Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
I do not think Jrue is a top 10 player in the league, don't be silly. At his absolute peak, he was top 20 (2017-18 and 2018-19), but this year he was more like top 40. Definitely not a superstar by any measure, but still very good.
What people tend not to understand is that players are often better or worse depending on circumstance. This was the first year for a couple of years where we had nobody other than Jrue who could reliably be trusted to create in the halfcourt, and that meant that on top of his already existing responsibilities (play all-league defense on the best players in the NBA, score 18+ a game, etc) he was also being asked to create for everyone else too in half court situations. That was clearly too much for him, at least at the beginning of the year, and he struggled. Nobody is denying that. But that's a product of circumstance as much as anything else.
For example, if you take the last year we made the playoffs, Jrue was top 10 in clutch time scoring in the NBA, and was the most efficient scorer in the clutch among those top 10 players in the NBA. Yes, better than AD and Lebron and Westbrook and whatnot. This is very strange for someone who is ''proven to choke in the clutch'', no? Might make you think that maybe he can be better than he was this year, when given a more suitable supporting cast and not asked to run the entire team himself. Do I think he's actually a top 10 clutch player? No, I think that year was an outlier based on a perfect storm, but it is demonstrative of more than you give him credit for when he's in the right situation.
Personally, I don't really see the need to move Jrue. But if I was forced to move him (let's say, hypothetically, he demanded a move) then I'd be talking to Denver and I'd be looking for Jamal Murray, Monte Morris, and their 2021+23 FRPs unprotected to start the negotiations. Obviously things can adjust from there, but that's 1 sub-all star young player who has shown flashes of upside but is inconsistent, a very good backup, and two FRPs from a playoff team. This is not some ridiculous top 10 trade haul, but it is what I expect a team to pay if they believe this trade will turn them into a true title contender.