Bleeding Green wrote:Hal14 wrote:RodyTur10 wrote:
Aren't we doing that exact thing with Tristan Thompson?
I'd give up a first round pick to switch Thompson to Theis (on a longterm deal) for the same salary, as long as there's an understanding that Timelord is going to be the starting center getting around 30 MPG.
1) Ainge's vision was Thompson as starting center. We got killed by Bam Adebayo in the playoffs last year and he wanted a guy who was bigger, better interior defender, better rebounder than Theis, better inside scorer too, and it helped that Thompson had NBA finals experience. So Ainge signed Thompson to take over as starting center - that's why he paid him $9 mil a year on a 2 year deal.
2) Theis is only having a slightly better season than Thompson. A lot of metrics have them pretty close. Thompson is a better rebounder - they're close defensively. Defense and rebounding are really the 2 main things we need from that position. Since there's not much separating them, I don't think I would have thrown in a 1st round pick in order to trade Thompson instead of Theis. Plus, who knows, maybe Ainge tried doing that and still no wanted Thompson..
3) If Time Lord is starting center and getting 30 MPG, it doesn't make sense to pay anyone (Theis or Thompson) $9 mil a year, not to mention neither of them would sign for $9 mil a year to be a backup when any other team in the league willing to offer them $9 mil a year is going to start them. Obviously if given the choice and $ is the same, you're going to go where you can start, not where you can play 15-18 mins a game off the bench.
Then why did he sign Thompson who is a worse interior defender than Theis? Thompson is ass in the paint and can't defend the rim. One of the least effective scoring bigs in the NBA as well. If they can't use Thompson's contract in a trade by the next trade deadline, then it was an egregiously stupid signing. I don't know what the vision was with Thompson, but this is the same guy who signed Jeff Teague too, so I'm not sure if there even was a vision. Probably just had the MLE and wanted to use it.
Ron was a ? mark headed into the season and Theis had just gotten his a** kicked all over the court by Bam. The thinking was we'll get this proven bigger-body C to fill the whole as Theis will probably bail after the season and if Rob didn't show out we have a nice tradeable contract to go get a C. Unfortunately TT has looked like total trash and Rob exploded leaving trading Theis the only avail option..