Trade & FA 2023-24: Lavine Market Barely There| NOP Want Trae or Murray

[Chicagojk]

The main reason why I would hold onto Gafford is Lively's durability. Gafford seems like the kind of player that can give you 80 games. Lively's rookie season was almost Kleber-esque when it comes to minor injuries and him missing games. He only played 55 games.
Not the worst idea to have a backup that can also start 20 games per season.

Yep, I wouldn’t even mind Gafford continuing to start next year.  At some point, Lively will be too good to come off the bench.  At this point they are a pretty equal pairing.  I sort of feel like Gafford has a little fragile psyche and tends to get down on himself.  lively doesn’t.  So maybe him starting may be a way to keep him out of a funk.  lively typically enters the game early anyway.

Gafford has not been as good as he was in the regular season but you also need to remember this is his first playoffs.  A lot of those 7-8 dunk games you get in the regular season disappear in the playoffs against good teams.  He has left some meat on the bone in some of these games and needs to hit his free throws.  His defensive rebounding needs to get better as well.  I know you mention his plus/minus but I don’t think that tells the full story.  I think he has played his role in both series.  Some bad, some pretty good.  Let’s see how he does against Minny.