Everyone is tripping about a 22 yr old having one bad playoff run

Word performance doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Drummond

Correct. There’s 1 team outside of Detroit that can offer that, and that’s LAL (I guess the Nets if they cleared more space). All the other ones are S&Ts that show a fundamental misunderstanding of how this works.

Sacramento doesn’t “create leverage” by saying they’d pay him. Sacramento can tell Duren whatever he wants, and Detroit can say: “Cool, so go ahead and burn all of your picks clearing out $80M in cap space (which FYI isn’t even really possible) and sign him to that offer sheet.” Which if by some miracle did and the Pistons STILL wanted Duren, then they could just match the offer and Sac wasted all their efforts.

It all boils down to: “Is Detroit willing to match any offer?” If the answer is yes, then he’ll stay there. Maybe it’s on a QO or maybe it’s via a match. Will Duren be disgruntled? Maybe. But this is how RFAs work. We’ve seen this play out. Kuminga threatened everything under the sun, but he ultimately extended with GSW who were more than transparent that they’re giving him a TEAM friendly contract strictly for him to be used as a trade asset. And guess what? He signed it, and played.

MAYBE the Pistons can be convinced to avoid this and take on assets for Duren via a S&T. Like if Sacramento offers Sabonis and 2 unprotected picks, then sure. But the vast majority of the sub clearly does not understand how this works. The Pistons are in complete control, and as someone who hates how RFA works, that’s the literal point of it.

The reports suggest that Kessler has multiple upper 30s offers on the table.

Kessler won’t be a tax/apron problem for them until the third year of his new contract (even with having to pay their main core). They probably match and trade him by the deadline to a desperate team (us? lol).

signing nurkic isn’t the death kiss there but it’s definitely the jazz covering their bases if they were to lose kessler.

jazz gave a take it or leave it deal at 5 years 27 mil/yr, i doubt they go much above that.

We don’t want to pay him ⁵⁄₂₈₇. We’d prefer to pay him ⁵⁄₁₈₀ if we can get away with it. I’m sure the FO will match ⁴⁄₁₇₇.

Unless this whole process generated actual bad blood and not just agent bluster, then maybe we work out a trade.

This is 100 percent durens agent putting pressure on the Detroit FO

Kessler is the new Myles Turner

He provides a few things: energy, rebounding, shot blocking, lob threat. That’s all Luka needs

It’s hard to find a great but especially right now, Kessler is the best they can conceivably get except Duren, I don’t hunk people are super high on him, he’s just the only option.

He’s a 7’2 center who’s an outstanding shot blocker. Hes a walking double double who shoots well from in close and he has shown the ability to hit jump shots. I don’t think the lakers are planning on making him a stretch big, but he’s elite defensively, a really good rebounder, he’s an excellent fit next to Luka and Reaves.

Durability is definitely a concern with him though, but the lakers don’t have the luxury of being timid anymore.

Both guys are traditional rim-running, rim-protecting centers. The difference is that Kessler is actually really good at rim protection while Duren is very stupid and bad at that.

I now need Chet vs. Duren in the playoffs to see who will out-passive the other.

Cade is a great playmaker, undoubtedly - not taking anything away from that. But Luka is the second best playmaker in the league next to Jokic

Ayton has played solid for $8m, he’s just not a starter

Sure, you can bring up the distant past, but he’s talking about just THIS off-season with THESE Front Offices

But is that cost of a fuck you worth it if we take the full time to match? We pestered reaves via S&T pre FA iirc - that same poison pill doesn’t have as much blowback when we tried ir

Lakers are just fucking themselves by typing up cap space for 48 hours during peak FA time while they wait for the Pistons to match because regardless of what the rumors say it’s not 100% guaranteed they would

Funny little prank hurts themselves just as much

He just needs to lose weight. He put on way to much muscle. Hes built like an action figure but that build fell out of fashion a decade ago.

Kessler might be the better option I guess. Idk man it’s got to be good because Luka benefits greatly from having a big who can catch the lobs and who plays good defense in the paint. I think finding the right big man to play with him is extremely important so I don’t feel like they can really whiff on the opportunity.

But it’s all about who and who can they get because it’s not like there are unlimited options out there right now

He needs to loose some mass. Also, he hurt his ankle too right?

Feel like he was pretty mobile and explosive previous seasons, but seemed to go to bodybuilder.