the tanking team doesn’t care about saving 4 million.
they care about acquiring draft capital.
i don’t think they can get draft capital trading away McDermott, unless they take on a different overpaid guy such as Daniel Theis.
So they actually get off of some money as a bonus and acquire some draft capital to do so.
and I don’t think it’s insane to say his defense doesn’t matter. I need shooting. I don’t have a lot of assets available to acquire it. I certainly don’t have enough assets to acquire a shooter as good as McDermott, who’s also good defensively, because those guys make a lot more than McDermott makes and they’re not available.
Boston can absolutely play him in the playoffs in bench units, especially when Smart is on the floor, by having McDermott guard the corner and when the opponent tries to get him in the pick and roll action, and they certainly will, just preswitch and McDermott takes the guy going to the corner. Same way they did with IT, except this defensive weakness is a foot taller.
sometimes, with role players, you have to accept the weaknesses that come with their strengths. It’s just how it goes.