Trade Scenario OTW #1

Hi everyone, with the Clips out of contention this playoffs and our future (admittedly) looking a bit bleak, I thought I would do something a little fun with these hypothetical trade scenarios, which I'll be aiming to post at least once a week. You can hate or shit on it as much as you want but at the end of the day, it's just for fun. Also just fyi, there will be a lot of words down below so feel free to just skim through.

Anyways with that over with, for now I'll be avoiding making up any trades with PG or Russ in it as it's unlikely PG does a sign-and-trade nor the fact that Russ signs another lowball contract deal.

So for today's scenario, I wanted to try and address the current roster's issues which are: Lack of a proper PF and not enough athletic/glue guys on the team. If you look at the image, this isn't necessary a 3 team trade but I had just put two seperate trades into one, for viewing purposes.

1st trade:
Orlando Magic Receive – Terrance Mann & P.J. Tucker

Clippers Receive – Jonathan Isaac

Now, how can the 'untouchable' T-mann himself be traded? Well firstly, he's 27 years old so I doubt he makes any significant developments at this point in his career and for the past 3 seasons he's had the same general stats. However Orlando possibly makes this trade because they're lacking in the wing position and Mann slots in perfectly as a pretty decent 3 & D guy to play along Franz and Paolo. If you watched the Cavs and Magic series, you'll see how atrocious their offense was (especially in game 7) with no one seemingly being able to a hit single 3 on Orlando. They're also 23rd in 3pt % so T-Mann is a perfect fit for them in just simply spacing the floor. With PJ Tucker, there admittedly isn't much upside to him apart from giving you some scrappy old man post defense with the occassional corner 3 plus some veteran leadership (he's just mainly there as a contract filler).

In return, the Clippers get Jonathan Isaac. The Magic seemingly don't need him as much as he only gets 15 minutes a night and is playing behind one of the younger front courts with a rising 21 yr old Paolo ahead of him. However, our old ass Clips team can for sure use a guy like him. Serviceable from three (37.5% however only 0.7 for 1.9 attempts a game), Isaac fits perfectly along Zubac and the general offense of our team as his agile roamer-presence as a shot blocker plus Zubac's defensive anchor(ness?) makes for a pretty airtight front court defense. Plus his ability to sufficiently play behind our stars will make his fit even better, assuming he gets around 25-30 minutes a night I can see him easily averaging 12 ppg and 7 rpg with like 2 blocks (His per36: 15.5 ppg 10.2 rpg 2.8 bpg). Now his main issue is going to be availability. He doesn't exactly have the best track record went it comes to being healthy however this season it seems like he's made a proper return, playing almost 60 games this year. For how good of a fit he is, I think this is a risk we should 100% take.

2nd trade:
Nuggets receive – Norman Powell & Moussa Diabate

Clippers receive – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Peyton Watson, Christian Braun.

With game 7 of the Nuggets vs Wolves coming to an end, we all saw how Jokic and Jamal fizzled out from exhaustion, resulting in the Wolves to come back and take the W. Jamal and Jokic alone combined for 69 points while everyone else on that team? 21 points. They desperately need a spark plug, starting or off the bench doesn't matter, they NEED a guy apart from Jamal and Jokic that can score the ball when needed. And who better then 6th man candidate, Norman Powell? Norman Powell has been absolutely monumental for us but thing is, he's getting old (30 yrs old). Already seeing a slight drop in ppg and other stats (also due to Harden being there), he like T-Mann, isn't going to get any better than this. We've got to sell him high. 14ppg on 43.5% shooting from 3 is still going to provide insane help to any team, especially Denver who needs more firepower off the bench. As for Moussa, I know his addition won't be anything insane but another issue with their roster is their lack of a backup big. They currently have a 35 year old Deandre Jordan as their backup behind Jokic. For his age, DJ isn't bad at all but how long is his worn-out body going to be able to endure and stay on the floor consistently? They need a fresh new body that isn't required to be impactful but can at least be there when Jokic comes off for whatever short amount of time he's resting on the bench.

Now for what we receive, with PG and Russ' presence on this team being questionable, its time we prepare to bring in guys that can play around Harden and Kawhi but also have a few decent young prospects we can actually look into developing. Bringing in KCP obviously won't be the same as PG but to be honest, he might make for a better fit. His defense is nothing to scoff at as it was merely 3-4 years ago where he was 11th in Dpoy votings. Obviously that was a bit of a stretch but even at age 30, he's still good. He's an established 2 way shooter that can spot up along with Harden and Kawhi leading the offense. And honestly with PG, at times it felt like his inconsistency, questionable shot selection and inconvenient passiveness as one of the main guys hurt us more than it helped us. Now with Peyton and Braun, I'm going to clump them together but they're both intriguing, young prospects that each have their own upsides. Peyton's knack for shot blocking and Braun's flashes of starter material, makes them good candidates for this squad. I know Ty Lue for whatever reason seems to HATE the idea of playing younger players but with PG, Russ and Norman Powell gone in this situation, he'll be forced to play some new faces in this lineup. KCP, Peyton and Braun are all wing players that can slot in from the 2-4, replace whichever starter when needed.

With this, I'm done with my ranting but after these trades, this is what I intended the lineups to look like.

Starters: Harden, KCP, Kawhi, Jonathan, Zubac
Bench: Bones, Braun/BBJ, Amir/Peyton, Theis/Kobe Brown, Plumlee/Kai Jones

I hope you found this at least entertaining, if you did read all this, I appreciate you and I am completely open to hearing any suggestions, new trade ideas or counter-arguments to this scenario.