Pre-Season: Portland @ Sacramento

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20 mpg from KT would have made for a very poor season. Sure we would have been a bit better in rebounding but we would have been much worse offensively--based on how Kenny was playing.

I don't see it, you keep saying Mikki is a good finisher, but that's one aspect of a lot in the basketball, PF is our weakest link, the production we get from there is the lowest, not to mention that the team is much more isolation based which makes entities more independent, 20 minutes of KT wouldn't make much of a difference.
Mikki Moore can not be trusted for more than 2 seconds with the ball, he is the weakest player above 6'10 in this league (if I'm forgetting some scrub then my bad), and he has very clumsy hands (which takes a lot from his finishing ability), how about we remember that when comparing the 2 players.

It's not like there was some kind of plan to phase Kenny out of the lineup. He played his way out. With him in Mikki's place last year we would have been a considerably worse team for the simple reason that while Mikki is a very good finisher, Kenny is perhaps the worst finishing PF in the league.

Now this is just not true.
Here are the game logs for both players last season
KT
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/g ... ayerId=849

Mikki Moore
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/g ... ayerId=575

In October and November, KT was doing very close (production wise) to Moore, but has jerked around in and out the lineup, while still doing OK in Mikki Moore standards.
All I see is we gave the new signee a chance at the expense of burying the old dog.

I'm speculating from the fact that they cited concerns with his knees that turned out to be legitimate. If they had cited concerns with his ankles and he turned out to have knee problems, I would think nothing of it. But it seems to be kind of a coincidence that they cited this and it turned out to be true, don't you think?

That's not to say our doctors are morons, just that they were wrong here. Doctors will have different opinions about things all the time. That's why people get second opinions.

I was trying to find articles that specified here, but I don't recall much of a difference in the contract (maybe a slight one, or I could just be totally wrong here), but my understanding was that they had agreed on the deal and then backed out after the physical.

The knee thing was with SAR all his career and it didn't bother him, yes SAR was a risk, but according to SAR, he was the same risk for every team that signed him/traded for him, for NJ SAR was a 6 year contract 36 millions (it was a S&T with Portland for trade exception and not FA signing) that would've cost double because of LT (IIRC) and they needed to give up a pick in the process, during the talks they said Thorn regretted giving up the pick and agreed for regular MLE contract, but the bridge was already burned.

[pillwenney]

I don't know if we'll ever agree on any of this. But while finishing is only one part of the game, it was a very important part for the team because the role of the PF (like SacKingzzz said before) was basically to stay out of the way and to finish plays when left alone (so also in some cases to hit a mid-range jumper which Mikki could do much better than Kenny at this point). Mikki sucked at first because of his hands, but it was something that was worth sticking with because it appeared to be some kind of weakness that had never been apparent before. All of Kenny's problems appeared to be problems that had gotten worse from last year.

Also remember that Spencer wasn't healthy for I think the first month of the season IIRC, and SAR was out for the season right away, so it's not like there weren't minutes to be had. Kenny just hurt the team whenever he came in.

With SAR, it was still sighted as a risk, and one that I'm sure factored into Thorn suddenly regretting a deal he had already agreed on. It may have been a risk for other teams but while I'm no doctor, I would think that risk would only get greater with age. The point is that you can't just say "well all players come with a risk" because this was a very clear and identifiable one.

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And KT could cover areas Moore doesn't, the claim that KT was phased out or was out produced by Moore is bogus, Moore may have been better last year but it was very close, KT didn't play later because it was either Moore or him, there wasn't a place for two veteran below average PFs in the rotation, in addition, stats show that more didn't even outplay KT's 06/07 performance (which was the bar that set we don't want him anymore), at any rate, I don't see any justification to that contract or that signing and I still stand by my comment, Mikki Moore signing was indeed a terrible mistake.

[pillwenney]

And KT could cover areas Moore doesn't, the claim that KT was phased out or was out produced by Moore is bogus, Moore may have been better last year but it was very close, KT didn't play later because it was either Moore or him, there wasn't a place for two veteran below average PFs in the rotation, in addition, stats show that more didn't even outplay KT's 06/07 performance (which was the bar that set we don't want him anymore), at any rate, I don't see any justification to that contract or that signing and I still stand by my comment, Mikki Moore signing was indeed a terrible mistake.

Agreed, but earlier it was also either Moore or him and even at the beginning of the year, Mikki was better.

I also stand by my opposition--a terrible mistake is one that actually affects the team in a terrible negative way. This doesn't come close.