JayTWill wrote:NoDopeOnSundays wrote:Capn'O wrote:
I'm fairly certain we keep his Birds because we've had him on consecutive contracts and signed him with Bird rights.
Very different scenario from iHart.
Yeah, we have his bird rights, I think if he's on the team after the deadline we resign him. He's valuable IMO, his ability to guard in the paint and on the perimeter is important.
Honestly after seeing him benched last postseason then seeing him not re-signed almost a month into free agency he didn't seem like much of a priority to the team. I thought they were just looking for someone else to take the $5.2M taxpayer MLE and would offer Precious whatever was left under the apron but when they couldn't find any takers they just gave Precious a 1 year deal where he had to waive his no-trade clause basically making him a human trade $6M trade exemption they could use to get someone they really wanted.
Maybe that was never the plan or maybe the plan changed after they got KAT. I think the numbers show the team is performing well with him at the 4 next to KAT at the 5 but not so well with Precious at the 5. Maybe it is the lack of size or rebounding. I don't know. He was in Thibs trust circle last February too but out of the rotation by the end of the year. I'm curious how Thibs will use him if and when Mitch returns.
We have 10, well about to be 9 days till the trade deadline. I don't think they can move him even if they really wanted to because of the fact Mitch isn't back, and you realistically can't rely on him to be healthy.
Last season when Mitch came back he pretty much stopped giving Precious a lot of minutes, he went from starting and putting up numbers to being a bench guy, that was exacerbated by Hart moving into the starting 4 spot too. That's also the weird thing, last season as a starter next to Ihart he was averaging just under 10rpg, so I expected to see him with KAT a lot more. I think we're seeing him more with KAT recently, because I do think Tom is going to go with Mitch/KAT frontcourt at times.