Mcguire, Jtrbo, gallen, taumololo, de belin, Klemmer. That's 6 locks right having a better 2017 so far then Sam. All have a similar workloads but are having far greater impacts for their nba team.
The question of who to replace Sam is tricky. If you get rid of Sam can you get rid of the twins as well. In that hypothetical there's. So much you can do. To replace Sam I'd go for Bukuya. Hard, experienced, always performs. He is back up to gallen and even though gallen is great, they don't miss a beat when bukuya fills in. Now it may sound crazy so far, Bukuya is no where near as good as sam and you're right, but it also gives us way more options as bukuya could be had at a fraction of the price. With George gone and Graham seemingly on his way out at the doggies you'd go for a straight swap. That leaves Tom. So many props would be on a comparable wage to Tom. Guys like Blair or Packer who could be forced out of the dragons with so many players getting upgrades recently. I'd try packer. That leaves a bit left over from Sams huge wage to pick up 1 more player. It wouldn't be enough to get a starter put you could pick up a decent middle forward who isn't getting much game time right now. Maybe a paasi or a kane evans.
Now this is pure fantasy and there's no way you'd get those 4 because negotiations are tricky and you never know what players want. But it shows the possibilities of what could happen if we took off our 'burgess is the only way' glasses. You'd replace 3 good players with 4. And because those 4 players aren't connected they don't have an influence. When 1 is performing badly it won't effect the others. With the burgii when 1 has a bad game, especially with the twins, the other seem to perform under par to. You can't drop, threaten to sack etc one burgii without affecting the other. None of the 4 i mentioned are as good as sam (although I'd argue Graham is) but that pack would be better then our burgii fillled pack.
Packer- Go forward and agression
Farah- hooker
Graham- does everything
Chricton- so much promise
Turner- Hard Worker
Bukuya- Solid middle presence
Sutton- A great bench utility
Clark- solid replacement
Musgrove- young goer 1
Evans- young goer 2.