MasterIchiro wrote:But the whole point of cap flexibility is the ability to upgrade and improve. Hayward is 24. Lance is 23. We'd be invested in their improvement internally. And we'd keep all of our incoming youth by not trading draft picks in the deal for Hayward, and those young players on cheap contracts help us manage upgrades and to consolidate when necessary.
There's definitely a certain logic to taking your shot while the opportunity is there, no doubt about that. I've just always favored a more risk-averse approach at a more methodical pace for team building, and that's where the concern comes into my mind.
Lance and Hayward are both young, which is both part of their intrigue and their risk. They could both blow up, be all-stars or at least borderline, and we battle in the East as the new-age Pistons with a super deep starting 5 that contends despite having no top-10 player. That's the best-case scenario, obviously. The worst-case scenario is that Hayward turns out to be slightly above league average at a deep position and we pay him big money for that, while Lance's ego goes out of control sabotaging himself and the team in the process. If that happens we're done for the next four years as anything but first-round fodder.I also have some concern about the additional difficulty of integrating two major new pieces on offense, one of which is a loose cannon, while we also presumably grapple with tweaking our defense to account for the loss of MKG.
It's just a philosophical preference more than anything. I value flexibility a lot, and I think our young team has a lot of room to grow even without landing a big free agent right away much less two. I'm very skittish about compromising that flexibility unless I absolutely believe it's our one and only route to improvement.
