yeah, i don't want trae that much, but i'm not nearly as opposed to him as most. he's a bona fide #1 offensive option, imo. that's valuable. he's very bad defensively, and that's not going to get a whole lot better, ever. honestly, until mitchell started playing better defense--which was recently--i would have had them on the same tier. but with mitchell becoming a plus defender, he's got superstar value i think. so for mitchell, i give up anything but lebron/AD. for young, i'm trying to protect picks a bit more and keep reaves out of it. people say you can't play reaves and young together. true. but you can play reaves in the ginobili role like we did a bit last year. reaves doesn't do well over 30mpg anyway. run young with AD, lebron, and two guys who can defend, bring reaves off the bench as the primary initiator vs. second units. profit.
That's basically what I am thinking. I still don't think the trade market for Trae will be that great. Teams are interested but I don't know that anyone will give up everything for him so if we can craft a deal that keeps a few assets then I'm open to it.
He should have already patterned his defense after Curry. Steph turned himself into an okay defender after starting out exactly like Trae. I honestly don’t think Trae cares about playing any defense, because he’s had plenty of time in this League to learn from all of the resources around him.
yeah, i haven't watched enough to have an informed opinion, but people who do say young just doesn't give full effort there. would be interesting to see if that changed next to lebron and (especially) AD, though. i think i read gafford and pj washington talking about how when they moved out of a s***ty organization to a winning situation, playing harder on defense became easier/more obvious.
I think a big part is who the coach is and can he get through to Trae about his defense? All the B.S. about Ham being a “player’s coach” has soured me on any prospect getting slapped with the same level. I would prefer a strong minded coach who garners the respect of the majority of the guys and holds everyone accountable. I don’t know if any of these available guys are this, or can become this. I could be completely wrong about Trae being successful here, but I usually don’t see massive changes in “stars” after they’ve been in the League this long already.
yeah, funny enough, mitchell turning into a strong defender has been a good case in favor of the possiblity. he was never as bad as trae, but he was a minus defender who's trended into a very solid one since he went to cleveland. but yeah, i can't think of a guy who's as bad as young defensively who became even decent. maybe brook lopez? for half his career he was basically a bad defender, and then he went to milwaukee and became one of the better defenders at center in the league. but even he was never quite as bad as young. steve nash was about as bad and got to be less bad, so maybe that's the best hope.
Who's going to hold Lebron James accountable? Who has ever held Lebron accountable? Did Phil ever hold Kobe accountable? Did Riles hold Kareem and Magic "accountable "? Those guys can get you fired, it's an extremely fine line, with this coach authority stuff, in regards to the superstars.
Yeah, Lopez is a good example for a big. Nash would try at least, but never became very effective at it.
right, i think the argument would be that if trae tried he could be like nash (bad, but better than he's been).
Trae could certainly improve. I mean, he'll always be small, but he could be putting more effort in a better situation.
If we do give up Austin for Trae, which I think we’d have to, who is our starting sg? Who’s a realistic fa? Ring chasing Klay would be amazing in my dreams. trae ? Vando Lebron AD
Man if the Lakers had Whitmore instead of JHS: they'd be front runners in most of these trades and have much better chance of keeping Reaves to pair with whoevever they could have brought in by trade.
Lakers seem like a terrible team for Garland or trae. Yeah the Lakers have AD to cover up a s*** ton of mistakes but they have no go elite POA guard defenders. These guys just get destroyed by elite offensive teams (hell Lebron was the guy who is god father of matchup hunting)
lol....kcp. yeah, if you hate dlo, get ready for garland at twice the price. i think young has more offensive talent and guts than garland, though. i don't think they're the same. but they're paid similalry. garland looked too much like dlo in the playoffs to me. feel like young isn't a guy who gets scared. that's a good and a bad thing sometimes, but what limits dlo is that he gets scared. and don't let his soundbites fool you: he's definitely playing scared in big moments. haven't seen that in young.
Mitchell or Young, either one makes us a legit title contender, favorite even. It's just a matter of the price, that Jeanie is willing to pay. Put those guys on the court with Lebron and AD..who are you going to guard straight up?
i think the issue with young is: who are we going to guard with both him and lebron "conserving energy" for offense? and i think we'll give up anything not nailed down for mitchell, tbh. same as with AD. if you can nab a top-10-15 player in his mid-20s, you trade everything you have (unless it's another top 10-15 player in his mid-20s). young's not quite at that level for me, but mitchell's there. you're not locked into options at the the other two positions with mitchell/AD/bron. you are with trae/AD/bron. denver's been able to build around one megastar and a secondary star in murray (and their defensive issues created very specific needs elsewhere), but it required both time and money to fill out the optimal support players. we don't have those luxuries.
