And upon which players do we spend that money?
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I don't want AD. I want the assets AD will provide for this team. I've already been disappointed by the Pelicans for wanting to keep Gentry...
I refuse to believe they will keep AD and they aren't just using this to create leverage against other teams.
I don't know who we are trading, what salaries are moving in those trades, who we target in free agency, what contracts are renegotiated :idoh:
I do feel strongly from his comments that Griffin didn't take this job knowing Mrs.B is going to pull the rug on his moves because of spending.
It would be the most pathetic, #PelsLife thing of all time for us to have ownership make this big show of changing things up, redirecting the franchise, making things new, and then keeping the same coach, the same staff, the same trainers, the same medical crew, the same analytics department, resigning all the same players, and then just running it all back for the 8th time
AD QUIT on the team. It's absolutely mind boggling that they'd want to run it back with him. He made a public spectical of the entire process. He has routinely lied while trying to actively hurt the organization. He literally wore a That's All Folks shirt then lied about not picking it and acting innocent.
If they want to say publicly that they are going to sit down and talk to AD, ok sure. Heck, I don't even care if they tell AD whatever he wants to hear just to gain as much leverage as they can with other teams.
I'm absolutely against keeping AD. I don't think he's worth the supermax. He will cap strap our team and is a quitter you simply can't trust. All he is, is an end to a means for me. A way to breath new life into the team through multiple players to give us a better and well balanced team.
I've already given up hope we will ever win a ring here. I have NO faith in the organization being smart enough and lucky enough for that. But we can still be a playoff team who makes a run.
I agree that all of my excitement now centers on what players and picks we can get for AD. The idea of him staying here doesn’t excite me at all, for multiple reasons. The first is the sour taste of this year and how it went down.
The second is just simply that I don’t know what the avenue is for us really changing the dynamic of this team with him here on a Supermax. We haven’t had the space or assets to attract a big 3rd piece for years, how does that change moving forward?
AD can’t carry this team as constructed, we already know that. Even healthy, this is a bottom playoff team at its peak. It’s time to blow it up, we are just lucky we get to blow it up with one of the best trade assets in the league.
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He is certainly worth the supermax (if any players are indeed worth that much money). He is one of the top 6-10 players in the NBA at 26 years old. It would have been foolish for Griffin not to say he would try to keep him. Having said that, I think that ship has sailed and he will still be traded.
The org is finally doing the right things publicly in the way it is handling the AD saga. I'd say Griffins comments give us a 10% increase in the likelihood we keep him, up from 0%. No damage is irreparable and I strongly doubt Mrs. B would hand this kid 250 million without making him clearly and publicly apologize to his teammates and the fans. She can just write the words and leave them, he will read whatever someone lays out for him. Either way Griffin is in front of this situation from the onset and has put everyone on notice.
Outside of Zion where else are we going to get that stat line out of one player with consistency?
My statement about the supermax could have been worded more clearly. I was referring to being worth the supermax in our current situation. If AD was on the Warriors or Houston or Boston, etc then he'd 100% be worth the supermax. If he signs that with us we are cash strapped with not a ton of options for improving our team. We are not a contender and heck are only a playoff team 2 times in 7 years with him. If we tie up that type of money we will have no chance of building a contender but if we move AD then thwt gives us flexibility, depth, and a fresh start for building a successful franchise.
I believe the AD Talk is PR guff and he is 100 percent gone. He has already burnt his bridges and we won’t be able to field a competitive team if we give him more money. Sometimes, you just have to know when to move on. It’s best for both parties.
Completely agree with this, 100%. AD has been on this team for 7 years, and you can still count the number of playoff games we've won with him on one hand. A lot of that isn't his fault, but some of it is. We've sunk basically $100m into him so far in his career, and we have essentially nothing tangible to show for it. No long playoff runs, no consistent success, no consecutive winning seasons, no team culture. As a pure player, AD is as good as anyone in the league. I fully believe that. But given our situation, our relationship with him, our direction? No, for us, he's not worth $40m a year.
Are y'all nuts? AD is by far the best chance at contending.
AD won't be on this team next season, but it won't be due to the Pelicans. It'll be due to AD not wanting to be here. If AD says he wants to stay, he stays.
