Building Around Cooper: A Backward-Looking Thought Experiment

[DanSchwartzgan]

What do you guys think? I hope, we can get a great discussion going!

Well done on your analysis.  I like that you included some playmaking and scoring on the bench.  This often gets overlooked, but is critical.  You can't have your starters beat the other starters by 2-3 points and have your bench lose by 10 and be successful.  We have some good candidates for this on the team currently.  Unfortunately, we have too many of these guys some of whom are making starter money.  It is OK for now since we will have players on rookie deals for a while longer.  But, it eventually has to be dealt with.

Lively's status makes all of this planning so difficult.  

I think Christie is a core piece.  He's shooting .628% in TS% on a bad team.  That's valuable.  You can see almost to the day when Kidd told him to start trying to do more.  Why not, if this is a developmental year for young guys.  It would take a lot to unseat him in my mind as he fits needs and timelines very well.

I think the main point I'd make is I think we all place too much emphasis on the Flagg "true co-star" being a guard.  Maybe it is traditional thinking or maybe it is because there are so many guards in the upcoming draft.  Would we think differently if PG's were scarce 4-10 and instead there were a bunch of SF's who can create for themselves.  If we somehow landed the next Franz Wagner, or Jalen Brown in the draft, I bet we'd figure it out.  It might happen if we draft Dybasta or Caleb Wilson.  BTW, doing so would change the type of PG we'd need.  I think a scoring SF/SG type with a 3&D PG would be just as effective as a scoring PG with a traditional 3&D wing.  We just need one other star creator from somewhere eventually.

I think this team is closer than we may think.  Nail the pick (whether a guard or a forward) and allocate some of our other resources to fill the other hole with an above replacement level player and the floor for this team is Top Six in the West (with health).  People forget how good Lively is when healthy.  Our rookie wouldn't yet be a big contributor (Flagg spoiled us).  But, we have options that would allow us to put the rookie in a limited role in a deep playoff run.  More than anything, we have two absolute assassins in late game execution between Flagg and Irving.  That will matter if we can get the other pieces right.

I think it would have improved your post if you would have indicated how undeniably important it is to draft someone with the 30th pick and not contemplate using it as a tool to improve the team in some other way