorite to win make him better than MJ? Please do explain that logic. MJ didn't play against anybody? The East was a gauntlet back then. Pistons, Knicks, Magic, Pacers, plus Hornets, Heat, etc. Played against prime Drexler/great supporting cast in Portland, Barkley/KJ, Payton/Kemp, Malone/Stockton in the West. Players are bigger now? Okay, so I guess that means Wilt was garbage, by that logic. Seriously, go sober up.

This is officially my favorite post of the year.

Carter

At this point, I think I'm settled on wanting Carter. I know he doesn't have the ceiling (supposedly) that some of these other guys do, but I don't trust any of these other guys. Carter reminds me of Al Horford in a lot of ways, which I love. I just think with Carter the center position is taken care of for sure. He's either going to be a solid starter or a borderline All-Star, or somewhere in between. There's virtually no chance he's a bust, offensively or defensively. That's a really good pick at 6. Sure, Young could be great. But he's most likely going to be a better passing DJ Augustine. Sure, Porter could be great. But between the injury and not looking particularly good in the tiny bit we got to see him in college, I'm uncomfortable with the pick. Bamba may turn out to be Gobert no. 2, or he could be Cauley-Stein (solid, but nothing spectacular in any way, borderline starter). JJJ I'm not convinced can play center, and I'm not convinced he'll put it all together; he really looked lost sometimes at MSU. I'll be okay with any of these picks, but right now I'm on the Carter train. Unless we can get Doncic somehow. I don't know why people have him falling, but dude is exactly what we need.

We didn't, though. It was the right time when we tried to accelerate it, we just mashed the break and the accelerator at the same time, turned the wheel, and shifted into reverse. We tried to accelerate the process by using some of our young players to get complementary veteran talent. We just used the wrong young players to do it. We also tried to remain patient with our horrid PG, and we continued to try to find a PF who could make up for Vuc's deficiencies (not possible in today's NBA). We tried to completely change the role and position of our best prospect to fit the previous moves. And we signed the wrong FA to big money. We were patient with the wrong guys, impatient with the wrong guys, and horrible with our money. The timing wasn't the problem. Imagine if instead of trading Dipo, we - instead of Utah - got involved in the deal that moved Teague and Hill. We get Hill, who was terrific last year, to put in a lineup with Dipo, Fournier, Gordon, and Vuc. Still bad D, right? But then Imagine instead of signing Biz and Jeff Green for $32 million of our cap space, we re-signed Dedmon and outbid the Mavs for Harrison Barnes. Then we have a lineup of Hill, Dipo, Barnes, Gordon, and Vuc, with Dedmon playing when teams start spamming P&Rs at Vuc, and Payton, Fournier, and Mario anchoring the bench. Looking a lot better, isn't it? We could have done those things. They wouldn't have been thought of as weird moves. Orlando, coming off a 35-win season and Payton's most maligned of his career, uses a late-loto draft pick to get veteran PG. Makes sense. Orlando, with a need at SF, takes a big roll of the dice on Barnes' potential. Again, makes sense. We were expected to be in that conversation by a lot of people. That's a playoff team with a lot of defensive switching potential outside of Vuc in the SL, and an interesting offensive group on the bench. Not sure if that team ever competes for a championship. Depends probably on if Dipo develops into what he is now in that scenario, and if we could develop long-term PG and C options. I'd take that young core of Dipo/Barnes/Gordon over what we have now, for sure.

Loved Penny as a kid. Loved T-Mac as a teen. Loved Jameer as an adult. Probably rooted hardest for T-Mac, as far as one player. Odd love for Andrew Declercq. Never thought he was any good, just loved watching him try so hard and fail to not suck. It was like watching Forest Gump try to court Jenny, except Jenny never got AIDS. Just, always out of reach.

