Indefensible Decisions By Brad Stevens

[Big333223]

If we're looking at trade targets around the league, Jarred Vanderbilt is my best bet.

He fits into one of the TPE's, young, versatile defender, and he's hit some 3's this season. Given how Utah has started, they might want to keep him but I'd send a first rounder over for him.

[Sophomore]

Just reported that Kornet is out for personal reasons and Kabengele is with the team in Memphis. Is Fi’s NBA debut incoming?

[jambr380]

Wood is a solid offensive player.  Just how bad is his defense?

Not any worse than the combination of Vonleh / Kornet / Griffin.

Kornet actually looks like a plus defender.  Thought that last year watching him and he's showing again.

you may be ready for a new pair of glasses if that's what you're seeing

I don’t think he’s wrong tbh.  I might stop short of plus but I think he’s fine as a defender.  He’s 7’2” and active with solid court awareness. 

His big weakness as a player is that his hands suck.  Makes him a poor rebounder and really restricts what we can do with him on offense.  For those reasons I’d rather not have him in the regular rotation but as a stopgap he’s passable imho.

Understanding that this is a really small sample size, I'm sure there are stats on hid defense.  I'm not an advanced stats guy but curious what they show.

It's really too early to tell anything, but so far Kornet is fourth worst in FG% differential (i.e., opponents' FG% vs. their FG% when divided by a certain player.)

The guys Kornet defends generally shoot 50.3%; they're shooting 52.8% against Kornet.  Again, though, it's pretty meaningless at this point.  Our four worst defenders:  Jackson, Griffin, Tatum, Smart.  Our best?  Horford.

Kornet is also our worst defender within 5-feet of the basket, giving up 82.4% shooting, by far the worst on the team.  But, that's on very few shot attempts, so again, it's pretty irrelevant.  Meanwhile, players have been shooting very poorly against Kornet on the perimeter (18.2% FG% allowed on 20 to 24 feet shots).

I mean, we know why this is right?  Jumping in the key on three pointers is definitely working if you ask me .

It totally works. I saw Kornet doing it in the G league last year and thought it was a good move. I think it's a different look.

It works- it makes players shoot lower percentages.  But I've also seen compilations of Kornet jumping into the air while his guy goes to the rim, gets the offensive rebound and scores.

Yeah, I haven't seen any compilations, but it seems like if you are jumping in the air and your guy isn't the one taking the 3, then you are totally giving up positioning on a rebound. Given that Kornet is already a subpar rebounder - especially for his size - I'm not sure I buy the trade-off. Like, literally nobody else in the league does this. I can't imagine Luke Kornet is a revolutionary.

[sgrogan]

With the recent loss of Primo, the Spurs could use another point guard sized dude that can shoot to develop with their young guys (see: Payton Pritchard). Their previously reported asking price Poeltl was 2 1sts, which is steep for an expiring player. But perhaps they would do Pritchard, 1 1st, and salary (Gallo would work? Kornet and Justin Jackson gets you pretty close I think).

Spotrac has Poeltl at $9.3M.  We have to send back at least about $7.5M.  Pritchard ($2.2M) and Gallinari ($6.4M) would cover it.  I would consider this unless the Celtics believe that Gallinari is going to be back for the end of the season/playoffs (I would rather have Gallinari in that case).  But I don't think Poeltl is going to make so much difference.  Once RWill is back, he is probably our 4th big.  A better 4th big than we have now for sure, but how much difference does the 4th big make?

One big difference would be not having to play Al big minutes.  That is going to be costly down the road.  Same to some extent for Rob when he returns.  Keeping him healthy is high priority,   Hate to lose PP - but that deal looks good to me.  BTW - has there been any suggestion that Gallinari could be back this season?

This type of trade looks easier because we have been healthy in the backcourt. Jaylen is already playing big minutes.
If/when Brogdon/Brown/Smart misses time Pritchard is going to have an opportunity.

