ESPN reports Detroit out of Baby sweepstakes

[GuyClinch]

This was initially my position as well. However, when you look at the injury history of Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins, you start to sing a different tune. Davis would not be so much blowout insurance, but injury insurance. Expensive insurance? Perhaps, but anybody in the insurance industry would verify that the insurance premium goes up as the likelihood of a claim occurring goes up.

You just looking for a rationalization to keep BBD. There is no real reason to. As a fourth big he won't get much burn. So if you lock up guys for that kind of "insurance" money you put less money out on the court. His salary could go towards a SF/SG that would actually see some time.

This opportunity cost is far more important to the team then the loss of insurance. Lets face it if KG or Rasheed get hurt in the playoffs we probably don't win it all. So he doesn't really insure against anything important.

No. We should sign and trade him for a power SF w/3 point range.

[celticfan42487]

We'll keeping BBD isn't the worst thing in the world.

But it's third on the list. On need 4 should be filliable by a vet min guy. Whereas Scal can fill in for the 15 minutes with the talent we have there.

We should be spending that 4 million or so for BBD on a backup PG or backup SF where we are lacking.

On my list

1) Backup point
2) Backup wing
3) Backup big [PF or C]

I'm actually hoping BBD just accepts the qualifying offer.

But him going to POR... I don't see why he would. If POR was going after someone they might as well go after Lee before Big Baby. And that's if they want to remain young, I was hoping they'd still go after Odom.

[jking]

If you look at the Portland board, they all pretty much say Outlaw is expendable. They like Webster better, and think hes healthy now. So with Webster back and returning starter Batum (and Rudy needing minutes too), Outlaw is kind of on the outside looking in as far as their rotation goes. He'll be fighting for any kind of decent minutes off the bench. Portland board is lookin to put him in all sorts of trades to get back a PG or PF, but like someone else mentioned, they don't seem to like BBD.

[sully00]

This was initially my position as well. However, when you look at the injury history of Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins, you start to sing a different tune. Davis would not be so much blowout insurance, but injury insurance. Expensive insurance? Perhaps, but anybody in the insurance industry would verify that the insurance premium goes up as the likelihood of a claim occurring goes up.

You just looking for a rationalization to keep BBD. There is no real reason to. As a fourth big he won't get much burn. So if you lock up guys for that kind of "insurance" money you put less money out on the court. His salary could go towards a SF/SG that would actually see some time.

This opportunity cost is far more important to the team then the loss of insurance. Lets face it if KG or Rasheed get hurt in the playoffs we probably don't win it all. So he doesn't really insure against anything important.

No. We should sign and trade him for a power SF w/3 point range.

While turning Davis into Outlaw is certainly an attractive option, there are not a ton of these options available. With POR under the cap this actually would work. POR plans on using Outlaw mostly as a reserve PF so Davis would fit them as well or better anyhow.

But that or something similar are just not that likely a scenario. So the real issue is whether you are better investing some money in Davis whether an ideal situation or not or if you would be better adding some Vet Min stiff at the 3 who probably will not crack Doc's rotation.

While Davis may or may not be an ideal fit for Boston's roster he is worth the 4 mil a year or so it would take to sign him and in Dec he becomes a trade commodity if he isn't an ideal piece of the rotation. Frankly I think people are playing with themselves with the idea that there won't 18-20 mpg for Davis this season especially when you add in the fact that by using him you can keep Garnett and Wallace from logging heavy mins at the center spot.

This team would not be hurt if Sheed and KG only play 28-29 mpg, it would be a good thing come April, let them split the PF spot and close out games and let Perk and Davis split up what remains at the 5 spot, those two carry heavy mins against the weaker teams. If you have a bench of House, Baby, and Sheed to carry you offensively you have the option of using guys like Pruitt, Walker, and Giddens to give you mins on the perimeter.

[ParticleMan]

I agree that past history suggests there will be at least 20-25 min/gm for BBD averaged over the course of the season. No way our 3 bigs stay healthy the entire season. Moreover, the dropoff from our 3 bigs to our next big (Scal) is ginormous. If we're stuck in the playoffs with 1 of those 3 injured, if we have BBD I'd feel pretty good about our chances, but if we have Scal as the 3rd big it would be just like this past year, disastrous.

That said, I think we should only keep BBD if he's on a reasonable contract. In that case he can also serve as trade bait if another quality big comes available. If we pay him the full MLE for 4-5 years, i don't think many GMs would view that as a favorable contract and be looking to trade for it. If we pay him 3.5-4mil for 3-4 years, he becomes a trade asset down the line.

[shackles10]

I agree that people look at the mpg as such a simple stat. Add up our forwards/centers from last year and the numbers add up to well past 96 mpg.

