Season Speculation, Trade Ideas & Discussion Pt. 5

[bwgood77]

There is nothing that is cant be replicated about unselfishness. it is amazing how unselfishness leads to better shooting.

And I'm starting to see that from our team. When I see the Phoenix Suns whip it around and find the open guy and hit that three it's so beautiful. It feels like the SSOL days were a different lifetime ago. I hope it continues to happen.

[jcsunsfan]

Fultz would be someone I can see growing into the Suns PG of the future next to Booker.
But will 76ers even trade him?, he was picked Number 1 so thats going to be a tough sell (or buy).

I wanted D'Angelo Russell... but Nets will not trade him, they need a sure fire young star after trading all their picks earlier... and Russell is sort of fixes that, he is a legit GOOD young player, someone to build around. Suns missed out on that one, would have been a fun back court with Booker.



Those players are the right potential and age for the Suns to aim for as PG of the future.... assuming Suns are going to continue to build on the youth direction.


If they want to contend ASAP... then those players are good options too.... but they can focus on better players playing other positions , such as Cousins, George etc.


It's tough... we don't know what Booker thinks... in the end, we all know McD and the FO will sit down with Booker and ask him what they should do... continue with youth, or contend ASAP.

I would prefer Kemba over Fultz. Kemba is proven and would be a mature presence. Hope he is still available this summer.

Funny. I might not even mind trading for him if we could sit him for the rest of the year. But it will cost us all our cap space and assets.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[jcsunsfan]

OK. Let's look at what Kemba would actually cost.

Charlotte wants to trade Kemba, a bad contract, and get back a pick and/or a young player.

So. We would have to do a trade something like
Monroe, Chriss, a pick, and Dudley or a similar contract for Batum and Walker.

So, we would lose Monroe's expiring, that $17 million per year that comes back to us this summer.
Batum's deal is 22.4 million per year for for for years.
Kemba is $12 million per year.

So, basically we pay $34 million per year for 2 years.
We pay another $22 million for two years after he leaves, or in addition to whatever it costs to resign him.

Would we think that is a good FA signing?

We give up Chriss and Dudley for the privilege.

If we gave up NOTHING it would be a bad deal.

[gaspar]

You are delusional. Made some really good passes? We made fun of him for missing pretty much every lob attempt he tried. His AST/TO ratio is horrendous.

He can get back on defense because he is quick, but his defensive awareness is as bad as it gets. He lost his man all the time when playing the 2 and let his man drive past him when he was the 1.

Short-memory problem. Knight is terrible. The one thing he can do is shoot, but I honestly prefer Daniels, who sticks to what he knows. Knight always tries too much and fails miserably. Specially on those out of control drives where he threw the ball up with no chance of converting and then just kept blaming the ref for not calling a foul.

I hope I don't have to see him play for us again.

Not delusional just hopeful. Same way people are hopeful that Jackson, Bender, Chriss, and even Warren will continue to improve. JT appears to be the right kind of coach to help develop players to play to their abilities. I feel Knight is a quality shooter, and if he doesn't handle the ball as much can be more effective and efficient. Booker has improved his defense this year, so why can't Knight? Why can't Knight still improve, he's only 26.

Hoping for Knight to not play for this organization means we would either trade him, which would involve a pick most likely, or to just buy him out or even waive him, which still counts against our cap. Might as well utilize him and see what he can do.

Yeah, some players can reinvent themselves later in their career. Just look at our very own Isaiah Canaan. In Philly and Chicago he was known as just a pudgy gunner with tunnel vision, in Phoenix he looks like a pretty good playmaker (in a small sample size).

[LukasBMW]

I'd be down to swap Kemba + either Williams of MKG for Monroe a 1st round pick (Miami of Bucks), and 2 seconds.

That's it.

Also would be willing to swap Howard for Chandler if the Hornets saw value in that, but then we'd have to include Knight or Dudley to make the salaries work.

The other option would be to involve a 3rd team willing to take on two years of Dudley for a $10mil expiring deadweight. That would give the Honrets serious cap relief, but that 3rd team would need to be a contender that see's value in Dudley.

..or we bribe a team to take Knight with 2 more second rounders and convince them that he could turn it around. That would need to be a very stupid an naive team:
http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y8z3pdaq

Hornets gets massive cap relief and only have 1 bad contract left. Plus they get a 1st and 2 seconds.

