Look... none of these are sure fire I believe 100% things about this team... these are all things I think I think...
1- We should trade Royce if necessary to get the improvements we need. I love Royce... he takes a lot of ****. He's been better on defense in the past than he has this year. I think the knee injury is bothering him. I also think that House and Paschall will functionally give us what Royce is this year and 85%-90% of what Royce gives us when healthy. It was just eye opening how much better those guys move than our other wings... Royce has been a little stiffer than normal. His role is the one that we likely have to get by on a budget because we no longer have the cap flexibility or draft picks to manuever the way we need. He was never a stopper... but would do good work making sure bigger wings didn't obliterate us. We can make due with others and I think House with his ball handling and driving would offset his less good shooting. Paschall can also fill in and moves very well. Can't put him on the quick guards... but honestly that was never Royce's forte.
2- We have to move on from JC.... and its the offense that is the bigger problem. JC isn't a terrible offensive player... he was great when our offense was average. I don't feel we can run the system the way we need to when he is on the floor because the ball sticks. That is fine for the minutes Donovan and Mike are off the floor... but those minutes aren't worth the price and efficiency tax we pay for the other minutes. The defense obvi doesn't help. We need to make a move here and I think his value is higher than we think.
3- We need to extend our championship window... and will eventually move Mike. Likely this offseason unless Donovan or Rudy demand out. This will be tough because he is a great playmaker and smooths out the rough edges the offense has... but unless we win it this year I think our window is slamming shut and can be propped open with the right move. If the right deal came around this year I wouldn't be opposed... and there are some opportunities.
4- Quin needs to be put in his place. He doesn't get a huge voice in player personnel decisions. If he doesn't like it we replace him. He is part of the problem with his rotations and rigidness. He sounded shocked his team played hard last night. He thinks the regulars will magically take the hunger those other players showed and it will transfer over... I have bad news for him. You may as well try to transfer Forrest's defensive ability to JC or Ingles shooting to Forrest. It was clear as ****ing day that EP was productive and gave us such a huge energy boost... and Quin benched him in a very clear opportunity for him to play so that he could run an experiment with Udoka. Quin needs to be told that we can have our base systems on both sides of the ball... but we also need counters and they need to be put in place during the offseason... learning the dance on the dance floor does not work. Quin has been a little stale and the players have reflected that staleness.
