Carmelo traded to OKC
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Does the Anthony thing really move the needle much either way? Always seemed like a massively overrated one dimensional player to me. I also can't see Westbrook leaving the super max on the table. It is an absurd amount of money. In the scenario George and Anthony are gone after this year, the Thunder still wouldn't really have that much room to sign anyone. They'd be about 15 mil under the cap. That Steven Adams contract is brutal, even if he is a good player.
Re the Clipper and Blake Griffin, I think he could have a huge year if he stays healthy, but that it won't necessarily reflect in the win/loss column. As I've pointed out before, he just started to randomly jack up 3s last season. In his first 26 games before being injured, he had 22 three point attempts. He returned from injury on January 28th, and only shot 2 3s in his first 5 games back. At that point, he was 5-24, .208% thru 31 games. In the next 30 games, he went 33-89, .371% from 3. He was 4-6 in his 3 playoff games. I know people add the 3 point shot to their games but I've never seen a player do it mid season. It does somewhat coincide with his return from injury. This was a guy who's previous high in 3 point attempts was 44 in 80 games. He took 2 more 3's in the last 30 games than he did the previous 3 seasons combined.
He's also an incredibly gifted passer and with Chris Paul gone, I could easily see his assists totals jumping to 8 or 9 a game. He could be close to averaging a triple double, but you'd have to assume his rebounding numbers will continue to decline as his game moves further away from the basket and with DeAndre Jordan camped under the rim. He's kind of an elite version of Al Horford on offense. He's had assists rates over 24% the last 3 years, this was Horford's first year over 19% (24.4, huge jump).
Re the Clipper and Blake Griffin, I think he could have a huge year if he stays healthy, but that it won't necessarily reflect in the win/loss column. As I've pointed out before, he just started to randomly jack up 3s last season. In his first 26 games before being injured, he had 22 three point attempts. He returned from injury on January 28th, and only shot 2 3s in his first 5 games back. At that point, he was 5-24, .208% thru 31 games. In the next 30 games, he went 33-89, .371% from 3. He was 4-6 in his 3 playoff games. I know people add the 3 point shot to their games but I've never seen a player do it mid season. It does somewhat coincide with his return from injury. This was a guy who's previous high in 3 point attempts was 44 in 80 games. He took 2 more 3's in the last 30 games than he did the previous 3 seasons combined.
He's also an incredibly gifted passer and with Chris Paul gone, I could easily see his assists totals jumping to 8 or 9 a game. He could be close to averaging a triple double, but you'd have to assume his rebounding numbers will continue to decline as his game moves further away from the basket and with DeAndre Jordan camped under the rim. He's kind of an elite version of Al Horford on offense. He's had assists rates over 24% the last 3 years, this was Horford's first year over 19% (24.4, huge jump).
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Agree on Blake's passing ability however over the past 4 years Blake has played 28 games without Chris Paul and has averaged 4.9 assists per game which is identical to his assist average over the last two seasons (and less than his 5.3 with Paul in '14-'15. I think a lot of this has to do with Paul being out of the lineup the Clippers rely on Blake scoring the ball more without Paul in the lineup rather than being more of a distributor.
Anthony's not going anywhere. Where's he going to find someone who pays him $24.5 million dollars on the open market, with cap space being so tight next year?
In the best of circumstances, Donavan staggers the minutes of Westbrook, Melo, and George so there's always a scorer on the floor. Last year, the Thunder couldn't score with Westbrook on the bench. Their second unit was a trainwreck.