TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[F Gump]

What's got some people spinning (understandably) is this whole "two ball-handlers at once" concept that was trumpeted last season. The team told us that was the intent and we believed them. Then, it was successful, so many are assuming that it's STILL the intent. 

But I'm not so sure. 

One, if it was still the intent, they had the worst off-season ever. Utter failure, if what they were going for was a roster set up to play multiple ball-handlers almost constantly. Their choices were so inconsistent with that goal that we're forced to believe either that's not really their goal (or at least wasn't at the time) or that they're an unbelievably bad front office, as in even worse than what we suggest with our jokes born of frustration around here. Not sure which. 

It's possible that they temporarily abandoned that approach (two ball-handlers) and then after the slow start had an "oh damn, we need to get back to that" moment...hence Campazzo, Wright, Walker. Again, not sure. I think the trade deadline might shed a little light. .

I think all of that is right on target, that is ...
1 The intention after last season was to continue "2 creators at a time"
2 The expectation was Brunson would be back
3 They botched that completely 
4 They thought, as their fallback going forward, SD could replace JB as the #2 guy (paired with Luka at times but also his backup) -- but if we recall, this team went to that next level when they got the 3rd guy
5 SD is not as good as JB individually, nor in his fit with Luke
.... That means that, for the time being, the positive dynamics of having that 3rd guy, and of having SD as your 3rd best, are no longer possible with this set of players

All of that having been said, I sure hope they never saw any of Campazzo, Wright, Walker as that 3rd guy, to be the new JB. It seems more like they are just emergency PGs rather than part of a 3-man PG setup. They only offered not-guaranteed deals, which limits the pool of talent considerably. The way they advertised the job with Dragic would indicate that "emergency backup PG" was what they saw when they signed those players.

But I don't think the real plan was a lack of desire to get another JB, but rather they faced the reality that they had no way to do it, and saw no value in moving forward this season with a team using a concept they couldn't staff properly.

In the present situation, they still need 2 really good PGs since Luka can't play 48 mpg, and I would hope they would love to find a way to add that 3rd guy -- another JB -- so they can do what they did in 2021-22. If not now, then later, so don't go backwards in that quest. But in the meantime, they have to use what works best on the court with only 2. IMO.