(06-24-2022, 03:00 PM)StrandedOnBeauboisHill Wrote: I get this line of thinking but this assumes that they would play together the majority of the time but we won't know playoff rotations for another year.Yeah, I'm not talking about them being on the same roster, I'm talking about them being in the starting lineup and playing on the same unit. I don't see how you pay Brunson 25 mill and not have him playing starter minutes predominantly with the starting lineup. That's what has been happening, a big Brunson contract is just likely to lock that in. Same for Wood for the simple fact he's easily our best big. I do not think that unit plays high level defense together, unless our 3 and 4 are like Mikal Bridges and Ben Simmons or something. Maybe the lineup is moved around a bit in the regular season, but I can't see anything different in the playoffs. It will be necessary particularly from an offensive standpoint as you mentioned.
Those three right now is basically like 80% of our offensive creation right now with Hardaway and Dinwiddie taking care of the rest. It's not the perfect fit but I don't think those three being on the same roster means you can't have a high level defense. Plus we have no idea what Wood will look like in this system defensively, I mean Sweeney just coached us to a top 5 defense with Powell starting a center and I doubt people on this board thought that was possible.
I also may be in a smaller camp but I don't think Brunson at 25 mil is going to be untradeable, mostly because of the upcoming CBA.
I also think too much reliance is being put on the coaching staff to just 'fix' the defense. Coaches can do some nice things, and they can hide warts, but at the end of the day they aren't magicians and I don't really think they make players better defenders than what they are, especially when they are past the core developmental phase, they can just do a better job at not putting them in as many situations where they are really bad, which also tends to be much harder to do in the playoffs (which we also saw very much exploited the deeper we went). Also I haven't checked the stats, but I believe the defense starting falling off quite a bit the second half of the season and into the playoffs. This team has like 5 players that get any semblance of minutes that I would even call above average defensively, with probably only 3 playing significant minutes in DFS, Bullock and Kleber. And I wouldn't call any of them elite. That's not good, and as much as it's a huge credit to the coaching staff, I wouldn't rely on them being able to turn fast food into a 5 course meal when that's what they have to work with.
Hopefully Brunson's contract is less than 25 mill and is tradeable as a core piece for a better fit at some point, which I think is likely to come up at some point in the next 2-3 years.