Glenn
Hall of Famer
Take a deep breath!! 
Let's take a step back and look at what this draft and the upcoming season may bring us. Let's ignore Smart and the Maloofs for awhile.
Our team as it is needs a few tweaks and one major tweak would make a big difference. Let us say we trade Thornton for that SF we want or that defensive big that we want. Let us use an unbalanced piece of our team who has great value and get great value in return. As we are overstocked at the SF position, let us use Cisco if our trade partner wants more value from us which means we would be getting mega value back. Cisco has value although not to us. He's a great guy as is Thornton and we are in a position of trading two useful players of good character to get what we want. My position is that it must be a SF or PF but I'm not fixed firmly in that position. I'll leave it up to Petrie but this idea of getting Lowry is kind of playing around the edges of what we REALLY need. We have enough guys who can at least be passable PGs and need more help elsewhere.
We need to bring back JT. JT is a good guy and although people describe him as erratic, I don't think that was true last year. He was the only player with a decent shooting percentage from the beginning of the year to the end. He can handle the ball in a straight ahead dribble. He knows his limitiations. In fact, I am very pleased with him and am sure he would start or come off the bench and has little ego involved in that. Let us not get cavalier with our bigs and say if the price is too high, let him go. As I expect Greene to be let go, that leaves us with two guys under contract right now who are over 6'6" unless one of the SFs squeaks over that 6'6" barrier.
These two guys are Cousins and Whiteside. Am I missing someone? In other words, it leaves us with one useful big where I would be most comfortable with three tall bigs and Hayes. We need JT badly.
I also expect to see some minutes from Whiteside on a regular basis. Let us see if Cliff Ray can work some magic. We know Hassan can block shots. He could become one of the better shot blockers in the NBA. He has a decent 10 ft. jump shot so is not totally useless on offense and that's all we need from him. There is this mysterious rumor of ADD that might be holding him back. ADD is kind of a junk diagnosis that simply means he can't focus. That can be a huge problem. It also is treatable and depending on the underlying cause of this ADD as it can be one of the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and a few other common mental illnesses, a small dose of something could snap him back to normalcy. I have seen it twice and the description from the players is this: before the low dose med, they couldn't keep their mind off the crowd, who might be there (family, for instance) and the like. In one case, a small dose of Zoloft allowed the player to focus straight on the game and forget who might be watching. It created a noticeably better year with increases in points scored, assists, and rebounds. As an important aside, the number of people suffering from depresion and anxiety is huge and you can almost bet that every team has at least one player with one of the two diagnoses.
OK, so we have Cousins, JT, and Whiteside with a side order of Hayes. We need one more in my way of thinking. The need for a shotblocker depends entirely on Whiteside. Send him to my office. To be totally optimistic, we are not desparate for a shotblocker but the one we have is iffy at the moment.
Let's get another. Assuming, Thornton has been traded, we may already have him. If Thornton was used to get a SF, we still need a big. Getting a big in the draft leaves Hayes available to trade.
Here comes the draft. I have to admit to bajaden with all contrition that Drummond still niggles at the back of my mind. It depends on how fast you want on return from that investment because he will be a project much like Whiteside. Trouble is, he is a #5 pick project and that makes me squirm. But let's look at it anyway. First we need to know what the problem is. If it is a matter of lack of training in the skills of a PF, turn him over to Cliff Ray and maybe have a mini-big man's camp with Whiteside or maybe also with Cousins but I think having Whiteside and Drummond in the same room at the same time could be very interesting. They each could work against each other. Cousins' need for knowledge is on a whole different plane. And how about the big man camp?
If Drummond's problem is lack of knowledge and he has reasonable intelligence, let us say for the sake of argument, that it might take a few years to get him into decent NBA shape. Remember, Whiteside is better versed in the basics of big man basketball than Drummond. Whiteside needed a body. Drummond already has a body and other skills most big men can only dream of.