[Vermont Green]

With the recent loss of Primo, the Spurs could use another point guard sized dude that can shoot to develop with their young guys (see: Payton Pritchard). Their previously reported asking price Poeltl was 2 1sts, which is steep for an expiring player. But perhaps they would do Pritchard, 1 1st, and salary (Gallo would work? Kornet and Justin Jackson gets you pretty close I think).

Spotrac has Poeltl at $9.3M.  We have to send back at least about $7.5M.  Pritchard ($2.2M) and Gallinari ($6.4M) would cover it.  I would consider this unless the Celtics believe that Gallinari is going to be back for the end of the season/playoffs (I would rather have Gallinari in that case).  But I don't think Poeltl is going to make so much difference.  Once RWill is back, he is probably our 4th big.  A better 4th big than we have now for sure, but how much difference does the 4th big make?

One big difference would be not having to play Al big minutes.  That is going to be costly down the road.  Same to some extent for Rob when he returns.  Keeping him healthy is high priority,   Hate to lose PP - but that deal looks good to me.  BTW - has there been any suggestion that Gallinari could be back this season?

This type of trade looks easier because we have been healthy in the backcourt. Jaylen is already playing big minutes.
If/when Brogdon/Brown/Smart misses time Pritchard is going to have an opportunity.

That is of course true but the trade would be giving up some combo guard depth where we have excess for center depth where we have less depth and even more injury risk.  We can probably find another 3rd string combo guard easier than we can find depth at center.  That is the reason that this trade works for me.

[sgrogan]

With the recent loss of Primo, the Spurs could use another point guard sized dude that can shoot to develop with their young guys (see: Payton Pritchard). Their previously reported asking price Poeltl was 2 1sts, which is steep for an expiring player. But perhaps they would do Pritchard, 1 1st, and salary (Gallo would work? Kornet and Justin Jackson gets you pretty close I think).

Spotrac has Poeltl at $9.3M.  We have to send back at least about $7.5M.  Pritchard ($2.2M) and Gallinari ($6.4M) would cover it.  I would consider this unless the Celtics believe that Gallinari is going to be back for the end of the season/playoffs (I would rather have Gallinari in that case).  But I don't think Poeltl is going to make so much difference.  Once RWill is back, he is probably our 4th big.  A better 4th big than we have now for sure, but how much difference does the 4th big make?

One big difference would be not having to play Al big minutes.  That is going to be costly down the road.  Same to some extent for Rob when he returns.  Keeping him healthy is high priority,   Hate to lose PP - but that deal looks good to me.  BTW - has there been any suggestion that Gallinari could be back this season?

This type of trade looks easier because we have been healthy in the backcourt. Jaylen is already playing big minutes.
If/when Brogdon/Brown/Smart misses time Pritchard is going to have an opportunity.

That is of course true but the trade would be giving up some combo guard depth where we have excess for center depth where we have less depth and even more injury risk.  We can probably find another 3rd string combo guard easier than we can find depth at center.  That is the reason that this trade works for me.

I agree, and believe that the Brogdon trade was an (significant) upgrade overall. But we gave up big depth, thinking we could find a suitable replacement. We disagree how much Gallanari would have solved it, injury or not.

If we continue to make 2 steps forward 1 step back trades we are moving in the correct direction.

[Vermont Green]

With the recent loss of Primo, the Spurs could use another point guard sized dude that can shoot to develop with their young guys (see: Payton Pritchard). Their previously reported asking price Poeltl was 2 1sts, which is steep for an expiring player. But perhaps they would do Pritchard, 1 1st, and salary (Gallo would work? Kornet and Justin Jackson gets you pretty close I think).

Spotrac has Poeltl at $9.3M.  We have to send back at least about $7.5M.  Pritchard ($2.2M) and Gallinari ($6.4M) would cover it.  I would consider this unless the Celtics believe that Gallinari is going to be back for the end of the season/playoffs (I would rather have Gallinari in that case).  But I don't think Poeltl is going to make so much difference.  Once RWill is back, he is probably our 4th big.  A better 4th big than we have now for sure, but how much difference does the 4th big make?

