1/12/2009 Woelfel: Conley deal waiting for Herb (poll added)

[Nowak008]

I haven't read the last 10 pages... but where has this we are getting a first talk coming from?

Baseless speculation.

Ok, that's what I thought. I believe Sparky and GAD said on the radio said they both heard that there might be a first involved.

[LISTEN2JAZZ]

If you messed up that badly in drafting the guy why should I blindly look the other way as you try use another young asset to fix your f**kup.

If that's how you feel, you fire the guy. You don't force him to "eat his cooking" at the expense of the team's long-term future. I wouldn't say that Kohl should have no veto power, but you can't handcuff the guy to his mistakes.

Kohl last year vetoed a trade where we would have sent out only three horrible contracts, and now this one. In the last half year then, trades featuring Simmons, Gadzuric, Bell, Alexander, Sessions have been nixed. That's all quite different than nixing Bogut or Redd deals.

[ReasonablySober]

Kohl has to realize he isn't a basketball man and stay out of all basketball decisions, or at least those that don't involve taking on significant long term dollars.

[aboveAverage]

I'm glad he nixed this one.

[LarryHarris]

Furthermore, I just want to say that I am against this trade. I am sick of the PG carousel, if this deal were for a PF, I would be fine with that, but there are an abundance of good PG out there and more come out every year. What we need is a serviceable PF. This Conley thing is a lateral move, nothing more, nothing less. Yet, you have a player in Sessions who Bucks fans seem to like and you have Joe Alexander, who is a project player that we won't really know about for 3/4 more years. I mean, I'd just hate to see us move him and then have him go on to being a success ala Dirk, not that he'll be as good as Dirk, but still, giving up on him now and packaging him unnecessarily in this deal seems unwise.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

It would be funny if we got a 30 page thread like we did with Landry only to have nothing happen.

Is it out of the realm of possibility for Kohl to say "Let Ramon and Joe play on last game in DC that I can personally attend and I'll decide for good after I watch them once more"

Interesting theory.

I haven't yet been able to find out if Kohl was in attendance tonight though.

I haven't read the last 10 pages... but where has this we are getting a first talk coming from?

Baseless speculation.

Not completely baseless.
There is good info regarding a draft pick going to us as part of this deal possibly. Exactly what kind of draft pick we are talking about is more up in the air and there hasn't been solid info about that as of yet that I'm aware of.

I have a hard time seeing this deal actually go down at this point, just as it was difficult for me to see the Landry trade happen when CV and Lue suited up and played in that game two weeks ago.

GAD, I know you think players play in these games all the time right before being dealt. I disagree. If a deal is "done" save for some paperwork, both teams race to finish the thing before either team has to play another game. You've got multi-million dollar assets and liabilities on the line here. Nobody on either side wants egg on their face with an injury or something else happening by putting the players on the court.

If this trade truly was only awaiting Kohl's sign-off, and Hammond and Memphis had agreed on it otherwise, it would have come down right before tonights game and Ramon and Alexander would have been held out. I'll be glad to be proven wrong if this thing does get announced tomorrow.

Trades are close to happening and end up falling apart before being finalized quite frequently in the NBA. Teams rarely if ever hold their players out before a deal is done. Otherwise, if/when the trade falls apart, they have to deal with telling that player or players that they were held out because they were going to be traded, but something fell apart and now they are stuck with each other.

If you don't hold them out, if the trade happens, it happens. If it doesn't, you get to tell that player that there was never any trade, don't believe everything you hear, of course we want you on our team, we weren't going to trade you, etc., etc.
You might never totally believe it, but it puts you in a different place mentally than being held out believing you'll never play for this team again and then playing for them the next day, etc.
Players have an easier time dealing with rumors and are conditioned to be skeptical of them, whereas if they are held out, they're already trying to figure out the logistics of finding a place to live in a new city and things like that.

Why do so many people think that if a deal is close that players will be held out from playing? Does anyone even have an example from the last 5 seasons?

We did not hold Bell, Simmons, and Gadz out of the lineup when we could have acquired Randolph from the Knicks pending Kohl's approval.

[Fight the Tank]

I don't want to trade JA after that super sweet after the shot clock expired dunk.

[emunney]

If you messed up that badly in drafting the guy why should I blindly look the other way as you try use another young asset to fix your f**kup.

Because that's what you hired him to do. If you think that you (Herb Kohl) are more qualified to make these decisions, then step up and make the decisions.

I think the biggest mistake you can make in managing a team is looking at a every individual move from the angle of "How are we going to sell this?" Kohl has hired a team of basketball men to run his team, now he's going to guide the reins? I'm not saying it's not his prerogative to do so -- he owns the team -- but I am saying that he should decide if the Bucks are an investment or a toy. If they're the former, then let the professionals work. If they're the latter, then stop pretending.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

If a deal is "done" save for some paperwork, both teams race to finish the thing before either team has to play another game.

They try, but are not always successful. Teams do not typically say, "well, we couldn't get this done before we both played again, I guess we have to forget about it then."

[steger_3434]

We won't know about JA for 3/4 more years? Christ, the guy would be 25-26 by that time.

[paulpressey25]

They try, but are not always successful. Teams do not typically say, "well, we couldn't get this done before we both played again, I guess we have to forget about it then."

