Mattd97 wrote:why does everyone want to move amir johnson? kid comes in, shows some talent, some heart, some energy, some potential... well we might as well trade him! this is like the leafs trading all their young guys every year for dmitri khristich, leetch, etc etc etc
Lol That Leech deal seemed pretty bad, but none of those guys we gave up incl. the two picks have played in the NHL I don't think...could be wrong though. This would be like the Nolan trade though...That was a ridiculous amount of talent to give up. Anyhow.
Johnson, while a nice piece on a mediocre team, has no place (maybe a 9th spot) on a contending team. While it'd be nice to keep Johnson for 1-2 million, that's not happening, he'll command 4+ this year. Johnson is great on his contract right now, but he looks significantly worse when you realize he's getting paid 4-5 million a year. That's almost the MLE, and I'm sure we can get someone better for that coin. Also with Reggie on the team, another 4-5 million dollar power forward off the bench is not what we need assuming Bosh, Bargs and Reggie are here next year and you have a guy like Rasho or an equivalent returning. You can see this year, with the front court we have, we don't go much deeper than 1 F/C player, do you want Amir to be this guy for the next 4 years? I don't know about that. I like Amir, I love his energy rebounding and hustle, but he's had what, 3-4 years to improve his game and it hasn't changed too much from when he entered the league, so while he's still young, I'm not sure if he's ever going to develop a reliable mid range jumper or better finishing ability. He's also not dominant enough defensively or rebounding wise to just overlook his offensive and basektball IQ deficiencies (moving pick x 100 so far?)
So if re-signing Amir is a questionable proposition at best, and he's 100% gone to another team if you don't resign him, then why not trade him? He's an asset and has value right now - so get something back for him, even if only to re-flip that piece for something else. You try not to waste assets when possible. I don't think people want to trade Amir just to trade Amir, but he's one of the guys on our team who are replaceable and have value at the same time - Jose, Belinelli and Rasho are the others. Derozan isn't easily replaceable, Wright has no value, Banks has no value, POB has no value, Turk has value but not at $10mill and is not easily replaceable, Forget about trading Bosh or Bargs, JJ is good enough to keep at the MLE, Weems is also ok at his min salary. That's why Amir's name is getting floated around so much - he's one of our tradeable assets, and unfortuantely, we're ought to be getting ready to make trades right now.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. 8 quality players are all you need to compete in this league (barring injury of course). The rest are roster fillers and potential laden rookies who won't see more than 10 minutes of the floor if that. These guys are interchangeable and can be replaced on a whim. Focus on solidifying your top 6, top 8 guys, and everything else will fall into place. Right now, we really only have Bargs, Bosh, JJ, Hedo and Calderon who would be top 8 guys, so if you can move Amir and Bellinelli in a 2 for 1 for someone who can fill one of those top 6 or 7 spots for a year or two, then you do the deal. Period.
