Trade & FA 2024-25:

[SleepingHero]

Some good points here - I'm just out on the three max guys model. It's that simple for me. I like having two and a good team around them. Plus, KD is just soooo old. I'm not a guy who thinks any age that starts with 3 is a problem, but a 36 year old max guy who you have to give up most of the rest of your youth to get seems like the worst possible move to me.

Oh 100% on the three max model. It's an archaic way of building in this new CBA and restrains you hard in building a balanced team. KD is also as old as it gets for a superstar. There is no real good way to explain those things away and I agree with you! 


But the reason why I'm advocating for the KD trade is because the Mavs HAD the 2 max+good team model that was proven to work. They chose to go away from that. I don't think Kyrie+AD is good enough to seriously compete for a championship. Yet all we've heard is we're trying to win now and how this move allows them to win more. To me, this was more Nico saying he is going all in no matter what. Adding KD to that duo does make a ALOT of basketball sense on paper. Keeping Lively and Christie as the other 2 guys in the starting lineup also might be just enough to create a deeper team than we've seen recently on this 3 max guy model.

PHX before trading for Beal had CP3+Booker+Durant+Craig+Ayton as their starting 5. And while we can poke holes in it, that is a deeper more balanced team than where they are today. 

Kyrie+Christie+KD+AD+Lively is a helluva starting lineup and I think that's all that Nico cares about right now.