[ryaningf]

This was initially my position as well. However, when you look at the injury history of Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins, you start to sing a different tune. Davis would not be so much blowout insurance, but injury insurance. Expensive insurance? Perhaps, but anybody in the insurance industry would verify that the insurance premium goes up as the likelihood of a claim occurring goes up.

You just looking for a rationalization to keep BBD. There is no real reason to. As a fourth big he won't get much burn. So if you lock up guys for that kind of "insurance" money you put less money out on the court. His salary could go towards a SF/SG that would actually see some time.

This opportunity cost is far more important to the team then the loss of insurance. Lets face it if KG or Rasheed get hurt in the playoffs we probably don't win it all. So he doesn't really insure against anything important.

No. We should sign and trade him for a power SF w/3 point range.

And you're looking for a rationalization to let him go.

As 4th big last year (behind Perk, KG, and Powe), Baby got all kinds of burn. WIth a recovered KG and a soon-to-be 35 year-old Wallace, not to mention the chronically injured shoulder of Perk, there will very likely be minutes to go around, especially since Baby's presence will give Doc the option to lower KG and Wallace's minutes at times throughout the season. Sign some stiff as the 4th big, and Doc might just get stuck overplaying those guys whenever we have foul trouble or when minor injuries crop up. Baby's more than insurance against KG/Wallace/Perk getting injured--he's preventive medicine against it happening.

The SG/SF 'who would actually see some time' would actually see less time than Baby would--Paul's gonna get his 34/35 minutes a game, and that leaves a whopping 13-14 minutes left over--time that can be filled easily by a veteran's minimum signing, or by BIll Walker if he steps up this season.

So, basically, we're talking about letting Baby go for a SG/SF who might see 15 minutes a night, and then being faced with signing a veteran's minimum guy as our 4th big--or we're faced with locking Baby up long term and playing him 15 minutes a night and using the veteran's minimum on a SG/SF. Given the lack of big men on the market, and their relative expense (a mediocre big man costs more than a mediocre wing man) versus a better market and greater supply of wing men, I think the best bang for our buck lies with locking up Baby and finding a veteran backup small forward.

The question is, where do you want to go cheap? Backup small forward or 4th big? Because we're going to go cheap at at least 2 positions (forgetting the need for a PG at the moment). Given the makeup of our roster, the available free agents, and our remaining money to sign free agents, the prudent move is to lock up Baby and go cheap at the backup small forward position.

[greenmachine_2849]

This was initially my position as well. However, when you look at the injury history of Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins, you start to sing a different tune. Davis would not be so much blowout insurance, but injury insurance. Expensive insurance? Perhaps, but anybody in the insurance industry would verify that the insurance premium goes up as the likelihood of a claim occurring goes up.

You just looking for a rationalization to keep BBD. There is no real reason to. As a fourth big he won't get much burn. So if you lock up guys for that kind of "insurance" money you put less money out on the court. His salary could go towards a SF/SG that would actually see some time.

This opportunity cost is far more important to the team then the loss of insurance. Lets face it if KG or Rasheed get hurt in the playoffs we probably don't win it all. So he doesn't really insure against anything important.

No. We should sign and trade him for a power SF w/3 point range.

Yeah, if Kevin Garnett (I'm not so sure about Wallace) gets injured during the playoffs, we probably don't win it all. But what if Kevin Garnett goes down for the month in February? Do we go with Robert Swift or Brian Scalabrine as our third big, and/or play Perkins and Wallace 40 mpg apiece while Garnett is out? Like somebody else pointed out earlier, we see what happens when Perkins is forced to play 40 mpg for a stretch: he doesn't hold up all that well. I wouldn't imagine a 35 year-old Wallace, as much as I like him, would fare much better. No, we need a solid 4th big man capable of filling in at either power forward or center when the need arises.

Would a trade of Davis for Posey (just throwing his name out there as a power 3) give us the same type of insurance? Not really, since someone like Posey would have a tough time filling in at center (when Perkins or Wallace are injured) and I'm not sure how much center Garnett should be playing at this stage either. We already know that that Davis can fill either the four or five pretty effectively, as he did both during the playoffs.

Personally, even in games that Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins are all healthy for, I don't see any of them averaging more than 27-28 mpg. As Sully said, that may even be the ideal. So there is still probably a 12-15 mpg role for Glen Davis even when the roster is at full strength. And, if the past is any predictor of the future, there will be a significant part of the season when the roster is not at full strength.

[Avalanche]

Looks like the Pistons are picking up Wilcox for a couple of years, another team seemingly off the list

[Kefa461]

Well we can cross Detroit off the list......