One big difference would be not having to play Al big minutes.  That is going to be costly down the road.  Same to some extent for Rob when he returns.  Keeping him healthy is high priority,   Hate to lose PP - but that deal looks good to me.  BTW - has there been any suggestion that Gallinari could be back this season?

This type of trade looks easier because we have been healthy in the backcourt. Jaylen is already playing big minutes.
If/when Brogdon/Brown/Smart misses time Pritchard is going to have an opportunity.

That is of course true but the trade would be giving up some combo guard depth where we have excess for center depth where we have less depth and even more injury risk.  We can probably find another 3rd string combo guard easier than we can find depth at center.  That is the reason that this trade works for me.

I agree, and believe that the Brogdon trade was an (significant) upgrade overall. But we gave up big depth, thinking we could find a suitable replacement. We disagree how much Gallanari would have solved it, injury or not.

If we continue to make 2 steps forward 1 step back trades we are moving in the correct direction.

All we gave up from our big depth to get Brogdon was Theis.  And yes, I was fine with Gallinari replacing Theis.  Not a step back at all in my mind.  In fact just the opposite, a meaningful step forward.  Different players but overall, Gallinari is an improvement over Theis.

If the Celtics thought they could find a suitable replacement for Theis, they were right, they found Gallinari less than a week later if I remember the timeline correctly.  At that time, the prognosis for RWill was for him to be back to start the season.  We were set.  Then Boom, Gallinari blows out his knee and they have to do more surgery on RWill''s knee.

So yeah, lose 2 of your top 4 bigs and your depth is going to take a hit.  Now we may need to trade some of the combo guard depth to address the depth at big.  It doesn't seem like they plan to do anything to address this right away.  We are winning.  And what they do to address this may change based on when RWill is actually back and how he looks.

[bogg]

Just reported that Kornet is out for personal reasons and Kabengele is with the team in Memphis. Is Fi’s NBA debut incoming?

He's got 51 career appearances across two seasons already.

[Sophomore]

Just reported that Kornet is out for personal reasons and Kabengele is with the team in Memphis. Is Fi’s NBA debut incoming?

He's got 51 career appearances across two seasons already.

Oops! Thanks.

[ozgod]

Wood is a solid offensive player.  Just how bad is his defense?

Not any worse than the combination of Vonleh / Kornet / Griffin.

Kornet actually looks like a plus defender.  Thought that last year watching him and he's showing again.

you may be ready for a new pair of glasses if that's what you're seeing

I don’t think he’s wrong tbh.  I might stop short of plus but I think he’s fine as a defender.  He’s 7’2” and active with solid court awareness. 

His big weakness as a player is that his hands suck.  Makes him a poor rebounder and really restricts what we can do with him on offense.  For those reasons I’d rather not have him in the regular rotation but as a stopgap he’s passable imho.

Understanding that this is a really small sample size, I'm sure there are stats on hid defense.  I'm not an advanced stats guy but curious what they show.

It's really too early to tell anything, but so far Kornet is fourth worst in FG% differential (i.e., opponents' FG% vs. their FG% when divided by a certain player.)

The guys Kornet defends generally shoot 50.3%; they're shooting 52.8% against Kornet.  Again, though, it's pretty meaningless at this point.  Our four worst defenders:  Jackson, Griffin, Tatum, Smart.  Our best?  Horford.

Kornet is also our worst defender within 5-feet of the basket, giving up 82.4% shooting, by far the worst on the team.  But, that's on very few shot attempts, so again, it's pretty irrelevant.  Meanwhile, players have been shooting very poorly against Kornet on the perimeter (18.2% FG% allowed on 20 to 24 feet shots).

I mean, we know why this is right?  Jumping in the key on three pointers is definitely working if you ask me .

It totally works. I saw Kornet doing it in the G league last year and thought it was a good move. I think it's a different look.