Sacramento doesn't mess up their tank but gets a player they might be able to salvage.

Low risk/high reward. I just worry about locker room leadership with and Chandler (and possibly Dudley) gone.

Kemba/Ulis
Booker/Daniels
TJ/JJ
Chris/Bender
Howard/Len/Sauce

We keep our own picks and keep our cap space for 2019.

[RaisingArizona]

My opinion and wanting to win is trolling yet rooting for us to keep sucking is encouraged. This place is backwards.

People coming around and continually saying our star player (who is on a rookie contract and likely to sign a max extension) is going to ask to be traded from Phoenix is trolling. There are warnings given out on other team forums because people go there saying these types of things about their team's stars on occasion. It's been happening a lot here.

Booker doesn't like losing. Therefore the longer we are bad, the more likely it is he bolts or asks for a trade when he can.

[bwgood77]

My opinion and wanting to win is trolling yet rooting for us to keep sucking is encouraged. This place is backwards.

People coming around and continually saying our star player (who is on a rookie contract and likely to sign a max extension) is going to ask to be traded from Phoenix is trolling. There are warnings given out on other team forums because people go there saying these types of things about their team's stars on occasion. It's been happening a lot here.

Booker doesn't like losing. Therefore the longer we are bad, the more likely it is he bolts or asks for a trade when he can.

No players like losing. He can't bolt. He could ask for a trade but it's extremely unlikely any time soon.

[hollywood6964]

My opinion and wanting to win is trolling yet rooting for us to keep sucking is encouraged. This place is backwards.

People coming around and continually saying our star player (who is on a rookie contract and likely to sign a max extension) is going to ask to be traded from Phoenix is trolling. There are warnings given out on other team forums because people go there saying these types of things about their team's stars on occasion. It's been happening a lot here.

Booker doesn't like losing. Therefore the longer we are bad, the more likely it is he bolts or asks for a trade when he can.

I think condescending a warning is soft. Warning for what? Because he has an opinion you don't like and it makes you feel bad? Who cares. He's not saying anything inflammatory towards anyone. He can have an opinion, even a repetitive one, if he wants. It's not as if people don't offer their homer opinions repetitively on here as well.

All this complaining over people wanting to tank, or showing concern over the star players possibility of leaving in the future is weak. We need to handle other people's viewpoints with a lot more of an even keel around here, and not take someone's stance on a trivial basketball topic personally.

[Frank Lee]

4-5 years down the road, and we still suck with no play off appearances .... I would expect Book to wonder wtf is going on. He might be bummed enough to ask out... who knows ... but one thing is for certain it will also be ‘who cares’ because I sure as hell won’t be following this team with any passion or concern

[Qwigglez]

Nav- are you not aware that the hornets want to send one of those bad contracts with walker or are you just choosing to ignore that fact?

Just because the Hornets want to get rid of some of their bad contracts doesn't mean they are going to, even if they do include Kemba. Did the Bulls get rid of Robin Lopez (a bad contract) when they traded Butler? How about the Knicks when they traded Melo, why didn't they include Joakim Noah? How about the Pacers with George, they could have traded Al Jefferson with him. How about us, why didn't we get rid of Dudley or Chandler along with Bledsoe? What about last year with Boogie, why didn't the Kings also get rid of Kostas Koufos?

This argument where some of you believe it would take taking on a contract such as Marvin Williams, MKG, Batum, or even Dwight just to get Kemba just isn't true.

Look at past deals as of late, it doesn't happen. Why? Because if a team is trying to blow it up, they don't need the immediate cap space anyway because free agents aren't going to go there. On the opposite side of things, the team receiving the star would water their team down, and wouldn't be able to afford to better their team via free agency or they would risk going into the luxury tax to sign their own players. It would be dead money for them.

It is true. They let it be known. It is completely irrelevant what other players got moved for. Those guys mostly got moved because they were not likely to re-sign.

The Hornets have been trying to trade those bad contracts to no avail, so now they are willing to listen to offers with Kemba involved if people are willing to take bad contracts. This has been reported.

Just because people want to pretend it's not true doesn't make it untrue.

