A Haliburton/SGA backcourt would look pretty nice right now.... but I'm not giving up on Cade. Still think he could be a stud
The problem with this post is two fold 1. The team won't be competitive in part because of decisions this regime made (even if they inherited dog shit) 2. This team is the one excusing the moves they are making by selling to fans they will be good next year. See Bogdanovic comments, see comments clearly being leaked to the beat writers. Refusing to trade 30+ year old assets that could have got you a return. The team is the one selling this narrative they will be good next year. You can't blame the fans for that. I agree they won't be good, but they are setting themselves up for a ton of backlash next year and they only have themselves to blame. Just like the Tigers this season
no excuses. 3 top 5 picks, and 7th pick in a 4 year span, you should be competing for a playoff spot at minimum. Weaver has done a poor job constructing this team. this whole it takes 6 to 7 years for a rebuild is a crock of shit. What are you, Al Avila? OKC lost the #2 pick in draft, and they’re around .500
OKC had assets from trading stars and made multiple moves in this time. It’s not even an adequate comparison
Not trading bogdonavic for russell Westbrook and a 2027 protected first was the biggest move they could have made.
I'm not and I'm not even saying Weaver sucks. I'm basically just saying this team better be competitive next year, based on the standards this team themselves set, or he's going to have Avila level heat post 2023-24 season. Make or break time for this regime next year.
Not a bottom dweller, hell id take a close to .500 team if the young players actually played well. Look I'm not holding this team to any standard they aren't setting themselves. They've said they can be really good next year. I'm just expecting a significant step forward. The team can't look like this another year and have people be OK with it How long you going to give Weaver to assemble a decent team? How many guys is he going to draft and not improve here before you start questioning him?
I like the nucleus of Cade, Jaden, Duren and 2023 Top 5 pick going forward. I'm not sure I give a shit whether we got a protected 2027 first round pick from a playoff team for Bogey or Bey this year. If Weaver thinks Bogey and Burks are better to help that nucleus win more games next year, that's fine. There are clearly too many 5s on this roster and no real 4s, which I believe will be a point of emphasis this summer. Whether or not I'm questioning Weaver is a red herring. I don't think Weaver has a master plan that all these moves fit into where if it's not a linear progression he's failed. I'll see how it looks next fall and winter and let you know if I think somebody else would be better to get the roster from point B to point C.
keep making excuses. There is no reason this team should be a 30 win team with 3 top 5 picks, and some of largest cap space available.
I hope this team is good next year. I'm not saying Weaver is terrible. I'm just saying I'm not 100% sold on him anymore. I think we all agree next year is a major season for this staff/roster. I'm just not seeing the progress to make me think they magically get good next year beyond Weaver getting lottery luck twice in three years
I don't disagree with this, other than the fact that it seems like it usually takes NBA players a few years to develop. Cade should be there, but missed almost an enitre season. Ivey and Duren are raw.
Look if Cade comes back next year and looks like a future star, Ivey and Duren look better and improve and the rookie shows promise and they only win 35 games only i think most people would be OK with that. Problem is there isn't too much sign for hope right now. And a large part is Cades injury and a huge question mark over him. But we are year 3 of Weaver first rookie class and one got worse every year and we dumped, one has regressed and doesn't appear to have more than a future as a bench big and the third and highest drafted one looks not very good and was taken over a guy who looks like a star. This class is still TBD but Ivey has been fine and Duren shows promise. Again we'll have to see next year
I’m not making excuses, you’re not looking at reality. No one expected this team to be good this year. No one should expect this team to be good next year.
It's fine for a fan to think like this. But it's not good for a GM to think like this. And I think, so far, Weaver has shown to be below average when it comes to the small, in the margins type of stuff. And it's part of the reason why the team really sucks right now without Cade. And, in the end, if Cade, Ivey, Duren and this summer's pick hit the way we hope, maybe that stuff won't matter and Weaver can laugh at everyone about it. But if you're going to ignore the "in the margins" value that other successful orgs are significantly better than you at exploiting, it puts an enormous amount of pressure on you to hit home runs on the big stuff. And that's hard to do.
