Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[mvossman]

I personally don't think any of the forwards demands minutes (obviously excluding Coop). There are development guys who we would like to see get minutes, but ultimately I do not think May is a coach who is going to hand those minutes over simply because they are young and need development.

I think May will reward the best players with minutes. Whatever advantages any of the other 3/4s may or may not have offensively (I don't really think any of them will necessarily have any kind of significant offensive advantages unless someone like Risacher takes some ginormous development leap, or Biberovich is some kind of Peja Stojakovic clone day one), PJ's defense will be so much better than the others that he will demand heavy minutes from that alone.

I think Naji leads the ball handling of the second unit alongside De Laria, and plays predominantly at the guard spots, with some 3 behind Coop, so I don't think he will really compete with PJ for minutes much at all.

I will be really disappointed if they play the vets heavy minutes and leave all the kids on the bench.  If there was ever a development year, this is it.  

I'm not a fan of this narrative that Naji will be the backup point guard.  He provides a lot of value as a secondary creator, but I don't think playing him out of position is the answer.  

The thing with a roster full of positional flexibility is that everyone affects everyone's minutes.  My guess is that we will see all kinds of crazy combinations, but you are still constrained by having only 5 guys on the court.