No one is ignoring the fact that the Hornets have made Kemba available just to get rid of bad contracts. Please tell me what teams are going to take on a bad contract to get Kemba. Only one I can think of is the Jazz and I mentioned that before. I doubt anyone makes a deal unless it's for Kemba alone. The Hornets can ask all they want to trade those bad contracts, doesn't mean it will happen. I mentioned this, and mentioned if the Hornets want draft picks or young players then they would get more value out of Kemba alone. If they just want to get rid of additional salary then they won't be getting either of those and will only get salary relief. But then, what teams have $30mil in expiring contracts? If I were the Hornets GM, obviously I'd try and and trade my bad contracts to go along with Walker, but when it comes down to improving the team long term I'd prefer to hold my bad contracts and just let them expire later if it meant getting picks back.

[Bogyo]

Just because the Hornets want to get rid of some of their bad contracts doesn't mean they are going to, even if they do include Kemba. Did the Bulls get rid of Robin Lopez (a bad contract) when they traded Butler? How about the Knicks when they traded Melo, why didn't they include Joakim Noah? How about the Pacers with George, they could have traded Al Jefferson with him. How about us, why didn't we get rid of Dudley or Chandler along with Bledsoe? What about last year with Boogie, why didn't the Kings also get rid of Kostas Koufos?

This argument where some of you believe it would take taking on a contract such as Marvin Williams, MKG, Batum, or even Dwight just to get Kemba just isn't true.

Look at past deals as of late, it doesn't happen. Why? Because if a team is trying to blow it up, they don't need the immediate cap space anyway because free agents aren't going to go there. On the opposite side of things, the team receiving the star would water their team down, and wouldn't be able to afford to better their team via free agency or they would risk going into the luxury tax to sign their own players. It would be dead money for them.

It is true. They let it be known. It is completely irrelevant what other players got moved for. Those guys mostly got moved because they were not likely to re-sign.

The Hornets have been trying to trade those bad contracts to no avail, so now they are willing to listen to offers with Kemba involved if people are willing to take bad contracts. This has been reported.

Just because people want to pretend it's not true doesn't make it untrue.

No one is ignoring the fact that the Hornets have made Kemba available just to get rid of bad contracts. Please tell me what teams are going to take on a bad contract to get Kemba. Only one I can think of is the Jazz and I mentioned that before. I doubt anyone makes a deal unless it's for Kemba alone. The Hornets can ask all they want to trade those bad contracts, doesn't mean it will happen. I mentioned this, and mentioned if the Hornets want draft picks or young players then they would get more value out of Kemba alone. If they just want to get rid of additional salary then they won't be getting either of those and will only get salary relief. But then, what teams have $30mil in expiring contracts? If I were the Hornets GM, obviously I'd try and and trade my bad contracts to go along with Walker, but when it comes down to improving the team long term I'd prefer to hold my bad contracts and just let them expire later if it meant getting picks back.

I don't think he has that much time. I do know that he has more and longer bad contracts that will make this quite impossible.
Batum, Williams, MKG, Dwight, heck, even Zeller's contract is not that great. If he only trades Walker for picks, he is still on the hook with those untradeable contracts for another 3-4 years, with a bad, but not bad enough team. Their quickest way to rebuild is to trade Walker and Dwight for picks, and maybe a promising young, then they bottom out easy.

[NavLDO]

I don't think that's the case at all, most of us feel walker isnt good for the franchise long or short term at this point in time.

First, it was Kyrie wasn't good enough; the current leading scoring PG. Now it's Kemba, the current 6th leading scoring PG isn't good for the Suns. Both are 'all-star-level' talents.

Fans here are talking about getting high-scoring Guard help in here to help out Booker, and here comes along a 27-YO PG who's avg'd 22 pts/gm over the past 3 years. We also want distributors, and Kemba is avg'ing 5.8 asst/gm this season--6.4 in January.

Would I like him to be a bit stronger 3PT shooter? Yeah, but he shoots 7 att/gm. He's also known to be a hard worker, and is consistently improving.

Doesn't matter. The majority here will be correct...and 'happy', while the few of us will wrong, and unhappy, because McD will goon up this opportunity as well.

I'm not one to want to go after every FA/Trade target that becomes available; I'm really not, but I've been in favor of Kemba for months. He fits close enough to the age range, he's a great player, he'll likely attract at least one other high-level player, and we'll get him for the next year and a half for peanuts, allowing us to go after another big name target. Some thing that Dragic, or Hill, won't allow us to do, and isn't close enough to our ideal age range.