I'm not sure what y'all are expecting from a trade, but this should be clear: any trade involving AD will result in not getting equal value in return, and could easily throw us into a tailspin that could end in basketball leaving New Orleans for good. I pray we hit on draft picks and players we get in return, but jesus you're delusional if you don't think the team that gets AD will ultimately win this trade.
When I heard Griffin mention AD staying I felt the exact same as Broussard. AD ain't staying here.
Our team sucked. There's nothing the guy could do. LeBron has won the Lakers zero playoff games. Do you not want him? At the end of the day, trading away a Hall of Famer is never a smart idea. You just expected more out of him, and that's fine, but if you think we'll be better off trading him, you're delusional. This is pretty straight-forward --- the team receiving the hall of famer wins a trade.
Using Lebron is probably the single worst thing you could possibly do to make that argument, because Lebron routinely took far worse rosters than this to playoff success. Need I remind you of the 2007 Cavs? What about the Cavs last year, when Lebron got to the finals with Jordan Clarkson, Jeff Green, Larry Nance Jr, and Jose Calderon? Now that he's 34 years old with more minutes on his body than any other player in the last 15 years and misses 20 games he finally fails to make the playoffs. If AD was 34 and had that mileage, I'd be more understanding. Especially if he'd logged those minutes taking us on finals trips.
You'd be totally right if basketball was Dungeons and Dragons and all that mattered was numbers on paper. In that case, sure, trading a Hall of Famer isn't a smart idea. But if that HoF player is contributing to a toxic atmosphere, has alienated half the fanbase, refuses to take responsibility for his own actions, actively sabotages the team mid-season, tells the media on television that he would rather play literally anywhere else than here, and on top of that, continually fails to actually bring us success, then unfortunately just pointing to 28 points per game doesn't make a very good argument.
And is that because we had one of the top talented players in the NBA or an incompetent front office that could not build a team around him? Demps was a huge failure. He gave Monty players that would fit Gentry's system and Gentry players that would fit Monty's system. I would hope Griffin would do a better job.
I simply don't believe this. By EVERY account we should have been a better team this season than last. We added Randle in place of an injured Cousins, Niko got an entire summer here, Payton replaced Rondo. People literally went into this season saying this was the most talented roster AD has ever had.
At some point the players carry some amount of responsibility for failing. AD has NEVER shown he can consistently carry a team. We can blame Dell, he's certainly deserving of it, but he's already been fired. He was already judged and found lacking. People cannot claim AD is a generational talent, a top 3 player in the league, and then give him a free pass for how the team performs.
I agree with this completely. If Davis doesn't ask to be traded, I think we could have snuck into the playoffs even with the injuries. The way teams tanked at the end of the season we could easily have won 10 of the last 12 and that would have gotten us to around 43 wins. Still not enough but could have been close especially if we keep Niko and made a decent move at the deadline. I blame AD for the lack of vision and being a Lebron puppy for our issues. I think he is now seeing that he should have done things differently and may have burned bridges here.
What part of the argument? Are you saying that because the previous front office failed, we should trade away a top 6-8 talent as a result instead of trying to see if the new front office can build a contender around him? What would you be hoping to get for him? I think we all know that in any trade, we are not going to get equal value. So, if there is a chance to keep him, you have to try. I still do not think that will happen.
Just to throw in a curveball what does Etwan Moore and/or Solo our 1st and some 2nds get us? If we keep AD.
AD quit on this team, but you can't blame him. You sit in his position and you see how the organization is run, and you'll feel the same way.
My problem, and I'm sure everyone else's problem, is how he handled this all. From pretty much putting Jrue and Alvin in a position to answer questions for him the day after he requested a trade, to that debacle at the All Star break, and the stupid appearance on LeBron's show. It's all been a disaster and he most definitely hurt his image amongst Pels fans. He'll most likely be forgiven 10 years down the road, but for now, he destroyed the relationship between us.
He does not get a free pass for the way he handled himself this year. However, you cannot possibly think the only reason this team did not win was because of AD. Demps traded away draft pick after draft pick with no clear vision of how to construct a team. He then handed over ridiculous contracts to fringe NBA players to fill key roles on the team. Can you honestly say that the front office put the right players around AD for this team to become a winner and it was only AD who failed?