I know what you are saying, but maybe we are differing on what we consider regarding a deal being "done" save for some paperwork. You are probably right on this, but I don't have a good feel that this deal goes down based on the fact we had the deal details basically running wild in the public for 48-hours and no resolution.

I suppose maybe there is some minor disagreement holding this up, but then that also just gives it a much greater chance of falling apart. Or maybe this is like the Randolph deal where both GM's verbally shook on it and then Kohl did truly step in and nix it. But I don't want to think about the possibility of Kohl playing GM again.

[Shoot it FatBoy]

We won't know about JA for 3/4 more years? Christ, the guy would be 25-26 by that time.

Everybody knows you don't really know what a player is like until they hit 30. DUH!

[Nowak008]

I think David Noel played better his rookie year then Potsie has. There I said it.

[LUKE23]

So GAD, is this deal going down or what?

[paulpressey25]

I think David Noel played better his rookie year then Potsie has. There I said it.

He (Noel) did have that 11pt/7 assist game that we won. I'm not sure how that stacks up against the 14 points Alexander accumulated during garbage time against the Lakers six-weeks ago.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

So GAD, is this deal going down or what?

I'm not sure.
The player agents involved seemed to think it was at least up until earlier tonight, but since about 7:30pm-ish people stopped saying ANYTHING about this trade and would just try and change the subject. Woelfel said on the radio that he wasn't sure what that seemed to indicate and I'm not sure either.

People might get carried away with this, but I have heard something to indicate that the final details of this trade were never going to be completed until after Memphis found out whether or not Joe Alexander was going to be in the dunk contest. Voting for that closes on January 15th. I'm not sure how soon after that they will have the final vote tally.

I am not sure what exactly would be affected, but my GUESS is that if Alexander IS in the dunk contest and becomes more marketable, Memphis will agree to more financial compensation to us in the form of cash and/or eating salary we don't want to pay, such as a Darko for Gadz swap or us including Malik Allen or Francisco Elson. That's just my guess based on me having a hard time believing that anything else in this deal could be subject to Alexander getting in the dunk contest or not.

[power4wardjinx]

rom Woelfel's "report": "I’ve been told both teams have virtually agreed on the conditions of the trade and only Bucks owner Herb Kohl had to give his stamp of approval. Bucks general manager John Hammond, reached in North Carolina where he was on a scouting trip, said it was his policy not to comment on any trade speculation."


Everybody still empoyed over there at Bucks central?

[oshmeehan]

I'm on the fence on this one, I guess it depends on what we'd be able to do this upcoming summer as far as who we can sign and who we may trade. As has been mentioned before, small forward is the easiest position to fill in the NBA and the Bucks could easily draft someone next year in the mid-late teens of the draft that has just as much or more potential as Alexander.

Regarding Ersan, if we trade Alexander then I think for sure we try bringing him back over this summer. Ersan showed a lot more in his rookie NBA season as a 19 year old than Alexander has as a 21/22 year old rookie. And that is not even mentioning how much Ersan has improved in his 2 seasons so far over in Spain. He's a much more confident and aggressive player than he was 2 years ago. And for those worried about the whole age thing, Ersan is actually 6 months younger than Alexander is and doesn't turn 22 until this May.

If the trade were made as it is mentioned (Sessions and Alexander for Conley) you'd have 10 guys under contract for the 09/10 season barring any other possible trades. I could see us resigning CV and this as our roster next season:

PG - Ridnour / Conley / Pargo (draft 2nd rd)
SG - Redd / DeRozan (draft 1st rd) / Bell
SF - Jefferson / Ilyasova
PF - Mbah a Moute / Villanueva / Allen
C - Bogut / Gadzuric / Elson

There would be some versatility at the SF/PF spot as CV, Luc, and Ersan can technically play both of those positions and DeRozan can play SF or SG. DeRozan has a chance at being a stud so you try to hit a homerun with him.

[beyond_the_arc]

One thing about Conley that alot of people haven't really kept in mind, myself included, is that he did only play 1 year of college ball, so could it be possible that he hampered his own potential with not getting more college experience, or does he have the potential, it's just going to take longer for him to really start coming around going from 1 year college to two years nba, idk just brainstorming.

More like he's the Dominic James who did come out after his freshman year and can't play at the NBA level.

[oshmeehan]

So GAD, is this deal going down or what?

I'm not sure.
The player agents involved seemed to think it was at least up until earlier tonight, but since about 7:30pm-ish people stopped saying ANYTHING about this trade and would just try and change the subject. Woelfel said on the radio that he wasn't sure what that seemed to indicate and I'm not sure either.

People might get carried away with this, but I have heard something to indicate that the final details of this trade were never going to be completed until after Memphis found out whether or not Joe Alexander was going to be in the dunk contest. Voting for that closes on January 15th. I'm not sure how soon after that they will have the final vote tally.

I am not sure what exactly would be affected, but my GUESS is that if Alexander IS in the dunk contest and becomes more marketable, Memphis will agree to more financial compensation to us in the form of cash and/or eating salary we don't want to pay, such as a Darko for Gadz swap or us including Malik Allen or Francisco Elson. That's just my guess based on me having a hard time believing that anything else in this deal could be subject to Alexander getting in the dunk contest or not.

They said during the telecast tonight that voting ends Wednesday and the winner will be announced on Thursday