Not sure it is a good idea to waste a year of Blake's prime essentially hoping on something that might not be very realistic. If the team didn't want DJ they would have been better off making a preemptive trade during the season last season and getting some players they believe will help...of course that would have been a hard one to sell.MartinToVaught wrote:og15 wrote:MartinToVaught wrote:That's the thing: I was against ever giving him the money in the first place. I was hoping we'd let him walk because I knew he'd never be worth it. Unfortunately, this franchise is so married to a team that's never getting past the second round of the playoffs that they begged him to come back in pathetic fashion.
The team had little choice though, it was DJ or some minimum contract big man like the still recovering from injury McGee. Since there was no sign and trade happening, and his money was not free cap space that would not be freed up, there wasn't a plethora of options.
If they wanted to move him, then they would have had to be more proactive in doing so a bit earlier than free agency time, and that would have been a bit interesting to do.
There was a choice, though. We could have taken the short-term pain this season - this season is shaping up to be a huge disappointment anyway with DJ - and had cap flexibility going forward to balance out the roster or attract a star.
We now have three huge contracts invested in a team that is going nowhere. And as expected, DJ has had nowhere near a max-player impact. I'd honestly rather have Tyson Chandler this year. He's dominating the boards for the Suns so far this year, protecting the rim better than DJ, and is doing it at a cheaper price.
While the idea of waiting for this extra superstar seems somewhat logical, it might not really be that way, and you could just end being like all those teams with cap space and nothing to show for it after the off-season. Cap space is great and all, but cap space still has the limitations of players wanting to come to your team. The problem is that these supersstars the team would be trying to attract would have options, and as nice as Blake and CP are as a combo to join, they could find better options than a Clippers team with depth that's all over the place, no C, and a front office that has not been impressive.
The only real superstar that is coming up is Durant, we all know Lebron is not really going to be available, and maybe you are falling into the false hope that he would want to come to the Clippers, but he's already on a pretty good team, and the Clippers don't really make more sense for him than other options if we're being realistic. Of course everyone always sells their team as the best fit. It's similar to when Lebron was first a free agent, and some Clippers fans fell into the trap of the false hope that he would actually come to the team.
DJ is outproducing Chandler in everything but FT% which is expected. Rim protecting, I can't comment on, that's harder to address simply. I don't have much of an issue with Chandler, but he's also 33, and the Clippers don't have a great recent track record with acquiring older players. DJ never gets injured, and considering Doc never plays his backup C's, if the team had Chandler and he got injured, Doc would probably start Josh Smith at C. That's a scary thought...
Chandler is signed for $13 million/year until he's 36 years old. DJ this season is making $6.5 million/year more, yes, but he's 5 years younger also.
I believe we had some discussions about the whole situation of DJ leaving when that seemed like the reality. It wasn't a death sentence, but with how the salary cap was, it wasn't really a situation where the Clippers would now have money to sign a max player just like that. I believe when we examined it, the sort of more realistic best case realistic scenario if looking for a sort of "star" like player was something like trying to convince Al Horford to come here to play C, but even that didn't make much sense considering the Hawks are quite good.
I have no issues with Horford, but is that what you're going to sell Blake on? Wasting a year so you can get Al Horford at C making the same amount as DJ? I believe the other options was to try and get two players, a C and a SF, and again, of course we have to be realistic as to who the team can actually get, and it would end up being like Roy Hibbert or Pau Gasol if he didn't pick up his option at C as the big man options, and best case scenario, getting that guy at a price that then allows you to also convince and get Nicolas Batum at SF. If not Batum, your secondary options are Luol Deng and Jeff Green.
Guys like Drummond and Beal are restricted, they are out. There's the option of trying to fight Miami for Whiteside, but I'm not sure how Doc who Whiteside said supposedly didn't give him a chance (whether true or not) will convince him to come here as opposed to stay where he's gotten comfortable and has a nice role.
Cap space always sounds great until we look more in depth.
I know as fans we love the idea of possibility, and people love to just think cap space = unlimited possibilities, but I think it is a good idea to always look at what that cap space can actually get you.
Now let's say you don't get even any of the secondary guys you want, maybe because you're aimlessly going after a Durant, then now in order to be competitive, you're either giving bigger contracts than you should to just decent guys, or you're now wasting TWO seasons of Blake's prime and telling him to wait until the next year again when this time you'll make good with the cap space.
I don't even know what players are available then.
