It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?
Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.
Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.
Love playing the 5? Defending Embiid? Defending the paint against Giannis? We'll get slaughtered. Also losing Smart's defense. Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.
To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?
Kanter and Theis for Embiid, and a combination of Smart/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Semi/Grant/Theis/Robert for Giannis. I'd be much more confident with our current slew of options than Love lol.
All of those guys, except for Hayward, would still be on the team in the hypothetical Love for Hayward swap.
Love for Hayward swap is a disaster trade. Love is seriously a marginal upgrade over what we already have if he’s even that. I think people advocating for love need to rewatch the Cs vs Cavs game and see what he does on D. Plus have y’all seen his stats? He’s shooting like 44% from the field and you want him to play Center??? He don’t even play Center now lol. Lastly all everyone is going to do is complain how often he’s OUT THE DANG LINE UP!!!! The best ability is availability Especially at center!! We can afford Hawyward to be gone because of the other players we have on our team.
Love's TS% is 61 and he is scoring 1.45 points per shot. Those are both borderline elite and at least excellent. He also has a TRB% of just under 19 which is very good.
Hayward was certainly off to a great start but he is a SF on a team loaded with SF's.
To be honest, I probably would be on board with this. I mean, Kevin Love is still one of the premier shooting big's in the league, even in 30 minutes, he's still averaging 10 rebounds. I also think in our system, he'd actually be a deadlier shooter.
Like, don't get me wrong, in my opinion, Hayward is probably the better player moving forward, I think his ball handling and versatility makes us tough to defend.
But it's hard to ignore, Love is putting up a easy 16/10/3 numbers with 44/37/88, and he's not even taking the most shots on his team!
Jordan Clarkson for comparison is averaging 10.7 FGA, Love is taking 11.1.
I think our defense won't suffer as most people think. Love is a decent post defender, and while he's slow footed, he has quick reflexes/reaction times.
But under no condition am I giving up Smart in any trade scenario.