Giannis is among the best offensive players in the league.

Draymond is among the best passing big men and may be the best defensive player in the league.

Leonard is the best two way player in the league.

Butler is among the best two-way players in the league.

Siakam seems on his way to becoming one of the best two way players in the league.

If you are pretty sure Clarke has that potential given his age and current skillset, you should be a scout for all the teams that passed on him including the Spurs. More likely he’s going to be a lower usage scorer around the basket and a good defender. Those are great players to have on your team, but they are nowhere near as valuable as the players on your list that score on high usage or at least make plays at a very high level and also defend at a high level.

Ellington: 9 teams in 11 years
Gibson: 4 teams in last 4 years
Portis: 4 teams in 5 years
Morris: 5 teams in 9 years
Payton: 4 teams in 6 years
Bullock: 5 teams in 7 years

If any of them think that they are locks for rotation minutes, they are delusional. They sold their souls by signing overpay deals that were essentially expiring contracts the moment they were signed. Every one of them should see that they are expendable, and should know that a 17 win team is going to commit to their younger players. So Fiz (and Perry and Mills) shouldn’t give a fuck if they fall out of the rotation, and should trade or cut whoever complains about playing time.

OTOH, if they decide to go with vets and any of the young guys complain, they should be sent to the G-League to work on their games until they are worthy of displacing the players in front of them. Having them out of the rotation is not as good for their development as playing.

My guess (or hope) is that half of the new guys are gone either before or just after the deadline. And they will like it because they got a nice payday and will hook up with a contender at the minimum.

Lakers? LBJ/Davis/Green/Cousins is a strong but maybe odd mix – and who’s the fifth starter? Maybe Caldwell-Pope is the best option…

They have some guy name Kuzma…

Lmao

You are not going to build a championship team around players like Clarke. The priority is the highly skilled high usage scorers that can become efficient over time. Those are the tough players to find. When you have a couple of guys like that, then you try to add role players like Clarke. The higher the quality the better. Of course you can try to do it the other way around, but you don’t tank for a high pick and then toss away the #3 to get Clarke when you can find good role players in every draft and every free agency period. The only exception would be if you were close to certain you were getting a stiff at #3. That’s simply not the case with Barrett. He’s as advertised. He’s a good outside shot away from being a very good offensive player eventually between scoring and passing. I’m more worried about defense. Now if you like a guy like Clarke also (as I did) you should use draft picks to get him when you can. We should have used our excess picks to make another move and Clarke would have been fine by me. Most likely our management didn’t like him because they know he’s going to be more of a defensive energy role player and they don’t value those guys much at all.

fun fact: LeBron had more VORP in 2017-18 than any Knicks draftee has had in their career since Gallo, drafted in 2008

I know it’s a counting stat but still