ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
The Pacers making a statement. Carlisle and Haliburton have their chemistry and culture at a high level
Maybe they should take a page from the Houston playbook and sign a couple of vets like Dillon Brooks and FVV and unless I’m mistaken, Jeff Green. Those guys have some dog in them. Can’t tell me guys like Bagley and Wiseman are like those vets. Ivey and his agent publicly tried to navigate where he was going to get picked (personally, it looks like entitlement and red flag). You got young guys running the show there and maybe it’s time to hand over to the right vets to get them back on track.
I think when you look at the guys on that roster -- they aren't terrible players for the most part but they don't fit together. Knowing they'd already invested a #1 pick in a facilitating wing with questionable shooting credentials in 2021, they could have used their 2022 #5 pick to take a shooter or a defender but instead they took another primary ballhandler with shaky shooting splits. Then when faced with a similar choice in this year's draft they took Ausar Thompson who is an exciting player in his own right but even worse than Jaden Ivey and Cade Cunningham as a shooter.
Terrible teams stacking a bunch of lotto picks together regardless of fit don't have a very good track record. If they press onward with this strategy and try to patch the holes in the roster with overpaid vets they're just going to ruin the careers of all of these players. The best thing they could do right now is just move Cade and Ivey for more picks while they still have a sliver of value left and forget the last three years ever happened. Just start from zero with a better GM and build around Ausar Thompson.
you would give up on Cade so soon? this same type of situation happened with Kings players when they were dysfunctional for a decade plus, not all players went on to blossom after leaving the franchise but you could tell which ones had tools to work with to have good, productive careers outside of Sac.
This wouldn't be giving up on Cade, it would be an escape hatch after the GM basically tied both his hands behind his back sticking him with a team full of non-shooters. They have to max him in a year and he's going to waste the first half of his career on a 20 win team if they do that. The Pistons are going to suck for awhile with or without him, I'd rather they just trade him for picks now instead of wasting his career. He's only going to lose trade value the longer he stays there.
Yeah for as many as Presti gets right, it's a head scratcher that he passed on SengunImagine if Okc didn’t trade the rights to Sengun.
SGA
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JDub
Chet
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if the GM thinks Cade is worthy of keeping around then he can just trade his non-shooters and better surround Cade, Ausar and whoever else they see in their long term with better complimentary pieces. Whether that happens with this current staff is unknown at this time but I think you keep a talent like that and just go through a couple more lottery seasons if need be in order to determine if he really is a long term building block. I think Booker was wasting away in Phoenix for 5 seasons before his first Playoff appearance, that's just one player I can think of, there are others that aren't quite coming to me at the moment
Did you watch the Kings between 2005 and 2021? By the time they go through a couple more lottery seasons Cade will be unmovable on a max contract and completely done as an NBA player from all the garbage coaches and teammates he's had to put up with. Paying him will stunt the ability of that team to find the right pieces to go with him and they'll be stuck in purgatory for another decade. I think when you screw up a roster this badly the only recourse is to bottom out and start over.
isn't this year a good starting point to bottom out and see who they can nab in the top 3? should they end up there of course.
If you have your franchise player you're not the worst team in the league. Either they don't have their franchise player yet or Monty Williams is his kryptonite and they need to eat $78 million dollars and fire him this season. I just can't see any team handing a coach a $78 million / 6 year contract and then immediately firing him.