Rethinking Harry Barnes

[ItsGoTime]

We didn't want him long term, and we didn't want him short term because we wanted to give Kemba Walker his money.

Harrison Barnes seems like a fantastic guy, but IMO he's just an average basketball player.  I think he's worse than DFS and Maxi at what we need from that position, and that's whose minutes he would be getting if he was still here, not Jackson or Wrights.  I don't miss watching him iso at all, and looking at his stats and how the Kings are doing this year I don't understand why anyone would want him back here.  Barnes just isn't quite good enough to be a foundation piece, and he doesn't have any specific skill that could make him a valuable role player on a championship team.

I agree with pretty much everything you said here. My thing is, we didn't get enough for him in the trade. Since we didn't get enough, there was no reason to trade him IMO. He may not be the guy we want here, but he is a starting caliber player. We knew Sac wanted him pretty badly, all we had to do was offer him the same deal they gave him then go to work on trading him with them, only this time he's locked up and we have every single bit of leverage. That declining contract ending at $18M in 3 more years is bad, there's no denying that, but it's what Sac wanted for him. Bogdanovic, Dedmon and Ariza for Barnes, THJ and GSW in that last offseason sounds about right. Or revisiting it later in the season (around Dec) as THJ shows some of his ability and the GSW shows to be a top second (edit: this trade would have had to happen in at least Dec, I think because of HB's newly signed deal, maybe it would have had to happen in Jan, which solidifies THJ's pretty good run and GSW's 31 pick). I don't understand why they wanted HB so bad, but they did, so there's no reason to think this trade wouldn't have been accepted by them at that point.

Luka/JB/JJB
Bog/Curry/Bro
Ariza/DFS/Roby
KP/Maxi/
DP/Dedmon/Boban

That's an amazing bench with a pretty good starting unit. Once DP goes down, we move DFS in to the starting lineup and KP to C. We then look for more wing depth.