Would you trade Jaylen+ for Durant?
- Thread starter BigSoxFan
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You can't lose worse than 4-0. The national polling was like 60-40 Celtics before that series. Not even a gentleman's sweep.
Yeah agreed completely. I totally get those who want to go get Durant. He's fucking Durant, and he has four years left. You're gonna get two of those guaranteed and maybe he stays for all four. Guy is a stud. But there are also some concerning question marks. I think that anyone who is disregarding those is whistling past the graveyard (the behavioral ones, not skill or injury stuff), but they very well may be right. This is one time where I'm honestly glad not to be having to make this call.
That's fair. I don't care who you are, it's hard to perform at a high level with such a weird culture/chemistry thing going on. I think that having an coach in the infancy of his career didn't do much to help right the ship. There weren't a hell of a lot of adjustments, and basically how do you ego manage Kyrie and Ben Simmons. The best defense in the league was able to throw the kitchen sink and a few Buicks at Durant. Of course he looked less. Tatum looked less in the finals for a similar reason (also gas).
edit: ha Mooch said it too, while I was typing.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-players-with-most-total-minutes-played-this-playoff
JT averaged just under 40 minutes/game for 24 games during the playoffs. Even for a 24 year old in as good a shape as he is, it's probably too much to ask out of him given the ridiculous pace games are played at nowadays. Now, how much fatigue played a factor in his poor performance is up for debate (Wiggins played excellent D on him, can't forget that either) but it absolutely was a factor. Curry and Klay, for example, played 6-7 minutes less per game over the playoffs.
The current squad, with the exception of the 3rd big spot, is unquestionably deeper (assuming fairly good injury luck, of course) and I find it too risky to gut that for a player, however good he is, who might be sitting on the bench in street clothes for half the season or playoffs.
So one thing I'm not sure I agree on is that Brown isn't Peak Brown..... he might be. On DARKO age and games comparisons, he's right about at the point Durant started his peak (Durant was miles ahead of Brown.
Also, while Durant may not be Peak Durant, he bounced back nicely from a major injury (and a poor season post-injury by his standards).
LeBron had him at 3.95, which isn't near his peak (5.2-5.3) but up near his "off-year" during his peak, and compared to Jaylen's 1.63, a much larger gap than DARKO would indicate.
RAPTOR also sees a bigger gap (4.5 for Durant, 2.7 for Jaylen).
None of the all-in ones is perfect, but they all seem to agree, Durant last year was below his absolute peak, but had bounced back a lot, and was significantly better than Jaylen.
I also think Durant is a guy who is set up to age well, especially if he's coming to a team that has another guy who can carry a heavy load, and more defenders. His offensive production and skill is still staggering. Moving to not being expected to be the best or 2nd best defender will be big, as will reducing wear and tear.
JT was also probably legitimately injured as well. I’m just saying that it’s draining for JT to always be “the guy”. Jaylen sometimes takes the load off of him. KD is more likely to be able to, if healthy. The health concerns are valid but the upside when he’s in there is worth it to me. I’m not convinced that KD is now an injury concern for the rest of his career based off of the last 2 years.
Aside from a minor quibble that they don't all agree that Durant has bounced back a lot (DARKO doesn't think so), this is a great post.
And I'd say that it's possible that Brown has peaked. Tough to say with a curve like that, which shows no dip or flattening lately, but it is without question a possibility.
edit: Frankly, Crespo's ears must be ringing with the "after age 25" stuff, which is generally accurate.
DARKO is still also somewhat on an island with Jaylen. EPM and LEBRON still have him as more really good player than great.
I think JB plateaued a bit last season TBH, but it wouldn’t remotely surprise me if it was because he was rehabbing in the offseason, and was banged up off and on for most of the regular season.
I think JB plateaued a bit last season TBH, but it wouldn’t remotely surprise me if it was because he was rehabbing in the offseason, and was banged up off and on for most of the regular season.
Jaylen sometimes acts as primary scorer but he doesn't really "take the load" off JT because the non-JT lineups weren't really able to sustain any production (as seen by the often-quoted on/off numbers for JT).
That's why JT was forced to play so many minutes in the playoffs.
My guess is that Ime would be much more willing to sit JT if KD was on the floor instead of JB.
I see the valley in this chart around the injury and a decent bounce back.
