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Basically, in my opinion if you let Mamu walk, you just end up signing someone else to play a similar role, it's a nothing burger.
It's about the roster spot for the picks and MLE/BAE.
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Letting Mamu walk doesn't open up new financial flexibility to markedly improve the team, and his roster spot if vacated is most likely to be filled by a rookie unlikely to contribute.
We have two firsts, a high second, the MLE, and BAE and five open roster spots. The 2nd would be probably similar to Mamu in role and pay, but would ideally have more upside. Could be Kalkbrenner or Raynaud.
It is about the roster spots. We are already financially flexible enough to be able to deal with guys like Barnes and Keldon coming off the bench, because our team is so rookie contract heavy. Barnes has one more year and Keldon has two.
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I'm not really arguing for Mamu as much as saying that his roster spot is unlikely to be filled by a contributor. The roster spots that could really help us improve the team are CP3s, Barnes, and Keldon because of the financial benefit to clearing them.
I think Barnes as an ending contract has some value, but his shooting is still needed. I don't think Keldon really has any value to any team except to us. Ideally, we can add people so that Keldon is used way less, Barnes is used slightly less, and we have younger, cost controlled players there that actually play defense and rebound.
Barnes clears anyway next year. Paul is already cleared. If we could use those salaries to bring in a Trey Murphy or Herb Jones, that is one thing, but I certainly don't see anything like that out there, because neither has all that much value. Barnes+Keldon for Zion since Dumars is taking over the Pelicans and supposedly wants him out? Not sure Joe is taking that one.
Financially, we aren't in a problem with the over paid players right now because of the team structure, and Barnes, Wesley, and Branham are all ending contracts. So they are a fine thing to have until we can find someone to do a deal for a forward such as the Fox deal where we traded a cap matching contracts and picks. But I honestly don't see much of a path to improve those slots without something weird coming up other than bringing in rookies and free agents and letting them expire off.
Y'all have a good night.
