brownbobcat wrote:sidsid wrote:The game theory element should still lead the Pels to aggressively shop AD at the deadline.
Why would AD's camp leak that he wants to leave now if he preferred the Celtics as a destination?
His camp knows that the Celtics have the likely best offer this offseason so if he was fine with that outcome he would have played out this year in silence. So not only does he not prefer that destination, you can infer that he explicitly wants to avoid it as the Celtics are not a trading option now.
Of course, Ainge can make this same logical analysis; so why would the Celtics make a godfather offer draining their team of assets for a player who is already signalling he isn't that interested?
The Celtics have the option of not being in win-now mode and may even lose Kyrie this offseason. There is no guarantee that the they would make that big offer with the available Intel.
Meanwhile, AD is now an expiring contract instead of 2 years as he is now, and the win now teams are even less motivated (or some like us, will have missed our window).
A big gamble.
It's definitely intriguing - what is the ideal endgame for AD here?
1. Boston has the best assets, but AD can't go to Boston this year and just made an offseason trade there more difficult.
2. Many signs pointing to LA - but it will also be a tough for them in the playoffs this year with limited depth.
3. Outwardly, this looks like LA trying to force New Orleans' hand into accepting a lowball offer - but this could also leave the door open for a team like Toronto that has some assets and is willing to go all-in this year.
A potential motivation for AD is that he's open to playing pretty much anywhere this year to win, so he is forcing the Pels hand to make a trade to contend now.
He may still make another trade demand this offseason to go to the team he really wants to join, which could be the Celtics.
This is possible, but a less likely motivation. Players rarely want to he bounced around from team to team unless they're at the end of their careers ring-chasing. The Lakers are the likely target, even though he may be shipped somewhere else.
