Which 2017 line up do you prefer? -Love or Barnes at PF?

[Csfan1984]

First I still say its the wrong deal if you listen to Cavs media it's AB and Crowder or Smart and Crowder as the main pieces of interest not IT. Cavs need wing defenders and the ability to go small ball and match up with Warriors. Irving, AB, Crowder, LeBron, and Thompson would be a very good small ball lineup to take on Warriors.

Second Barnes can not play PF even playing small ball.

[MikeJelly]

I'd like to see Smart start, but at the 2

[greece66]

I'm starting to wonder what Danny prefers. To get Love we are basically going to have to give up Crowder and probably IT.
Harrison Barnes is one of Danny's faves and If GSW let's him walk I have no doubt he'll be a Celtic. If that's the case, then what line up do you prefer. Or should I say, what line up gets us closer to a championship?

Option 1: trade for Love sending out Crowder and IT, then trying to sign Barnes at SF with Love here.
Or
Option 2: keep IT and Crowder and sign Barnes at PF this off season.
Which is the better squad?
Why?

IT
Bradley
Crowder
Barnes
Amir

Smart
KO
Brooklyn pick
Celtics pick
Dallas pick
Hunter, Rozier, Mickey, Young

Or

Smart
Bradley
Barnes
Love
Amir

Olynyk
Brooklyn pick
Celtics pick
Dallas pick
Rozier
Hunter
Mickey
Young

Thoughts?

TP for the post altho I mostly disagree.

I already wrote it elsewhere: altho the Cavs seem to have gone bananas lately, I don't think they ll let Love go any time soon.

Per Barnes, he has a two year (and very cheap) contract. GSW would have to trade him but

i/ he is a good fit at a great price so why would they do that?

ii/one wonders what they would ask in return (I do not think we would like it- since Barnes is a good player in a contender  and gets plenty of media attention, he should come with a high price tag attached).

Ofc I would love to give away a part of the ****storm of picks + some of our young talents to get Barnes and if what we are talking about is sthg like our pick + Dallas pick +Sully + RJ Hunter or sthg similar, I would love to see this happen.

Having said this, and since we are talking here of a potential member of the 50-40-90 club I suspect GSW would simply hang up the phone.

PS I read the squads you suggest, but I think it is highly unlike we trade for two players of this caliber in the same season. We would have to give up a lot of our assets (yes, yes, Brooklyn pick included, Smart and Kelly too). After all, why do this with the HUGE 2016 FA coming soon?

Anyway, assuming it is possible, I would obviously go for the line up with Love and Barnes (altho -since we are in the hypotheticals here- I would trade Bradley for a real PG and move Smart to the 2).

Hi greece, hope you're well buddy.
Read this one by Lowe on Barnes. Explains GSW's dilemma about giving him the max.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/harrison-barnes-2016-extension-free-agent/

I actually wouldn't mind Smart at pg because I think he's better with the ball in his hands and putting Bradley next to him would give us that pitbull D infront of Love even after Crowder is gone.

Question is always gonna be: can barnes be a #2 option in a championship team?

Im fine, thx for asking  - what about yourself?

Thx for the Lowe article, it's really good as always. When reading GSW's contracts I had not realized that the value written for Barnes for  2016-17 is a qualifying offer - my bad.

In this case, our best chance of getting him will be in the summer Free Agency offering him the max. He sure is worth it. But ofc he will have plenty of other choices and GSW can always match the offer- I'm not extremely optimistic about him coming to Boston. The good news however is, that with so many good free agents around this summer, we will most probably be able to snatch a couple of good ones. Maybe not the stars our fans dream of, but solid players that will help us a lot.

Now, for Barnes being option 2 in a contender: I think he can develop into that sort of player. Going back to your Love+Barnes scenario this would solve lots of our problems: first and foremost the 3pt%;  rebounding (Love is not great there but averages 12.8 rebounds per 36 mins).

Again, I'm not very much into this speculative (and very unlikely) scenarios, but if this ever happened I would be most worried about our rim protection. Amir is mediocre and Love is rather bad at D. They together average less than 3 blocks per 36 mins lol (Amir 1.7 and Love 0.5). This would be a serious liability.

As for Smart playing PG, yes he can do it, but not for a contender IMO. I mean, I can see that it will be good for his development to assume this kind of responsibility and (provided his ball handling and shooting improves) he could become a good PG for a contender in a few years from now.

Having said all this, I do think Smart would rather model himself offensively as a very strong SG a la DWade. Altho he can improve, I doubt he' ll ever become a great pull up 3p shooter or dribbler (and both are necessary to be a top PG these days IMO); but he is strong enough to play close to the basket and if he starts doing the catch and shoot well, then we'll be talking 

All in all, I think the line-up you give would make for a very good team that could compete for a top 2-3 seed in the East, but would not really be a contender (kind of a Hawks last season thing).

