Especially with Joe out, we need to consider where scoring is going to come from off the bench if we trade JC for Covington. A bench lineup of Forrest, O'Neal, Paschal, Gay, and Whiteside has very limited shooting. Getting Hart (or Gordon or Harris) keeps the Jazz with a 6th man and a defensive upgrade, but unless Bogey is moving into the 6th man role some of these other trade proposals don't.
Trade deadline discussion
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LoPo
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We gotta keep Royce. Zero reason to trade him. We are desperate for defenders so it makes no sense to trade a guy who tries so hard on that end.
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One more trade.... a little gut check trade...
Joe Udoka and a 2027 first to OKC for Kenny Hustle and Mike Muscala. The protection on the first is the debate. Somewhere between top 10 and 14 is fair. Could make it 2027 top 14 and 2028 top 10 and then have it turn to cash considerations.
OKC has said no trade of Kenny unless they get a first. Its steep but he's a rotation wing and dirt cheap this year and next. Muscala is effing insane. Per 36 - 21 pts/ 7 reb / 1.6 blocks. 43% on 3 pointers and 10 attempts per 36... the same amount of attempts per 36 as Donovan. He's great as a roll man as well. 90th percentile. So he becomes the backup stretch 5.
Both guys have insane on-off splits... it is partly because they are good but also because the guys they replace are not good. We save like 30M in the deal as well and pickup two cheap rotation players for next year.
Joe Udoka and a 2027 first to OKC for Kenny Hustle and Mike Muscala. The protection on the first is the debate. Somewhere between top 10 and 14 is fair. Could make it 2027 top 14 and 2028 top 10 and then have it turn to cash considerations.
OKC has said no trade of Kenny unless they get a first. Its steep but he's a rotation wing and dirt cheap this year and next. Muscala is effing insane. Per 36 - 21 pts/ 7 reb / 1.6 blocks. 43% on 3 pointers and 10 attempts per 36... the same amount of attempts per 36 as Donovan. He's great as a roll man as well. 90th percentile. So he becomes the backup stretch 5.
Both guys have insane on-off splits... it is partly because they are good but also because the guys they replace are not good. We save like 30M in the deal as well and pickup two cheap rotation players for next year.
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Royce is struggling on defense this year. If we got a good defender and trimmed salary we could absolutely move Royce. I think his salary is neither a bargain or burdensome... but his skill is the easiest to duplicate on a budget. If his defense picks up then awesome but right now he's "fine" on that end. He typically has worn down as the season went on... or at least that is the narrative some have pushed. I don't see him getting healthier and more spry this season.
I'm not trading him just for the hell of it... but I'd absolutely move him in the right deal.
It's fair to be skeptical of Royce's defense this year...but I wouldn't get rid of him even if we got Smart/Covington. Those guys are better defenders and we'd see an upgrade if they simply replaced Royce's minutes. But we'd also see a big impact if Royce is replacing JC's minutes for example. We need both a higher quality and quantity of defenders. If Royce has to moved to get one of those guys...sure, but my strong preference would be to trade a zero defense, offense only player instead.
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That's what I'm saying though... I ain't doing it for nothing. All I'm saying is if we needed him for a Hart for JC/Royce swap then we could likely find a cheap replacement and end up just fine.
I think 90% of the trades folks propose are us getting 150% of trade value when you have to give something to get something. Royce might end up being that something... and he can be replaced easier than some others. Like if we landed Hart or Roco and replaced Royce with Craig would we be a lot worse off? What if we got Holiday... I think we might actually be better off in that case. I also think House has done a pretty solid job and could give us 85% of what Royce would give in that instance.
I'm generally a lot more squeamish about trading Royce because even if he's not been great, he is not the problem. Even if we had Hart/Roco, we need like 125% of Royce and not 85% of Royce. Our defense is really bad so I'm not too interested in moving the only guy besides Gobert who might even be average.