Kemba is one of the youngest proven PGs out there, the other we passed on this summer, and Lillard is not likely to come on the market. So yeah, to me, this is a fantastic opportunity to get better. Because when we miss out on Doncic and/or Young, or they disappoint after we do draft them, like JJ has (no, JJ hasn't, but shhhh, don't tell the forever tanker, immediate-gratification-types that...)

Seriously. For all of you wanting Young or Doncic, or whoever else other draft prospect you are salivating over, that you are afraid that Kemba will ruin your chances of getting??? Well, be prepared for the fact that there's a good chance that player won't be good in his first 20-30 games either, which, in turn, will continue to likely delay JJ's, Bender, and Chriss' development further. Be careful what you wish for...because JJ didn't come in guns-a-blazin either, as originally thought by some.

I was waiting for someone to bring up this comparison because most know I was very pro-kyrie. But there's a huge difference between Kemba and Kyrie.

1. Kyrie is 25. Kemba is already 27
2. Kyrie is a legit All-star. Kemba is a borderline all-star
3. Kyrie would've cost us a 1st in a good draft. Asking price for Kemba is probably a 1st in an even better draft.
4. Both guys will need a new deal next offseason and I'd much rather pay a younger , more experienced and better Kyrie more money than Kemba for $30m a yr.

On the surface it seems like a good comparison but it isn't really the same situation.

Umm...ok, I didn't really compare them, but, whatever. I ONLY said, they were both 'all-star-level' talents.

But hey, I'll play...

- Kemba only costs $12M per, Kyrie would've cost $19.5M per, freeing up $7M more to spend this summer...
- Kyrie's avg'ing 24.1/5/3.6 on a good team / Kemba's avg'ing 21.7 / 5.8 / 3.3 on a crap team (notice the higher asst rate)
- Lonzo Ball received more than twice as many votes than Booker in All-Star Voting this year (607k vs 268k)...guess he's a TRUE All-Star, and Booker is only a Borderline one, huh?
- to the bolded above...since when does 424 equal more than 485...that's the # of gms played by both in the NBA. Or were you referring to "playoff games with Lebron leading your team" - Yep, Kyrie's more experienced.
- Kyrie didn't get to the playoffs until LeBron came back; Kemba led his team with Al Jefferson being the best player.
- Kemba did it again in '15-'16 with Batum, Jefferson, Lee, MKG, W. Williams, Lin...you know, that star studded cast...

So don't tell me that just because Kyrie got to play with LeBron for 3 years, then was gifted from the top team in the East, to the #2 team in the East, or Vice Versa, depending how you look at, that he's SOO much better than Kemba, because I'll take the non-entitled Kemba over the 'entitled' Kyrie, even with the 2 year age difference. There are 38 players age 33+ in the NBA, 21 of which are still playing meaningful minutes for their teams. That's a minimum of 6 years for Kemba, most likely. Nash played until when? Paul is 32. Parker is still playing at age 35...Ginobili, the 'machine' is 40...of course, those are outliers, but point is, 27 is not too old for us. 30-31?? Absolutely.

But to compare the two, and act like Kyrie is SOOO much better than Kemba is horse dung. He's a better shooter; that's true. Outside of that, they are darn near equal in most other skillsets, and Kemba has a better attitude, to be frank. Not to mention, again, that Kemba has accumulated his stats on teams without superstar talent surrounding him for half his career.

But all this aside, my intention was never to compare the two in the first place, OTHER than, to show that they are both PGs, they were/are both made available for trade, they both can make our team better, and they are both 'all-star-level' talents.

Here's Kemba compared to "true All-Stars" and tell me if you see and appreciable difference, and why they deserve oh-so-much-more...

http://bkref.com/tiny/NxC20

I'll show you why...

11th Place Charlotte Wins 18 Losses 26

[NavLDO]

Yet he's a far better player than Bledsoe or Knight, and I have the feeling he has some potential to get even better if surrounded by better talent.

He's better than Knight, but he's not better than Bledsoe. Kemba is also exactly the type of player the Suns fans hate: mediocre assist rate, pounds the air out of the ball and shoots a lot of pull-up jumpers with mediocre efficiency.

What are Bledsoe's stats, this year? If you are going to compare...compare apples-to-apples as much as able.

Some other 'under the radar' statistics we are interested in...like Kemba is T-10th in number of games with 3+ 3PT shots made.

