skones wrote:emunney wrote:Well, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. First Pau dragged the role players to 50 wins, then he couldn't possibly win 23 games without them. Are the role players important or not?
The Lakers were 42-40 the year before they traded for Gasol, but they were 30-16 when they traded for him. You tell me if their improvement didn't also have a lot to do with ditching Smush Parker. Obviously Pau made them better, don't pretend like I'm saying Pau Gasol wasn't an outstanding player.
And by the way, separately, everybody thought that deal was *absurd* at the time, people wanted the league to void it. So even if you agree Pau was a superstar, using it as an example of a typical deal is disingenuous.
Nah, I'm not talking out of both sides of my mouth at all. Gasol was the centerpiece of that team, it wasn't a secret, and you know that. You're pretending to be offended by the semantics of it with the word "drag." It's pedantic. The one who's being disingenuous here is you, acting as if A) Roster turnover doesn't play a substantial role here and B) building a straw man and implying that I'm somehow saying role players are important (hint: I'm not, you also know that). A very good player with a fine collection of role players and that player will elevate the play of those around him. Without that very good player, that team is floundering. That's how the NBA works. Gasol was that guy.
Let me be frank, I said, Gasol dragged those Memphis teams. You countered with Battier dragged them. I'm pretty comfortable with which side I'm on here.
I was half joking about Battier dragging Gasol, thus 'if anything'. I don't believe either of them dragged the other. They were a great pairing. Nobody dragged anybody.
Everybody likes to **** on semantics until they find out that you can't communicate if words don't have meaning. You used the words you used because you thought it helped your argument, and now you're backtracking because you found out it cuts both ways. That team won because it was a good team, not because Pau carried them.
To recap:
KG trade: a lot more asset value than we gave up
Pau: not a superstar, outlier trade
Sheed: not a superstar, damaged goods
The Jrue trade: fine in-a-vacuum value, but bad because it left us with inadequate role players and severely limited means to acquire them
Virtual Boy: very fun, battery eater