I'd have a hard time voting on this. The bottom line is that I think the three of Gay, Whiteside, and Butler will all be impact players. That's not to say that they'll all be in regular rotation and getting regular minutes (looking at Butler here), but that the three of them will all provide needed value and will contribute to our team this year. Whiteside and Gay are obviously going to be higher than Butler (in my mind) and I think it's hard to choose between the two because their roles will be so different, but I think the impact of Whiteside overall can be a lot larger though it may not be as featured as Gay because you will see Gay playing in a lot of situations such as the end of games (not necessarily regularly or all the time, but Whiteside's role will look smaller because during any crucial stretch, it will be Gobert on the floor). Butler is much farther down than both of those.
Whiteside:
I think this is a very, very underrated move. For anyone that's followed my posts for the past 4 years or so, I have advocated (even when we had Favors the first time) that we needed to roll with Udoh as the primary backup. To a degree, this has been heresy because of how favorably (no pun intended) Favors has been viewed amongst the fan base. Favors isn't and hasn't been the kind of rim protector that we've assumed, but because he does everything else all around good, I think that's inflated our expectation to what he did as a rim protector. During his first stint, we played him at the 4 to start and it allowed Rudy to do more because there was backup at the rim and for cleaning up the glass. Favors provided good rim protection in those situations and as a 4 is a good rim protector. He still spent a large majority of his time effectively being the backup, but I think there were a number of things that obscured the rim protection idea. One is that our team had been known as underdogs and having to be scrappy before we flipped everything around and (literally publicly) said Rudy was going to carry the load defensively. Udoh is an elite defender, and I think people felt elevating Udoh is a Favors slight, the idea that Udoh was elite defensively was poopooed and we emphasized a lot of his other (very real) deficiencies. Being able to play Udoh behind Gobert allows you to do the things you really need done with Gobert on the floor. It's true that he gives you nowhere close to what you would want or need on offense and he also is a huge drop off on the glass. Udoh was specifically what we needed but because Favors was better overall this significantly overshadowed everything and our need went largely unmet. I was hopeful for Ed Davis because I thought he could provide what we needed from Favors (rebounding). That failed miserably, but I still would have rather had Udoh. Then we swung completely the other way and had Tony Bradley play center, which was good that it highlighted the importance of defense from that spot, but was bad because now it gave us the idea that we didn't need a very specific set of skills, but that we could just run it back with Favors. So we brought back Favors and it didn't work out as great. It wasn't bad, but now people are recognizing that we need something specific from that spot that the nostalgia couldn't fill. Favors is absolutely everything you would want in a professional and is fairly ideal for everything off-the-court. But bringing back Favors was a lot like Afghanistan -- perhaps the intentions were good and we had higher hopes, but eventually the pull out is bad and we just should have never gone there in the first place.
When we drafted Udoka, I was okay with this because I assumed it meant we were running in that direction. He was a guy who could protect the paint and played 4 years in college, so the hope was that perhaps he could contribute and we could sign some other minimum vet, but that obviously changed when we signed Favors. My ideal for this offseason would have been Dwight Howard. He's a guy who's absolutely horrible for building around as your key guy (from a personality standpoint) and I think time obviously has highlighted that, but I think it stigmatized him that those issues are no longer relevant when you're bringing him in as a role player, and I think he's been significantly undervalued. The other ideal would be bringing in Udoh. Whiteside was honestly not at all on my radar, mostly because I didn't think he'd sign here nor would we pursue him. But I think he's a very, very great value move. Hell, even if it wasn't a value move it's just a good move in general. For any of his weaknesses, to be able to bring in a guy who is this type of player is exactly what we need in the non-Rudy minutes, and I think with Quin knowing how to use Rudy that he can maximize Whiteside's talents while also getting him more disciplined on his deficiencies. This allows us to (finally) play whole games where we have the guy coming in for Rudy doing the things he needs to. I'm skeptical that he's as strong of an actual defender as Udoh, but what he lacks there he makes up for with significantly better rebounding abilities and drastically improved offensive skills relative to Udoh. But, more importantly, I think Whiteside can do all those things that everyone loved about Favors that got highlighted because it was contrasted against Rudy (having better hands and more offensive capabilities) while also doing enough of the Rudy things. It's a bit like the best of both worlds, and I'm way more optimistic on this signing than many only because I've been calling for us to have the same type of player since forever and we kept getting distracted and not focusing on what the real need is from that backup 5 spot. This is a guy who gives us those needs at the backup while also bringing a lot of other abilities with rebounding and offense.
Gay:
He'll be the obvious guy that on the surface will get recognized as the biggest addition. My ideal guy I've wanted forever is OPJ, who burned us, but I didn't think OPJ would even be in our price range, and if you told me we'd walk out of the summer with Gay, I'd have been pretty happy (am pretty happy). It may just be the idea of getting OPJ that I'd be in love with more than what it would actually translate to. Who knows if he'll be healthy. I love his three point shot because I think that would have fit in perfect while being a good team defender to throw in. But Gay has a handful of things he's better than. His rebounding I think will be a huge addition. I don't have any tl;dr on him because it's obvious.
Butler:
I think there's a real role here available. I'm not talking about a large one, but we've had a need for a backup PG who can play on-and-off ball that we've covered by playing Donovan and Ingles as the backups so as to appear like there isn't a need there. But that need is there. Of the numerous different strategies of the off-season, I could have seen some value in bringing in a guy like Patty Mills because it allows you more freedom in taking the pressure off some other guys. I think anyone who watched the playoffs would agree that, despite Mitchell having a strong offensive showing, that having an additional ball handler there to take pressure off who could also hit the three would be a huge boon. So the prototype of what we need for that position that gets opened up by not relying so heavily on Don and Ingles to fill the void is a guy in the mold of a Patty Mills, which I believe Butler could do. He's obviously not going to come in and be Patty Mills, but a guy like that would be a huge luxury. We're really talking like someone playing a Super-Neto role here, and I think this should be a good fit if he plays some passable defense and is a threat to hit open threes, in addition to being able to handle the ball. I don't see him as getting regular, every night minutes, but a role for sure. Any injury vacuum with Don, Mike, Joe, or Jordan, and he fills that probably relatively competently and allows us to weather those storms without holding our breath.
Paschall:
I don't expect him to be in the rotation. There's an advantage here that he's actually has some experience playing NBA minutes and he's a guy that, if needed or called upon, can give you some NBA minutes. That couldn't be said with our deep bench previously. It'd be nice if Quin has the luxury (and utilizes it) where we can start pulling guys before the 1:00 minute mark when we're up 30. If we can start shaving some minute totals off some guys in unnecessary playing time where the end-of-bench can be relied on somewhat more, then I think that provides some pretty good value.
