Post Food-Coma Jazz Presser

[Xist2Inspire]

Ugh. Worst part about Thanksgiving? Dragging yourself up to do the dishes on a full stomach and after a sugar high. No story this time, just a simple recap.

The plan after Kiki's departure was always to aim for a quick turnaround, but getting Ainge and Rambis sped up the timeline just a little bit, as exemplified by the hot start. We'd started to cool off a little before the injuries started rolling in, but that pretty much sealed our fate. We didn't make the playoffs, but I ended up feeling pretty good about our ability to compete and the overall trajectory of the franchise.

Unfortunately, our finish didn't put us at a draft spot I felt comfortable staying with, so I made a move to ensure that we'd be able to come away with Dennis Rodman. He's my favorite player, so drafting him was my #1 priority heading into the offseason. #2 was retaining Peter Verhoeven, but my unwillingness to commit long-term in order to keep future cap space open ended up costing us. Fortunately the money was good enough for Mike Sanders, who provides more of a scoring punch and better man-to-man defense...even if he's injured right now.

The West is the kind of conference where your finish is less about how good you are and more about how good your competition is, so even though I believe that we'll be in the mix, you can never really say for sure.

Questions?

[IamQuailman]

How big is losing Peter going to hurt your squad overall? Personally, I think your team is looking very good and may not miss a beat, especially with how well Kurt Rambis is playing. Note: I had already sent my bids in when I asked you about the S&T... FORGIVE ME

[Xist2Inspire]

How big is losing Peter going to hurt your squad overall? Personally, I think your team is looking very good and may not miss a beat, especially with how well Kurt Rambis is playing. Note: I had already sent my bids in when I asked you about the S&T... FORGIVE ME

Lol it's cool man. Peter wasn't a huge part of my plans. He was more of a luxury piece than anything, which is why I was comfortable giving him a fat "prove it" contract. While I have lost lineup flexibility and rebounding without him, the financial flexibility of not having him for four years could play dividends in terms of cap management. Signing Sanders for what I offered to Verhoeven brings an interesting wrinkle to the team, as he's both a quality scorer and a great man-to-man defender. That gives my team an added dimension, because we're mainly built to clean up the boards and work slowly for good shots, not play lockdown defense and score quickly.