But let’s begin at the start of the season. I decided to roll it back with the team which made it to the conference finals last year, knowing that father time is nagging on my core player. Still it seemed we could have an outside chance to be the 3rd team in the East after the Heat and Pistons and don’t lose to much to them.
With our stressed cap situation, we were not able to do much. A switch of Zach Collins for Colin Sexton and Kawhi Leonard for Jordan Clarkson during last off-season were supposed to beef up our weak backcourt. Both players performed as I was hoping for, especially Clarkson was just great as a 6th man.
But very early during the 27 season it was obvious to me, that we lost more than a little bit to the top teams. And even worse, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and New York were progressing faster than I anticipated.
Our easy schedule to begin of the season did hide it for a bit as we were able to win games against lower competition but every time we faced a real contender, you could see our struggles.
This was going on for a while and we were able to position us in a comfortable playoff position but with low hope to challenge the top dogs.
Which lead in the end to the decision to roll the dice and try to trade for Marcus Smart. We did inquire briefly during last off-season but Portland didn’t like any of our player, so this talk went silent quick.
Discussions with Chicago at the beginning the season went a bit longer but he was ultimately traded to Denver. Around the deadline he was available again and finally after loooong talks with Brett, we shipped out quite some player to acquire the score first guard and hoped it would change the dynamic of the team.
Long story short. It didn’t. We still won against the teams we had too (looking at the talent level) but could not win against the top 4 teams in the East. The duo AD and Smart had problems to work together and it took me a while to figure out better lineups and change Smarts preferences a bit.
Just before the Smart trade we traded away Colin Sexton in a move I think will benefit us in the future. But in hindsight it would have maybe been better to keep him for this year’s playoff run. Who knows?
In round 1 of the playoffs we were not too thrilled to get the reigning champs, competing with them with a weaker Hawks team than last year. But I have to say, I was pleased with the way we played the series. Not happy, of course, because we lost. But I still like the team and think our depleted depth was a big reason we struggled into the post season.
All this nagging and untimely injuries during the season and playoffs hurt as a lot because low talent player had to jump in in were clearly not ready.
That leaves me again with two different directions to go.
We can follow the original plan and roll out the more or less same core again. Try to use the off-season to make some tweaks and get some better role player for the bench.
… Or we can skip one season and go to our long overdue rebuild.
It will all depends what options the trade market offers. Should be fun to figure out all options and go from there. Everything is on the table!
2020, 2023, 2027