LEBRON basically has this for Jaylen's last 3 years:
2019-20: Bad on offense (-0.96) decent on defense (0.32)
2020-21: Good on offense (0.86) bad on defense (-0.56)
2021-22 Better on offense (1.32) back to 19-20 level defense (0.32)
So a bigger improvement on D, but improving on both.
Raptor had:
2019-20: +1.2 offense, +0.6 Defense
2020-21: +1.9 offense, 0.0 Defense
2021-22: +1.7 offense, +1.2 defense
Darko sees his defense as similarly up and down, but sees his offense more like LEBRON (though not quite as extreme), I'd say DARKO and LEBRON see him similarly in terms of path, but DARKO started higher on him on both ends
I think for as good as Jaylen is, he’s still a guy who takes what the defense gives him. He doesn’t really put a ton of pressure on defenses. Other teams may throw some traps his way, but he got blitzed by defenses at the same rate that Gary Trent Jr does (a little lower actually). At least to my eye, it seems like defenses are kind of content letting Jaylen go 1 on 1 and doing his thing.
This isn’t a fault of Jaylen’s, but it’s tough to carry a lineup if you’re not consistently creating open looks for other guys. It works great when he’s out there with Tatum, because he’s is a gravity machine, and JB is a really good secondary scorer. But we have a massive sample of how this team performs with Jaylen led lineups, and it’s not good. Brogdon helps that for sure, to be fair. This isn’t a move we’d need to make, but I completely understand why Brad is interested enough to have Jaylen on the table.
Some people are really understating the trickle down effect of having KD, IMO. Him and Tatum always draw other teams best wing defender, which means one of them (likely Tatum) will be getting defended by the next guy up defensively. They were the third and fourth most aggressively blitzed guys in the league last season. Pair that with an elite vertical spacing guy in Rob, knockdown shooters in Brogdon, Gallo, Al, and Grant? Plus everything Smart brings offensively? Other defenses just aren’t equipped to defend the lineups we’d have out there.
I get why people wouldn’t do it, whether disliking Durant, injury risk, age, whatever. But for the next two seasons on the court? We’d be a much more dangerous team than the current version.
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People are also forgetting that heading into the playoffs, by consensus Durant was either the 1st or 2nd best player in the league when healthy. He had a rough 4 games against the best defense in the league, but still averaged 26/6/6 while shooting .386/.333/.895. I'm still definitely in favor of moving Brown/White/+ for Durant.
I think people who use that playoff series are being silly and disingenuous, it’s 4 games lol. Tatum had a 48% TS in the finals, Jaylen had a 51% TS through 5 games of the finals. Yes I know the age difference, and that KD naturally is going to decline, but it’s still four games. Dude averaged 30/7/6 on a 63% TS last season, being one of the most aggressively defended players in the league.
Jaylen averaged 24/6/4 on a 57% TS as a second option, playing off of one of the best gravity guys in the league. It’s a massive upgrade for the next two years.
My biggest concern with Jaylen is that his handle is still really bad anywhere near traffic. And, while still young, he's going into his 7th season. I don't see it getting that much better in his career, and it still is a pretty large problem.
Yea, those 4 games of KD are being looked at a little too closely, IMO. As you said, it would similar to just looking at Tatum's last games against GS.
Durant carried that team through the last month + of the season. In MAR/APR he was at 31/7.5/7.5 while shooting 40% from three and 52% overall and 94% from the free throw line
This is a great post and captures most of what I am feeling.
I will also add that having to watch and root for Kyrie has completely turned me off to acquiring players anything like him and I think KD is about the closest thing to Kyrie that you can get. They both seem deathly allergic to anything somewhat resembling self awareness or personal responsibility.
He never seems content or happy. He’s now quit on a team that he essentially molded. The 4 years of control that keeps being tossed around is a complete mirage, it’s 2 years and praying that nothing ruffles Durants feathers enough to make him ask for another trade. With the way the Boston media is, I find it hard to believe that Durant won’t find some sort of slight (real or just perceived) that will sour him on the team.
I think these are all negatives that need to be considered and that’s without mentioning age/ injury history. This team also made the Finals last year and has had one of the best off-seasons in the league…I’d like to see what this team can accomplish without such a major shake up
Personally, I think Durant needs a team with an incredibly strong team culture/veteran leadership and/or a really tight window to save himself from himself. To me, that leaves Miami and Phoenix. Or maybe Joe Tsai digs his heels in and forces Durant to follow through in his threats. I don’t know, I just know that I’m pretty sick of off-season headlines being dominated by the KD/Kyrie/Harden group.