dice wrote:and playing even worse defense. and being massively overpaid
i'll say it again: acquiring melo helps us in year 1 (only if done in S&T with boozer) and maybe year 2. after that he is a burden. so the only purpose of trading for him is to win a title quickly. and i don't think he even does that for us. year one is a tall order because derrick won't have played in the playoffs in FOUR YEARS. not to mention the chemistry that has to be built. the heat didn't even get that right in year one
let houston run the melo experiment. afflalo is a better trade option for us at one third of the price, and standing pat even has us in really good shape with mirotic and draft picks coming in
The $ amount of the contract isn't the only "price"--what about assets and the fact that assets used for AA would be for a 1 year rental; then you lose him for nothing or pay him more than he's getting now (which then is probably closer to 1/2 price on pure cap side). If AA is going to take 1-2 picks and potentially a useful player (ie Taj) then it is not 1/3 the price; it's a worse value all around. And I don't think it's a stretch to say Melo will be producing/generating more offense than AA in 3 years. It isn't like Afflalo's a spring chicken either--and he'd be declining from a much lower peak. It's very likely that Melo still gets you more offense (APM/xRAPM you name it) per dollar in 3 years looking at the aging curves.
AA still would need to improve on his historical team defense--which I fully believe he can--it's still not 100% for certain. Melo basically just needs to be Melo--we don't need much of a system or special situation for his skills to be fully workable. Melo also is not a Boozer/Amare level bad defender--there is really no data to suggest that either.