Where did I say the *only* reason the team did not win was because of AD? I already said Dell messed up and got fired because of it. That however does not excuse AD. Dell made mistakes but the past 2-3 seasons he made solid moves and gave AD and really solid team around him the last two years.
It's extremely disengenious to say, "it's not AD's fault look how injured this team was this year." while also not giving Dell the same pass. If it's not an excuse for Dell, it's not an excuse for AD. I've watched Lebron drag WAY worse teams to not only the playoffs but the finals. AD is literally claiming he is the best player in the world. He better share some type of blame for this not working.
You said you wanted to get rid of AD because he has not won here. He does not build the roster. The only criticism I can see that really is a good reason to move on is that he misses a lot of games (and that he handled himself like a baby this past year). Demps built the roster. Do you think lesser players would have had us in contention for a championship with the rosters Dell built for the applicable coaching staffs?
That isn't what I said at all though. This was my explanation on wanting to trade AD:
It's not just about AD not winning here. It's if we sign him to a supermax deal we will not have the cap space or assets to greatly improve the team at all and we've already seen what AD can do with the current team, which isn't much. If we were in a position of being close to contention then giving AD the supermax and keeping him would be a no brainer. That isn't the case here though. If we give AD the supermax there's no guarantee of ever being able to improve the roster significantly around him. We would like to think AD could "recruit" a star but that seems unlikely when he literally just demanded a trade from the organization.
As far as the rest of your comments, they're irrelevant. I'm looking at the situation we are in now. If you want to lay all the blame on Dell and give AD a free pass, ok fine. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because we are here now in our current situation. If I were only looking at the less than 1% chance we could win a title, then maybe AD is the only way for us to do that. I simply don't think we will ever win a title here so I'd rather a better rounded team that fits each other and makes the regular season fun to watch while ultimately falling short. I'd rather 7 years of Portland than 7 more years of what we've had with AD.
I do not see that passing on giving a 26 year old superstar a supermax in order to gain cap space is the move that we should be making. However, it is not really worth arguing about as I do not see him signing an extension anyway. Let's just hope we get a solid deal out of the trade for him.
You said that with him we would not have the cap space or assets to greatly improve the team. So, it appears you want him gone to create cap space to improve the team. There is no way that we will get equal or better value for him in a trade. So, we would be downgrading a superstar in order to create space to add around lesser players.
Maybe to an extent, but consider this.
What teams in the league are there that have a single superstar, with a limited supporting cast, that win? What teams have ever been in that scenario? 2011 Mavs? 2007 Cavs? 2001 Sixers? Not many, is the answer, and of those I think only one (2011 Mavs) has won a ring. Giving AD the supermax in and of itself is a great idea. But the team doesn't exist in a vacuum: we aren't a FA destination, we don't have the bird rights on the kind of guys we would want to keep around like Payton and Randle, and Jrue already has a sizeable contract. Giving AD a supermax on this team would be, if not bad, at least extremely risky because then we would have damn near $70m of cap space gone in just two players (AD would be near $40m a year and Jrue is $27m per for the last two years of his deal, I think), and no promise of being able to put anyone around them.
Then you have to ask the question: okay, but maybe that's not a problem? 2011 Mavs, it was Dirk and Jason Terry and then kind of just a bunch of good roleplayers that didn't cost a ton of money. Maybe AD and Jrue can be our Dirk and Terry and we just put pieces around them. Sure.
But we've tried that already. It doesn't work. AD has not been able to lead our team into the playoffs with any kind of consistency. Why would anyone think he'll suddenly figure it out now just because you give him a supermax?
That's a cause and effect. That's not a reason for wanting AD gone. Me saying "If we sign AD to the supermax and attempt to build around him, we won't have the cap space or talent to fill in our holes" does not mean I'm saying "we should let AD walk for nothing so we can have cap space."
