You're the GM this offseason. What do you do?

[Handlogten's Heros]

I've taken a ton of flack for being opposed to getting Conley. Let me breakdown my thinking:

Conley (much of the same could be said for Love)
- Pros: upgrade over Rubio. Seems to solve some of our pressing needs of shooting and shot creation
- Cons: past his prime, pretty injury prone. $34 and $36 million the next two years.
- Cost: Rubio (renounce), Favors (trade or waive), at least one 1st rounder, maybe Exum or Crowder, future financial freedom

Older Max Guys (Tobias, Klay, Middleton, Kemba, Kyrie, KD, Kawhi)
- Pros: upgrade to anybody we currently have in their position
- Cons: none
- Cost: Rubio (renounce) and Favors (waive), future financial freedom

Younger Max or Near Max Guys (Russell and Brogdon)
- Pros: upgrade to Rubio or what we currently have
- Cons: might be overpaying to hope they reach better long term potential
- Cost: Rubio (renounce), Favors (in most cases) and some future financial flexibility

Multiple 2nd Tier Free Agents (Rozier, Lamb, Beverley, Randle, Bogdanovic, others)
- Pros: brought in to address at least one need and/or one position. Lower cost than max guys/Conley. Growth potential for most. Since they don't cost as much, they can be moved. Financial flexibility still exists.
- Cons: not a comprehensive addition or they would be max players. Some have to grow.
- Cost: for free agents, the cost would be a fair price or we wouldn't do it. Rubio (renounce). Maybe Favors (he leaves or he's picked up via waiver)


I think if we went with Conley, we would be forgoing the opportunity to chase Older Max Guys, Younger Max Guys or multiple 2nd Tier Free Agents. I don't think he makes us as good as the sacrifices it takes to get him and pay him. If we could sign Conley with $34 million of cap space, I would have hesitations. Giving up a 1st rounder and potentially Exum or Crowder too? No thanks.

I would prefer an offseason of Lamb ($13ish), Rozier ($13ish), Favors ($13ish) and a 1st to an offseason of just Conley. To me, that's aggressive thinking over one guy. Maybe it's Favors, Winslow and Olynyk through a trade. Or Beverley, Randle, and Olynyk. To think Conley is going to make that much of a difference is pretty foolish. And I'm tired of giving away 1st rounders to old injury prone PG's who only have a 1 or 2 year contract.

Here's the deal... we can still chase the free agents and if we lose out trade for Conley. A trade pre-free agency is basically impossible to cobble together enough salary.

So you chase Tobias and Kemba and if you miss you can push for Conley. Offering Exum and Crowder, a 2020 first, and cap space. Would save them a ton of money... they are up near the luxury tax if they bring back Wright and can save 30M by moving towards the floor... if they don't care about cap considerations they definitely care about saving the actual dollars. Exum is bad money so some of the "bad money" attached to Conley is offset. This would leave us with 15M in cap space to address other needs... so it is not just Conley or nothing... it's Conley and adding a mid tier free agent... one of Rozier or Lamb if you really want.

Guys like Conley absolutely make a difference... guys like Lamb and Rozier ain't it.

 

[NUMBERICA]

I've taken a ton of flack for being opposed to getting Conley. Let me breakdown my thinking:

Conley (much of the same could be said for Love)
- Pros: upgrade over Rubio. Seems to solve some of our pressing needs of shooting and shot creation
- Cons: past his prime, pretty injury prone. $34 and $36 million the next two years.
- Cost: Rubio (renounce), Favors (trade or waive), at least one 1st rounder, maybe Exum or Crowder, future financial freedom

You're not losing financial freedom by trading Exum for a real player that is actually worth ~$35 million a year*. You're liberating yourself from ~$20 million in horrible salary.

*He's a quantified top-10 PG: 6th in PER and 9th in +/-. He's also a guy that's led a franchise to very solid and respectable success perennially.

 

[LoPo]

Offering Exum and Crowder, a 2020 first, and cap space.

- Crowder loves it here and we need waves of guys like Crowder to compete on the course of the season. A good team needs SF/PF guys who defend, play hard and can hit 3's. Trading him like a salary throw in is foolish.

- Selling Exum now to "clear his salary" is bad business. I haven't given up on him yet and I know others haven't either. I think he still plays a major role in our future. The guy has skills we need. We should be behind him instead of bashing him.

- If we wanted to trade for Conley AFTER we strike out in free agency and you have made it abundantly clear you want to move on from Rubio and Favors, then just offer Memphis Korver and a 1st for Conley. Without Favors, Rubio, Thabo, and Udoh, we have about $33 million cap space. There is zero reason to give up Crowder and Exum just to get rid of them.

