If You Put Yourself In The FO's Shoes...
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 5:31 am
I've been seeing all kinds of talk here the past few weeks about the team's flaws and what should be done about them, and I feel like a lot of the talk about the latter has been somewhat impulsive and over-emotional. I'm not going to rip anybody for that, because at the end of the day, caring about the team that much is what this place is all about, but all the same, I thought it'd be good to try to take a more level-headed look at our flaws and why the FO might not being doing as much as some think they should to fix them.
First off, the idea of moving Taj for a wing...I was one of the board's biggest proponents of moving Taj for a wing in the summer and earlier in the season, but I've changed my position on that, for two reasons. The first is that I don't think there are any available wings left outside of Afflalo that would be worth Taj, and even then, this recent stretch has made me question the idea of moving Jimmy to the 3 more than I had before. Jeff Green had been my #1 Taj target, but he's gone now. The second reason is that given Noah's continued struggles, it just doesn't seem like it would be smart to move Taj and not get a big back right now. To do so would put undue pressure on an aging Gasol and a rookie Mirotic to produce at a high level for 32+mpg on a consistent basis next to Noah, with virtually no other dependable bigs outside of those three. If Noah was playing like Noah, yeah, but he's not, so, you have to adjust. Plus, to add a third reason, GarPax probably feels like after making the guy think he was going to finally be a starter and then pulling it out from under him, and after trying to use him to sell Melo, that they owe it to him to at least wait until the summer.
That brings me to Noah himself. I see a lot of people clamoring to trade Noah. This bothers me on several levels. On one level, the guy played his heart out for us the last couple of years without Derrick, he was our heart and soul, and he was a fan-favorite in a way that not many players ever are, and yet, a lot of you are so quickly ready to just wash your hands of him after only a half-season of poor play. It's very 'what have you done for me lately?' I get that he hasn't been good, but I feel like people are getting on him on a personal level, and the reality is that it's not his fault that his knee got messed up, it's not his fault that a marquee FA signing forced him into playing most of his minutes this season at a position where he's never played any significant minutes in his career next to a player he's never played with before. He's not playing well and it's, of course, duh, absolutely fine, to discuss that and be frustrated with it, it's the whole point of these forums, but there's no reason to hate on the guy when he's given the team so much of himself. I mean, imagine how frustrated he must be with the way his season's been going.
All that said, the other level it bothers me on is that you can't simultaneously say 'he's no good anymore' and 'let's trade him for a good wing'. His trade value is arguably at an all-time low, and I just think it's unrealistic to think that, given his play this season, his injury that our FO still won't reveal, and his 13M price tag, anyone is going to give us anything that would make the deal worthwhile, that would make us a better team now or in the future. There's a legitimate angle for wanting to trade Noah, which is that if the FO has any doubts about paying him in 2016, then they need to get something for him if possible rather than let him walk for nothing, but even if that's the road we're going down, we've got to wait for him to bounce back a little and have some value on the trade market again. And I do believe he will get back to being a productive, positive player, even if it's not this season.
We can keep going down the list, and there are legitimate reasons not to trade nearly every player we have.
Mirotic probably has one of the highest trade values on the team atm, but he's young, playing very well for a rookie, oozing with potential, only making mle money, and locked up for two more seasons after this one. You can't just trade that for a mid-season replacement. It would have to be something legit and long-term, and I have no idea what that would be at this point.
MDJ is probably the most mentioned name in trade proposals for a wing, and it's usually in tandem with Snell. The problem is that if you you trade MDJ for a wing, you probably upgrade your starting lineup, but you don't do anything to address your wing depth situation - in fact, if it's both MDJ and Snell going out, the wing depth situation probably gets worse. You might be starting Jimmy and Wilson Chandler or Jimmy and Afflalo or Jimmy and Kevin Martin or Jimmy and whoever, but your wing depth will be reduced to Hinrich and McDermott(when he gets back)(unless Thibs relents and plays Mirotic at the 3), which means Jimmy probably would still be playing 38+mpg. You really want to rely on those two as your only wings off the bench in the playoffs? We'd probably have to hope we could strike gold on the post-deadline buyout heap to get some wing depth, or that McDermott comes back and all of a sudden figures it all out and becomes a key rotation player. And I know Ray Allen is a name that comes up a lot, but the last we heard was that he was leaning towards retirement, so I wouldn't be counting on him walking through the door.
