shrink wrote:One last piece.
The general life history of an NBA team is to identify young potential superstars, and try to surround them with talent. As the players become more successful, over time they become more expensive, and you need to find cheap, young talent to fill in and replace the vets, to keep the books balance (especially after the last CBA).
We need to see a lot more, but after the HOU game it looks like we have some youth that could develop into cheap rotation players. If we trust them, does this mean we eventually move on for Conley, from NAW, even from DDV?
Before I answer that I also want to point out that guys you would not expect to turn into stars (not to be confused with super stars,) can develop that way. Jaden has shown potential to be a 20/10 SF. Naz has shown the potential to be a 20/10 PF, and that might not be superstar level, but on reasonable contracts that it is EXTREMELY important in pursuit of a championship. To have those 3 (Ant, Jaden, and Naz,) all younger than 26, don’t underestimate the value of that.
To answer your question, how good is NAW if instead of 4 you were paying 14 for his numbers? How good is DDV if instead of 12 you were paying 22 for his numbers? Conley has hit the point of diminished returns. Next year he will be overpaid, and I doubt he is more than a 3rd string minimum the year after. NAW’s value will be determined by his performance in the playoffs. If he disappears again that number will plummet. If he is unplayable all of his value gain from the first 3 months will disappear and his current contract will be what he can hope for going forward. If he shows up and plays well, he might price himself out of our range. Same with DDV, if he plays well enough next year then we might decide we cannot afford him the following year. That is why we draft guys like Shannon and Clark. But, that doesn’t mean you want to lose guys like NAW and DDV for nothing. Ideally you would trade them for something.