What is equal or better value? It's not about getting a superstar in return. It's about getting "lesser" players with potential that fit our team better and fills in holes we've had for a long time. Maybe it's a downgrade at the PF position but if we can upgrade PG, SF, C during the regular season we can actually be a better team overall. If we can get actual depth and picks that have potential instead of a depleted top heavy roster we can be a better team overall. So no, in a vacuum we can't get an equal or better value to AD but in our current situation where we basically need starters at every position outside of SG, and we need a ton of depth trading him for players and picks might be better for the long term success of our team. Even if that means we lower our chances of winning a championship because we don't have a "superstar".
How many teams win championships with no superstars? At least if we had AD, we have the potential to get another. Maybe we luck out in the draft or Griffin is able to work something out or a fringe all-star thinks that this may not be a terrible destination with a real front office.
If we have AD, signed to that supermax, there are essentially two ways that we could potentially get another superstar. The first is lucking out in the draft, the second is a talent who is willing to take a MASSIVE paycut to play here, or (as you say) a fringe all-star who takes a leap once they get here.
Here's the problem: either of those two situations is improved by not having someone on the team already on a huge contract.
Draft: if we draft a player who turns out to be a superstar, then all of a sudden we don't need AD anyway: we have the superstar that you think we require, and we don't have to pay $40m per year to keep him either. In that situation, having the cap space to build a deep team around him is probably more productive in the long run than having a team with 2 or 3 good players and then a stockpile of minimum old guys and fringe-players.
Massive paycut: Not happening.
Fringe all-star who takes the leap: Extremely unlikely, but even if that were to happen then surely, again, we're just in the same situation as with the draft. That is, we have a talented, all-star calibre player on a relatively cheap contract who it would probably be better to build around than to try and scrape together a bunch of 35 year olds and fringe-league-players for minimum contracts.
I do want to caveat all of this by saying that if AD were to sign the supermax, I would hope to God that I'm wrong and that he finally takes that alpha leap, but seeing the pathetic way he's behaved over the last few months I don't think that's likely. He seems more cowardly than ever.
AD isn’t staying here. Sorry folks. Also, Ainge isn’t getting rid of Tatum. Kyrie is about 90% out of the door. He’s not giving up Tatum to rent AD for a year. AD wants to be a Laker. He’ll be one whether we like it or not. Should have traded him last year. The longer the Pels keep him the less they’ll get for him.
Someone needs to tell Ainge that, then, cause he's made a bunch of statements that make it sound like he's very much willing to trade Tatum.
Everyone knows AD wants to be a Laker. Nobody cares. It's not his choice for another year, and we already know teams don't care that much about where players ''demand'' to go, because they get traded elsewhere anyway. PG wanted to be a Laker. Now he's in OKC. Kawhi wanted to be a Clipper, now he's in Toronto. Kyrie wanted to be in NY, now he's a Celtic. Players get sent where teams believe it's convenient. I can't think of a single time in the last five years where a player has demanded a trade to a specific team and has ACTUALLY been traded there.
Teams are willing to take bets on players when they are top tier players, and AD is better than any of those three. You can argue about whether you think the Celtics will be willing to offer up the entire war chest or not, sure, but the argument that AD wants to go to LA and therefore nobody will cough up for him is just beyond ridiculous. Only someone who hasn't been paying attention to the NBA for like three years could say that.
Edit: not sure why you're saying ''sorry folks'' either. Most of us don't want AD back, and most of us also agree that he's going to get traded.
Your timeline is completely wrong. How can Kyrie be 90% out the door when he doesn't even know what's going to happen after the playoffs? Before anyone knows what their next moves is for a full month, the trade will have been agreed to. Basically, once the lottery happens, we'll know what's going to happen, and depending on who gets what pick, the Celtics will only know what our demands are and Tatum is a non-starter if he isn't in the deal.
If they don't give up Tatum, they don't get AD. This is what Ainge has been gearing up for for years now. If Ainge was willing to bank on Kevin Garnett coming here when he totally didn't want to and convincing him to stay, then surely Ainge would like his odds of convincing Kyrie knowing he's got AD in the bag.
Here is what he thinks of you
They’ll be a suicidal people on here when Griffin trades AD to the Lakers
Yes, Magic Johnson publicly stated he didn't think the Lakers were going to be able to get any superstar this summer and then quit but really he knew the Lakers are going to be able to get AD.