3PTs Made Total? 6th in the League. Bledsoe? 21st, with his .310%, and right behind the great Lonzo Ball

And instead of looking at Assists in a vacuum, maybe look at, say, Assts/TO. He's 6th across Starting PGs in the league. Bledsoe is 29th. So, yeah, that's a bit better than Bledsoe.

ORtg? 113 vs 102

DRtg you ask? Because Bledsoe's a defensive stalwart, right? Well... 108 vs 109. So yeah, a whole point difference there.

VORP? 2.1 vs .8

BPM? 3.7 vs .5

WS? 4.7 vs 1.8

So, sorry, YES, he's better than Bledsoe...by like, a lot.

[BobbieL]

OK. Let's look at what Kemba would actually cost.

Charlotte wants to trade Kemba, a bad contract, and get back a pick and/or a young player.

So. We would have to do a trade something like
Monroe, Chriss, a pick, and Dudley or a similar contract for Batum and Walker.

So, we would lose Monroe's expiring, that $17 million per year that comes back to us this summer.
Batum's deal is 22.4 million per year for for for years.
Kemba is $12 million per year.

So, basically we pay $34 million per year for 2 years.
We pay another $22 million for two years after he leaves, or in addition to whatever it costs to resign him.

Would we think that is a good FA signing?

We give up Chriss and Dudley for the privilege.

If we gave up NOTHING it would be a bad deal.

Kemba, George Hill - not the best use of the Monroe contract.

The Hornets want a team to take a crappy deal - the Suns are trying to help their cap , not hurt it

Monroe - buy him out

Chandler - see if there is a market to get say 50% of his contract as cap savings in 2018/19 - so like Shumpert/Frye for Daniels/Chandler, I am not sure what the Bucks have, I know what the Twolves can do

ride out the year, get your cap space, get your high pick and do something this summer

[bigfoot]

People coming around and continually saying our star player (who is on a rookie contract and likely to sign a max extension) is going to ask to be traded from Phoenix is trolling. There are warnings given out on other team forums because people go there saying these types of things about their team's stars on occasion. It's been happening a lot here.

Booker doesn't like losing. Therefore the longer we are bad, the more likely it is he bolts or asks for a trade when he can.

No players like losing. He can't bolt. He could ask for a trade but it's extremely unlikely any time soon.

I listen to the local Phoenix Sports radio often. It has been said several times already that there is concern Booker will not want to continue playing for the Suns if we don't go into win now mode as opposed to waiting for more rookies to develop.

[NYG]

Would the Suns add a draft pick to a Jeff Teague for Brandon Knight swap?

[sunsbum]

I can't wait for kyrie Irving to retire so I don't have to hear his name on this board again. This is going to be another "trade" suns fans will never let go of.

[jcsunsfan]

Booker doesn't like losing. Therefore the longer we are bad, the more likely it is he bolts or asks for a trade when he can.

No players like losing. He can't bolt. He could ask for a trade but it's extremely unlikely any time soon.

I listen to the local Phoenix Sports radio often. It has been said several times already that there is concern Booker will not want to continue playing for the Suns if we don't go into win now mode as opposed to waiting for more rookies to develop.

It’s Bickley. He is an idiot that loves to try to stir things up on his own. Making moves out of fear is a horrible way to do business. Booker will be just as good with quality draft picks this summer. There will be other quality point guards available if there is no good deal for Kemba.

In the last year CP, Kyrie, and Bledsoe have all changed teams and Kemba is now on the block. Patience.

In keeping Booker, it’s much better to get the right guy than just a guy. I am not at all sure Kemba is the right guy. The fact that he was an all-star in the east shows how few good players there are there. He would not even be in the conversation in the West this year.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[NavLDO]

I'm not one to want to go after every FA/Trade target that becomes available; I'm really not, but I've been in favor of Kemba for months. He fits close enough to the age range, he's a great player, he'll likely attract at least one other high-level player, and we'll get him for the next year and a half for peanuts, allowing us to go after another big name target. Some thing that Dragic, or Hill, won't allow us to do, and isn't close enough to our ideal age range.

The only reason they put Kemba on the block is because they wanted to get rid of long term bad contracts. I've seen a number of people across the forums ignore this.

If we did somehow trade for him, you can be sure we'd have to take back enough bad money to deplete and eat up all of our cap space. It's convenient to ignore to help your argument but that's what they will trade him for. Woj has let it be known what they want to accomplish with a potential trade.

