Balkman32 wrote:slick_watts wrote:this is good news. returning their picks is the baseline? nice. hope it's true. giving one pick back would be highway robbery.
I just don’t see a need to attach an asset. Over the next 2 years having that contract on our books isn’t awful. By the 2021 draft he is an expiring deal in a loaded free agent class. Who else do you want to give the money too before 2021?
I think a lot of fans are forgetting this is a business. The rebuilding process is going to have a negative impact on revenue. Eating $120 million for a non-contributor is the kind of loss that would affect any business on earth. It turns the bagmen gun-shy.
The closer the thunder stay to being in the black while keeping flexibility, the more likely management is to spend when it makes sense to spend.
Keeping a disgruntled Chris Paul has a negative effect on culture, and doing so for three damn years on a team that will be filled with young players isn’t just a sideshow. It is the kind of distraction that teaches everyone else to be disgruntled and selfish.
Cut the cancer out even if you have to lose assets to do so. Take that flexibility and trade it for solid vets with contracts the other team needs to get rid of (like the clippers just did and many other teams have done in the past) and rebuild the assets you lost to get rid of Paul.
In doing this, you’re putting yourself in a situation to draft high, which for at least the next two years is imperative if you want a shot at a superstar. It’s the most likely way we end up with one, and with restricted free agency, it’s the most likely way you keep one over the life of two contracts.
Don’t be impatient in trading him. If you have to play him for a couple months to improve his value, do so. But keeping him for the length of his contract is bad business and bad team building.