I’ve always been a Sabonis fan, so I’m biased. I believe in the upgrade. He has played PF and C, so with 34 minutes and Clingan playing as many as 28 (optimistically next year), they play together for 14 minutes (3-4 per quarter). He’s not a defensive rim protector, but he’s a fair team defender, rebounder and with serious impact on O as offensive rebounder, playmaker, and scoring (with current low volume on 3’s). He’s literally top 25 in assists per game (Jokic and Giannis are higher as bigs) and 4th overall in offensive rebounds.
SAC goes athletic with Ayton, gets both Murray’s, and Reath — with draft capital or Shaedon Sharpe. Would I risk trading essentially Sharpe (and Ayton and Murray) for Sabonis and his $43.6M contract? (His dollars go up for the 3 years but % of cap goes down).
Yes, I would.
Clingan, Sabonis, Avdija, Camara, Scoot are 5 of the core.
Ant to Brooklyn for Cam Johnson and swap 11 for 19 and 26? I prefer Ant to Orlando for Isaac and 16 (or 25 with some 2nd rounders tossed in). Both forwards are 28 and are multi-position. I’ve liked both players early in their careers. Again, my bias. Isaac’s contract goes down in 25-26 to $15M and keeping #11 in both the ORL and SAC deals. [I like Shaedon a lot but his future and dollars and questionable D have me taking Sabonis’ overall game.]
Grant, TimeLord, and Reath go to the Lakers for 1 year EC’s (DFS, Kleber, Vincent), Knecht, and the 2031 pick.
Clingan, Sabonis, Avdija, Camara, Scoot — plus Isaac, Rupert, Knecht, Thybulle, Walker, #11, #16 and the Laker EC’s (who can be kept, traded by the deadline, bought out). The draft brings in a PG and shop for a veteran … Chris Paul?
Done … for now.