Trading Kawhi, PG, and Rebuilding the Clippers

[distortionss]

I have a feeling start today is going to be “under maintenance” until 2k24

[xjax]

Wow crazy to see Emoni Bates a 69 overall 2nd round pick when in previous draft classes i remember that man going #1 anyone remember that

[Nitringo_NBA]

17:36 love how Matt noticed too that 1st overall pick always gets traded for De'Aaron Fox LOL

[ariwohl]

Ya the clippers are kinda tough to rebuild realistically. Keep it up!

[LababaWsHere]

as a clippers fan you made my day and this was so fun to watch you make the team better you should be an actual GM

[BOnYTB]

I thought you were gonna sign Lonzo that would’ve been pretty fire. It’s sad about Lonzo man. Just thinking about how good of a fit he was at peak irl, it’s crazy the career he had ahead of him. I don’t think he ever was going to be a star, but he was such a rare type of player. You just rly don’t see 6”6 guards who can handle the ball, create for others, had the juice to be a solid lead guard…but was wayyy better as someone who also played off ball a lot and fully embraced that.

He defended at a very high level, always gave a ton of effort, amazing on ball, but smart on both ends knowing where to be even when he wasn’t on ball.

He also became a VERY good 3P shooter especially off the catch. He obv shot v well in college, but he had a kind of janky release early in NBA but they fixed it in NOP. His last 3 seasons he was near 39% 3P on over 7att. Over 40% off the catch. Had a solid 2.3-2.4:1 ASST to TOV, consistently 1.5stls, & even solidly over half a block. 5-6 boards.

The only thing he wasn’t v good at was creating his own middy or getting to the line. But I mean he played w a lot of volume scorers…DeMar, LaVine, even Vuce, they had like Ayo or Coby w/e. NOP it was BI, Zion, even Bledsoe & NAW were taking 10 FGA. BI/Zion 35 combined FGA & 14 FTA lol. The season Zion only played 24g, Jrue took 16.5 FGA, BI still around 18, JJ 10+, couple others w 8 in low mins. LBJ BI Kuz got up 50 lol.

He’s rly always been super high 3PAr, defended, racked up assts, & didn’t take many 2s. When he did they were at the rim. After his rookie year he was basically 60%+ at the rim every season at least. NOP/CHI was like 61.5% which is solid since they were mostly self created. But just being able to defend 1/2s at a very high level, switch on to smaller 3s, pass and handle well, and hit 3s at high volume at a very good clip at 6”6 with a 6”9 WS just super rare. He was really the perfect guard to compliment elite scorers.

There’s no doubt if he stays healthy he has a legit 15yr career, makes $250M+, and likely ends up winning at least one ring at some point. He would’ve been able to opt out after next year on CHI, and it’s more likely than not someone who doesn’t command a max deal but is so valuable and perfectly compliments elite players ends up winning a chip. It’s honestly sad. At least he got that one contract, just hope he can be healthy even if it’s not playing high level ball. It’d be awesome if he could eventually come back and be good again, but idk, with how bad it sounds just hope he can be good life wise and like walk normally and stuff man. Crazy.

I’m not even a LAL/CHI/NOP fan or anything lol, just can’t sleep and went on a tangent. GL to Zo.

[zombiedilan]

What scenario and draft classes do u use cause mygm is fun.

[FTT]

If the Clippers actually traded Kawhi and 4 firsts, PG, norm and RoCo and all we got back is Ben Simmons and jalen green id never watch basketball again

[theconnaisseur]

It’s so dumb how 2k messing up the 5 and 6 seeds broke start today and since it’s the playoffs they won’t fix it

[joecattoggio]

Not only did you get Tatum playing with another Jalen, but his last name is also a color

[kylerasmussen]

Bros intros always remind me of how my teachers used to tell me how to write a hook for an introduction to my paper 😂

[danielmorrison]

Do a Shai Gilgeous Alexander Hornets rebuild.If you get the number 2 pick or higher trade it to the Thunder for Gilgeous Alexander if you get number 1 pick get Wembanayama on the Hornets.

[brianqi]

Kawhi for 5 first rounders are you serious? What sick scenario did you download there? For me that's easily THE MOST ABSURDLY UNREALISTIC trade in all of the rebuild series😂😂😂

[adamchill]

I’m a rockets fans and that Jalen green trade made me mad lol, if we did that I’d be finding a new team to root for

[brucewhine]

kawhi with butler, lowry, adebayo, herro... coached by spo 🔥

[Colton.F_]

I've been trying to get into realistic rebuilds and the correct way to actually do em and these been helping me ong

[kerryharrell]

Future rebuild idea for after the lottery is set... Jalen for Jaylen. Brown for Green since Udoka is in Houston

[jquanddaniel]

To get cheaper contracts you have to go in contract sliders and chang e min rating and Max rating and salary curve and it'll help with the ridiculous contract expectations

[BOnYTB]

SROS: someone liked a couple of my comments from a video of yours from mid March. It was a Bobcats rebuild. You also liked both comments, and they were both super long so I’m surprised you even read them lol. You might’ve just skimmed and liked. Not sure, bc you did do something very similar a couple times not long after that video iirc so. But they were about more historic rebuilds, but more situational ones. I gave a ton of examples but the possibilities are legit endless.

