twslam07
All-Star
It’s really simple for me.
Out of Bjelica, Cauley-Stein, Giles, and Bagley, who would you consider a building block? To me, that’s very easily Giles and Bagley considering their age, contract, potential, and skill set.
From there, you have to ask yourself if these two can play minutes together. If the answer is no, you’ll need to move one now/down the road. If the answer is yes, the next question is what type of 3rd big would complement these two and make for a great 3 big rotation.
I think that tandem lacks:
To me, that 3rd big would need to have these attributes and should be someone who can be signed/had for cheap so we can save our cap on other positions (e.g., SF). These guys would seem to work:
- Pure shooting
- Size
- Strength
Vonleh is shorter than a lot of these guys (6’8” without shoes) but his vertical athleticism (31” standing vertical and 37” max vertical), strength (250 lbs and 7.3% body fat), length (7’4.25” wingspan and 9’0” standing reach), and his rebounding ability (11.7 rebounds per 36 min)
- Kelly Olynyk
- Frank Kaminsky
- Channing Frye
- Noah Vonleh
- Brook Lopez
Bjelicia fills this role very well minus the ideal size/strength. Labissiere is a dark horse to fill this type of role but I’m not holding my breath. I guess what I’m saying is that we may already have the making of a very good, complementary 3 big rotation.
Bagley and Giles do make WCS expendable because he’s not the long term, ideal fit with those two. If Bagley and Giles are going to be big pieces for our future, the fit next to them matters. Cauley-Stein (while at least a productive player) isn’t the ideal fit.
Thinking about it more, if we can make some sort of trade centered around Cauley-Stein, expirings, & 2nd round picks for Otto Porter, it gives us $31.4 mil in cap space next year with the following players under contract:
PG - Fox / Ferrell / Mason
SG - Hield / Bogdanovic
SF - Porter / Jackson
PF - Giles / Bjelicia / Labissiere
C - Bagley
I'd target Middleton first in free agency. If we can pick him up and resign a big, strong C like Koufos, we would be a very interesting team:
PG - Fox (36 min) / Bogdanovic (12 min) / Ferrell / Mason
SG - Hield (30 min) / Bogdanovic (18 min)
SF - Middleton (34 min) / Porter (14 min) / Jackson
PF - Porter (16 min) / Giles (28 min) / Bjelicia (4 min) / Labissiere
C - Bagley (32 min) / Bjelicia (16 min) / Koufos
Fox - 36 min
Middleton - 34 min
Bagley - 32 min
Hield - 30 min
Bogdanovic - 30 min
Porter - 30 mn
Giles - 28 min
Bjelicia - 20 min
Now if we can't get a guy like Middleton, I think the smaller level signings would be Shumpert, Vonleh, & Koufos would be a solid get with perhaps selling the remaining cap space for a pick. I think Bagley, Giles, Vonleh & Bjelicia make for a solid big man rotation (while also having someone like Koufos in case a big C is destroying us).