dougthonus wrote:Chi town wrote:dougthonus wrote:
You're much better off trading Caruso for a long term asset than to unload 1 year of 20M in salary.
It’s 2 years and Vuc dictates how we play on both ends.
You dump him with Caruso and still land a 1st. The money saved can be used to take on a bad contract and another pick.
You will only save money on the 2nd year, because this year you will match salary.
If you resign DeMar and Pat, then you also won't be able to spend the money next year anyway, you'll just have more room under the tax, but you'll be capped out at using the MLE, and you'd already be able to use the full MLE anyway with Lonzo coming off the books, so with what looks like our current plan, it also doesn't save you any useable money next year.
No one is giving you a 1st and taking on Vuc just for Caruso, but if his value was that high, you are better off just getting two 1sts instead, because again, you won't be able to meaningfully utilize the space you get back from Vuc.
If you don't resign DeMar and Pat, then you are tanking anyway, and this would still further enforce the idea of getting more draft assets rather than trying to free up cap space.
If you do free up Vuc in an attempt to make the team better now by getting a better center and upgrading, then you won't do it this year (Because you don't have any room to sign anyone) so this year is still dead in the water, and next year, you could bring in the center but only with the MLE. Maybe you can upgrade Vuc that money, maybe not.
However a better plan is just to play Vuc/Drummond equal minutes today, and to reduce Vuc's shots to 8 a game so he isn't destroying you on offense at least. It's unlikely you're going to find an upgrade with our assets even if you get him off the roster. The best solution with Vuc is to start limiting his touches and his role IMO.
Vuc is a crap situation, and I am equally frustrated as you are with him playing on both ends, but using an asset to dump him doesn't replace him with something better, add any meaningful flexibility, or help us in any meaningful way whether we are trying to win now or build towards something in a couple years. It removes an eyesore from the team, but it's not going to be any more fun watching an Drummond / Sanogo front court.
A lot of what you say here is true, but IMO it's crucial to see IF we can dump Vuc BEFORE FA this year. If we can dump some summer 2025 salary (Vuc, Carter, Terry, and/or Zach), then 2025 FA starts to become much more appealing/flexible. Then it may very well be wise to let Demar and/or Patrick and/or Drummond walk to ensure we truly have big cap space. That's why we need to be shopping these guys hard before FA starts and we get cornered into re-signing everyone to an extent.
In a sense it's kind of an all or nothing situation. But ultimately Vuc is pretty bad and it's very plausible to me that a guy like Draymond Green improves us quite a bit. Or even Drummond, hell Sanogo, or a cheap FA. And I see Caruso as kinda meaningless approaching his final year while often injured and perhaps not as good as Ayo now.
Bottom line, AT LEAST one of Demar, Patrick, Zach, or Caruso needs to GO, and in a way that optimizes value overall for us. Otherwise we're just squandering what very little quality we have by redundancy on the perimeter while we have utter trash at the 4/5. I suppose Ayo or Coby could go instead, but I'd prefer to keep them. All depends on specifics though.
In a sense Demar and Patrick should be last to go, cause due to FA status, we'd likely get the least for them if anything.
