Dat2U wrote:nate33 wrote:Bottom line: Melo looks like he is not an option.
I'd rather have Hinrich + #17 + $8M in cap room next year than $16M in cap room and no one to spend it on. I think Hinrich is a very good fit character-wise. He will help instill an emphasis on defense and hustle. We've got a lot of young guys to groom. We need one or two guys like Hinrich to set the tone.
We still have $12M in cap room right now so it's not like we won't be able to make opportunistic Trade Deadline deals later this year.
I said it the other day. You don't base a strategy on one potential free agent. You have a plan & stick with it. I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of brick walls. Having the cap space wasn't about eventually signing a free agent, it was about saving the space until the right moment where we could make a lopsided deal & poach quality talent from another team.
But EG blew nearly all of it on one deal. Even worse, its a player without an expiring and it seriously benefits a conference rival. No one can sit up here and honestly tell me the #17 pick in the draft was worth $20 million!
Go over to Bulls board and you'll see a board in collective celebration right now.
No, it wasn't, but i think there were a lot of clues coming from Leonsis that this is what he wanted. He wanted a fire sale, and he wanted the team to build young. I think he wants to create a collection of young players that come up together with Wall as there leader. I dont think Leonsis cares that we wont be players the next two years. I think he believes (somewhat rightly), that trying to strap a veteran superstar to Wall in year 2 of his career may negatively impact his ability to be the teams leader and to build young, instead, the focus being the interplay between the young stud and the veteran me guy. I think what he wants is to land 4 or 5 draft picks in this draft, surround them w/Wall as there leader, w/guys like Hinrich, Blatche, McGee etc as clear secondary guys who can and will be shipped out of they aren't w/the program. Essentially, i think he sees us as Ok City #2. Or The Capitals of Hoops. I don't think he wants anything other than to build a team w/young, and hungry kids, and then add smart, veteran help by year 3 or 4 when we know exactly what we need, and what kind of player that will come in and won't challenge Wall as the leader.
That's what's up to me. You can argue w/the sense of it to some degree, especially blowing up the cap again for the next two years in a sense, but there is sound reasoning (and revealing quotes) behind the idea that we did not want to be players in these back to back free agency bonanza's.
One other positive? We'll be players in next years draft because we'll suck again. That's valuable. If we can do well in that lottery, maybe we'll get the stud we need. Regardless, it seems clear, the franchise wants to build young, and I for one, am for it. My only issue is that I would have preferred to wait it out longer, to see whose actually there. I wonder if part of the reason we did the deal is a desire to trade up?
