Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[Smitty]

It's not about whether they are plus defenders, or even just height. They have to be versatile highly switchable defenders because of the lack of defensive versatility of Kyrie and Luka. That requires a significantly higher load defensively on the wings that play with them than normal. Green can't defend up. You put him on someone a couple inches taller than him he was consistently overwhelmed last year and looked terrible. Williams defends up well but I don't care how good you defend up, a 6'6 power forward can be taken advantage of by much bigger power forwards, especially if they don't have a reliable defensive anchor to clean up their mistakes, which Richaun Holmes is not. Relying on a guy who has done nothing for two years for anything production wise (much less simply reverting to what he used to be) is a problem in and of itself. Totally understand his personal situation, but that doesn't simply mean he goes back to the 20-21 version. He's never been a particularly high level defender anyway, just a solid weakside shot blocker in the McGee mold (which defensive metrics always seem to rate super high in and of itself).

Purely from a defensive standpoint, this lineup is pretty much no better than the starting lineup we had to start the season last year. We were terrible defensively even before moving out DFS and bringing in Kyrie.

As for the bench unit you are relying on rookies and an old injury prone player to hold it up defensively. None of this is geared to significantly improving the defense for next season, as opposed to year 2-3 from now.

Not every team in the league but Green can guard 1-3 just fine and Williams can guard 3-5. Luka and Kyrie are what they are. IF you get a motivated Holmes he can fit right in. To me that’s the only real question mark with the starting LU and why I see Nico waiting until the TDL to address that need if he thinks they are a legit starting center away from contention. 

In the end, this team goes as Luka and Kyrie go. If it works - I see them addressing their needs. If it doesn’t, then they may pivot to trading Kyrie?