prime1time wrote:[
Lol, at all. The reality is that there are examples of people staying and winning. Kobe in 2007 demanded a trade. Wade could have left Miami before the big 3 but he stayed. No one is advocating keeping Beal indefinitely. What people have argued is to not trade him prematurely but rather try to build a team around him. If it doesn't work then we move him as the last option. Not sure why you would mischaracterize the ast majority of opinions regarding Beal. Show me posters who advocate that we should keep Beal because of his public statements. In fact, his public statements have been very clear. If we don't win, he wants out. That's why he signed a contract with a player option.
Why is the most logical approach to building a good team, trading the best player the team has had in a decade and not trying to see if you can build around him? It's easy to criticize because the team is struggling but before the Bubble Westbrook was putting up 27. 7 and 7 on over 50% shooting from the field. Why should we advocate for trading Beal before we even know how this season will play out? Trading Beal doesn't guarantee anything but an extended rebuild that will most likely leave us worse in a worse position than we are now. My position on Beal has not changed. When you have the best SG in the league, you try to build around him. If you can't then you trade him. He's gotten better every year and is now having the best start to a season of his career. Yet all I can read is how he needs to go.
I'd rather fire the coach, make major trades to everyone else on this team but Beal and really, genuinely try to build a team around Beal than just move him. You win games with great players. Not with future draft picks, not with potential, not with a bunch of above-average players but great players. Of all the players that were moved. How many teams moved these players before they exhausted all options to win with them?
I get what you're saying, but Kobe was threatening to leave LA, as in the Lakers. Not hard to see why he was eventually convinced to stay. It's freaking LA, a team and location that literally every top FA has on their itinerary when their contract is up and a team w/a pedigree that includes a dozen or so LA based championships, and what, five or so this century alone? I hear you on Wade, but Wade plays in state tax free Miami, not only a favorite location for athletes and entertainers to hang out in, but also as previously mentioned, a location with no state income tax, and also a championship in the bag before all his buddies came down to South Beach.
The difference here is that Kobe and Wade had reasons to stay, the teams had won championships there, and there was reason to believe the destinations were attractive for both basketball and non-basketball reasons (It's basically two of the three most popular cities on the Coasts, especially for young people, one lacks a state income tax, both had championship pedigree, and one had an absurd level of championship pedigree, and of course there was Pat Riley in Miami as a cherry on top). Compare that to D.C. It's not a favorite destination for any of those reasons. There is no championship pedigree. The team hasn't been a legit title Contender since Jimmy Carter was president. Neither the team nor the F.O. carry anything remotely like the championship pedigree that the Lakers themselves did, nor Miami especially w/Riley had. It also doesn't hold any of the attraction of Miami in terms of taxes, nor either of those cities in terms of popular destinations for lifestyle and partying etc. Lastly, nobody ever includes DC on a FA tour, period.
However to get back to your key point which I put in bold.
BECAUSE HE'S GOING TO LEAVE, AND WE WILL GET NOTHING, not even Baseball Level Compensation in the form of a compensatory picks. We'll get nothing other than his contract off the books.
That's why you don't build around him, because the chair he sits in will be empty as soon as he's in control of where he decides to play rather than the Wizards.
Could I be wrong? Yep. Would I be in a scenario where we don't trade him? Barring us landing an Anthony Davis/Giannis level talent in the next year, no, I don't think so. I find the chances of him staying infinitesimal barring us landing a no doubt about it, franchise changing superstar on the level of young LeBron, or Anthony Davis sometime in the next 18 months. Barring that, he's gone (in my opinion, which it goes without saying).
So when you talk about building around him, you're building around him for this lost season (maybe they turn it around, but I'm skeptical), and '21-'22, and then it's bye-bye.
If you were right in assuming we could build around him, while I'd consider it foolish and pointless (since we haven't won w/him for a decade, and our roster is worse now and the East is tougher now than before when we were competitive)it could be recommended in that at least it would have the logic of seeing what we could do with a roster built around Beal, Rui, Avdija, and whomever we get with our firsts in the next two drafts. I understand the logic of just seeing what we can do with that, rather than cutting off that road of possibilities short, and rebooting again w/the kids we have. I get it, we actually have a legit top 15-20 player in the league, and it's damn hard to get them, but the likelihood that he stays, and we can actually play out that scenario is so low it just seems utterly pointless to me, and the massive cost of betting on that road and being wrong and getting NOTHING 18 months from now for Beal would be the worst catastrophe to hit the Wizards since the asinine Webber trade 23 years ago. And again, the problem I see, is that that is exactly what will happen if we don't trade him.
I totally own that I could be wrong, I'm wrong about lots of things, all the time, and more wrong about most things NBA related than just about anybody on the board probably since I'm much more connected to Soccer, and Football than I am basketball, but when it comes to stuff like this, I just see the counterargument you present as wishful thinking, and building based on hope, rather than logic, building based on fandom, rather than experience. I just have a real hard time imagining why a player in Beal's situation would ever stay. What's the selling point? Honestly. The only possible reason I could find is familial one's, and if he's someone whose very comfortable w/his family in DC and doesn't want to mess w/a go. Sometimes that does hold, but it's the exception, rather than the rule.
It's just my opinion, and if I'm wrong and building around Beal not only insures he stays, but turns us into a contender I'll be glad to eat all the crow in the world, and own it to the hilt. I just see that scenario is exceptionally unlikely.
