Time to start playing for high lottery pick

[CarolinaCash]

I'm a patient guy.......I don't mind being the worst team in the Eastern Conference at year's end and having a top 5 pick. Let's get good value in a trade of Okafor, get Morrison/May healthy, a new coach, help at PG, and let's rock and roll!!




Let's trade Okafor and a couple of players (May, Morrison, Carroll?) for Gasol........even if we have to trade the pick and Okafor for Gasol then so be it. If we keep the pick then I want Beasley, Rose, or Gordon. The Sonics have 2 1st round picks.........my dream scenario would be for us winning the lottery and trading down with the Sonics for their two picks and landing Rose and Love or Koustos and Lawson.


Our team if we trade Okafor and the pick for Gasol:

Head Coach: Larry Brown

Felton/Veteran PG
JRich
Wallace
Gasol
Mohammed

with Carroll, Morrison, May, Dudley, Hollins, Davidson, and another big guy off the bench.


or we keep the pick and get Memphis to take Okafor, May, Carroll, and future pick:

Felton/Veteran PG or (Derrick Rose pick)
JRich
Wallace
Gasol (Beasley pick to backup at PF and SF)
Mohammed

with Morrison, Dudley, Hollins, Davidson, and a big off the bench.


or my ideal scenario.......we trade Felton and Okafor for Gasol and Navarro:

Navarro/Lawson (he's a smart UNC PG that can shoot and run the team)
JRich
Wallace
Gasol
Mohammed/Koustos or Hibbert or Love

[Bowens]

I agree with you!!! Get Mek out of here ASAP. Lets work on getting a top 5 pick in the draft and come up with a good offseason plan. As long as no one gets hurt over the summer, we should have some nice depth on this team heading into next season. But one thing we must do now is start Ray at the point and play him 40 minutes. We need to see if this clown is our point guard heading into next season. It's so important, yet SV is still sticking with McMinus. Makes no sense. I guess the organization has already determined Ray is not the guy to lead us at the point.

[fatlever]

not only do we need to see of felton is the pg of the future, which i doubt he is... but at least play him enough at pg to keep his stats high, thus keeping his trade value up.

i posted a trade in the gasol thread that i would probably do...

gasol, navarro and lowery

for

okafor, felton, may and harrington.

the only way i would be upset about that trade would be if may came back 100% and turned into a 18 and 9 type player. but i figure the odds of him coming back healty are about 3% so i am willing to gamble.

but dont trade our pick this year.

[CarolinaCash]

Yeah we need to use this year to find out if Everyone Loves Raymond......let's see if he can play the point in the NBA. If not then he becomes a nice player off the bench that can backup both guard spots. It's becoming really sad that none of our draft picks have become "stars"......we couldn't get lucky one time?? Okafor, Felton, May, Morrison, and Dudley can all be solid NBA players but I don't see stars......hell I don't even see starters. If Adam Morrison doesn't become a player in this league and we keep seeing Brandon Roy/Rudy Gay in the highlights every week it could turn out to be a mini version of passing over Jordan for Sam Bowie for our franchise.

[Bowens]

not only do we need to see of felton is the pg of the future, which i doubt he is... but at least play him enough at pg to keep his stats high, thus keeping his trade value up.

i posted a trade in the gasol thread that i would probably do...

gasol, navarro and lowery

for

okafor, felton, may and harrington.

the only way i would be upset about that trade would be if may came back 100% and turned into a 18 and 9 type player. but i figure the odds of him coming back healty are about 3% so i am willing to gamble.

but dont trade our pick this year.

Well I'm all over that trade. Sign me up! That trade we really have nothing to lose and I doubt like you said Felton is our guy and chances of May becoming anything is about slim to none. With the emphasis on none cause he sure as hell ain't slim.

If we were to get Gasol, we would definitely need a banger and defensive stopper next to him.


The only problem is, why the hell would Memphis want Okafor and Felton?

[BigSlam]

Play the season hard.

