My answer is DeMar. If he’s Denver’s sixth man, he’s probably playing with the Euro DPOY guy they signed, and Spencer Jones. That allows DeMar to do what he does: get buckets (and not play defense).

Klay is competing with THJ for playing time and THJ is … better?

I’m gonna get whipped for saying this but this is why I kinda like the modern cba

You cant just have lebron summoning a bunch of dudes and end up with a team, that feels unearned

If you want Giannis and the Bucks wanna gut your roster, you gotta pay for it with your flexibility and depth too

For a top 3 player in the league?

Generational talent?

An elite player to balance the roster?

No?

Finally someone talking sense in here

I’m really bad at determining what picks should be included, but Paul George and Payton Pritchard make sense if we’re trading at the deadline. This does 3 things.

1. Upgrades Paul George to a better player to be a co-star with Tatum and gets off his contract before he hits free agency and we lose that money on the books for nothing.

2. Removes our monetary commitment to what will be an expensive Pritchard extension (which will be decided on next summer for the extension to kick in for 2028-29) which will actually save us money long term

3. Helps us load up for the next 2nd apron window and upcoming expansion in 2028-29

Here’s what I think could be a 5-year plan with this kind of move

2026-27: Trade Paul George, Payton Pritchard and picks for Stephen Curry at the deadline. This puts us $1M below the tax line with 13 players rostered and we simply convert a 2-way in late February to stay under that line. 8-9 man playoff rotation of Tatum, Curry, White, Hauser, Queta, Robinson, Scheierman, Gonzalez/Walsh. Garza is the insurance big, Conley is the insurance guard. Not the favorites, but not a bad roster if the bench develops well over the next 8 months and shooting doesn’t fall off a cliff for White or Hauser.

2027-28: Sign Curry to a 3-year, \(197.3M deal (max contract based on projected salary cap with 8% raises from obtaining Bird Rights). Year 1 will be \)60,900,000. With Tatum, White, Robinson, Queta, Hauser, Walsh, Harper, Cenac, Gonzalez (pick up option), and Scheierman (pick up option) under contract, this comes to 11 players under contract at \(215,692,230. Sign a backup guard for 2 years at the taxpayer MLE (\)6,396,000) to replace Conley, and 2 minimum level contracts to replace/re-sign Garza and whoever we converted to a standard contract at the end of the previous season (at most this adds \(8,177,886 if the 2 players are 10 year vets, at minimum it is \)2,864,322 if they are undrafted rookies). This rosters 14 players and totals the salary figure to somewhere between \(224,952,552 and \)230,266,116. The projected 2nd apron is $233,879,000 which means we would be a 1st apron team. Have room for signing the 2027 FRP if we retain that pick. We basically keep the whole team together, keep developing the young wings, Cenac, potentially Amari Williams/Dillon Mitchell and have a competitive team

2028-29: NBA expansion comes in and we are allowed to go back into the 2nd apron as the 5 year window resets. Now is the time to make all-in moves. White (PO), Robinson (PO) and Hauser are expiring contracts and the idea would be to package them for a star asking out. This one is trickier because idk what picks we’ll have left (hopefully future 1sts) and idk how expansion will effect the market of vets, but if we can consolidate these 3 for an Adebayo type of player, here’s the idea: Tatum, Curry, star big, Gonzalez, Cenac, Queta, Walsh and extend Scheierman are your top 8 protected. Assume teams will not want the old MLE guard we still have under contract. I predict there will be a shift in the NBA where teams load up their top 8 to avoid being targeted in expansion, rather than building out depth of 10-11 great players just to have them picked off. Since we can basically spend whatever, there will be a huge divide between teams having fire sales and teams loading up, and the 2nd apron and the future will be a huge non-factor in how several teams operate, thinking they will just renegotiate a less punitive CBA in summer of 2029 or 2030 to be put into effect in 2030-31. The Celtics will have a big 3, and the hope is Gonzalez becomes a starting quality player and Cenac turns into a really important piece to round out the starting 5, and that it’s one of the best starting units in the NBA and we are contenders. Obviously the bench pieces can be swapped around for similar salaries, it’s hard to envision everyone here long term.

2029-30: The Celtics run it back for 1 last chance at another championship, giving them a 4 year window with Tatum + Curry. Curry retires at the end of this season, and Tatum is in the last year of his contract with a player option. It’s possible if we’re unsuccessful or it’s a disaster season that we blow it up and sell everyone at the deadline, including Tatum.

2030-31: Everyone’s contract is up at the end of 2030 except Gonzalez who has been extended, Cenac who in this scenario will be extended, Scheierman, Queta, and anyone else re-signed to another contract (Walsh, Harper, etc.) and potentially your star big, and we will need to reevaluate where we stand with how successful this timeframe has been. It’s possible we could keep Tatum and sign him to a new contract and keep retooling, but with draft picks exhausted and needing to shed salary if the 2nd apron rules stay in place, it will likely be really difficult to contend, and we will probably be in a rebuild, and any exercise to try and plan this far ahead is just impossible with so many branches of how things could go. Injuries, off the court affairs, unexpected regression/development. It’s impossible to predict.

This gives us a 4 year window of contention, and as far as what Curry has in the tank, his shooting is not really going to regress that much and so he will always be effective at having that gravity. If he turns into what Ray Allen was for us as a 3rd option, it’s really not that bad if we are able to get another star big in 2 years to supplement that. But he hasn’t really slowed down all that much and kind of has LeBron longevity because of how hard he works on conditioning. He’s just had much less help than he did earlier in his career or even 3-4 seasons ago. It’s not crazy to imagine he’s a top 20 player for the next 3 or 4 seasons. If we can get him somehow without including a ton of picks, we have some stashed for that future big man we could target. Even if it’s not a max guy like Adebayo, White and Robinson are analytics darlings and on expiring deals could certainly be flipped for a quality big man from a team blowing it up.

I don’t think he’d be all that expensive tbh

Especially if you are talking about in the off-season where he is an unrestricted free agent

The real hurdle is more what does Steph want?