emunney wrote:
To be clear, I think our issues are team issues (below critical thresholds of interior defense and perimeter shooting) and I'm not putting them on MCW and Monroe (although who they are as players puts them at the center of that discussion). I actually think you're tacitly agreeing with my point when you argue that Monroe's value is an expiring contract and protected picks. That's significantly less value than was involved in the Knight trade. Is it because Knight is that much better than Monroe, or because the situation was more advantageous for a trade?
I would say it's mostly because BK was still on his rookie deal and would be an RFA in the offseason. I think it has more to do with that than how either player was perceived. Phx wanted to make the playoffs and was getting a stat stuffer having a borderline all-star year, albeit without a true position, for only about $1m for the remainder of the season. Then he would be an RFA in his prime who would likely be easy to retain for 5 years at a cost that wouldn't yet be inflated by the upcoming cap changes. Monroe comes at a much steeper cost this season and next, and then any team trading for him would have to worry about handing him a huge, post-cap-inflation contract when he's about 28 or so. That affects what assets teams are willing to give up.
By the same logic, I think MCW has quite a bit more value than people here are saying. He has 1.5 years left on his rookie deal. He will be a free agent post-inflation, but at least he will be a young RFA. His trade value wasn't the LAL pick when we got him, but I'd say he has more trade value now than he did then and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we could turn around and flip him for something only a little less valuable than what that Lakers pick was worth when it was traded last year. (It was less valuable then that it is now because there was always the possibility of LAL signing a couple good free agents and trading Randle and the #2 pick for vets, a possibility that no longer exists but which was very real at the time.)
He has one less year on his rookie deal, but has shown dramatic improvement in the past month at about the stage in his career when most successful players start improving. It's very similar to Knight's improvement and people will be just as surprised at his trade value if they move him this deadline as they were at Knight's. I remember last year when the bench was playing so well and the team looked great with Marshall at pg, and people argued that gm's throughout the league knew Knight was just a stat whore who was actually holding the team back and nobody would give much of value for him. It was never that simple, despite the fact that I had the same complaints about BK and MCW (and Monroe, for that matter).
Wut we've got here is... faaailure... to communakate.
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