A Guide to the Offseason

[da ThRONe]

Couple things:

1. If we crumble, that 1st rounder matters more than ever.

2. When you say "What is more valuable to this team: Gordon plus pick 16 next year or 12M to be able to sign a guy like Ariza PLUS a couple other bench pieces? --- the key piece there is next year. Sure, for next year and the year after, I agree with you. But that will come and go. If it's necessary to get the cap space to sign a star, by all means, pull the trigger. But if you don't make that trade, in 2016, you still have the cap space to sign a guy like Ariza + couple other bench pieces. Except now you have the 1st rounder too.

You can either overpay for Chandler or you can overpay for Gordon. I'd rather overpay for Chandler too, especially cause he comes off the books a year earlier. But not at the cost of losing a possible major asset in 2016 -- because as soon as it hits 2016, we'll all be sitting here saying "crap, we'd have the same thing right now, plus a 1st rounder if we didn't make that trade." That trade is completely, 100% a trade for the next 2 years. And if Gordon opts out next year, you did it for nothing.

This is more of my line of thinking. We aren't one year and one guy away from being a great team IMO. Even if we were we would still have to wait until not this off season, but the next to sign him if we did this deal. If we could have traded Gordon this past year for an expiring(like the Gordon for Gordon deal I know MM proposed)even if it cost us a draft pick(protected) I would have been all over that. I like you rather keep Gordon and hope he opts out than trade away a pick as early as 2016 just to get away from his contract (potentially) one year earlier.

[Mythrol]

Couple things:

1. If we crumble, that 1st rounder matters more than ever.

2. When you say "What is more valuable to this team: Gordon plus pick 16 next year or 12M to be able to sign a guy like Ariza PLUS a couple other bench pieces? --- the key piece there is next year. Sure, for next year and the year after, I agree with you. But that will come and go. If it's necessary to get the cap space to sign a star, by all means, pull the trigger. But if you don't make that trade, in 2016, you still have the cap space to sign a guy like Ariza + couple other bench pieces. Except now you have the 1st rounder too.

You can either overpay for Chandler or you can overpay for Gordon. I'd rather overpay for Chandler too, especially cause he comes off the books a year earlier. But not at the cost of losing a possible major asset in 2016 -- because as soon as it hits 2016, we'll all be sitting here saying "crap, we'd have the same thing right now, plus a 1st rounder if we didn't make that trade." That trade is completely, 100% a trade for the next 2 years. And if Gordon opts out next year, you did it for nothing.

No. I'm pretty sure any guy that we sign using the cap that Gordon left will ostill be here in 2016. That player does not suddenly disappear once Gordon's contract runs out. The only difference is if Gordon opts-in we won't be able to sign said player/players without having to move other pieces on the team to get them. If Gordon opts in then it's time to sign AD to his max deal when Gordon is coming off the books. Maybe you work with AD and he's nice enough to wait and let you work out your cap space or maybe he says, "Give me my contract now." And then you do as he says and your hands are tied.

The 1st rounder isn't disappearing. You are using the 1st rounder to ensure that you have the cap space you need to get the players you need around Davis before he signs his extension. I'd much rather do that then be strapped and HOPE we get lucky in the draft and hit on the player we need. That trade is exactly not about the next two years. It's about the long term core around AD. If Gordon opts in then we will have a much weaker core. The way I see it is at the end of Gordon's contract do you want our 2015/2016 and possibly MLE/RLE's being the only pieces added. Or would you want 1 of those two picks, the MLE/RLE's, PLUS another big piece through FA . It's a very easy choice for me.

[Mythrol]

I disagree we could crumble due to injury similar to this year. Hell the Spurs got Duncan on an injury ruined season.

If the core 4 fails and only Davis is worth his expectations. If we can draft another big time player that could be the difference between building a championship team or having to rebuild for scratch.

We still would have to wait another year if we traded for Chandler before having the cap space to add help. And by then we'd have to find a replacement for Tyson if he bombed or didn't re-sign with the team.

This of course is assuming the pick we trade is in the mid/late 1st round therefore equaling a pick in that range of the draft.

Also Gordon could very realistically opt out of this deal. Honestly at this stage in his career especially if he has a pretty good year makes more sense for him to do. Why play out the year even at almost 16mil pretty much unprotected with his injury history? When he can sign another 4 year deal for way more guarantee money than 15.5M's.

