fishercob wrote:nate33 wrote:Okay, I can see how you are confused. Let me try to restate my stance in a different way.
1. I like Arenas and still think he is a very good player. Once the gun incident fades from memory, he may even be worth his contract on the right team in the right situation assuming he doesn't have any major setbacks with his knee. We are not the right team in the right situation.
2. Because of #1 above, I would not sacrifice any significant assets to dump Arenas. I will only pull the trigger if we can trade him for expiring contracts plus or minus insignificant filler pieces.
3. I think his current perceived value is negative (meaning worth less than expiring contracts). If we retain him for a while, I expect that he will play his way into being worth expiring contracts, but there's a risk with every day that he plays that he gets hurt. There's also a chance that his trade value suffers because he isn't as good off the ball.
4. There's a very small chance that he plays so well that he become worth expiring contracts plus additional assets. I think the chances of that are much smaller than the chances of an injury or a failure at the SG position. Therefore, once he achieves a value of expiring contracts, it's in our best interests to trade him at that point and not gamble with playing him further because the downside odds are much higher than the upside odds.
5. If somebody is offering expring contracts now, it must be because they are gambling that his value will improve over time. Basically, we get what I consider to be his likely max value, without risking any injury that could tank his value. Therefore, if an expiring contract offer is on the table, we should take it immediately.
6. If nobody is offering expiring contracts now, we should keep him and play him. I will enjoy watching him play alongside Wall for that period of time. But when somebody calls us at the Trade Deadline and offers an expiring contract, I would let him go. Again, as per point #1 above, we are not the right team for a $20M a year player like Arenas. With a little patience, we will have the opportunity to spend that $20M in ways that will help our franchise win a championship in the future. That may be by a series of BOYD to stockpile picks and expiring contracts, followed by a major trade. Or it could be the outright signing of a free agent like Melo or Dwight Howard. Or it could be the signing of lesser free agents like NIcholas Batum and Kendrick Perkins after having reaped the advantages of higher draft picks due to our worse record sans Arenas.
nate, this is well-reasoned post, though I obviously disagree with some of it.
It strikes me that much of your argument that "we are not the right fit for Arenas" is heavily based on the fact that he's a point guard. Is he though? Wasn't the criticism of him in the first place that he wasn't a natural/pure PG -- that he's a natural scorer and not a distributor?
During Livingston's revelation last year there was a lot of discussion about playing him and Gil together because of Liv's size and pure playmaking abilities (I don't recall if you were intrigued by that possibility or not, though your vocal support of moving Gil for expirings has only been since this summer, I think). Wall's only a few inches shorter, but he's longer and worlds more athletic.
It's not as if Gil off the ball is some hair-brained experiment. The guy played the two (off of Jason Gardner -- much less of a purge PG that Wall) on an Arizona team that lost in the national championship (to that loaded Duke team -- Jay Williams, Duhon, Boozer, Battier, Dunleavy).
I think we are the right team and the right situation for Gil.
1) Expectations are low. If we win 30 games this year, no one is going to burn the city down
2) He has an emotional connection to the fanbase and the city. Lord knows this is a forgiving city ("Damn bitch set up me, but I'll still be re-elected Mayor one day!") and I expect Gil's being re-embraced by the fans is important to him
3) Ted -- compassionate, yet tough. I expect him to help get the best out of Gil
4) We have so much young and *cheap* talent on the roster, that Gil's big salary isn't a burden, and it won't be next year either. While it has the potential to be in the future, there's a ton that can happen before that point to mitigate the issue -- moving Hinrich, growing revenues to offset tax payment, new CBA and the associated implications that we can't predict or fathom right now.
5) John Wall -- As Ted said yesterday, he expects Wall to "add years to Gilbert's career." Players can have renaissances when they get running mates. Ray Allen seemed a hell of a lot more important when he was playing with All-Star teammates. Look what Nash did for Amare and Joe Johnson.
So I think we have reason to believe that Gil can be Gil off the ball and that this is the right situation for him. What do you think about those aspects of the argument, and are there other underlying reasons for your pro-trade rationale that I failed to identify?
To add to your point. PP wasn't the PP we have seen over the last few years before he got R Allen and KG to run with. I remember the trade happening and very few posters here thought it would work. How would they share the ball, etc. How would they add players around those three contract. Well no one thought Rondo would be that good. That helped a lot. And eventually, PP kind of took the lead on offense and KG was the defensive motor and it all worked out. But to my point. PP wasn't someone I would consider one of the best SFs in the league like he became.
I predict Gil is going to be one of the best SGs in the league and he and Wall will be better than Rondo and R Allen. Ray Allen was making 20 something mill. Now he is signed for around 10M.