It works- it makes players shoot lower percentages.  But I've also seen compilations of Kornet jumping into the air while his guy goes to the rim, gets the offensive rebound and scores.

Yeah, I haven't seen any compilations, but it seems like if you are jumping in the air and your guy isn't the one taking the 3, then you are totally giving up positioning on a rebound. Given that Kornet is already a subpar rebounder - especially for his size - I'm not sure I buy the trade-off. Like, literally nobody else in the league does this. I can't imagine Luke Kornet is a revolutionary.

Scal explained this oddity a week or so ago in commentary…apparently due to his height when he jumps the shooter cannot see the rim because this hands cover it. I guess not being able to see the rim affects some shooters 

[gouki88]

Wood is a solid offensive player.  Just how bad is his defense?

Not any worse than the combination of Vonleh / Kornet / Griffin.

Kornet actually looks like a plus defender.  Thought that last year watching him and he's showing again.

you may be ready for a new pair of glasses if that's what you're seeing

I don’t think he’s wrong tbh.  I might stop short of plus but I think he’s fine as a defender.  He’s 7’2” and active with solid court awareness. 

His big weakness as a player is that his hands suck.  Makes him a poor rebounder and really restricts what we can do with him on offense.  For those reasons I’d rather not have him in the regular rotation but as a stopgap he’s passable imho.

Understanding that this is a really small sample size, I'm sure there are stats on hid defense.  I'm not an advanced stats guy but curious what they show.

It's really too early to tell anything, but so far Kornet is fourth worst in FG% differential (i.e., opponents' FG% vs. their FG% when divided by a certain player.)

The guys Kornet defends generally shoot 50.3%; they're shooting 52.8% against Kornet.  Again, though, it's pretty meaningless at this point.  Our four worst defenders:  Jackson, Griffin, Tatum, Smart.  Our best?  Horford.

Kornet is also our worst defender within 5-feet of the basket, giving up 82.4% shooting, by far the worst on the team.  But, that's on very few shot attempts, so again, it's pretty irrelevant.  Meanwhile, players have been shooting very poorly against Kornet on the perimeter (18.2% FG% allowed on 20 to 24 feet shots).

I mean, we know why this is right?  Jumping in the key on three pointers is definitely working if you ask me .

It totally works. I saw Kornet doing it in the G league last year and thought it was a good move. I think it's a different look.

It works- it makes players shoot lower percentages.  But I've also seen compilations of Kornet jumping into the air while his guy goes to the rim, gets the offensive rebound and scores.

Yeah, I haven't seen any compilations, but it seems like if you are jumping in the air and your guy isn't the one taking the 3, then you are totally giving up positioning on a rebound. Given that Kornet is already a subpar rebounder - especially for his size - I'm not sure I buy the trade-off. Like, literally nobody else in the league does this. I can't imagine Luke Kornet is a revolutionary.

Scal explained this oddity a week or so ago in commentary…apparently due to his height when he jumps the shooter cannot see the rim because this hands cover it. I guess not being able to see the rim affects some shooters 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, given it allows the opposing big man to get a very easy box out on Kornet for the offensive rebound

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Wood is a solid offensive player.  Just how bad is his defense?

Not any worse than the combination of Vonleh / Kornet / Griffin.

Kornet actually looks like a plus defender.  Thought that last year watching him and he's showing again.

you may be ready for a new pair of glasses if that's what you're seeing

I don’t think he’s wrong tbh.  I might stop short of plus but I think he’s fine as a defender.  He’s 7’2” and active with solid court awareness. 

His big weakness as a player is that his hands suck.  Makes him a poor rebounder and really restricts what we can do with him on offense.  For those reasons I’d rather not have him in the regular rotation but as a stopgap he’s passable imho.

Understanding that this is a really small sample size, I'm sure there are stats on hid defense.  I'm not an advanced stats guy but curious what they show.

It's really too early to tell anything, but so far Kornet is fourth worst in FG% differential (i.e., opponents' FG% vs. their FG% when divided by a certain player.)