McDermott himself might be an interesting trade piece because of potential, but that's all anybody would be trading for atm, because his actual production hasn't been good so far. I really don't know how much trade value he'd have, and after essentially using two firsts and a second and dumping Greg Smith to get him, I doubt the FO wants to give up on him yet.
Hinrich is another guy that a lot of people want to see gone, but I mean...our FO is uber-loyal to him, he has veto power this season, and he has little trade value. The likelihood of him getting traded is so slim as to not even be worth discussing, imo.
And Aaron Brooks is on a minimum salary and so couldn't bring back much on his own anyway.
I haven't mentioned Rose, Jimmy, or Gasol, because Rose is Rose(and I remain confident he can still be that guy, because I feel like right now the excessive three-point shooting is the only big thing in the way), all signs point to the FO maxing Jimmy out, and Gasol is not getting traded after he just took less to come here to try to win a championship - it would send all kinds of terrible signals to future potential FAs.
My point with all of this is that, if you put yourself in GarPax's shoes, they're in a tough spot. Noah's struggles have made trading him or Taj prohibitive, and moving the MDJ+Snell combo to upgrade our starting SF will leave us with even bigger wing depth issues than we have now. It's like no matter what move they make, there will be new holes, new flaws.
The most realistic trade scenario is the MDJ/Snell thing, and I feel like if that happens, Mirotic is going to have to play SF.
And yes, we may need to make an adjustment with Noah, at least just for the rest of this season if things don't change - if not coming off the bench, maybe Bogans-ing him so that most of his minutes come as the backup C. If we do that, trade for a wing like Chandler, and play Mirotic at the 3, we could have something like this:
Gasol(32)/Noah(16)
Noah(9)/Taj(30)/Mirotic(9)
Chandler(25)/Mirotic(15)/McDermott(8)
Jimmy(36)/Chandler(12)
Rose(32)/Brooks(16)/Hinrich
I feel like that's one of the more realistic things I can come up with atm, and it's basically a combination of a small-ish trade and some coaching adjustments on Thibs' part.
That's it, really. My main point is that if you look at things objectively, one can sympathize with the front office's position right now and see that there are problems with trading anybody given the roster's current construction. I'm not saying we shouldn't make any moves before the deadline, I'm just saying, I can understand why they might not given the totality of the circumstances.
First off, the idea of moving Taj for a wing...I was one of the board's biggest proponents of moving Taj for a wing in the summer and earlier in the season, but I've changed my position on that, for two reasons. The first is that I don't think there are any available wings left outside of Afflalo that would be worth Taj, and even then, this recent stretch has made me question the idea of moving Jimmy to the 3 more than I had before. Jeff Green had been my #1 Taj target, but he's gone now. The second reason is that given Noah's continued struggles, it just doesn't seem like it would be smart to move Taj and not get a big back right now. To do so would put undue pressure on an aging Gasol and a rookie Mirotic to produce at a high level for 32+mpg on a consistent basis next to Noah, with virtually no other dependable bigs outside of those three. If Noah was playing like Noah, yeah, but he's not, so, you have to adjust. Plus, to add a third reason, GarPax probably feels like after making the guy think he was going to finally be a starter and then pulling it out from under him, and after trying to use him to sell Melo, that they owe it to him to at least wait until the summer.
That brings me to Noah himself. I see a lot of people clamoring to trade Noah. This bothers me on several levels. On one level, the guy played his heart out for us the last couple of years without Derrick, he was our heart and soul, and he was a fan-favorite in a way that not many players ever are, and yet, a lot of you are so quickly ready to just wash your hands of him after only a half-season of poor play. It's very 'what have you done for me lately?' I get that he hasn't been good, but I feel like people are getting on him on a personal level, and the reality is that it's not his fault that his knee got messed up, it's not his fault that a marquee FA signing forced him into playing most of his minutes this season at a position where he's never played any significant minutes in his career next to a player he's never played with before. He's not playing well and it's, of course, duh, absolutely fine, to discuss that and be frustrated with it, it's the whole point of these forums, but there's no reason to hate on the guy when he's given the team so much of himself. I mean, imagine how frustrated he must be with the way his season's been going.
