AROUND the NBA: Pat Bev Suspended 4 Games Next Season| PHX Fires Vogel

[mvossman]

I guess it depends on the starting point you select.  In early January we spent the better part of two weeks in 3rd in the west.  Prior to the trade, we were 0-7 in games Luka missed.  After the trade, we were 5-3 (excluding the tank game to end the season).  Luka is going to miss some games, so that is a significant development.

Irving replaced Dinwiddie from that 3rd place team.

GWill replaced DFS from that 3rd place team.

One of those is a massive upgrade and the other is TBD.  We also moved on from negative on/court players like Wood, Reggie and Bertans (not to mention the 1,450 minutes played by McGee, Wright, Pinson, Holiday and Kemba). 

A positive on/court player like Green will get a bigger role, but after that it is just supposition to say we know what Curry, DJJ, Exum, Hardy, the Rookies and Holmes will give us.  We hope Powell and THJ don't backslide and that Maxi returns to his historic form.   One can make whatever positive or negative case they want, but the truth is we just don't know. 

BUT, and this is important, all of those unknowns don't have to be great.  They just have to contribute more to winning than Wood, Reggie, Bertans and the 1,450 minutes of end-of-roster trash from last season.  It is a SUPER LOW bar to achieve.

In a similar vein, I like comparing this roster to what we had after the KP trade when we made the WCF run.

Luka        => Luka
Brunson   => Kyrie
Dorian     => Williams
Din         => THJ/Hardy/Curry
Bullock    => Green
Maxi       => Maxi
Powell     => Powell
Green     => Exum

The biggest issue with that team was the massive lack of depth in the front court, where this team has Holmes/Lively/Omax/DJJ.