 

[NUMBERICA]

The guy [Exum] has skills we need.

Name them. Skills, specifically.

 

[Bawse Dawg]

then just offer Memphis Korver and a 1st for Conley

You do know that we need to make an offer that Memphis will actually accept right?



If you wouldn't trade Exum Crowder and a first for Conley then you're crazy tbh.

 

[LoPo]

Name them. Skills, specifically.

Defense, athleticism and the ability to get past his defender off the dribble. One cannot argue that he has those skills.

He needs to work on finishing and shooting. And of course he needs to stay on the court.

If he plays 70+ games next year, I guarantee you he's a bargain contract making around $10 million. We aren't the type franchise who can afford to give up on a player too early. Have we learned nothing from our recent experiences with Millsap, Matthews, Hood, Kanter, Carroll and others?

 

[NUMBERICA]

For the record, I love Crowder. I've been unabashed about this since before he was even drafted.

But the data says he's not a core player. I trade not-core players for core players 8 days a week.

 

[Jazz4ever]

- Crowder loves it here and we need waves of guys like Crowder to compete on the course of the season. A good team needs SF/PF guys who defend, play hard and can hit 3's. Trading him like a salary throw in is foolish.

- Selling Exum now to "clear his salary" is bad business. I haven't given up on him yet and I know others haven't either. I think he still plays a major role in our future. The guy has skills we need. We should be behind him instead of bashing him.

- If we wanted to trade for Conley AFTER we strike out in free agency and you have made it abundantly clear you want to move on from Rubio and Favors, then just offer Memphis Korver and a 1st for Conley. Without Favors, Rubio, Thabo, and Udoh, we have about $33 million cap space. There is zero reason to give up Crowder and Exum just to get rid of them.

-Crowder's problem is he just can't hit them with enough consistency. He gets a lot of wide open looks too, 33% is not good enough.

-Don't worry about Exum, no one wants him at 11 million a year he'll get another chance here. He's looking to be a repeat of CJ Miles, where you go into each season hoping this is his breakout year but ends up being a whiff.

 

[NUMBERICA]

Defense, athleticism and the ability to get past his defender off the dribble.

Athleticism isn't a skill. Height isn't a skill. In his case, his athleticism actually hides his lack of skill, it doesn't demonstrate that he has it.

I am having an extremely difficult time thinking of a player that made a second-contract on this team that has shown less skill than Dante Exum.

 

[SCS]

Here's the deal... we can still chase the free agents and if we lose out trade for Conley. A trade pre-free agency is basically impossible to cobble together enough salary.

So you chase Tobias and Kemba and if you miss you can push for Conley. Offering Exum and Crowder, a 2020 first, and cap space. Would save them a ton of money... they are up near the luxury tax if they bring back Wright and can save 30M by moving towards the floor... if they don't care about cap considerations they definitely care about saving the actual dollars. Exum is bad money so some of the "bad money" attached to Conley is offset. This would leave us with 15M in cap space to address other needs... so it is not just Conley or nothing... it's Conley and adding a mid tier free agent... one of Rozier or Lamb if you really want.

Guys like Conley absolutely make a difference... guys like Lamb and Rozier ain't it.

I don't like the idea of waiting after free agency to go after Conley simply because we could easily strike out in free agency and then the Grizzlies could decide you know what we'll hold on to Conley and then we're f***** OR we could be chasing free agency options and they could trade Conley somewhere else in the meantime and when we strike out we're f*****.

We can't take this laidback approach of looking at all options and waiting to see if we get lucky. We need to be extremely aggressive.

If we are laidback and strikeout I'll rage. I might go find some cute fluffy bunnies to punch.

 

[NUMBERICA]

-Crowder's problem is he just can't hit them with enough consistency. He gets a lot of wide open looks too, 33% is not good enough.

-Don't worry about Exum, no one wants him at 11 million a year he'll get another chance here. He's looking to be a repeat of CJ Miles, where you go into each season hoping this is his breakout year but ends up being a whiff.

CJ Miles could play basketball. CJ Miles was also paid $4 million a year in non-cap years.

 

[NUMBERICA]

I don't like the idea of waiting after free agency to go after Conley simply because we could easily strike out in free agency and then the Grizzlies could decide you know what we'll hold on to Conley and then we're f***** OR we could be chasing free agency options and they could trade Conley somewhere else in the meantime and when we strike out we're f*****.

We can't take this laidback approach of looking at all options and waiting to see if we get lucky. We need to be extremely aggressive.

If we are laidback and strikeout I'll rage. I might go find some cute fluffy bunnies to punch.

Characterizing going after players you want more as "laid-back" is incorrect.