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

[ItsGoTime]

I worry this is more of a regular season strategy than a playoff strategy.  A lot of those bigs have struggled or got played off the court to some degree during the playoffs and most of them will cost assets. I thought we had a decent defense with Luka and Brunson during the WCF run (without a dominating center). No reason we can't do that with Luka and Kyrie.

I see the argument to get a vet min backup traditional center for those times when we are getting killed in the paint.  Its a problem that Lively is our only big that can rebound.  McGee would have made sense in this capacity, but I think Luka had issues with him.  Shouldn't be that hard to find somebody, and as Dan has pointed out, we still have a little exception left to go over min if we have to.

I mean, how is starting a rookie in the playoffs a playoff strategy? The issues of playing C’s off the court happen much less in the opening rounds and getting a higher seed in the regular season helps in that regard. I also believe there is a crop of incoming C’s that is going to eventually break the current GSW clone trend. Lively is possibly one of those types, but there are still a lot of if’s to be figured out with him (I’m optimistic they will, but optimism is not reality).

I also don’t think he is so frail of mind to think some chatter about bringing in a better player ahead of him will break him, and if it did, glad we found out sooner rather than later (this was in response to KL’s statement, and yes KL, I don’t think you really meant it to look that way).

I have just enjoyed watching the HUGE difference in the team dynamic when Lively is in as opposed to him not being in. He has only played 24.3 mpg, I’d like to see that HUGE difference for closer to 48 mpg.

If I had my preference, Hartenstein or Gafford AND Stewart would be on this team. Hart and Gaff would be good enough starters if they outplay Lively in the beginning, but GREAT off the bench once he surpasses them. iStew would be a pretty great Maxi replacement/upgrade who can play that mixed PF/C role off the bench (and I believe with more minutes). They are all also young enough to grow with the team. I myself would give up a lot to make that happen.

Kinda tired of the pick discussion but undeterred from my stance when we’re going to have 2 more picks available next offseason. That is plenty enough to do what needs to be done after the bigs are solved.