Now if the possibility of working with Drummond and ending up with nothing is too scary, we can fall back on Whiteside as the shot blocker and perhaps draft Robinson. Robinson will be very good but not the ball swatting entity that is ideal. He is high energy and might be an inspiration to the team. There are other bigs like Perry Jones. He is projected to go later in the first round but only a few places and I wouldn't worry about that. I know litle of him but he's seems like a very tall and rangy guy and there's nothing wrong with that. His ft shooting % is around 70% as opposed to Drummond's 30%. That's a decent percentage for a guy almost 6'11".
Resign TWill. When TWill hit the court in his first game with us, I was amazed at his court vision. If a PG had his court vision I'd be thrilled. I have mentioned before that a backcourt of he and Tyreke would be interesting, each complimenting the other in a way. Where TWill lacks speed and could get trapped, Tyreke is there to take over.
I would want him to be a more standard distributor. Then also we have IT or Salmons off the bench. Salmon's would be a good 6th man PG or SG or SF. I totally disagree that he should be amnestied or is some kind of diseased creature that we should distance ourselves from. He looked good as a guard near the end of the season and said that he needed the ball in his hands to function offensively. He would never get that as a SF.
There is Jimmer. There is Tyreke. We don't have a great PG no matter what people think of IT but maybe there is a way of getting Lowry. A trade that balances our lineup, whatever it may be at the time, would be useful but not do or die. We have Jimmer. He and IT are the only bonafied 3 pt shooters. This will be our weakness. If the team goes in the direction I have mentioned, I'd like to see how much the three point shooting hurts us.
The way around this is to draft Barnes which means the Thornton trade MUST be for a big. Picking Barnes means we cannot start IT. The PG must be a distributor only as we would have Tyreke, Barnes, and Cousins as offensive players and we can't function efficiently with 4 offensive starters. Bricklayer has spelled out the logic of this very well.
I know I dwelled on drafting a big guy but drafting a SF would shift things around a bit and avoid all that "let's train Drummond" business. Thornton (plus Cisco) would be used to acquire the big.
This is merely one approach to next year but I want people to REJOICE that a much better team is coming right around the corner.
If you made it this far, congrats!
Let's take a step back and look at what this draft and the upcoming season may bring us. Let's ignore Smart and the Maloofs for awhile.
Our team as it is needs a few tweaks and one major tweak would make a big difference. Let us say we trade Thornton for that SF we want or that defensive big that we want. Let us use an unbalanced piece of our team who has great value and get great value in return. As we are overstocked at the SF position, let us use Cisco if our trade partner wants more value from us which means we would be getting mega value back. Cisco has value although not to us. He's a great guy as is Thornton and we are in a position of trading two useful players of good character to get what we want. My position is that it must be a SF or PF but I'm not fixed firmly in that position. I'll leave it up to Petrie but this idea of getting Lowry is kind of playing around the edges of what we REALLY need. We have enough guys who can at least be passable PGs and need more help elsewhere.
We need to bring back JT. JT is a good guy and although people describe him as erratic, I don't think that was true last year. He was the only player with a decent shooting percentage from the beginning of the year to the end. He can handle the ball in a straight ahead dribble. He knows his limitiations. In fact, I am very pleased with him and am sure he would start or come off the bench and has little ego involved in that. Let us not get cavalier with our bigs and say if the price is too high, let him go. As I expect Greene to be let go, that leaves us with two guys under contract right now who are over 6'6" unless one of the SFs squeaks over that 6'6" barrier.
These two guys are Cousins and Whiteside. Am I missing someone? In other words, it leaves us with one useful big where I would be most comfortable with three tall bigs and Hayes. We need JT badly.