Then use what ever draft pick we get to improve our team through trade and work the phones HARD to get a 2nd 1st round pick and draft DJ Augustin to be our starting PG.

[fatlever]

are you concerned about dj's size? he's kinda little.

i dont think we half to worry about tanking this year.... our second half schedule will make sure we dont win many games. we probably wont come close to being the worst team, but 25 wins sounds about right.

we stink.

and since may and ammo went down, we really have not had any injuries. all of our starters have played almost every game. ray and wallace both missed one a piece.

[fatlever]

sam has said his main goal this season is to win as many games as possible. but at what point does he bail on the "playoffs at all costs" and start giving more minutes to dudley, hollins and davidson?

we arent talking tanking here... we are talking player development.

there is no logical reason for dudley to get zero minutes. especially when what we are doing IS NOT WORKING and we are 10 games under .500.

its now or never for the playoffs. we have to go 10-4 the rest of the way in january to have a shot.

[Bowens]

sam has said his main goal this season is to win as many games as possible. but at what point does he bail on the "playoffs at all costs" and start giving more minutes to dudley, hollins and davidson?

we arent talking tanking here... we are talking player development.

there is no logical reason for dudley to get zero minutes. especially when what we are doing IS NOT WORKING and we are 10 games under .500.

its now or never for the playoffs. we have to go 10-4 the rest of the way in january to have a shot.

The only way we switch to player development is if MJ tells SV thats what needs to be done for the remainder of this season. There is no way a rookie head coach teetering on possibly getting canned after one season is going to be looking at whats best for our future. Sam might not be here next season so he will run our main guys into the ground trying to squeeze out as many wins as he can.

[W_HAMILTON]

Any "fix it" plan that doesn't involve getting rid of Felton in the 1st or 2nd step, ain't one I want to hear.

I figure the organization has listened to the "majority" for awhile now. Drafting the UNC twins, drafting Morrison, trading for Richardson (you all got this right, I'll admit), getting rid of Bernie, getting rid of Knight, etc.

It's time they placate me, and do something I ask. Get rid of Felton, or bring in a PG good enough to move Felton to the bench permanently as a combo guard.

You listened to everyone else -- look where it got you.

Listen to me for once, please.

[BigSlam]

are you concerned about dj's size? he's kinda little.

No, I'm not. He has great vision and a feel for the game. He knows when to create and when to shoot. I think that on offense he would run the show really well. I don't think that someone like Paul gets abused too badly on D and they aren't that different in size.

It's not like he's Boykins little!!

[fatlever]

-= original quote snipped =-


No, I'm not. He has great vision and a feel for the game. He knows when to create and when to shoot. I think that on offense he would run the show really well. I don't think that someone like Paul gets abused too badly on D and they aren't that different in size.

It's not like he's Boykins little!!

cool.... now i have a reason to watch a texas game in the near future. thank you bobcats.

[Walt Cronkite]

Also, if we ever run a fast paced offense, Augustin's size wouldn't be a detriment.

[BigSlam]

Have you seen much of him Walt? What are your thoughts?

[Paydro70]

Actually, kicking out Brevin turned out to be a good talent evaluation, since he's now horrendous on the Clippers. The fact that we never used the money to get a backup better than Jeff McInnis... that was the mistake. If Ray really never does lead the team to glory or whatever, maybe not replacing him was a mistake, though I'm not sure what they could have managed to get for him that would have been better.

Just a thought, do you guys really see Derrick Rose as a true point guard? He's getting a very low number of assists for a top PG prospect, he mostly seems to be hyped for his physical abilities, how well Memphis is playing, and for his scoring. I don't see a lot of difference between his production and OJ Mayo's.

Augustin would be an appealling choice, as would perhaps Tywon Lawson, though I imagine we're done taking UNC players for a while, particularly relatively short PG, super-athletic PGs who like to shoot.

[W_HAMILTON]

Yeah, choosing McInnis over Knight was a great talent evaluation.

