Zelaznyrules wrote:jredsaz wrote:Zelaznyrules wrote:
Yes and Billy flipped his burgers better than little Timmy but guess what, it's not the same thing. And it isn't just Bender and Chriss, we have a team full of players that are far from reaching their playing peak. If you play young players they make mistakes. If you're pulling out all stops to win games, you can't afford those mistakes.
To see the risks with this "bring in a star" approach, all you have to do is look at Len, look at the arguments that so many made in favor of the acquisition of Chandler and look where we are now. We all know that a lot of big men develop late. We all knew that Len came to the game late and had a long ways to go. We accepted the idea that Chandler would be a good mentor for Len and that he could learn what he needed in fits and spurts rather than by playing a major role. Our recent history suggests we were wrong.
And now, we have to decide whether to invest big dollars in Alex or let him walk. If we hadn't chased Chandler, we'd have a much better idea what to do right now but his presence delayed Len's growth, ate up the first contract cushion the CBA gave us, and left us in this position. I so hope we don't do this again and find ourselves having to consider letting Bender and maybe even Chriss walk, just as we're considering doing now with Len and Warren.
Chandler is not nearly the caliber of player Griffin is. I also have a hard time believing Len would be that much better had we not signed Chandler. Isnt it just as possible that he is an average player from a pretty weak draft?
In the end If you can land a top 15 player you take the shot. Period. That's what you hope and pray one of our youngsters will develop into. Griffin is that caliber of player when healthy. Given our training staff's success in the past I think the injury risk is somewhat mitigated.
I think Blake at his best is a much better player than Chandler at his. And yes, Chandler when we got him wasn't even as good as the Blake-in-decline we've seen the past few years. Signing him isn't the worst idea if you just look at one factor. But if you consider we'd have to get rid of or trade some players to make it work and if you consider our youth and you consider his age and if you consider his injury history and if you consider how limited his game is outside of his athleticism and then you look at the time and money we will have to commit to him, it starts to look an historically bad idea.
And AFAIC you help make my point on Len. Yes, it's possible that he would never amount to anything. But we don't know, can't know, because we brought in Chandler and put him in front of Alex. Without Tyson, right now, we'd have a very good idea whether Len is worth our attention going forward.
All said, if Griffin was truly a top 15 player and likely to stay there, I might be less convinced it was a horrible idea. But to me he's barely top 25 and he's on his way down. Five years ago I thought he was a top 5 player, on his way to the Best Player argument. That's a scary drop considering he really hasn't started showing the decline of age. I'd also be okay with this if he were available on a more team friendly contract but neither is the case. His presence will likely cost us in player development, tie up cap space for when we really need it, put Ryan out on the streets (forcing us to live with the growing pains of another GM in training), and set our development back several years.
First, Blake's game is limited outside if his athleticism? You must not have seen him play very much. Read the ringer article might clear some things up. He is one if the best playmaking bigs have ever seen. I like the signing because I think his game will translate as he ages as his athleticism diminishes. He is the forward we want in order to run the offense we want to run.
Second, I've seen enough of Alex Len to understand what he is. The Suns have too. He will be an average to above average player in a vacuum. However, given today's playing style paradigm, he is antiquated. He can't guard the perimeter or shoot threes. He dosn't have great hands and isn't a great rim runner. He is an average rebounder.
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