I also expect to see some minutes from Whiteside on a regular basis. Let us see if Cliff Ray can work some magic. We know Hassan can block shots. He could become one of the better shot blockers in the NBA. He has a decent 10 ft. jump shot so is not totally useless on offense and that's all we need from him. There is this mysterious rumor of ADD that might be holding him back. ADD is kind of a junk diagnosis that simply means he can't focus. That can be a huge problem. It also is treatable and depending on the underlying cause of this ADD as it can be one of the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and a few other common mental illnesses, a small dose of something could snap him back to normalcy. I have seen it twice and the description from the players is this: before the low dose med, they couldn't keep their mind off the crowd, who might be there (family, for instance) and the like. In one case, a small dose of Zoloft allowed the player to focus straight on the game and forget who might be watching. It created a noticeably better year with increases in points scored, assists, and rebounds. As an important aside, the number of people suffering from depresion and anxiety is huge and you can almost bet that every team has at least one player with one of the two diagnoses.
OK, so we have Cousins, JT, and Whiteside with a side order of Hayes. We need one more in my way of thinking. The need for a shotblocker depends entirely on Whiteside. Send him to my office.
To be totally optimistic, we are not desparate for a shotblocker but the one we have is iffy at the moment.Let's get another. Assuming, Thornton has been traded, we may already have him. If Thornton was used to get a SF, we still need a big. Getting a big in the draft leaves Hayes available to trade.
Here comes the draft. I have to admit to bajaden with all contrition that Drummond still niggles at the back of my mind. It depends on how fast you want on return from that investment because he will be a project much like Whiteside. Trouble is, he is a #5 pick project and that makes me squirm. But let's look at it anyway. First we need to know what the problem is. If it is a matter of lack of training in the skills of a PF, turn him over to Cliff Ray and maybe have a mini-big man's camp with Whiteside or maybe also with Cousins but I think having Whiteside and Drummond in the same room at the same time could be very interesting. They each could work against each other. Cousins' need for knowledge is on a whole different plane. And how about the big man camp?
If Drummond's problem is lack of knowledge and he has reasonable intelligence, let us say for the sake of argument, that it might take a few years to get him into decent NBA shape. Remember, Whiteside is better versed in the basics of big man basketball than Drummond. Whiteside needed a body. Drummond already has a body and other skills most big men can only dream of.
Now if the possibility of working with Drummond and ending up with nothing is too scary, we can fall back on Whiteside as the shot blocker and perhaps draft Robinson. Robinson will be very good but not the ball swatting entity that is ideal. He is high energy and might be an inspiration to the team. There are other bigs like Perry Jones. He is projected to go later in the first round but only a few places and I wouldn't worry about that. I know litle of him but he's seems like a very tall and rangy guy and there's nothing wrong with that. His ft shooting % is around 70% as opposed to Drummond's 30%. That's a decent percentage for a guy almost 6'11".
Resign TWill. When TWill hit the court in his first game with us, I was amazed at his court vision. If a PG had his court vision I'd be thrilled. I have mentioned before that a backcourt of he and Tyreke would be interesting, each complimenting the other in a way. Where TWill lacks speed and could get trapped, Tyreke is there to take over.
I would want him to be a more standard distributor. Then also we have IT or Salmons off the bench. Salmon's would be a good 6th man PG or SG or SF. I totally disagree that he should be amnestied or is some kind of diseased creature that we should distance ourselves from. He looked good as a guard near the end of the season and said that he needed the ball in his hands to function offensively. He would never get that as a SF.
There is Jimmer. There is Tyreke. We don't have a great PG no matter what people think of IT but maybe there is a way of getting Lowry. A trade that balances our lineup, whatever it may be at the time, would be useful but not do or die. We have Jimmer. He and IT are the only bonafied 3 pt shooters. This will be our weakness. If the team goes in the direction I have mentioned, I'd like to see how much the three point shooting hurts us.
The way around this is to draft Barnes which means the Thornton trade MUST be for a big. Picking Barnes means we cannot start IT. The PG must be a distributor only as we would have Tyreke, Barnes, and Cousins as offensive players and we can't function efficiently with 4 offensive starters. Bricklayer has spelled out the logic of this very well.
I know I dwelled on drafting a big guy but drafting a SF would shift things around a bit and avoid all that "let's train Drummond" business. Thornton (plus Cisco) would be used to acquire the big.
This is merely one approach to next year but I want people to REJOICE that a much better team is coming right around the corner.
If you made it this far, congrats!