Oh, wait. It's a different situation. No one thought much of him before he came to our team either, then he proceeded to be the leader on a team that doubled the win total most projected, and ended up among the league leaders in several categories (assists/game, assist:turnover ratio, steals, etc).

Maybe Felton would look good on another team, but it doesn't matter to me since I'm not a fan of "another team." Knight worked here, Felton hasn't worked here, and McInnis DEFINITELY hasn't worked here. I couldn't care less what players do for other teams, I care what they do on this team.

[fluffernutter]

Yeah, choosing McInnis over Knight was a great talent evaluation.

Oh, wait. It's a different situation. No one thought much of him before he came to our team either, then he proceeded to be the leader on a team that doubled the win total most projected, and ended up among the league leaders in several categories (assists/game, assist:turnover ratio, steals, etc).

Maybe Felton would look good on another team, but it doesn't matter to me since I'm not a fan of "another team." Knight worked here, Felton hasn't worked here, and McInnis DEFINITELY hasn't worked here. I couldn't care less what players do for other teams, I care what they do on this team.

Do you want to trade Okafor?

Okafor suddenly isn't working here either.

My point isn't that Felton is great, he is not. My point is that it's clear there is something bigger going on. When Okafor and Felton both suck suddenly, you need to look for a reason. The biggest change I see is a new inexperienced coach.

Patience. I think it's incredibly silly to throw either Felton or Okafor under the bus right now.

Many PG's, like Nash, take a long, long time to develop, and don't ever hit their potential until they are put in the right situation. Waiting sucks, but it's better than the alternative. Which is what, anyway? Trade Felton or Okafor or both for peanuts?

[dmutombo321]

While more and more of us (me included) are coming to terms with the increasingly likely probability that felton is not the long term solution at point, I am nonetheless disappointed that it appears he wont at least get a fair shake to show what he can do since Vincent insists on running his imbicilic McGinnis-at-the-point lineup. As Fats and Bowen's both mentioned, the season is shot to hell anyway so why not give felton 40 mintues a night to sink or swim and at least keep his numbers respectible to maintain a viable trade value.

I agree with Slam's Augustin suggestion and think he is a good prospect. At worst he can be another Jameer Nelson type PG and for a mid first round selection, you cant ask for anything more. If we can acquire a mid first, I'd be all for it.

In terms of competing next year though, I dont think you could toss him into the fire as a rookie and expect good results.

I believe someone also mentioned pursuing Calderon in the off season which I think is the best option. Lets just hope that TJ Ford can return for the Raptors or there is no way in hell they will let Calderon walk. He's a playmaker first and a smart point guard. In last night's narrow loss to cleveland he had 16 points, 2 steals, 11 assists and only 1 turnover. I watched the game and the man knows how to set up an offense and rarely makes poor decisions. He might cost some money now that he's finally had an opportunity to showcase his ability as a starting PG but I think he would be worth it. Plus, he is 26 and entering his prime.

[BigSlam]

I believe someone also mentioned pursuing Calderon in the off season which I think is the best option. Lets just hope that TJ Ford can return for the Raptors or there is no way in hell they will let Calderon walk. He's a playmaker first and a smart point guard. In last night's narrow loss to cleveland he had 16 points, 2 steals, 11 assists and only 1 turnover. I watched the game and the man knows how to set up an offense and rarely makes poor decisions. He might cost some money now that he's finally had an opportunity to showcase his ability as a starting PG but I think he would be worth it. Plus, he is 26 and entering his prime.

I had mentioned Calderon a few times and am a big fan of his, but as Spectre rightfully pointed out, we wouldn't be able to afford what it would cost to bring Calderdon in with the salary we currently have on the books and assuming we extend EO50.

[fatlever]

our chance at calderon is long gone, especially with the tj ford injury.

maybe we should give luke ridnour a change of scenery. he's not calderone, but he is a pass first pg who can hit an open jumper.

(edit.... i should learn to proofread)