If he’s good, it changes everything. Our current ceiling is higher and our ability to swing a big trade without gutting the team is much clearer. But I’ve been teased before and need at least 20 games before I budge at this point.

After a lot of handwringing about what the fully healthy rotation would look like…it seems totally fine? I guess ideally IQ plays more than 24 minutes, but RJ was playing really well and IQ was a bit off so that’s hardly egregious.

This team has had way too many deep seated issues during my lifetime for me to be worried we have too many good guards.

As for us, I am happy about where we are. I just think if we don’t start utilizing the draft better, instead of waiting for some mythical trade, our good times won’t last and we won’t improve much.

I like the current Nets but would be shocked if they finished anywhere above 7th or 8th. Cam Thomas can be a prolific scorer but he’s terrible on D. They have way too many similar players, even if it’s a good kind of player to have. But they will probably be fun to watch!

There were other ways to clear cap space. All of them had negatives. For example, waiving and stretching Kemba would result in dead cap, which is never a good thing when operating on the margins of the cap, as we have been doing.

We also would have fewer picks than we do right now. ptmilo evaluated the exchanged picks in terms of value gained/lost, and came up with a pretty even net exchange of value.

I think out of the players mentioned, the only player that we should rue missing out on is Jalen Williams, who has some real pop. Drafting him might have made a trade for either Josh Hart or DDV unnecessary. I don’t think either Duren or Kessler are worth pining over when we have Mitch, iHart, and Sims as our C rotation and Thibs as our coach. I’m not as much of a believer in Eason’s upside as some here.

But that’s the way this FO rolls. The results are pretty good thus far, so I’m not going to do much hand-wringing about what could have been. I would have gladly signed up for where we are right now when Leon took over. Alas, opinions vary!

As for the cost of Brunson, I don’t think we needed to trade the 13th pick to sign Brunson. It was more the cost of getting the space to sign IHart. But honestly, with some creativity and the will to keep the pick we could have signed Brunson and IHart and still taken a player at 11 or 13. That is a mistake that will cost us. The players people on here were stumping for Eason, Griffin, Duran, Kessler, and J Wiliams all look fantastic and would already be in our rotation and probably playing an important role.

Not making that pick is why we had to sign DDV. So it is not that DDV isn’t a good player it is that he is the result of a bad process that made us pay market value for a good journeyman bench player rather than having that role taken up by a promising young player on a rookie contract.

Every day that he earns his contract is a good day.

I wonder who he will mainly match up with tonight.
These matchups are pretty much set:
Mitch vs. Jonas
Brunson vs. CJ

then what? I’m guessing:

Grimes vs. Herb
Julius vs. Zion
RJ vs. Ingram

CJ really isn’t a PG and none of the Pels are great passers so I expect a lot of iso’s and PnRs with Zion and Ingram. They turn the ball over a lot.

The key to this game is getting the Pels’ starters off the floor…their bench doesn’t look good at all. It will be a really good test for RJ.