The guys Kornet defends generally shoot 50.3%; they're shooting 52.8% against Kornet.  Again, though, it's pretty meaningless at this point.  Our four worst defenders:  Jackson, Griffin, Tatum, Smart.  Our best?  Horford.

Kornet is also our worst defender within 5-feet of the basket, giving up 82.4% shooting, by far the worst on the team.  But, that's on very few shot attempts, so again, it's pretty irrelevant.  Meanwhile, players have been shooting very poorly against Kornet on the perimeter (18.2% FG% allowed on 20 to 24 feet shots).

I mean, we know why this is right?  Jumping in the key on three pointers is definitely working if you ask me .

It totally works. I saw Kornet doing it in the G league last year and thought it was a good move. I think it's a different look.

It works- it makes players shoot lower percentages.  But I've also seen compilations of Kornet jumping into the air while his guy goes to the rim, gets the offensive rebound and scores.

Yeah, I haven't seen any compilations, but it seems like if you are jumping in the air and your guy isn't the one taking the 3, then you are totally giving up positioning on a rebound. Given that Kornet is already a subpar rebounder - especially for his size - I'm not sure I buy the trade-off. Like, literally nobody else in the league does this. I can't imagine Luke Kornet is a revolutionary.

Scal explained this oddity a week or so ago in commentary…apparently due to his height when he jumps the shooter cannot see the rim because this hands cover it. I guess not being able to see the rim affects some shooters 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, given it allows the opposing big man to get a very easy box out on Kornet for the offensive rebound

But that's also the case if he closed out to the shooter? If he did close out, another player would have to rotate down anyway to help on the boards. This way requires less effort and keeps him by the rim to at least help out.

[gouki88]

Wood is a solid offensive player.  Just how bad is his defense?

Not any worse than the combination of Vonleh / Kornet / Griffin.

Kornet actually looks like a plus defender.  Thought that last year watching him and he's showing again.

you may be ready for a new pair of glasses if that's what you're seeing

I don’t think he’s wrong tbh.  I might stop short of plus but I think he’s fine as a defender.  He’s 7’2” and active with solid court awareness. 

His big weakness as a player is that his hands suck.  Makes him a poor rebounder and really restricts what we can do with him on offense.  For those reasons I’d rather not have him in the regular rotation but as a stopgap he’s passable imho.

Understanding that this is a really small sample size, I'm sure there are stats on hid defense.  I'm not an advanced stats guy but curious what they show.

It's really too early to tell anything, but so far Kornet is fourth worst in FG% differential (i.e., opponents' FG% vs. their FG% when divided by a certain player.)

The guys Kornet defends generally shoot 50.3%; they're shooting 52.8% against Kornet.  Again, though, it's pretty meaningless at this point.  Our four worst defenders:  Jackson, Griffin, Tatum, Smart.  Our best?  Horford.

Kornet is also our worst defender within 5-feet of the basket, giving up 82.4% shooting, by far the worst on the team.  But, that's on very few shot attempts, so again, it's pretty irrelevant.  Meanwhile, players have been shooting very poorly against Kornet on the perimeter (18.2% FG% allowed on 20 to 24 feet shots).

I mean, we know why this is right?  Jumping in the key on three pointers is definitely working if you ask me .

It totally works. I saw Kornet doing it in the G league last year and thought it was a good move. I think it's a different look.

It works- it makes players shoot lower percentages.  But I've also seen compilations of Kornet jumping into the air while his guy goes to the rim, gets the offensive rebound and scores.

Yeah, I haven't seen any compilations, but it seems like if you are jumping in the air and your guy isn't the one taking the 3, then you are totally giving up positioning on a rebound. Given that Kornet is already a subpar rebounder - especially for his size - I'm not sure I buy the trade-off. Like, literally nobody else in the league does this. I can't imagine Luke Kornet is a revolutionary.

