MAVS 132, BLAZERS 117

[mvossman]

The basis of me being in "trade-KP" camp is that Luka and him don't play naturally well together. If you are building around Luka you need to trade KP no matter how well he starts playing in his own right IMO.

I'm not convinced of this yet.  In the last two years the starting lineups (and 5 man minutes leaders) were +11 and +13.  That is elite.  Last year only the Clippers starting lineup was higher.  That was a year with a struggling KP and JRich in the starting lineup.  

This year Kidd is trying to combine a more versatile KP with Luka.  The early results have been a disaster, but I'm not sure how much of that is Luka playing like crap in general, Kidd burdening them with another center in the lineup, and none of the shooters being able to shoot.  Also, due to injuries/Covid they have only played 15 games together so far.

I don't know if Kidd can make it work.  I don't know why they have not played more P&R through 2 plus years and 2 coaches.  I don't think the two center plan is necessary or productive.  But it does look like last year was just a bad year for KP and not the start of a permanent decline.  If Kidd can manage to get last years Luka and this years KP to play together we might have something worth holding on to.

The other side of this is what is point of trading KP now?  My assumption is that we would be simply dumping him for air (expiring).  That does not get us any cap space unless we take a hatchet to the rest of the roster.  And then what?  This upcoming free agency class is meager at best.  The only real value that gains us is avoiding the tax, but if you want to do that and don't want to trade Brunson for asset(s), then dumping THJ makes more sense than KP (and probably easier to do).  I don't think we are going to get value out of dumping his cap space until 2023 offseason in a year and half from now.

This all presupposes we can't get value in a KP trade.  Obviously if we can get something back, it depends on what that is.  I just don't see him worth more than expiring contracts right now and there is not a lot of point in pulling that trigger.