Would I be angry/upset? No.
Would I be extremely disappointing? Yes. Because there appears to be deals out there that CAN be made that I feel would make the team singificantly better both now and in the future, and passing on those opportunities is IMO a mistake.
I haven't watched as much this year, but it's clear that the talent is a lot better than the record. So what needs to change?
Not really.
I mean, the top level talent is, sure. The trio of Kemba / Tatum / Brown when healthy is probably one of the top 5 trios in the NBA. The problem is that the average talent level for the other 12 or so roster spots is horrible.
* You have Smart who is a great defensive role player but also an offensive liability most the time.
* You have Timelord who has a lot of potential but is still a bit green and has had minutes limited by injury
* You have Pritchard who is a surprisingly savvy and steady player, but is ultimately still a rookie who needs time to grow
* You have Thompson who is a solid role player in that defender + rebounder role but ultimately very expendable
* You have Theis who can be a very nice player, but only seems to do it once every 5 games
So that's:
- Three excellent players
- 5 serviceable players (none of whom can score with any type of consistency)
- 9 guys who you could probably replace with some good D-Leaguers without noticing any obvious drop off
The roster is terrible and really only has 3 guys who are capable of consistently scoring. Standing pat and waiting won't help because few (if any) of those guys outside the top 3 have any obvious potential to become consistent scorers...
And the team is over the cap, so from this offseason onward they are going to have very limited capability to make significant additions unless they give up one of those top 3 guys.
Right now they have the TPE which gives them a rare moment of flexibility. Use it to bring in talent, and even if that talent doesn't move the needle at least it will provide additional assets that can be potentially used in the future to bring back talent that does. If that TPE doesn't get used and is allowed to just expire, then things are looking pretty bleak..