Scal explained this oddity a week or so ago in commentary…apparently due to his height when he jumps the shooter cannot see the rim because this hands cover it. I guess not being able to see the rim affects some shooters 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, given it allows the opposing big man to get a very easy box out on Kornet for the offensive rebound

But that's also the case if he closed out to the shooter? If he did close out, another player would have to rotate down anyway to help on the boards. This way requires less effort and keeps him by the rim to at least help out.

The point being that closing out would likely be more effective.

[sgrogan]

With the recent loss of Primo, the Spurs could use another point guard sized dude that can shoot to develop with their young guys (see: Payton Pritchard). Their previously reported asking price Poeltl was 2 1sts, which is steep for an expiring player. But perhaps they would do Pritchard, 1 1st, and salary (Gallo would work? Kornet and Justin Jackson gets you pretty close I think).

Spotrac has Poeltl at $9.3M.  We have to send back at least about $7.5M.  Pritchard ($2.2M) and Gallinari ($6.4M) would cover it.  I would consider this unless the Celtics believe that Gallinari is going to be back for the end of the season/playoffs (I would rather have Gallinari in that case).  But I don't think Poeltl is going to make so much difference.  Once RWill is back, he is probably our 4th big.  A better 4th big than we have now for sure, but how much difference does the 4th big make?

One big difference would be not having to play Al big minutes.  That is going to be costly down the road.  Same to some extent for Rob when he returns.  Keeping him healthy is high priority,   Hate to lose PP - but that deal looks good to me.  BTW - has there been any suggestion that Gallinari could be back this season?

This type of trade looks easier because we have been healthy in the backcourt. Jaylen is already playing big minutes.
If/when Brogdon/Brown/Smart misses time Pritchard is going to have an opportunity.

That is of course true but the trade would be giving up some combo guard depth where we have excess for center depth where we have less depth and even more injury risk.  We can probably find another 3rd string combo guard easier than we can find depth at center.  That is the reason that this trade works for me.

I agree, and believe that the Brogdon trade was an (significant) upgrade overall. But we gave up big depth, thinking we could find a suitable replacement. We disagree how much Gallanari would have solved it, injury or not.

If we continue to make 2 steps forward 1 step back trades we are moving in the correct direction.

All we gave up from our big depth to get Brogdon was Theis.  And yes, I was fine with Gallinari replacing Theis.  Not a step back at all in my mind.  In fact just the opposite, a meaningful step forward.  Different players but overall, Gallinari is an improvement over Theis.

If the Celtics thought they could find a suitable replacement for Theis, they were right, they found Gallinari less than a week later if I remember the timeline correctly.  At that time, the prognosis for RWill was for him to be back to start the season. We were set.  Then Boom, Gallinari blows out his knee and they have to do more surgery on RWill''s knee.

So yeah, lose 2 of your top 4 bigs and your depth is going to take a hit.  Now we may need to trade some of the combo guard depth to address the depth at big.  It doesn't seem like they plan to do anything to address this right away.  We are winning.  And what they do to address this may change based on when RWill is actually back and how he looks.

There are videos of Gallanari saying if he's playing the 5 there are problems. He's averaged about 60 games a year over his career.
RWIII set a record last year for games played at 61. After missing the first playoff series, I believe for the rest of the playoffs he set a personal record for most games available in a row.
The need has been apparent for a long time.

Now, we are winning and playing great, offensively at least. We have two of the top seven players in mpg and Al is playing 31.5 mpg when he plays at 36 years old.

The only depth we lost in the Brogdon trade was Theis, but that's what we are talking about replacing.

I just don't think we can count on ignoring our players injury history, while still counting on last year's deadline deals to make us the top team in the second half.

Depth in the regular season is all about managing the team to be in the best position for the playoffs. Both seeding and health.

[Vermont Green]

With the recent loss of Primo, the Spurs could use another point guard sized dude that can shoot to develop with their young guys (see: Payton Pritchard). Their previously reported asking price Poeltl was 2 1sts, which is steep for an expiring player. But perhaps they would do Pritchard, 1 1st, and salary (Gallo would work? Kornet and Justin Jackson gets you pretty close I think).

