Just finished listening, thanks for the treadmill entertainment.
Think you guys are slightly higher on Toronto than I am, I think Boston and Miami are still slightly above them. Not sure they come out of the East, but they're obviously much improved.
As far as my deal with Indy, Chris was right. This deal was agreed on after 3/4 games this season, so while it's not like we were definitely gonna be a playoff team, it hasn't been in my best interest to win a ton of games since very early on. I'm not actively trying to lose or anything and I'm still gonna play all my guys, but we've been sitting guys for most of the season and not putting our best foot forward.
I think you pretty much nailed down how I feel about HOU/ATL/LAC/LAL trade. I think everyone got what they wanted. Lakers wanted a shot at Leron Black, Clippers wanted to cash in aging expirings for younger pieces, Atlanta wanted a different fit at PF (and obviously loves Looney since he gave him that contract), and I wanted swap Looney for a cheaper but similar talent (like Chriss) and pick up an extra piece for my rotation, which I get in Nic Batum.
I know exactly what I'm going to get in Nic Batum, 3s and D for 10-20 minutes. Don't really need anything else from him.
Chriss is a little different. I'm floored that he has had little to no preference work in his first 4 years in the league, and still has god awful shot selection. Once I'm done cutting out all those jumpers from his repertoire, he's easily going to be an efficient 16-18ppg guy + 1.5 blocks/1.5 steals. He won't get that kind of volume here, but should be that caliber of player, kind of like a Thaddeus Young type.
Just got around to listening. Hopefully I made it quite clear in my explanation (I don't get why you guys didn't just scroll down to my explanation of the deal instead of just speculating -- it was literally on that page), but here it is again (sigh):
1) We regretted taking on Mudiays massive contract -- Kanter is expiring
2) Before this deal, the Clippers pick was not going to be Top 5.
3) Sexton, Alkins, and Metu are all talents that we like and fit our roster perfectly.
4) We now have an insane amount of salary coming off the books in Hayward, Love, Butler, and Kanter.
5) We now have a young core of PGs Sexton & Okobo, | SGs Alkins & Okogie | SFs Winslow & Brooks | PFs Ojeleye & Metu | Cs Patton & Lual-Acuil AND $35M in cap space this offseason to swing for a superstar or 2. That seemed healthier to us than having Mudiay eat up an almost-max slot and then have what could end up up being a late lottery pick in the LAC pick.
As always, enjoyed the listen!
DETROIT BASKETBALL
Krejci | Melton | Campazzo
Porter | Notice | King
Johnson | Kispert
McDaniels | Martin | Petrusev
Wiseman | Stewart
Except Okobo is a SG in a PG's body and Sexton is a combo guard. You're also not going to get nearly enough wins to entice a superstar. At best, you'll overpay for a reasonably talented RFA like we did and hope mother team doesn't match.
Sexton and Okobo each have the potential to be fine at the 1. Indy won't get a superstar, but should get a fair amount of second or third tier talent. Still don't like the trade at all though. Especially if that Clippers pick turns into Zion/Luka
Great job guys. Always helpful to hear the opinion of other GM's regarding trade and trade value.
For our part ... we liked Chriss much more as we thought. He played well last season, but that was beside Whiteside, an great rebounder and shot blocker. After the GDP trade our front line was much weaker and Chriss missing rebounding made it harder to play him. Also hard to develop too many player at once with the 10 instructions per season. He was not a priority here.
Hope is that Looney provides some more classic PF play, maybe alongside Young. And his TO gives the option to get out of the contract in 26.