It’s time to do this:
https://tradenba.com/trades/sNPVi9KWJWe’re better off with Teague/Pritchard/Smart rotating at point instead of Kemba. Big Al brings more to our team than Kemba (Al’s intangibles aone are still off the charts, and he’s averaging 12.5 PPG and 7.4 RBG in the west, so he’s clearly not toast). One bad contract for another, but we save funds and have Big Al’s leadership in the front court, so it’s a better contract to deal with. Maybe in this off-season or next we send out our 2022 1st round pick for anybody willing to eat his contract, too? It would be nice to go into the off-season that Jokic is available with only Tatum and Brown under contract.
OKC could pair Kemba with Shai at SG (his original position), and they’d probably be better than Shai/Al. They could even move George Hill for a pick with Kemba onboard. Unlike Al, they could potentially flip Kemba for picks in the future if he returns to form.
In short, it makes sense for us (remember our Al/Tatum/Brown championship runs?) and it makes sense for OKC. I miss Al, and do not blame him for taking the money and running (easy for us to say we’d skip on tens of millions of dollars to stay a Celtic). When we chose Kemba over Al, we did not think we’d land a solid future starting PG in Pritchard a year later. PP could be our starter next season, especially if we dump Kemba now and play PP more. We would have won tonight with Teague/PP handling point with Kemba on the bench.