The whole over paying for FA thing isn't silly. Of the 3 players you mentioned only 1 came basically through free agency and that's Anderson(and technically that was a trade). Davis was drafted and Jrue cost us 2 draft picks. Evans has been on a tear lately, but he IMO is still overpaid and has to play close to how he has the past few weeks for the life of the deal to prove otherwise.

You mentioned getting good affordable players around Davis after he becomes a max player. The best way to do so is via the draft.

I already said that being healthy is key for this team. But I simply think we are too good of a team to be bottom of the barrel. Look at what we've done this year with all of the injuries we've had. I honestly doubt we have another year this bad again and even if we do we will have the same core of guys. I'm not talking about trading unprotected picks. It's always been understood that it'd at least be like top5/7 protected just in case something insane happened.

I'm not looking at Tyson as a long term piece either unless he does it for a discount. The trade could be Gordon and the 1st for the cap space itself if another team could absorb him for all I care. I like the idea of having Tyson, even if for a year to train AD, but honestly the idea I like best is simply not having Gordon but a big pile of money to sign other players with. If it makes you feel more comfortable you can look at the FAs we sign with all that money as our draft picks.

I honestly don't know what Gordon will do. But I do know that I'd rather give up an asset so I wouldn't have to worry about it. The longer he is taking a starters spot on this team the more he hurts it because he isn't in our long term plans. The sooner we can have our team built and playing together, the better, because we will need at least another year just to know how to play with one another. I look at that as part of the value in trading Gordon as well.

Like I said the whole overpay FA thing is silly FOR US. I think you misunderstood the point I was making. I couldn't care less how we acquired the players we have on our team at this point. That price has already been paid. It doesn't matter how they got on our team, because looking forward it's about the cap hit that they have that affects what we do from here on. If we wanted to say we traded CP3 for AD that would be irrelevant to what AD's cap hit is now. Our two picks for Jrue, again, irrelevant. Ryno's and Evans trade? irrelevant. All that matters is the contracts they're on now and what that allows us to do in the future. Because of the great contracts we have on the team, we can afford to overpay in FA to get the player/players we need. As long as we do it BEFORE AD's contract. Because we are a small market I honestly think the only/best way to get the players we need is through FA. Sure you could roll the dice with the draft and hope that we come up snake eyes like the Spurs did with 2ND ROUND picks but that's leaving a heck of a lot to chance. Especially when all we'd need to do is give up one pick to have a much better option? I'm going for that.

[Rheem654]

Yeah, Lee is not something I want. He is something I want MORE than Gordon and he is a guy I think we could move elsewhere easier than we can move Gordon...

Just to nit-pick here and put some things in perspective, I think it's important to keep in mind that these players are actual people and not things. I know it's tempting to refer to these people as 'assets' to trade and sell like commodity, but when we use words like 'something' rather than 'someone' to refer to a fellow human being, it's reminiscent of slavery where people were reduced to commodities and not acknowledged as people with their own daily thoughts, dreams, and friends and family.

Know it probably wasn't your conscious intention, but as a fellow writer, Michael, you can surely appreciate the importance of word choice : )

That being said, it would be awesome to have Big Chandler back on this squad as a grounded veteran leader and solidify the Center spot for this team. Would really round out the roster well.

[Soundwave]

Holiday/Rivers
Evans/Morrow
Tucker/Aminu
Davis/Anderson
Chandler/Ajinca

Playoffs.

[Inner_GI]

Just to nit-pick here and put some things in perspective, I think it's important to keep in mind that these players are actual people and not things. I know it's tempting to refer to these people as 'assets' to trade and sell like commodity, but when we use words like 'something' rather than 'someone' to refer to a fellow human being, it's reminiscent of slavery where people were reduced to commodities and not acknowledged as people with their own daily thoughts, dreams, and friends and family.

Know it probably wasn't your conscious intention, but as a fellow writer, Michael, you can surely appreciate the importance of word choice : )

That being said, it would be awesome to have Big Chandler back on this squad as a grounded veteran leader and solidify the Center spot for this team. Would really round out the roster well.

A skill set is "something." That's how I read it.

[PelsFan2313]

Hahaha I should have added the condition, "if healthy." Seems to always be a problem for us.

I do think, however, that the upgrade from the Steamer to TC, Aminu to Tucker, internal development of AD, Rivers, and Evans, and the subtraction of Gordon would lead to a substantial increase in wins.