Spotrac has Poeltl at $9.3M.  We have to send back at least about $7.5M.  Pritchard ($2.2M) and Gallinari ($6.4M) would cover it.  I would consider this unless the Celtics believe that Gallinari is going to be back for the end of the season/playoffs (I would rather have Gallinari in that case).  But I don't think Poeltl is going to make so much difference.  Once RWill is back, he is probably our 4th big.  A better 4th big than we have now for sure, but how much difference does the 4th big make?

One big difference would be not having to play Al big minutes.  That is going to be costly down the road.  Same to some extent for Rob when he returns.  Keeping him healthy is high priority,   Hate to lose PP - but that deal looks good to me.  BTW - has there been any suggestion that Gallinari could be back this season?

This type of trade looks easier because we have been healthy in the backcourt. Jaylen is already playing big minutes.
If/when Brogdon/Brown/Smart misses time Pritchard is going to have an opportunity.

That is of course true but the trade would be giving up some combo guard depth where we have excess for center depth where we have less depth and even more injury risk.  We can probably find another 3rd string combo guard easier than we can find depth at center.  That is the reason that this trade works for me.

I agree, and believe that the Brogdon trade was an (significant) upgrade overall. But we gave up big depth, thinking we could find a suitable replacement. We disagree how much Gallanari would have solved it, injury or not.

If we continue to make 2 steps forward 1 step back trades we are moving in the correct direction.

All we gave up from our big depth to get Brogdon was Theis.  And yes, I was fine with Gallinari replacing Theis.  Not a step back at all in my mind.  In fact just the opposite, a meaningful step forward.  Different players but overall, Gallinari is an improvement over Theis.

If the Celtics thought they could find a suitable replacement for Theis, they were right, they found Gallinari less than a week later if I remember the timeline correctly.  At that time, the prognosis for RWill was for him to be back to start the season. We were set.  Then Boom, Gallinari blows out his knee and they have to do more surgery on RWill''s knee.

So yeah, lose 2 of your top 4 bigs and your depth is going to take a hit.  Now we may need to trade some of the combo guard depth to address the depth at big.  It doesn't seem like they plan to do anything to address this right away.  We are winning.  And what they do to address this may change based on when RWill is actually back and how he looks.

There are videos of Gallanari saying if he's playing the 5 there are problems. He's averaged about 60 games a year over his career.
RWIII set a record last year for games played at 61. After missing the first playoff series, I believe for the rest of the playoffs he set a personal record for most games available in a row.
The need has been apparent for a long time.

Now, we are winning and playing great, offensively at least. We have two of the top seven players in mpg and Al is playing 31.5 mpg when he plays at 36 years old.

The only depth we lost in the Brogdon trade was Theis, but that's what we are talking about replacing.

I just don't think we can count on ignoring our players injury history, while still counting on last year's deadline deals to make us the top team in the second half.

Depth in the regular season is all about managing the team to be in the best position for the playoffs. Both seeding and health.

I am not sure what you are disagreeing with.  I started by saying we could trade Pritchard and Gallinari for Poeltl, to address our lack of depth at Center.  You then disagreed saying that you didn't want to trade Pritchard because if Brogdon or Smart get hurt, Pritchard would be useful, which is true.  Then you went back to arguing that we need to address our lack of depth at Center and PF because of injury risk, which is what I said in the first place.

That is exactly why I would be willing to include Pritchard in a trade for a serviceable big like Poeltl.  The risk with our bigs is higher than our risk with combo guards.  There is always risk.  Anyone can get hurt.  Some players have more injury history which leads to more risk.  Even with the acknowledged injury history of RWill and Gallinari, at the point we signed Gallinari, things looked pretty good for us.  Gallinari was just an injury risk, not out for the season and RWill was expected back for the start of the season.