Its a little more enjoyable watching this team when we don't need Buddy to bomb us back into games. Contributions across the board are needed for this team to win. Bags and TD playing reasonably well. Fox is gaining steam, Hali is confident and Mitchell doing his thing. How do we fix the defense or at least improve a bit?
I think you look for wing help and shop around Buddy/Barnes. The Bagley/Metu rotation was looking especially intriguing over that stretch Barnes was out and we're now starting to get Davion/TD going where they're filling some of that scoring impact/spacing from Buddy. We're currently in our best stretch of the season with Buddy having a career worst slump.
Basically, do we think Bagley/Metu and TD/Mitchell/(King?Ramsey?) fill 75-80% of what Buddy/Barnes bring to the table? If so, it's more valuable to use them as trade assets (two of the better trade assets on the team) to address the bigger needs on the team. Also doubly benefits as clearing the cap sheet.
I dunno, but with the way TD/Bagley/Davion/Metu are starting to come on, I could see McNair go for the mini-reset and look to balance things out by dealing Buddy/Barnes