so it's Crowder, Lee (for salary matching) and Boston #1 for Love? I don't get the idea behind hesitating on this offer especially since we're not giving up a fortune by any means.
Everyone on this team is a role player. period. Love is a starter-quality player. talent upgrade is what we need on the whole roster and this deal offers that. it does leave us then at SF and increases the PF logjam but make the deal and figure out roster balancing this offseason or by making another trade.
Imagine if we not only got Love but also somehow got Kyrie Irving, too. What a talent upgrade! Imagine how good a team led by the duo of Irving and Love could be, wow. Surround them with nice role players, and the sky's the limit. I wonder what that team's record and chance of winning the title would be. Oh wait, man, imagine if you could also somehow then acquire LeBron James...we'd be exactly where the Cavs are now...underdogs against the Warriors or Spurs, and thinking about trading Love. "Talent" alone is not going to win a championship. It has to be effective together. Effectiveness > talent. To be effective enough to compete with Golden State or San Antonio in a series, you need defense, shooting, and depth. We have those three things. Our defense is second only to the Spurs. We need an upgrade there in order to be the best. Love would be an overall downgrade on defense, even with the upgrade in rebounding. Our shooting is pretty good, but we need an upgrade there. Love would not be a shooting upgrade over Crowder who'd be gone or Olynyk who'd sit behind Love. Our depth is already great, trading Crowder for Love would downgrade our depth by hollowing out our SF position. Aside from the upgrade in brandname power, i.e., "talent", how would Love actually upgrade the C's in a way that matters?
Fit and chemistry alone doesn't win championships, either. We need a talent upgrade.
I'm not talking about airy intangibles like "fit and chemistry", though. I'm talking about defense, shooting, and depth. Trading Crowder for Love would be a downgrade for two out of those things and a lateral move for the other.
Our defense in particular would be crippled, because instead of having everything in place
except a plus-defender at C to take our defense from 2nd to 1st in the league, we'd be
removing a plus-defender at SF,
still in need of a plus-defender at center, and
now using a subpar defender at PF. Instead of becoming stronger on defense at one position, we'd become weaker on defense at two positions. That's a three-position swing downward.
We have the second best defense in the NBA. Premier defense can be a championship-level calling card in the near future if we
add to it. We need a talent upgrade? Sure. But not just
any kind of talent at
any position. We need to at the very least
maintain the defensive advantage we have over the majority of the league as we add talent and offense, and hopefully increase that advantage to the point where the offensive playing field is leveled out enough to hang with the Warriors in a series.