keynote wrote:Feel free to merge this into the Trade thread. But this topic feels a bit different.
These days, the best way to add talent outside of hitting the lotto is to convince a disgruntled star under contract to essentially work in cahoots with you, and engineer a lopsided trade to your team.
Let's say Beal is satisfied with the team's direction, and is willing to work with Russ to slide into the DMs of disaffected stars in awkward situations in the hopes of convincing them to pout their way to DC. What would that list of potentially eligible stars look like?
I assume that stars on contender teams are content and unlikely to leave, and stars on rookie deals can't pout their way off, seeing as their franchise still has their RFA rights. We could always pay FMV for a solid talent like Denver did for Gordon, but it's clearly better to find a star who's willing to pressure things on their end as well.
So, who would you have Beal and Russ call first?
Ingram? Sabonis? KAT? Siakam? Anyone?
Well, wouldn't that be tampering - unless they call free agents? And with our cap/lux tax situations, we can't go over the MLE to sign free agents.