Favorite? I really never rooted for guys outside of Orlando enough to have a favorite non-Magic player. I remember liking John Stockton's and Karl Malone's game a lot back in the day. Rooted for them against Jordan. Rooted for Oladipo the last couple of years, and probably always will. Does he count, though. Never would have cared much about him if he didn't initially play for Orlando. I'll say Malone, I guess. Least favorite? Where to begin? Kobe, Pippen, Rodman, Artest/Meta, LeBron, Durant, Ewing, Reggie Miller, Anthony Mason, Rip Hamilton (but only when he was playing against Orlando), Ray Allen. Sam Cassell. Jaque Vaughn (but only when he played for Orlando, so I guess that doesn't count). And I'll retro-actively go back in time and root against Rick Barry. No reason. Just ***** Rick Barry.

I assure you, you're not under my skin. Indeed, I'm enjoying all of this. It's amusing. I'm glad you're keeping busy, though, on your vacation. Vacations are fun, aren't they? You keep telling me you're not going to go back and forth, but then you keep posting, accusing me of things, so I keep responding, defending my statements. Again, I assure you, I don't want to define who you are. Not sure how I would even attempt from the humble vantage of a fellow basketball observer and poster on an internet forum. Your identity is certainly your own. If you continue to post childish things, expect that occasionally I'll get fed up and call you out on it. That's just part of the internet forum experience. I have no intention of putting you on "ignore." Do enjoy the playoffs tomorrow. And post what you like. I'll be around. I look to the sea!!! Reflections in the waves spark my memories!!! Some happy, some sad!!! I think of childhood friends, and the dreams we had!!! We live happily forever!!! So the story goes!!! But somehow we missed out on the pot of gold!!! But we'll try, best as we can, to cAAAAAAAAAAAry on!!!

Sure, but I take that with a grain of salt. Van Gundy has every reason to dislike Martins for the way he was fired (the only reason I don't like him much, personally). But with a situation so personal, I don't tend to take someone's word for something when it comes to speaking about someone's job competency. Now maybe Stan's right. Maybe Martins is bad at his job. But I'll need more than Stan's word on that, since Stan has reason to be biased against Martins. And things seemed to already be going to crap behind the scenes before Martins got promoted to CEO. I know Hennigan was bad at his job, because I can see the direct results. I know Skiles was at least okay as a coach, because I saw Orlando's win total go up by ten games. I know he quit his job, because I read quotes from him directly that I don't have any reason to disbelieve. I can speculate why Hennigan was bad (because he's a good scout, but an idiot GM). I can speculate why Skiles quit (because he's an impatient douche). But speculating about Martins requires too much, because I can't really draw any conclusions about the direct results of Martins' job. Now, if Hammond and Weltman turn out to be as bad as Hennigan, then I'll gladly blame Martins, because then I can see a pattern of bad hiring (the only direct result I can see of his job at all). I'm just not willing to judge Martins yet over Stan's clearly biased statement and one bad hire.

LOL, did you really spend the last two days trying to find an example of "buckle down" being used in that context? You literally found one example. It's in the post, "result 1 of 1." That's awesome. But finding an example of someone else using the idiom incorrectly doesn't make your use correct. And those synonyms don't mean what you seem to think they do. Look at the rest of the synonyms for clues. Or look at the definitions of the synonyms. Bend as in "direct or devote (one's attention or energies) to a task," not " "force or be forced to submit." And "to give oneself over to something" is "to devote oneself to someone or something" in this context, not "surrender to someone or something." Again, look at all the other synonyms on your list for clues. As for the comparison: again, I never compared our qualifications to have opinions on childish behavior. I actually never compared you and I at all. Taking only my comments, it does look like I made a comparison (though, again, not about our qualifications, which is what I said specifically). But adding yours back in, it becomes clear the only comparisons were made by you. I simply gave an opinion that your reaction to a post was perhaps childish. You asked who I was to make such accusations. No comparison so far from me, just a statement of opinion on a comment. I answered by giving my qualifications to make such accusations - still no comparison. You asked why that was relevant (amusingly, since it was only relevant in response to your question, but reading comprehension isn't everyone's strong suit, so I acquiesced). I explained the relevance and acknowledged your own (since you brought up your qualifications). Still no comparison. I only brought up being an adult in response to your request for qualifications, not as a comparison to you. That's fairly clear looking back at the posts. Now, maybe take some of that Excedrin, if you really do need some. I think the migraine is impairing your reading comprehension.