If we traded for him, we have this other long term contract and our team is pretty much a finished product and then soon we'd have a couple of guys on max deals and that would be it for our team.

This is true. Zero chance they deal walker without attaching a bad contract. Zero

I am not one of those, and and I've explored this with taking back Batum, if you've seen any number of my trade ideas to get him the last couple of months. We'd still have enough money, so long as McD is smart, and does one of two things.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y7medoad + Miami '18 Pick

They get a replacement for Kemba; oddly enough, it's the player that went one pick ahead of Kemba in the draft. We rid ourselves of his avg of $14.6M the next 2.5 years, yet take on Batum's avg $25.6M for the next 3.5 yrs. They dump, or sign, whatever, Monroe, and we throw in Miami's '18 pick as a sweetener. That's all they get for us absorbing his, and soon to be Kemba's large contracts. We draft our Center of the future with our pick this next draft, and we're done.

We would be best to try to offload Chandler's Contract this Deadline to a team that needs him for than us, and we roll with Len. But if not, no big deal, because his contract comes off when we need to pay Kemba and Booker. We just would be hampered to go out in FA and get a Center, but since we are still a Lotto Team with the acquisitions, worst case, we are drafting Gafford, Fernando, Carter, or Williams.

2nd Option - http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y7obo63s + Miami '18 Pick

We essentially trade Warren for MKG. They Ulis to at least fill a backup role for them at PG, plus the Miami pick, again. Oh, and Monroe as the Expiring goes there as well. They don't offload THAT much of their contracts, but that's $25M gone, and they get Warren and his soon to be $12.5M back. So they save about $12.5M now, plus Kemba's MAX contract in a year and a half.

Anyway, in the 1st scenario, we'd add $36M next year from the trade, but have offloaded $14.6 (14.5 rounded to make it easier)

That would be a grand total of adding $21.5M. That would put us at just shy of $90M. The Cap is supposed to be $101M next season, so that's $11M before we go into the Luxury Tax, and that includes:

Kemba
Batum
Chandler
Dudley
Warren
JJ
Sauce
Bender
Booker
Daniels
Chriss
Ulis
Reed
Canaan

That's 14 players, so I would suspect 2-3 of those players would be gone, because we still have 4 draft picks, even after trading away one. I think Chandler and or Dudley will be traded under scenario #1. So, if McD can trade Chandler, that frees up another $13.6M, giving us nearly $25M UNDER the salary cap, and not counting the Luxury Tax space, so point is, we would still be fine by signing Batum. We could still get ONE last Max acquisition, if desired.

So, I didn't ignore the fact that we would likely have to take Batum; I actually counted on it. It would suck to pay that much to a back up, but, oh well.

We could try to swing Howard instead, if we think he still has enough juice and desire to cover our Center spot for a year and a half. He would be more ideal than Batum, because he's actually cheaper, and a year shorter. But I went with worst case sceanrio, because if we took Batum, we might be able to get away without giving up much in value, other than a Pick, and get rid of BK. But we could just as easily do this:

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ybbct7na + Miami '18 pick

or go 'balls to the wall'

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y7je6quy + Miami '18 pick

lots of scenarios...

[WeekapaugGroove]

Booker doesn't like losing. Therefore the longer we are bad, the more likely it is he bolts or asks for a trade when he can.

No players like losing. He can't bolt. He could ask for a trade but it's extremely unlikely any time soon.

I listen to the local Phoenix Sports radio often. It has been said several times already that there is concern Booker will not want to continue playing for the Suns if we don't go into win now mode as opposed to waiting for more rookies to develop.

Local radio guys need to fill segments and taking shots at the suns is easy.

Fact of the matter is Booker is about to sign a 5 year extension that will kick in after next season so they have him for 6 1/2 more years. I also believe hes the type that really embraces the 'face of the franchise' role. Hell I think dealing bledsoe and making him the clear 'guy' has boosted his game this season. He seems like more of the d wade than the chriss bosh of his generation.

It's also not like he's had multiple years of playing at a star level and carrying a bad team. Before this season he was playing well for his age but just average overall.

I do think they should move a little more win now come this summer. Not because I worry about losing booker but because timing is right from a cap space and asset consolidation stand point. But to act like that win now mode needs to happen in the next couple weeks seems a bit of an exaggeration.