I don’t know what Morey can do at this point. Just try to get the best player he can with the MLE and try to find some good minimum players. If we can’t or won’t trade Clint or EG, we just need to try to remain competitive, hope for a top 4 seed, and hope for some lucky breaks come playoff time. This team never recovered from last year’s offseason. This team still has too many needs(3,4&5). We need size, shooting and rebounding. We need another player who can isolate and score or assist like CP did in 2018. We need at least 1 legitimate stretch big. CP and PJ are getting closer to the end of the line. The Lakers have just jumped us, and the Clippers may as well. Jerry West scares me. GS won’t be a pushover if Klay or KD return before the playoffs next year even if they are not 100%. Portland and Denver can still improve. Dallas, Sacramento and New Orleans will continue to improve. The West will be extremely tough over the next few years. Try to get a wing, stretch 4/5, and some kind of back up PG, run it back, and hope for the best. At the very least the fans will have a competitive high scoring team to root for next season.
He needs to dump Paul, but I'm very skeptical that happens unless Morey tosses in some picks or takes back a low production-big contract in return.
When I look back I wish we could have traded for Kyrie instead of Paul. You know both will miss games but Kyrie would have been an excellent addition next to Harden.
Of course it's a question of hindsight. The Pacers drafted Kawhi and immediately traded him, yet the Pacers get no bashing. Kawhi's upside was so obvious he was the best player in the draft and yet was picked #15..... listen to yourself.
Marcus was no Kawhi, skillwise. Morey relied on analytics for a guy who could neither defend, nor was a particularly good shooter. He lacked athleticism too. I bet the Pacers regret trading him too. Credit to the Spurs for seeing his potential.
I don't disagree at all, in fact that's what the Rocket's need more of this offseason. However, to act like it was obvious or normal for a #15 to be an elite two way player is just hindsight. I just don't play these silly hindsight games. Marcus Morris, like many other players that have come through our system, have had a good NBA career for the 14th pick. Don't act like we wouldn't be running KAT or AD if we had those guys or Draymond if we had him....
You're right, Marcus played in a better division with better competition scoring more efficiently while Kawhi was chucking on a bad team; eFG 60% vs 47%. Not to mention, Marcus was a great college rebounder in the Big 12, although not a great defender. Credit to the Spurs for taking that risk on Kawhi.
3 big big mistakes last year, ALL of them are valuable assets. Should sign Ariza and trade him, Should use MLE, Should keep Knight and first round pick
Morey the type of guy to go all in for a single season and then cheap out in year 2 effectively closing our championship window
Don’t foresee anything huge and I still think we’re gonna end up with 54+ wins with the 1,2, or 3 seed by the end of the year. The team, pretty much as is, has proven to be a regular season steamroller.
I don't know what "pro potential" means. In actual production, he's been a solid role player in the NBA which is good for a 14th pick but clearly Kawhi was the better pick. Marcus Morris is better than several other players picked before him. Not only was Kawhi the better pick, but he was the best pick in the entire draft. Obviously, I wish we had selected Kawhi but I don't view it as some huge sin considering he ended up being (with the help of the Spurs system) the best player in the draft.
Yeah, people should also consider the contest, at the time it made sense for the Spurs to bet on a similar player since they already had their big three but they lacked an athletic and solid defender, we were in a completely different situation where we were probably looking to get a player with more upside in terms of scoring. It's obviously still super annoying to think we passed on a similar player, but you can literally do the same thing for multiple stars in multiple draft and speaking about multiple teams, how many teams passed on Paul Geroge, McGrady, Kobe etc...?
Marcus has worked hard to prove himself worthy of a good NBA player. Kawhi had one elite skill coming into the draft, defense. His IQ was also very good. His athleticism was solid. If Marcus had good lateral quickness, he would have been a good defender.
Its been explained in multiple threads by myself and Bima …. We Wont have the full non tax MLE , the math simply don't work. I know , you'll argue with me …. so let me save you the trouble. Projected apron $138m Harden , CP3 , Capela , Tucker , EG , Nene , Clark and Hartenstein account for $120.609m That doesn't account for Chiozza ($1,416,852 ), Frazier ($1,416,852 ) or Deyonta Davis ($1,645,357 ). The Non Tax MLE is $9.7m(ish) 120.609 + 9.7 = $130.309. with 9 players under contract. That leaves you $7.961m to fill out the 6 remaining roster spots after which Morey may as well head to the Bahama's for the duration because they can do literally nothing else …. Good luck with that.
