Outside of Pat Bev, who brings it nightly

….unfortunately “nightly” for Pat Bev is more like “nightly for a week before he gets injured again.”

On a related note, I don’t think anyone reasonable here is really expecting us to land a “playmaking PG” anymore, but you bring up a good point about effort and age. Even though Mann isn’t a defensive stopper and makes some mental mistakes, he’s one of the few guys on the team who’s young and spry enough (and who’s actually playable) to give it his all every night. The FO mostly whiffing in the draft (outside of Mann, obviously) contributes to the current struggles too – how much livelier would our guard rotation look night-to-night if we had Theo Maledon and Mann giving 110% every night and giving Bev/Lou/Reggie some rest? Or hell, Maledon/Mann might’ve enabled the FO to trade for another position of need.

It feels like the FO hit it out of the park w/ the big moves (i.e. Kawhi, PG13, Bev), but has largely whiffed on the smaller transactions (i.e. Fi, Oturu, 2Pat), which is why we’re kind of stuck at “inconsistent contender” level. To be fair the Lakers have whiffed around the margins too (re: Marc Gasol), but LeBron covers up a lot of warts.