But like you said, you have to give something to get something. If Royce has to be included to get something done I'm for it as long as it improves the defense....but I'm not in the mindset that we have defense to spare just because we got Roco/Hart/Smart. Certainly not to the same degree that we have offense to spare. Our defense isn't just bad, it's historically awful in the playoffs. We need as many defensive minded players as we can get.
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Kenny Hustle's defensive on/off this year is so crazy... they are 15 pts better per 100 with him on... just wild ****.
The numbers love him. I honestly think that if Presti had Hinkie's personality, meaning that he couldn't stfu and resist fellating himself, Kenrich would have been seen as a similar type of gem Covington was seen as when he was still with PHI.
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Do both the OKC and NOP deal
You have:
Donovan
Mike
Hart
Bojan
Rudy
off the bench - Kenny Hustle, Mike Muscala, House, Gay, and JB/Forrest... maybe you take back Temple in the deal with NO to give some depth. Whiteside stays as a break glass option. We also duck the tax this year and clear a lot of salary stuff for the future.
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Muscala's splits make sense to me as he is shooting the **** out of the ball and shooting bigs generally raise offensive splits significantly. Kenny isn't really tethered to any lineup or player... He might just be super good and hiding in plain sight.
Get em both... give a first... pray like hell its something real.
The issue with Royce is that his initial value as being a surprise player on a cheap contract that he well outperformed, coupled with being a somewhat opposite type player as the rest of our rotation, has created a bit of a blindspot as we've continued to advance his role in a way that has had drastically diminishing returns. Royce was not a starter/closer while Crowder was here because Crowder fit that role, even if they are very different players. When we traded for Conley and signed Bojan, we all had this assumption we'd be running that Rudy / Bojan / Ingles / Mitchell / Conley lineup, but Quin defaulted to moving Joe to the bench, inserting Royce in the starting lineup, and never really playing that lineup as any kind of main feature at any point that wasn't injury-forced. We saw Joe become much less effective off the bench and we posited several theories for that. Joe's most effective year, last year, was more a result of being able to play so well as a started, as he started nearly 45% of his games. Royce's appeal is that he's a defense-first guy who can hit good percentages from deep as a release valve and that he is low usage amongst many other high-usage guys. This works fine when he's a 20 mpg guy coming off the bench and not closing games. When you advance his role to 30+ mpg and start and close with him, the returns don't just diminish but they start going the other way. But it's again a blindspot because nobody else has a defensive reputation and since our offense is good we applaud his low usage. We've also got a sentimental attachment to him, because he's ours, that makes us feel somewhat sacrilegious about suggesting anything other than a defense for him. It drives us to being very black and white on the issue, and if I were to suggest that his role is not as hard to replace as we think, it would likely make a number of people uncomfortable and knee-jerk to think it's unwarranted Royce-hate that's gone goo far. If you were able to replace Royce with Covington (or Smart), these would both be legitimate upgrades that can push us over. If you obtain Covington but still allot the 30+ minutes per game for Royce, those diminishing returns from that spot will drastically mitigate the effectiveness of that deal.
This is still our window and we need to maximize it. I don't know what that will ultimately look like, but our biggest challenge still won't be perimeter defense alone, it's going to be mental toughness and focus and Quin's inability to stop the bleeding. There really isn't an emotional leader, either. For as much as we all hate Derek Fisher, I do believe he had an impact on that team that was very important. Maybe we could get that from a Smart but I don't know. We're not getting it from Quin, Rudy, Donovan or Mike. They all provide valuable things in that regard, but nobody really provides the extra oomph.
This is still our window and we need to maximize it. I don't know what that will ultimately look like, but our biggest challenge still won't be perimeter defense alone, it's going to be mental toughness and focus and Quin's inability to stop the bleeding. There really isn't an emotional leader, either. For as much as we all hate Derek Fisher, I do believe he had an impact on that team that was very important. Maybe we could get that from a Smart but I don't know. We're not getting it from Quin, Rudy, Donovan or Mike. They all provide valuable things in that regard, but nobody really provides the extra oomph.