06-24-2022, 11:19 AM
FWIW, a few thoughts on the night...
I won't pretend I was a Hardy advocate. I ignored him even though he was mocked in the general area of the Mav's pick because I didn't see that he fit a positional need. With that said, I like the way this played out:
1. Since it could have been justified to take him at 26, we essentially got Wood for free.
2. We all hoped entering the night the team would "do something" to land a pick. They did.
3. The place I think NBA teams mess up projections is when they try to project a "no-tool" player "might" develop into a "five-tool" player (baseball analogy). I've seen much more success where teams take someone with a single NBA skill (often defense or shooting) and hope they can train the player up to adequate in other areas. If the vision here is DSJ with longer arms, I suspect this will fail. If the idea is that Hardy can be an off ball shooter with some ability to be a secondary creator off the bench, then this has a chance of working. I think there is an NBA 3 point shot there (I don't really care what happened in 12 G-League games where he was trying to be the star). The key is limiting Hardy to the proper role and letting him do more of what he can be good at and less of what he isn't good at (but work at getting better at those things over time)
4. Summer League just got a little more interesting.
5. Seemed a bit of a Rashard Lewis moment last night. Is there anyone in the draft who will come into the NBA with a bigger chip on his shoulder? I'm actually more interested in Hardy's resilience than I am just about anything else. I don't have a clue what he has between his ears, but I suspect it is the key to this pick working or not.
On to Brunson...
Because I talk about it a lot, some here take the lazy position of painting me as anti-Brunson or an advocate of trading Brunson. We spend a lot of time thinking through roster construction here. Seems kind of stupid to not at least think through how BYC might be overcome and what a S&T with NY might look like. I think it wise to also consider how we might move forward IF Brunson were to leave. There is a point where this gets to be ridiculously expensive and I wouldn't probably roast the team for not paying up. The question, if it happens, will be how do they recover from such a loss.
BTW, where are the people who told me it was going to be really tough for NY to dump salary. With FIVE picks in the 2023 draft and only the need to drop either Noel or Burks to get to $25mm in space, NY can fall out of bed and have the space to pull this off.
The thing I mainly want to point out here is NY has put themselves in position to make it much easier to do a S&T with Dallas. BYC won't be an issue any longer and Dallas doesn't have to take back a bunch of salary they don't want. This could literally be as simple as Burks (or Noel), the Dallas 23 and MAYBE one of the picks NY received last night. Here is my question then. Is a starting lineup that includes Burks/Wood really much worse than one that includes Brunson/Powell instead? From a tax standpoint Burks would cost maybe $15mm less than Brunson (that is a bunch of tax savings). But, that isn't where the roster moves would end. We would potentially have two 23 picks, 25 and 27 and some mid-sized contracts to go star shopping with. Whether now, the TDL or next draft, that would be enough ammunition to do something significant.
I think the odds are still higher that Brunson stays than leaves, but it isn't in our control. The biggest question to me is what does the bounce back from such an event look like and can we stay competitive if that were to happen.
I won't pretend I was a Hardy advocate. I ignored him even though he was mocked in the general area of the Mav's pick because I didn't see that he fit a positional need. With that said, I like the way this played out:
1. Since it could have been justified to take him at 26, we essentially got Wood for free.
2. We all hoped entering the night the team would "do something" to land a pick. They did.
3. The place I think NBA teams mess up projections is when they try to project a "no-tool" player "might" develop into a "five-tool" player (baseball analogy). I've seen much more success where teams take someone with a single NBA skill (often defense or shooting) and hope they can train the player up to adequate in other areas. If the vision here is DSJ with longer arms, I suspect this will fail. If the idea is that Hardy can be an off ball shooter with some ability to be a secondary creator off the bench, then this has a chance of working. I think there is an NBA 3 point shot there (I don't really care what happened in 12 G-League games where he was trying to be the star). The key is limiting Hardy to the proper role and letting him do more of what he can be good at and less of what he isn't good at (but work at getting better at those things over time)
4. Summer League just got a little more interesting.
5. Seemed a bit of a Rashard Lewis moment last night. Is there anyone in the draft who will come into the NBA with a bigger chip on his shoulder? I'm actually more interested in Hardy's resilience than I am just about anything else. I don't have a clue what he has between his ears, but I suspect it is the key to this pick working or not.
On to Brunson...
Because I talk about it a lot, some here take the lazy position of painting me as anti-Brunson or an advocate of trading Brunson. We spend a lot of time thinking through roster construction here. Seems kind of stupid to not at least think through how BYC might be overcome and what a S&T with NY might look like. I think it wise to also consider how we might move forward IF Brunson were to leave. There is a point where this gets to be ridiculously expensive and I wouldn't probably roast the team for not paying up. The question, if it happens, will be how do they recover from such a loss.
BTW, where are the people who told me it was going to be really tough for NY to dump salary. With FIVE picks in the 2023 draft and only the need to drop either Noel or Burks to get to $25mm in space, NY can fall out of bed and have the space to pull this off.
The thing I mainly want to point out here is NY has put themselves in position to make it much easier to do a S&T with Dallas. BYC won't be an issue any longer and Dallas doesn't have to take back a bunch of salary they don't want. This could literally be as simple as Burks (or Noel), the Dallas 23 and MAYBE one of the picks NY received last night. Here is my question then. Is a starting lineup that includes Burks/Wood really much worse than one that includes Brunson/Powell instead? From a tax standpoint Burks would cost maybe $15mm less than Brunson (that is a bunch of tax savings). But, that isn't where the roster moves would end. We would potentially have two 23 picks, 25 and 27 and some mid-sized contracts to go star shopping with. Whether now, the TDL or next draft, that would be enough ammunition to do something significant.
I think the odds are still higher that Brunson stays than leaves, but it isn't in our control. The biggest question to me is what does the bounce back from such an event look like and can we stay competitive if that were to happen.
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