mitchweber wrote:Cruel_Ruin wrote:
You really think that Mikki and Artest are in the same situation? Artest was our BEST PLAYER. OF COURSE he's going to get minutes. Meanwhile, Mikki just might be the WORST starting PF in the ENTIRE LEAGUE. His value is set. It's not going higher. It's not going lower. Having Mikki come off the bench behind a lottery pick PF, who every major NBA outlet has said so far has been a top 5 rookie in the league, will NOT change Mikki's value.
Who starts, and who comes off the bench is also essentially irrelevant, and it's not what we're arguing about. It's about total minutes played. And if Mikki significantly loses out on minutes, his value will go down. I started the trade thread for Mikki last week to see if we could get something of value for him. It appeared, going off of fan's opinions, that we could feasibly maybe get a late 1st for him (something possibly like Mikki to Minny for Brian Cardinal and Boston's 1st rounder).
That's not even my argument. It's when, where, and how he gets those minutes and what he is allowed to do with them. I don't want to see these young guys brought off the bench to simply be a role player. I want them to be given the freedom to test their own games out and improve upon them. You can't do that in a 5 minute spurt after which you are going to sit for the next 15 minutes. That is how you play hustle type role players, not your lotto picks that need time to develop. It's like the mentality is still screwed up, they're finally selling the whole "rebuilding" thing after years of denial so it's time actually start putting it into action for craps sake. If they want to find somebody that can come off the bench for a few minutes and not interrupt the flow of the game then go watch the waiver wire or sign some vet out of some Euro league squad. This ain't how you do it.
And even getting a late 1st for Mikki is < minutes for the young players we have to develop. We don't need another late 1st, we have enough picks the next two years, we have enough young talent now. It's all hypothetical but I think whatever Mikki could get you now is what he could get you at the deadline.
And that's not to say that Mikki doesn't have value ON THE FLOOR or is "crap" or whatever. If I was a fan of a contending team that needed another big that will bring energy and defense then I would look no further than Mikki Moore. Despite what some people think he is a good player with what he brings in so many areas, the problem is him bringing those types of things to this squad means nothing at the end of the day but crunched kiddies. And there you have the scenario, just like with Ron, he'd have to most likely go to a contending team which typically don't have many valuable assets (picks and youth) anyway.