The last few years, elite playoff teams run lineups where one guy is on the court who is the grunt work guy and the other 4 guys can shoot the 3 or very deep range in LA's case.
GS: Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Iggy and Draymond or Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Draymond and Bogut.
SA: Parker, Green, Kawhi, LA and Duncan or Parker, Manu, Green, Kawhi and LA.
Cleveland: Kyrie, Smith, LBJ, Tristan and Love or Kyrie, Smith, Jefferson, LBJ and Tristan
OKC: RW, Waiters, Robertson, KD and Adams - they did play Adams and Kanter together, but I think they are an outlier because they haven't done it successfully long enough and they are the only team with 2 superstar ball handler scorers.
Against those lineups in the playoffs, I feel like Favors and Gobert will struggle on both ends of the court. A guy like Tristan (with zero offense) can exist because everybody else can shoot AND he can guard perimeter guys pretty well for his size. I feel like Gobert will be our Tristan Thompson in the upcoming playoffs. It could be Favors, but Gobert is just a freak athletically with that length. He's truly a unicorn. For most of the playoffs when it gets to crunch time next to those small lineups, I think our lineup will be: Exum/Hill, Hood/Hill, Hayward/Hood, Hayward/Favors/Lyles, Gobert/Favors.
If that becomes the case, I could see us trading Favors. It all depends on how people are used this season and the next playoffs. If Favors becomes our equivalent of Love, I think he's gone. Love played pretty well for Cleveland in a couple games, and for Cleveland's roster, lack of flexibility and intent to spend whatever it takes, he might stick there. If we had the same situation with Favors (good player but doesn't help us as much in crunch time), I think we would trade him because we have more roster flexibility and we can't spend into the luxury.
This year is so massive for us in so many ways. Not only potential, but what do we do from here....