I’m talking rebuilding teams that messed up majorly in the late ‘00s, early-mid ‘10s, or closer to modern day, w/e. Here’s some examples I gave: NYK not trading for Melo, & waiting until FA so they didn’t give up all their depth. Build around Rose as a rookie w injuries off. Keep Harden on OKC, & maybe trade Russ? Russ obv had insane value, and they were worried about $…so could’ve moved him for a PG who wasn’t so ball dominant, could space the floor, and was on a bargain deal, or early on in their rookie deal. I guess they didn’t realize the TV $ was coming and was gonna be so nuts, so really even a PG that was cheaper for even 1-2 seasons bc it was very soon after that ppl realized the cap spike was coming, and it wasn’t that far from happening.

Rebuild SAC starting at the Luka draft, & take Luka instead of Bagley lol. Luka and Fox would’ve been very interesting, and I’m sure Fox would’ve prioritized developing his off ball game more sooner (C&S 3s, becoming a better midrange shooter faster like he is now, floaters, etc) and then they had all their own 1sts & stuff. One more before my personal favorite is getting rid of Wall before having to super max him, there was a solid 2yr window where it was clear they weren’t gonna contend, while still having Beal balling out on a good deal with crazy value. So could’ve moved both and tore it down, or built around Beal and got some assets for Wall.

Then my favorite, the 76ers right after Hinkie “stepped down” at the end of the 15-16 season (literally April 2016, I think the regular season was over, obv they weren’t in the playoffs) had just an obscene amount of assets, young guys, good players on great deals, and they were about to have the #1 pick where they took Ben. Who knows if he takes Ben in that draft…he def wasn’t afraid to make moves.

List of assets I can remember and verify (young guys on good deals, future picks, recent picks, etc.) is below. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were more, but I wanted to be able to verify it using bball ref.

Players: Joel, RoCo, Saric, Jerami Grant, TJ McConnell, Richaun Holmes, Christian Wood (but they let him walk immediately so eh) Basically all of these guys were on insane value deals or rookie deals. “Hinkie Specials” became a term. He signed SO many 2RP/UDFAs to 3-4yr deals with like 1-2yrs of gtd money, then the 3rd/4th year non gtd or TO. Like RoCo, Grant, McConnell, etc. were all on 3yr+ deals making around $1M (some slightly less, some slightly more, but all +/- ~200k or so a year)

Picks I know for sure of:
#1, #24, #26 in ‘16 (Ben, TLC, Korkmaz)
‘17 pick that allowed them to swap #5 for #3 to SAC (The pick they moved up to #1 for Fultz, along with giving up pick that became #14 in ‘19 (Langford) idr if there was another asset they gave up or not.
Picks that became #10 and #26 in ‘18 (Mikal/Shamet)
Pick that became #14 in ‘19
He also had like 8 billion future 2nds and a crazy amount of them ended up in the first 10 or so picks. They also had all of their own 1sts, and a lot of cap space and expirings.

Obviously the PHI possibilities are endless. They squandered most of the assets. It’s funny, the one thing that “worked out” was getting Maxey…but that in itself was horrible. They traded Grant for a 1st and got the pick that became Maxey. They then traded that pick in some stupid trade I can’t remember. They then dumped Fultz for a heavily protected 1st and got the exact same pick back from ORL (it was originally an OKC pick iirc) which ended up as a pick in the early 20s where they took Maxey. So even getting Maxey came from a huge mistake. I mean having Jerami Grant in itself would be great for this team, it’s not like they needed to move him to get a pick in the 20s. It’s usually quite easy to get a pick #22 or whatever. Maybe a role player and a 2nd or two…maybe like a pick in the 31-35 range, some cash, and a couple future 2nds. We’ve seen all that kinda stuff. But then they moved up from 3 to 1 to get Fultz, squandered a top pick and a future lotto pick in the process.

So you could move Ben, or take someone else, and they had that swap with SAC in the Fultz draft. So even if PHI did well, or didn’t get lotto luck, they at least would’ve gotten P5 from SAC (afaik) where SAC took Fox. It’s honestly pretty crazy Philly isn’t better when you consider the assets they had. Fultz trade, Mikal trade, Tobias trade (then maxing him), Jimmy trade then basically letting him walk, spending like $30M in cap on Horford then having to give up a 1st to dump him, the list goes on…and all of those trades cost them future picks, a top pick, crazy amounts of cap space, opportunity to sign or trade for good players, led to more mistakes, until it all snowballed.

And there are a million other scenarios you could do. There’s so many points in NBA history where one or two bad moves (or sometimes unlucky) changed the fate of the league for years to come. It’s just something you could do whenever you thought of a good idea and found a good roster for the situation. People seem to love historic rebuilds too, even just going back as little as like 5 years or whatever there’s so much.

Sorry for another crazy long post. Hope you can get some ideas out of this and it leads to some awesome content. Thanks for reading.

✌️

[carsonbusch]

don’t like the trade scenario realistically, matt. they will keep these guys as long as possible, but 2k hates these guys in a rebuild sense. all good; appreciate the content.