I’m probably overly pessimistic here, and because I always compared Cade to Brandon Roy, I’m not going to expect him to be 100% next year
OKC got SGA, who has been traded 2x already, and 7 1sts for Paul George. We got Dennis smith Jr and a second for Derrick Rose. Comparing the rebuilds without considering this is a misrepresentation
"In the East, if you want to compete and have a chance, you'd better have some big guys," Weaver said. "The top four teams in the East — Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Cleveland — if we want a chance to compete in the East, look at those teams. They’re all top-12 defense and they’re all big."
Again you keep saying that, but the team is the one setting that expectation so you can't blame fans for holding them to it.
I don't necessarily need them to be good next year. But if they held on to Burks and Bogdanovic when they had legit value to win 25-30 games again next year, that would fall in the category of "wasted opportunity".
They have had 6 first round picks the past two years and they started with players that could play basketball. We had Jahlil Okafor on the roster
“Having conversations with the club, Troy (Weaver), and the owners, they assured me that we’re going to be great next year,” Bogdanovic told HoopsHype. I guess I was even underselling it at very good, Weaver is saying great
OKC has also developed Lu Dort, which the Pistons have not done to this point with anyone under Weaver. OKC has consistently been willing to move things around to acquire more assets and opportunities for themselves. They have consistently recognized the right time to make moves and struck when given the opportunity. They've used their cap space and minutes available to help them in this regard. For example, I don't think OKC risks the opportunity to turn Bogdanovic and Burks into more assets. They would have traded them at this deadline while they had value. And Detroit could be proven correct in doing what it did. But this is an area where OKC's success goes beyond "they started with more".
I agree with all of this. I don’t think Burks has the value we think he does. I’m afraid we held on to Bojan because of the Cade injury
I don't think Burks was getting a 1st rounder or anything. He's a bench guy. But I think he gets you at least 2-3 decent second rounders, and I think Weaver overpriced both he and Bogdanovic on the market (similar to what Avila did for years in Detroit) to the point where I think teams just went elsewhere to deal with more reasonable people. And, again, if Bogdanovic and Burks come back next year and help Cade/Ivey/Duren/1st rounder grow and we win 35-40 games, that's fine. But keeping them around for next year adds to the idea that next year needs to be a pretty significant jump because otherwise you're just wasting time, money and potential assets.
Spurs are sitting 4 of their 5 starting 5. Jones, Langford, Sochan, Johnson are all out tonight lol. And just traded their starting C Poeltl so really its the whole starting 5.
And that's not even counting Vassell whose probably their best or 2nd best player whose been out a month. Despite all that we are only 5.5 pt favorites at home
Whole point of trade for their perspective was to save a shit ton of money, so they may still not call it off
Playing worst defensive team in league, thought I'd check in to see how young guys looking....start 1-10 shooting
Why are these dudes failing physicals? Even Tug can pass a physical and he hasn’t left the house in 3 years
Killian as a rookie 6.8/5.3/2.7 on 35/27/82 shooting splits Killian year 3 9.7/5.8/2.7 on 37/31/78 shooting splits He's basically the same player just taking 2.5 more shots a game Bey as rookie 12.2/4.5/1.4 on 40/38/84 splits Bey year 3 14.8/4.7/1.6 on 40/34/86 splits Basically same player taking almost 2 shots a game and 2 more FTA per game Stew 7.9/6.7/1.3 blk as a rookie shooting 55% Stew year 3 11.3/8.2/.7 blk shooting 43% Basically same player playing 7 more minutes and taking 3 more shots a game and jacking 3s now to lower his shooting % Interesting question to ask is are we drafting guys who just can't improve or is our staff so shit that we can't develop anyone?
I think all 3 of them just suck. Bey and Stewart weren’t expected to amount for much based on where they were drafted though. How many guys drafted outside of top 15 pan out? Hayes is the one that Weaver needs to get some heat on. Halliburton was consensus top guy available based on every draft website.
Haliburton was higher on most boards with the athletic being the notable exception. Remember draft analysts calling that pick out at the time. And I'm not expecting Stew or Bey to be great, just saying all threes lack of improvement especially Stew and Killian who were younger may be some of this is on terrible coaching too. Worst mistake may have been leaving casey to coach this young team