02-11-2026, 03:05 PM
(02-11-2026, 02:25 PM)F Gump Wrote: I have mostly just observed the back-and-forth about PJW, as well as Naji and others, and their fit. But I think one major point is being misconstrued.
The idea re PJW and others not fitting with Flagg is based on the idea that the absence of Luka (and Kyrie) makes the team different, and therefore the pieces that were good around Luka are no longer good around Flagg. While that is true, the answer is not "so we need to get rid of PJW and all the others that need spacing and don't have it." Instead, the answer is to bring in more and better spacing-type ball handlers!
Go find a new Luka (or of course the closest facsimile you can find) or 3!! That's the job, rather than selling all the good players for iffy picks.
Kyrie will be on the way. He's great at that. That will change things significantly, all by itself. The next thing is to use one of the big additions - I would suggest the lotto pick - to also add ANOTHER ball handler who provides shooting from distance while also creating offense. And maybe yet another with the MLE/TPE.
We all agree on the need for 3-and-D guys, and 2-way guys, to surround the guys who run the offense. But an offense needs a guy to command attention and open the floor for everyone else.
Flagg himself will presumably get better at that. But he is not a great shooter yet. They need more of those shooter types in the creators.
The point being, once you do that, the PJWs and Naji's suddenly are great again. No need to sell them for pennies on the dollar, just fix the other stuff by upgrading the shooting in general being brought by the creators. THAT is the much better solution, and gets you where you want to go.
Its easy to say go get more offensive creators and get more shooters and then PJ will be great again. The problem is they have limited assets to go add those pieces. The best asset is a lottery pick which even if they hit may take a couple of years to get there. After that they have a TPE and the full MLE. There are limits to what they can do with that. Kyrie should help some, but I'm not expecting him to be the same player when he gets back and even less so by the time this team is ready to contend. This team traded away AD with no talent coming back. Its going to take some time for them to get back to where we want. That is why I think they should be very open to converting guys like PJ, Gafford, Klay and even Naji into assets or younger players where possible.