2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

So because you have talked to the NBA on a strictly business level that makes you more knowledgeable on how to build a team?? Your business is skateboarding it seems so you probably have a leg up on the rest of us on how to build that but that’s about it that has zero to do with building an NBA team.Should probably take your own advice and humble yourself.

 

You do know that my comment was not directed at you right?

 

The appealing thing with Suggs is his contract is declining:

26-27: 32.4m
27-28: 29.6m
28-29: 26.8m
29-30: 26.7m

And I believe he could be resigned for 100m / 4 years after that. So although he is paid over 30m next year, he’ll be around or slightly above MLE money by the end of his contract in 29-30.

Having a role player like that would be useful defensively. We’ve seen how important Caruso was to OKC even with his injuries.

 

Yeah, I know it was ment for that other guy. Basically just me venting about how people like that guy and many others sometimes are so definitive about stuff and sometimes crap on other people's ideas and act like they are the be all end all lol.

 

The NBA has trended towards playing bigs off the floor in the playoffs unless they can switch. Coaches like Ty Lue just hunt mismatches non stop until you pull the guy. So I think the majority of bigs we can afford will be on the bench when it matters.

As for the starting defense situation. It’s not really that much of a problem is it? Here’s an example of some rotations:

Q1
0-6: Luka - Reaves - Watson - Lebron - Ayton
6-10: Luka - Reaves - Suggs - Watson - Hayes
10-12: Luka - Smart - Suggs - Jake - Lebron

Q2
0-4: Reaves - Smart - Thybulle - Jake - Lebron
4-6: Reaves - Smart - Thybulle - Jake - Ayton
6-8: Luka - Reaves - Suggs - Watson - Ayton
8-12: Luka - Suggs - Watson - Lebron - Hayes

Q3
0-4: Luka - Reaves - Watson - Lebron - Ayton
4-8: Luka - Reaves - Smart - Watson - Hayes
8-12: Suggs - Smart - Thybulle - Jake - Lebron

Q4:
0-4: Suggs - Smart - Watson - Lebron - Ayton
4-8: Luka - Reaves - Thybulle - Jake - Hayes
8-12: Luka - Reaves - Smart/Suggs - Watson - Lebron

Luka (34)
Reaves (34)
Watson (32)
Lebron (32)
Smart (20)
Suggs (20)
Ayton (18)
Hayes (16)
Jake (16)
Thybulle (14)

You reward the one of the guys with an extra 4 mind to close depending on the game. Maybe you can get LeBron down to 30 mins in the rotations and give some extra mins to the bigs.

Aside from the end of the third and start of the fourth, you always have two of LeBron, Luka and Reaves on the court. And during that 8 min spell, you’ve got Suggs and Smart to play make alongside LeBron, but the main goal will be to lock up the other team and get into transition anyway with Suggs, Smart, Thybulle, Jake and Lebron defending and Watson joining at the start of the 4th.

I think defensively we’d be fine, aside from the start of the game and 3rd quarter you always have 2x perimeter guys on the court and there is 16 mins of 3 or more perimeter defenders sharing the court. That’ll be tough for opposing teams.

 

Fair enough. I could get on board with that. Maybe even bring in a Robert Williams with the vet minimum. Thiero is also gonna be a damn good defender. But I still don't love Ayton as the center.

 

Idk bro..I think the mediocre bigs get played off the floor, but not the good ones.

You look at OKC right.. and while their perimeter defenders get a lot of acclaim, they benefited from the fact that Holmgren and Williams were still on rookie contracts. However Hartenstein was the 2nd highest paid player on that team. Moving forward, Williams and Holmgren are going to be making 41M a piece next season. They invested heavily into thier front court, and those 3 guys delivered the goods last season.

Wemby is a big, Jokic is still Jokic, these guys aren't getting played off the floor in the playoffs either. Ayton has to step up to 20/10 level in the playoffs, or we're going to need a different approach, to our frontcourt makeup.

Lebron is a short term fix, I'm not convinced Watson/Ayton/Hayes can get the job done post LeBron. Watson has very meh playoff numbers in 29 career games. I would still like to see him, actually make a leap in the playoffs first, before committing to the idea of paying him 30M per next season. Investing 20 plus M on another guard to boot? I'm just not feeling that right now.

Now Ayton has the opportunity, to change my assessment on him specifically, in this Houston series. If he balls out, I can see some possibilities, if he's mediocre, then we need to go in a different direction.

 

I know this is not the be all end all, but the 2024 Luka Finals Mavs had 1 very good POA defender in Jones, 1 very good wing defender in Washington, and 1 very good shot-blocker, in Gafford. All three of those guys were in the starting lineup and were also excellent lob-threats. Then, they had another very good shot blocker and lob threat off the bench, in Lively. I like how Watson sort of fills that Jones role, and Lebron sort of fills that PJ role. But we don't have any Gaffords or Livelys. Maybe Hayes, from a lob threat stand point, but Ayton ain't it in this regard.

 

Shiid..I'd take Paolo's mediocre a** in a heartbeat.