“As pointed out by Beer, Burke’s per-36 figures last season was at 21.1 points, 7.8 assists, and 2.0 turnovers.

Burke’s per-36 stats makes him only one of three players in the entire history of the league that has successfully averaged more than 20.0 points, more than 7.0 assists, and less than 2.5 turnovers while logging at least 500 minutes.”

It’s hard to put lot of stock in your specific predictions, tnfh, or anyone else’s. I think that all bets are off regarding any future moves until we see what we have. Putting my general fanboi optimism aside, there are a bunch of guys with an enormous range between their upside and downside…starting with KP. But your putting TH2 as a possible -0.1 VORP makes a very good point….he may be the most important player to watch this year in determining whether to go for a max FA next year. If he plays like you suggest and is on board for 2 more years of dead weight, then why bother? OTOH, if he stays healthy and plays like a top 15 SG with some leadership ability, then you might move the argument on to the next player.

I agree with all of this, but I didn’t project THJ’s VORP–I wanted to use his exact figure from last season, and mistook it for his BPM. His actual VORP for last season, and the season before that in Atlanta, was 0.9. That brings the total number up to 17.6, and the team WAR up to 47.52. Not an insignificant difference, but not large enough to change my assessment of the situation.

Basically, I do not think THJ becomes a markedly better player at age 26. If he does, then yes, things could change.

Kyrie: 4.0
Burke: 1.0
Frank: 2.0 (on the optimistic side)
Lee: 0.0 (thanks, Phil!)
THJ: -0.1 (thanks, Steve!)
Dotson: 0.5
Knox: 1.0 (who the hell knows)
Carroll: 1.2
KP: 3.0
Robinson: 2.5
Kornet: 0.5
Contribution from minimum players, future draft picks, etc: 1.0

We get 16.6 VORP, which translate to right around 45 wins above replacement. I honestly have no idea how many games a team of replacement level NBA players would be projected to win, but it can’t be all that high. Maybe 10?

Conclusion: I dunno, seems like we’d be pushing a lot of chips to the center of the table, incurring a lot of risk, and projecting a lot of improvement all to max out at a team that still probably falls short of contender status. I leave this exercise still on #TeamWait.

For shits and giggles, let’s try to project the Knicks if they sign Kyrie Irving and no one else. I’m doing this on the spot so I actually don’t have any preconceived notion as I type this besides a guttural instinct that it feels like a bad idea. Anywho:

-If we renounce every FA except Porzingis, Kornet, and Burke (you can renounce one or both of the latter two also if you want but doesn’t do much for you), we’ll have right around $34,800,000 assuming Noah is stretched and THJ and Lee remain.

– We then sign Kyrie Irving to a contract that starts at $32.4m with the 5% annual increases that bring it up to 4/$139m. We still have around $3.3m in space before resigning our own guys. The roster as it stands assuming Porzingis, Burke, and Kornet are brought back:

PGs: Irving, Frank, Burke
SGs: Lee, THJ, Frank I guess, Dotson
SFs: uh Knox kind of
PFs: KP, Knox
Cs: Robinson, KP, Kornet

-It’s important to remember that a hopefully high draft pick is in there somewhere too, so some of the depth charts might not be as bad as they look. Let’s say we can get a somewhat useful wing with the remaining cap space. DeMarre Carroll maybe (other doubtful options are Bogdanovic, KCP, Darius Miller, Aminu).

-We max KP, resign Burke for 2/$14m, and Kornet for 2/$6m. The team is:

PGs: Kyrie, Frank, Burke
SGs: THJ, Lee, Frank, Dotson
SFs: Knox, Carroll
PFs: KP, Knox
Cs: Robinson, KP, Kornet

+ one draft pick. This is pretty much the team + minimum signings for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. Some cap space opens up after that with Lee and THJ coming off.

Continued…

I’m 100% sure the only way Kyrie leaves is if he wants to or actively asks for a trade. Unless his health is completely screwed he’s a far superior player to Rozier in every way.

I don’t think Rozier is their vision of a true starting PG. Maybe Ainge and Boy Genius figure out how to keep masking his issues, but as long as he’s their starter they will have trouble competing with the best teams in the WC.

He made a considerable stride last season, and he just hit his athletic prime. He may never be as good as Irving was last year, but the Celtics are so deep and good I don’t think they’d lose much by shedding $20M of salary for a drop of 20-30% in production from their starting PG position. Again, they took LeGoat to 7 without their two max players — that is an incredible feat.

LeBron’s dumb decision has really left a power vacuum in the East, but the West is still owned by GSW. Houston won’t contend this year, and no one’s really close to the 2017-18 Rockets among the rest of the field. If HOU couldn’t get it done (albeit without their 2nd-best player), I don’t see any other team having a chance in hell against a healthy Warriors squad.