All that said, the other level it bothers me on is that you can't simultaneously say 'he's no good anymore' and 'let's trade him for a good wing'. His trade value is arguably at an all-time low, and I just think it's unrealistic to think that, given his play this season, his injury that our FO still won't reveal, and his 13M price tag, anyone is going to give us anything that would make the deal worthwhile, that would make us a better team now or in the future. There's a legitimate angle for wanting to trade Noah, which is that if the FO has any doubts about paying him in 2016, then they need to get something for him if possible rather than let him walk for nothing, but even if that's the road we're going down, we've got to wait for him to bounce back a little and have some value on the trade market again. And I do believe he will get back to being a productive, positive player, even if it's not this season.
We can keep going down the list, and there are legitimate reasons not to trade nearly every player we have.
Mirotic probably has one of the highest trade values on the team atm, but he's young, playing very well for a rookie, oozing with potential, only making mle money, and locked up for two more seasons after this one. You can't just trade that for a mid-season replacement. It would have to be something legit and long-term, and I have no idea what that would be at this point.
MDJ is probably the most mentioned name in trade proposals for a wing, and it's usually in tandem with Snell. The problem is that if you you trade MDJ for a wing, you probably upgrade your starting lineup, but you don't do anything to address your wing depth situation - in fact, if it's both MDJ and Snell going out, the wing depth situation probably gets worse. You might be starting Jimmy and Wilson Chandler or Jimmy and Afflalo or Jimmy and Kevin Martin or Jimmy and whoever, but your wing depth will be reduced to Hinrich and McDermott(when he gets back)(unless Thibs relents and plays Mirotic at the 3), which means Jimmy probably would still be playing 38+mpg. You really want to rely on those two as your only wings off the bench in the playoffs? We'd probably have to hope we could strike gold on the post-deadline buyout heap to get some wing depth, or that McDermott comes back and all of a sudden figures it all out and becomes a key rotation player. And I know Ray Allen is a name that comes up a lot, but the last we heard was that he was leaning towards retirement, so I wouldn't be counting on him walking through the door.
McDermott himself might be an interesting trade piece because of potential, but that's all anybody would be trading for atm, because his actual production hasn't been good so far. I really don't know how much trade value he'd have, and after essentially using two firsts and a second and dumping Greg Smith to get him, I doubt the FO wants to give up on him yet.
Hinrich is another guy that a lot of people want to see gone, but I mean...our FO is uber-loyal to him, he has veto power this season, and he has little trade value. The likelihood of him getting traded is so slim as to not even be worth discussing, imo.
And Aaron Brooks is on a minimum salary and so couldn't bring back much on his own anyway.
I haven't mentioned Rose, Jimmy, or Gasol, because Rose is Rose(and I remain confident he can still be that guy, because I feel like right now the excessive three-point shooting is the only big thing in the way), all signs point to the FO maxing Jimmy out, and Gasol is not getting traded after he just took less to come here to try to win a championship - it would send all kinds of terrible signals to future potential FAs.
My point with all of this is that, if you put yourself in GarPax's shoes, they're in a tough spot. Noah's struggles have made trading him or Taj prohibitive, and moving the MDJ+Snell combo to upgrade our starting SF will leave us with even bigger wing depth issues than we have now. It's like no matter what move they make, there will be new holes, new flaws.
The most realistic trade scenario is the MDJ/Snell thing, and I feel like if that happens, Mirotic is going to have to play SF.
And yes, we may need to make an adjustment with Noah, at least just for the rest of this season if things don't change - if not coming off the bench, maybe Bogans-ing him so that most of his minutes come as the backup C. If we do that, trade for a wing like Chandler, and play Mirotic at the 3, we could have something like this:
Gasol(32)/Noah(16)
Noah(9)/Taj(30)/Mirotic(9)
Chandler(25)/Mirotic(15)/McDermott(8)
Jimmy(36)/Chandler(12)
Rose(32)/Brooks(16)/Hinrich
I feel like that's one of the more realistic things I can come up with atm, and it's basically a combination of a small-ish trade and some coaching adjustments on Thibs' part.
That's it, really. My main point is that if you look at things objectively, one can sympathize with the front office's position right now and see that there are problems with trading anybody given the roster's current construction. I'm not saying we shouldn't make any moves before the deadline, I'm just saying, I can understand why they might not given the totality of the circumstances.