lilfishi22 wrote:Wolves were also 'under new management' and Butler played under Thibodeau. Irving and Hayward joined a top team in the East. Durant sold his soul for glory. I think the quality of a front office is a consideration for top FA's. When you're a top FA, you don't 'audition' for teams, teams come to sell their vision. Right now we don't really have much of a direction, we're kinda just hoping our players develop well and we have giant hole in two super important positions.bwgood77 wrote:It's pretty rare that top tier free agents switch teams. It's happened more recently with Durant, Hayward, Horford and Millsap. Anyway, if we get to the level of where a team like Boston or GS is, we could likely get one too. If your team improves from within, people want to play there, like Butler to the TWolves, Horford, Irving and Hayward in Boston and Durant.
But yeah, if we are still terrible people won't want to sign here. What top tier free agents sign with bottom tier teams? I mean George Hill and Zach Randolph signed with the Kings, but I wouldn't consider them top tier. Other than that it usually takes a big market.
If we begin to be competitive and are in the playoff hunt, people will likely start to consider it, particularly since it's going to take a couple years at least. I don't see many of the big names switching teams in 2019 anyway. Most of the other names wither seem too old or are wings...most of these guys will be well past their primes, are very likely to stay, or we won't want (Kyrie, Dwight, Chris Paul, Bledsoe, Middleton, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Khris Middleton, Harrison Barnes)...Butler is a FA but I doubt he goes anywhere....then you have some centers like Whiteside, Vucevic and Valanciunas. One guy that we might be able to get at that point is Kevin Love, but not sure how he'd fit or if we'd want him.
For PGs, there will be Walker (doubt he moves), Teague, Beverley, Collison, McConnell, Dinwiddie, Ish Smith, Bayless
Which guys would you target in 2019 that you think might leave their teams?
Not saying we can't attract a Hayward type player (a tier or two below 'elite') but I think if we kept on going as we are with McD treating players like assets, even if we're up and coming, I could see us having to really overpay or those players put us a few notches lower on their list of teams they want to play for. If we're still terrible, they won't sign here that's a given.
At this point, I'm not even looking at 2019 because it really depends how we are playing and whether our guys are panning out. If our young guys aren't developing as we expect, then we may go in a different direction. By 2019, Booker's likely maxed out extension will hit the books, we'll need to make decisions on Bender/Chriss (whether we keep or replace) and McD will be in the last year of his deal. If we don't show some promise and a reasonable amount of internal development/improvement these next two seasons, we could go with a soft reset, keeping only Booker.
Ultimately we just have to build from within like many teams do. Orlando is finally clicking with mostly players they drafted or players they got in random trades like Fournier and Ross. They gave up good players in Dipo and Harris but are playing well under a good coach.
If you end up signing a top tier free agent, you usually have to overpay to get them and/or give them a max. Either our drafted players will pan out in the next couple of years or McD will end up likely being gone anyway.
As far as I know though, the players still around on our team don't have problems with the FO, except for probably Len. The Suns issues with certain players will be forgotten. Not my Rich Paul but I don't want his clients anyway. But we've never signed a top tier free agent and I wouldn't expect it regardless. The closest we've come to signing pretty big names has been under McD though, other than signing Nash.
What might be a bigger issue is the attitudes and players wanting to fight other teams all the time...and whining at the refs. Other players might just start to dislike our team in general if that keeps happening.
