If this series ends today, I will take this as a good run. Lets assume that this iteration is completed. The biggest question is how we improve further.
We have a core of young players:Edwards - two way superstar
Reid - offensive minded scoring big
McDaniels - defensive star who has not fulfilled his offensive potential yet
NAW - true 3&D
We have veterans:Gobert - reigning DPOY
Conley - battle tested, hyper efficient but declining PG
Anderson - swiss knife
Morris - solid, experienced backup PG who has been able to stay healthy
We have promising development prospects:Minott - athletic comboforward
Miller - high motor comboforward with developing 3pt shot
Garza - scoring big without defense
Clarke - excellent defender in students, no offensive game
This current group is #1 defense in regular season. They can defend smallball, they can defend every type of offense, except one man - Jokic. But offensively they are average at best. One of very concerning stories this season has been McDaniels 3pt inconsistent shooting. With Gobert and McDaniels on the floor our opponents can comfortably double team Towns and Edwards in every possesion. In such situations Anderson is the third non shooter in rotation which makes him a liablility. To run weird twin tower lineups we need almost perfect execution, otherwise we have a ton of turnovers, fouls etc. We get almost no rim pressure from PG slot, we get almost no rim pressure from McDaniels (although I like how Jaden crashed boards in offense and using his athleticism to get to the rim). Can I say that our offense is kind of designed to be that clumsy?
How we can improve this?
I can see here three paths:
First way is to improve on margins and run it back: our management uses internal resources such as optimised offensive schemes, draft picks, plus FAs (vetmin) to get role players. I would not expect that Towns will improve as player, but I certainly think that he can improve as decision maker playing in the same system for three years. He is kind of slow to learn things, but here are some examples how he can elevate his teammates with his passing and providing spacing. Such development would fill two biggest holes in our offense: a movement shooter and connective hub.
In this case we keep our identity around defensive presence of Gobert, try to finetune existing scheme, hoping that Reid, McDaniels and Edwards continue to grow organically.
Second path is to trade Towns and try to find replacement that allows soft rebuild in next couple seasons. Considering Towns contract it is not an easy task, even technically MIN will limited by new CBA. But the biggest question is that new acquired pieces must be an ideal missing piece. I think that Connelly has done that before by bringing Aaron Gordon to compliment Jokic. Jokic and Gordon is an ideal fit, blend of skills, experience and physical tools. If our management decides that Gobert-Towns is not such combo, or Towns-Edwards is not such combo, then I wonder what player makes sense? I dont see such player on market, but if I have to name one, then it would be Deni Avdija: high IQ, devensive minded comboforward with passing skills. At some degree Jalen Johnson can be this type of player. Another architype of player is a movement shooter who might solve our offensive issues by creating perimeter gravity and using all screens that Gobert can set.
Watch video above, someone can say that it was Ant fault, but I remember that even Conley had troubles with finding Rudy with right pocket pass. I truly believe that Towns and McDaniels are much better options because they can pass over defense.
Watch first possession above as example. Towns, Rudy and McDaniels showed that level of passing. And second possession is an excellent kickout McDaniels pass to Towns. And at the same time a big movement shooter can help immensely here, because unlike small Conley or slasher Edwards he can take an open shot that Rudy creates with his screens. And if same big movement shooter can also pass over offence to Rudy it can open up many opportunities in offense.
I think if we trade Towns wу should get player who is not necessary a better player, but should absolutely be a better fit. It means with such player Edwards can elevate his game and whole team. Right now we see that in this playoff series DEN are able to stop either Edwards or Towns and completely destroy team offense rhythm
Finally, there is a unrealistic scenario, where we trade Towns just to get a high level scorer like DeMar DeRozan (UFA). In this scenario we hope that a high level scorer shares scoring load with Edwards and makes the need of elite decision maker not so dramatic.
P.S. I also think that we should be prepared to see Conley missing games because of injuries or having bad nights when opponents plays more physical, bigger guys against him. Before playoffs I was sure that Morris can be an answer to our backup PG problems. But we still need to find a young PG prospect.
