01-09-2026, 01:13 PM
(01-09-2026, 11:51 AM)omahen Wrote: There are already rumors that Washington might just shut down Young for this season.
I agree Utah is playing with fire. They want to build around Markanen (at least these are the messages around) after next season, but that will be very difficult if they lose the pick this year. So far they didn't have any luck from getting a top end talent from their years of tanking. Ainge is also doing a very bad job by overvaluing his role players and then losing them for almost nothing (they got 1 SRP for Collins), nothing (Clarkson) or even paying (Sexton + SRP for Nurkic). A prime example of how keeping a strong negotiating position is in no way a guarantee that leads to best end result.
Plus last two years they have deliberately tanked, but didn't get rewarded for that. How do you tell a young, good coach and a guy like Markanen in his prime to do it again? Seems like the wrong way to build the right culture.
On the other side, I have only seen him a few times but I have liked what I have seen from Keyonte George. You always have to wonder if it is real or just a player putting up stats on a bad team. To me, it looks pretty real. He went to my college but had no real grasp of the type of talent he was. If I remember he was a top recruit entering college but dropped back some after an up and down freshman season.