07-05-2023, 03:02 PM
(07-05-2023, 02:53 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: Thybulle’s defense isn’t the problem. There are too many people whom I respect greatly swearing that he’s a defensive difference maker for me to be skeptical about that. But again, Ntilikina made a difference on that end, too. Pushing back against that point with “but Thybulle is so much better than Ntilikina on defense” doesn’t really address the worry. Frank’s D was plenty helpful, and he was on a team that needed defensive help every bit as much as this year’s version will.
Kidd never learned to trust him on the offensive end, so they couldn’t play him. To this point, that has been the same, sad story of Thybulle’s career.
Ntilikina was a good swing at the minimum. Thybulle at the MLE, with raises, for a few years, guaranteed??? Sorry, I’m just not a believer in that level of risk. I’m not as sure about this as I am about some things, but I am telling you there is a very real chance that this dude is completely out of the rotation a year from now and they are having to try to dump his contract.
Honest question, if you knew they had no way of getting Grant Williams or PJ Washington with the MLE but had this opportunity to sign Thybulle but only to the full MLE, would you rather them not spend it? Genuinely curious because I share the same concerns as you (and also thought highly of Frank and always felt he shot well enough that he should have gotten more burn but that's neither here nor there) but I also think that if a player on a full MLE contract is what we are considering our bad deals then I would say that we've come along way from some of the mistakes we used to make when it came to that sort of thing.
Right now I'm thinking, it's not my money and it doesn't hinder us THIS offseason from making other moves than why not, feels like a somewhat safe gamble but I know there are long term ramifications that I'm probably not thinking of.