Good points, except the last one. We've discussed our differences there before. I guess I just look at most of those things as Rob being a good scout. He was, and I'm sure he still is. But scouts aren't necessarily good GM's. The guy found good talent, but he never understood what to do with it. In fact, deciding what to do with players long-term (as big a part of being a good GM as finding them in the first place), Hennigan seemed to ***** up every single time. He signed Harris long-term, but then traded him for nothing (I know, I know, this was actually all Skiles' fault, because Skiles cried to Martins for specifically that trade... or something); he chose Payton and Fournier over Dipo; he re-signed Fournier during a restricted FA before Fournier even had an offer; he forced a position change on our most promising talent during his third season. He built a team around Payton, Fournier, and Vuc, for Christ's sake. Almost all of the long-term roster moves this guy made were awful. The only things he did fairly well long-term were Vuc's contract and maybe Harris' contract before he *****ed that up. And I still don't know why Martins is so hated.

I don't think Dray would be this year. Just my opinion, but I think the whole reason Thompson didn't was because Dray did a couple years ago and people threw a fit. It's going to take near murder to get suspended in the finals now.

eggs - *****ing - zactly!!!

Except we didn't rush the process so much as sabotage it. If anything, our problem was that Hennigan had too much patience with certain players. Alex had a hand in what? The team improving every year? It certainly was interesting that once Alex said he would not be part of personnel decisions Hennigan immediately went crazy and *****ed up the roster that had been steadily improving, including trading our best player for scraps. The problem wasn't the people who wanted a better product (we were getting that, just slower than anyone liked), it was the idiot who *****ed that up. Seriously, what in the world did Rob Hennigan ever do to make so many people love him so much? And what did Alex do to make you all hate him so much?

No, Hennigan traded Oladipo because he didn't want to re-sign him.

I mean, since he's never actually played an NBA game, this is all opinion. The OPINIONS of the best scouts in the world are just that. But, yeah, the argument for Trae seems to be entirely that he will improve on his strengths enough to make them actual NBA strengths and diminish his limitations so that they don't limit him that much; all of this so his mentality as a fearless shooter and his ball-handling and passing skills will translate. Basically, with Trae, you're betting on intangibles as a scorer and demonstrable elite play-making skills settling in at the next level. It could certainly happen, but I'm not sure why such a risk is smart at 6. To be honest, I'm not sure who I really like, myself. I'm not as high on Bamba as most seem to be, as he may be a dying breed of center. I worry about JJJ's lack of production in college. Carter is a safe bet, I think, but what kind of ceiling does he have? Porter's injury makes him a risk, especially since we never really saw him performing at a super-high level. Hell, even if Bagley slides to us I'm not sure he works; from what I remember he's really bad switching on the perimeter (though, honestly, I may be wrong about that; I'll have to check that out), which is dangerous in the modern NBA. Bridges is like a 3 and D version of Oladipo (in that is strength coming out seems to be rapid improvement); that could work out, or he could be Thabo Sefalosha. I'm not comfortable with any of the popular picks, which is why I'm doubly confused by those who are so against Trae, and those who think we're just automatically getting a good player at 6. I can see everyone after Doncic and Ayton being complete busts. I think maybe we should try to trade back and get Sexton and something else from New York, then trade up back into the first to get a risky big like Mitchell Robinson or maybe get Dante DiVincenzo. Or go the other way and trade back and select Mikal Bridges, then trade back up for Aaron Holiday (is he just massively undervalued for his height, because his wingspan is good). All I know is, if Doncic slides as much as NBAdraft.net seems to think he will, we need to do whatever it takes to trade up to get him. I don't really think he'll slide, though, because I just don't think NBA GM's are really that stupid.