As for the first line-up (IT, Bradley, Crowder, Barnes, Amir) it would be a great collection of talents approaching their peak age. Change Amir with a younger and better Center and this team could become very strong after a couple of seasons.

[Celtic Fan Forever]

IT and Crowder is a massive overpay for Love. Not a chance I'd be ok with giving up both for someone who's that much of a liability on defense.

[CroCorvus]

IT and Crowder is a massive overpay for Love. Not a chance I'd be ok with giving up both for someone who's that much of a liability on defense.

Agree. If we gonna do this I would be fine with only one of them + Lee as a filler and a pick or two (not BKN's).

[BudweiserCeltic]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

[greece66]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

[Celts Fan 508]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

Lol, TP. 

I would do that trade for Love and sign Barnes to the max, absolutely makes us better.

[strokeracevt]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

I agree even if the salaries were the same. But given KL's huge paycheck, no way! Love is a joke as a defender.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

If you're content with paying $22 million per year for 3 years after this one for a toxic locker room presence, who plays zero defense, and not really efficient even while playing alongside LeBron and Irving (for all his offensive accolades), then have at it.

[Monkhouse]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

If you're content with paying $22 million per year for 3 years after this one for a toxic locker room presence, who plays zero defense, and not really efficient even while playing alongside LeBron and Irving (for all his offensive accolades), then have at it.

I agree Love is a toxic player, but I don't know why people keep assuming if you get maxed out, that you're indubitably considered the locker room leader. Some players have that competitive fire,, and some don't.

I would certainly max out Carmelo Anthony, but I certainly wouldn't make him the focal point of the locker room, or the leader of the ball club. He just doesn't have that intensity or inner fire to will his teammates.

I believe Smart can be like a Draymond Green type of player, stacking up the box scores, intangibles, and locker room presence with fierce leadership.

Even the numbers Kevin Love aren't putting aren't that impressive, their still good. He may be overpaid, but with the cap rising, is it that big of a deal? You try to see if he can bounce back offensively, which I believe he can especially in Brad Steven's system, (offensive scoring, rebounding, and floor spacing big.)

To answer the original question, Love over Barnes any day.

Barnes still doesn't have that fluid ball handling, and while he is the prototypical player that can switch on 3's, and guard 4's in a small ball line up, I'm just not that interested with him. I've seen a few GSW games, and Barnes still seems like he lacks the same exact fundamentals that we were questioning of him last year.

Can he be a second option or even a go to scorer? No one can answer that, because he hasn't been put in that position yet, so I don't know.

I think if we could secure Love for a few picks, Bradley, maybe Amir Johnson, and some possible smart 3 way trades that could benefit all teams, we would manage to scrounge Love away without giving up Crowder or IT.

I wouldn't mind moving Smart to the 2, or starting IT alongside Smart in a lineup consisting of:

Smart/IT
IT/Smart
Crowder
Love
FA

I think we could be able to pry away Asik from NO on the cheap.

Bring back Paul Pierce?

This would've been far better than the lineup that Ainge once tried to sell Love on.

[greece66]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

If you're content with paying $22 million per year for 3 years after this one for a toxic locker room presence, who plays zero defense, and not really efficient even while playing alongside LeBron and Irving (for all his offensive accolades), then have at it.

It's p obvious he is being misused at Cleveland.

[Sketch5]

Honestly I'm not sure I give up Crowder straight up for Love, let alone him and Thomas.

If you're content with paying $22 million per year for 3 years after this one for a toxic locker room presence, who plays zero defense, and not really efficient even while playing alongside LeBron and Irving (for all his offensive accolades), then have at it.

I'm not sure why people are labeling him being toxic. Yeah he wanted out of Minni, but who wouldn't, they couldn't do squat to build a team around him. Lebron calls him out right off the bat.

This year He calls out the team. Starting with Lebron and for good reason. Look at the videos on youtube of Lebron throwing Blatt under the bus. The guy plays near Zero D, same with Irving. There were times Love was playing actual D, but Lebron is just standing around. Same on offense. Lebron does all this crap, plays poor D and stands around, with out any hustle and you don't want a guy to say crap about it. Keep his mouth shut and if he does he's a bad locker room guy.

Now Love isn't my #1 choice,and I wouldn't give the farm for him. But I do think a better team defense system would help him. Remember Allen, wasn't the best on D, but had KG and PP to help out. Love is a big upgrade to Sully, who has the same skill sets, but that weight scares me a bit. You put Love on this team, with IT or an other scorer if DA ships him out, and A Durant and or Hartford makes a good hard look at this team. They see what Steven can get out of a bunch of high end roll players, they might be curious what he can do with some legit talent.

[wdleehi]

Get Love without a draft pick?  Sure. 


Love, Barnes and the Net 1st round pick sounds like a great start along with Smart and AB. 



With that said, I don't think IT is the piece Cleveland is going to want.  They already have the scoring PG and a scoring PG off the bench. 

[chambers]

Since when is Love 'toxic'? Lol.