Curious what makes you say that. KCP's reputation, which obviously can be misleading, is as an potentially elite perimeter defender. And while Ball will likely struggle on that end, he's replacing Russell, which strikes me as net neutral. Between KCP, Deng, Nance and Brewer they have enough guys that are passable on the perimeter that I suspect they'll be pretty average on that end.
1) The Lakers were shit awful last year on defense (28th in the league). How much of that was not knowing what they were putting out the effort for? I don't know and can't say.
I land where you do, I think, which is that KCP is a pretty solid defender. FWIW, RPM has him as a really bad defender, though as you note not nearly as bad as D'Angelo Russell was. So even the pessimistic view of KCP is still a defensive upgrade, I think, but that is a lot of minutes on a guy who may or may not be good defensively.
Thanks. I hadn't seen this. Was wondering why I had so many Jazz fans following me all of a sudden.
To play devil's advocate, KCP is going to be playing for another contract. I don't think he thinks of himself as a 20 pts/per game scorer; I think he understands his place in the league, and wants to turn himself into a 3&D guy. That's the role he willingly took on in Detroit, and it's unclear to me that he has designs on being anything more than that.
I dunno. I think Sacramento did good things this offseason and suddenly have a solid, if unspectacular team. I think they've pretty comfortably pushed themselves into the late lottery at this point.
Does it? In 2019, George Hill will be in his age 33 season, Randolph will be in his age 37 season, and Carter will be like 100. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that they take a little step forward this year but then regress in 2018-2019 after the vets continue to calcify. However, I do agree that the Kings have more upside now than they have had in the past couple of seasons. My expectations are that the Celtics will get a lotto pick in the 6-12 range in 2019.
I don't think the 6-12 estimate is far off, though I expect it to be in the second half of that range.
They had plenty of reason to tank last year and eneded up winning 5 of their last 6 games. Point being, it is damn hard to judge what teams are going to do with bad rosters.
Yeah, well, top 3 pick is too optimistic. Over the last decade, only about half of the Kings' picks were top 5. I will say that potential range on this pick is immense. However, the relative strength of the West likely makes this a near lock to be some kind of lotto pick. I will say that while the overall talent on the team is better, I dont really know what kind of team they are. I don't see much of an identify at this point.
It does, and I wasn't a fan of the trade with the protections in place, because there's just too much uncertainty involved. I think the most logical explanation is that Ainge, for whatever reason, just wasn't sold on Fultz, though I think he would've been in a better position to land Butler or George had he held on to the #1.
Although he didn't know Hayward would sign at the time, the salary difference from #1 to #3 also let him keep Rozier. So I guess with a bit of a squint, you can say that Danny merely thought the difference between Tatum and Fultz was worth a lot less than Rozier plus a future draft pick. But I tend to agree with you.
Making the point some others have already made, I actually think Sacramento will be a tier above the Lakers this year (that tier would be the "We Still Suck and Have No Shot At the Playoffs But We Are Going To Go Out There Try Hard and Steal Some Wins" tier). I think having some real veterans who work hard and want to be there will make a big difference.
I agree with you here. I am also more worried about the Lakers winning the lottery just because of what a kick in the nuts it would be to have this great potential asset waived in front of our face all season only to lose it because of a stupid protection. The heart can only take so much
Seems like Danny decided the safest bet to make would be on the Sacramento front office being very incompetent and screwing up enough over the next 2 offseasons to make that 2019 pick very valuable. Personally I think that's a really smart bet but we will see how it plays out.
Z-Bo turns 36 this weekend, so will be 38 in Hill's age 33 season.
I'm more worried about Brooklyn finishing ahead of where I would've expected them to a month ago than the Lakers. Chicago and Atlanta should be awful, with Orlando, Indy, and the Knicks possibly as well. That's 20 competitive games a year for the Nets right there.
These are two different factors and it is important to differentiate the two.
Fair point, even if I'm still a Rozier skeptic, it looks like they have some faith in his progress. My perceived value of Jimmy Bulter (high) and Chicago's return (low) is probably throwing me off in my assessment of the move and the possibilities it may have foreclosed.
I don't think the return being perceived as low is relevant. Minnesota's offer was a 2nd year high lotto pick, an impending RFA guard with some skills, and a lotto pick this year. The analog Boston deal = Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, and Jayson Tatum.
Adrian Wojnarowski 
@wojespn
I think this is the right way to look at it. The same goes for the terrible return that Sacramento got on Boogie: Vlade reportedly had an extremely favorable view of Buddy - they didn't perceive the return as being bad.
Last week there was an iteration of the deal floating around that would have sent Ryan Anderson to Portland and Meyers Leonard and Mo Harkless to the Knicks. I don't know what that does for anybody but it's something.
In terms of assets, Houston still has several non-guaranteed deals (the so-called "human trade exception") don't they? That theroetically enables them to trade those for a bad contract stapled to an asset. They could then staple that same asset to Anderson and send him somewhere. He still has some value, he's just very overpaid.
That's just a salary dump for Knicks, isn't it? They are rebuilding and none of those guys fit...plus Shumpert has $10 mil next year I think.
Yep, straight up salary dump. There were rumors of the Cavs getting first round picks offers for Shumpert. Don't know if that's the case, but that could pick could be flipped to NY. Stretch waive Frye and Jefferson and you've basically cleared Anthony's entire deal from your books and you'd still maybe have a lower first or high 2nd round pick to show for it. That's better than eating Anderson's deal.
I know it's foolhardy to do an exact comparison to another trade but...the DeMarre Carroll trade just happened and it's a similar exercise to unloading Ryan Andersen. Andersen is a better player than Carroll currently but he has 3 years and 60 million left on his deal whereas Carroll has 2 years and 30 million left on his. Since Andersen at this point is barely a starter, I think Carroll has more trade value around the league.
I think you have to factor in the fact that neither of these teams has an incentive to tank. The Lakers cost themselves wins last season by various moves.
Nets had no incentive to tank last year and were awful, arguably less present day talent now than last year. They're building in the right direction but still should be close to a lock for bottom 3.
Pretty sure this is still the basis for the deal. Knicks get Leonard, Harkless, two of HOU's nonguaranteed deals and HOU's 2020 1st round pick, Rockets get Carmelo and Trail Blazers get Anderson and HOU's 2019 2nd round pick.
The Lakers still have every incentive to trade guys like KCP and Lopez at the deadline if they can get future assets back and only take on expiring contracts. That they aren't tanking doesn't mean being slightly less terrible has any value to them, so anything that gets them future value at the expense of in season performance remains a good move. That could also still apply to shutting down vets if they think more playing time for the kids has future value.
I'm not so sure this is true.
