(01-10-2026, 09:03 PM)Smitty Wrote: Playing devils advocate here but why can’t Kyrie-Max-Flagg-PJW-AD be a contender? Health is the obvious answer, but that’s what they’re starting next year with, as it stands today. Davis and Lively being the biggest health concerns day to day obviously.
That group minus Kyrie is currently 14-25. Do you really think Kyrie (who turns 35 next season) is going to turn a lottery team into a contender? There are a lot of issues with the current roster but the biggest problem is that it does not have an elite creator. Kyrie was an elite secondary creator but he is not an alpha. Flagg is an alpha but it will take time for him to develop into a truly elite creator. Its also really hard to ignore the injury concerns when you have two aging stars with a long history of availability concerns who will have been on the same roster for a season and a half without ever playing a full game together.