Towns could always shoot and always had the tools to defend. 

This year, lightning struck and he figured out how to defend. Sabonis will never do either 

I always thought JJJ would be the perfect complement to Sabonis. JJJ can protect the rim, and space on offense, but doesn’t rebound and isn’t a great passer. Sabonis can rebound, playmake a bit from the elbows or whatever. JJJ is different than Myles Turner was because JJJ can (and would rather) defend on the perimeter while still defending the rim a bit from the weak side.

So somehow getting someone of that archetype, a big stretch 4 who can still defend, like even an Aaron Gordon type, would really amplify Sabonis

He’s also way too slow to defend PF’s. Towns always sucked at defending the rim, but he was underrated as a perimeter defender. That’s why he worked so well next to Gobert.

And even if you have a rim protector/shooting big, it doesn’t work!

See: Pacers Turbonis experiment.

A fabulous fantasy basketball player though 😂

Detroit?

People say this and then would clambering to get Sengun if he was available.

I had this argument with a Pistons fan about Sabonis, whose shooting doesn’t scare defense into guarding him closely to open up the spacing. He simply looked at shooting percentage (and pointed out the last few years sans last season), but I looked at his shooting volume along with 3 pt shooting percentage, which isn’t enough to say that he’s a shooting threat. If he shoots 5-6 attempts per game at 37-38%, then sure, he’s a threat, but at 1-2 attempts per game, it’s not really a threat.

aka he’s useless on any good team, massively overpaid and one the most overrated guys in the league. He’s fine as a back up big for 10 mil/year and that’s about it.

He’s discount jokic.

Not enough on the offense side for the lack of traditional center defense

Sabonis also doesn’t elevate his team nearly as much, jokic averages 2x the assists

Alternatively, he’s a rich man’s valanciunas. But i kinda feel like you’d rather have jonas because he’s a interesting roleplayer who doesn’t take up TOO much money, so you can hide his shortcomings more

Also we have already seen Sabonis’ limitations in the playoffs. I recall his last playoff series against GS they were literally just leaving him unguarded on the perimeter.

Yeah exactly. Bigs who are liabilities on defense and can’t shoot just don’t translate to the playoffs. Look at every Center on every conference finalist for the past 5 years

Wembanyama, Hartenstein/Holmgren, KAT, Jarrett Allen, Gobert, Myles Turner, Horford/Porzingis, Lively/Gafford, Jokic, Adebayo, Anthony Davis, Robert Williams, Kevon Looney, Dwight Powell/Maxi Kleber

Every one of these guys is a good to great defender or is a threat to shoot from the perimeter, with the exception of Dwight Powell who got played off the floor in 2022. Jokic and KAT are elite offensive talents, and Kleber was passable in 2022 because he shot so well from 3.

Sabonis is like the only active player who has made All-NBA that hasn’t made it out of the first round. These types of guys just don’t translate to winning in the playoffs if they’re the first or 2nd option. Maybe you could get away with it with them as a complimentary piece (Looney is nothing special) but Sabonis is making $45M. You can’t add him to a team where he’s the 3rd/4th best player because nobody has the salary to make that kind of move.

If he was making $25-30M there would be a lot more suitors because you could find someone of equal value to trade and slot him into that 3rd option role. He could maybe work in that situation like Orlando if they move Banchero and restructure the team around Wagner and another star, or Toronto where it’s clearly Kawhi and Barnes in front of him and you just ask him to play a role.

Overpaid offensive only players wind up dumped on bad teams. That’s how Sabonis wound up stuck in Sacramento, or MPJ got shipped to Brooklyn, and Trae Young went to the Wizards. Those are the only teams that can take those kinds of players.

One injury-plagued season doesn’t make you injury prone lmao that’s a weak point

His defense is a question but I think the offensive benefits he provides outweighs that

Some of these players need a perspective change like this

>and top-10 in mvp calibre player?

Slow down there buddy.

20 playoff games, 6-14, averaging 12/7/2.7 in 10 seasons

The question is “why do that?”

And the answer is “We don’t have another choice.”

We’re not going to buy these guys out, so we’re just playing out the season with them. The hope/expectation is they play well enough that a team will trade for them at the deadline. Lavine with half a season left on his contract would be a lot more moveable if he’s putting up 20+ points of 40% 3PA. Sabonis is going to be tough to move regardless, but maybe someone convinces themselves they can make it work with him.

Our payroll pretty much comes off the books completely after this season, so ideally we become the clearinghouse of overpaid players for a bit where we can stockpile FRPs to facilitate salary dumps and hope we have enough ammunition to find a decent squad to build a sustainable future. But it’s us, so we’re going to get impatient and try to shortcut our way back to relevance and then end up right back where we started lol.