I know that a lot of people want to go after a superstar next summer, but doing so probably means that we have to let both Zeller and Amir walk. Perhaps we would even have to give up Olynyk (hatred), but let's ignore that for now. This is a problem for two reasons. First, outside of Cousins and maybe Noel, there aren't really any max guys that can play the 5 and are even remotely obtainable. Most likely, we will get a max guy who plays a different position . Second, outside of Harry Giles, who faces injury concerns, it is unlikely that we will get a 5 from the top of the draft. Maybe we can grab one in the second round, but I doubt this player would be NBA-ready.
Thus, if we do get a max player, we are probably entering next season with only two players who could play the 5: Olynyk and Horford. Both of these players, however, are guys you'd like to be able to push down to the 4 in certain lineups---which is how we currently use them. Thus, it is most likely that we will need to find replacements for the conventional 5's currently on the roster. We can conceivably look at the bottom dwellers in FA, but that strikes me as a pretty enormous sacrifice from a talent perspective.
The ideal situation is that our draft-and-stash players are able to join the roster and step in with some quality minutes. I have been following Zizic and Yabusele a little bit while they have been playing overseas, and they seem to be having a good deal of success. Granted, they are playing against scrubs compared to what they will be dealing with in the NBA. That said, do you think these players will be ready to step into roles by next year?
Submitted November 21, 2016 at 06:51PM by gradientz