2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived

[DanSchwartzgan]

Besides the points you laid out about the stiff competition...

....the question I have with Lonzo is why the Pelicans even want to let him go?

He´s literally the perfect PG/SG for Zion and Ingram. You got two "Ballhog" SF/PF/C that need a ton of touches playing with a pass-first defensive PG that can apparently knock down threes at a high rate. Heck he´s even a good fit with the scoring speed demon Lewis and Alexander-Walker. Bledsoe is gone in 12 months. Isn´t Ball/Lewis/Walker a pretty great backcourt to grow alongside Ingram/Zion.
What is going on behind the scenes that Lonzo is even a discussion? 

They have the 20th best record, while their core is so young:

Lewis 19
Ball 23
Alexander-Walker 22
Zion 20
Ingram 23

Is his father raising a stink behind the scenes, pushing his son toward the Knicks and threatens to take the QO, if they don´t let him go. What is going?

I would keep him if it were me.  There is only one fully guaranteed year left for Bledsoe and he's gone before Zion's extension kicks in.  Did you see that he hit 8 three pointers the other night.  I watched the highlights of their win over Utah recently.  Ball was fantastic.  

Those games notwithstanding, he's not a big scorer at 14 per game.  NO isn't having the kind of success you'd associate with three max (or near max) players.  He's not the kind of natural leader you'd want in a max PG and there's the ticking time bomb of Papa Ball.  So, the rumors swirled for weeks before the TDL.  NO isn't a big money franchise and there is some number at which they will flinch.  If the bidding gets to that number (say $25mm) for their third best player, it handcuffs them from then on...or so the theory goes.  

I think they are more vulnerable to being money-whipped than Atlanta is.  But, we won't know until we know.  I think the fit here is dramatically better than the fit with Collins. I think the spread between Ball and Richardson is greater than the spread between Collins and Maxi.

Edit:  Apparently Atlanta made some offers on Ball before the TDL.  This has some interesting implications.  Bogdanovic might be part of the outgoing from Atlanta in a package with Reddish.  Might NO move him to a third team?  Might they move Gallinari (as was suggested earlier in this thread) in order to keep Collins?  It doesn't get you the main target, but those guys are better than most of the remaining UFA's.