Hear me out…
The following take assumes you believe Russ is an all time bad player at his age and circumstance…
1) this is possibly one of the WORST off-season for a contender in recent memory. Management: Bron, AD, Pelinka, Jeanie, Linda. All equally to blame. A historic blunder
2) why? Well, we had a team that won a title…then started 21-7…and decided to do a 180 and change the team around completely. This isn’t the bad part, it’s how they did it.
3) root of the problem move: effectively trading/passing on Kcp, kuzma, Harrell, 22nd pick, Caruso, shroeder for Russell Westbrook (see above statement: I’m extremely low on him for this team).
4) margin moves: prioritizing smaller players that can “shoot” but can’t defend or play hard.
5) lebron: my goodness. He is obsessed with big game hunting. Interviewing dame, derozen and Russ in his basement. What he should have done was try his best to recruit Mills, Otto porter, IGGY. He should have invited them over instead.
6) blunder/head scratchers: Deandre Jordan? Rondo? Bradley? 1 power forward on the team in Melo. Then playing them 20 games before realizing they don’t belong in the league.
So we go from a perennial #1 team with the #1 defense by a mile to a team that struggles to make the play in bc of a single off season. This is historic. This doesn’t happen.
It’s one thing if this was the ONLY move available but it wasn’t. That’s why it’s historic.
Kuzma/Harrell for Hield. (Basically enchanging kuzma for Hield since Harrell was leaving anyways one way or another).
If lebron wasnt big game hunting, he coulda bagged at least 2 of mills, Otto, Iggy with a cigar session. You woulda had:
Caruso/mills/Reaves
Kcp/hield/tht
Lebron/Otto/ariza
AD/melo
Howard/22nd pick
As your base. With tht Caruso kcp 22nd pick as assets to trade. Hell I’m not even including shroeder which we should have offered a 1/15 mill dollar deal as a 6th man and or as trade bait come December 15.
This isn’t a pipe dream. It literally was in our hands and we decided it would be better to get Westbrook and his albatross contract. This isn’t a hindsight 20/20 take. We were all saying this literal thing 3 months ago. Verbatim.
