I love Asik, but trading him makes too much sense IF we land Dwight

It's easy to be seduced by the thought of two defensively dominant 7 footers protecting the paint and grabbing every rebounding in sight, but in our case there would be a price to pay for such luxury, and I'm not talking about the $28.9 million in combined salary Dwight Howard and Omer Asik would be making next year (assuming we sign Dwight for the max). The price I speak of is floor spacing or lack thereof, and the drop in offensive efficiency that would come with it. With two practically range-less big men on the floor at the same time, the defense will go up, but the offense will go down more than the defense will go up. Especially if you believe that I do that Terrence Jones has the makings of a very good defender in this league, he's slightly bigger than Al Horford but he moves like Josh Smith.

Zach Lowe once wrote a great article about how "packing the paint is the is the NBA defensive strategy forcing coaches to re-imagine scoring", illustrating a big part of the reason the NBA is becoming more and more perimeter orientated--the easiest way to punish defenses for packing the paint is by hurting them from outside. It's alot harder for defenses to rotate out to 4 shooters than 3, especially when all 4 of those guys can drive, kick, and/or swing the ball. Stopping the Harden/Dwight pick and roll with so many shooters spacing the floor would be a nightmare, especially considering how Dwight ranks 9th on pick and rolls via Synergy Sports and Harden ranks 5th among pick and roll handlers. However, with Asik at PF it would be a little easier for an uninvited guest to enter the paint and disrupt the pick and roll. I'm going to a clips from that article to further explain my point.

In this Warriors set, Asik would likely be playing the role of David Lee who is being guarded by Ryan Anderson. Watch how Anderson steps into the paint and gets right back to Lee with just a couple of steps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_qmHhzfqdU&feature=player_embedded
He still had to respect Lee a little because Lee can hit that mid-range shot, but Asik would get absolutely no respect at all out there. Regardless, it's that kind of "paint packing" that we want to avoid, and it would be a lot easier to counter it if we have four guys on the floor who can bury it from deep.

HISTORY PROVES IT:
If you noticed in the first round, the Warriors packed the paint against the 57 wins Nuggets whose high powered offense was completely exposed in the half-court. The Grizzlies did the same thing to the Clippers, and then got a taste of their own medicine against the Spurs. The Rockets would likely get a taste of that same medicine everytime we put both Dwight and Asik on the floor together, especially against the elite defensive teams we will be facing the playoffs come future years. And for what it's worth, we did get a taste in game 1 when we started both Omer Asik and Greg Smith together as we we got blown out by 29 points by the OKC Thunder. In the next 5 games we went with 4 shooters, and every one of those 5 games were close.

In the NBA finals, the Duncan/Splitter duo didn't work very well and alot of that had to do with how quick Miami's rotation defense is (although part of it also had to do with Splitter playing like crap). There are tricks to creating floor spacing without shooters, but it's not uncommon to see many floor spacing tricks get snuffed out in the playoffs where defenses are studying game-tape alot more extensively. Even if you look further back into history not much changes.

Since the merger, no team with a range-less front court has never made the NBA finals. Emphasis on range-less, because alot of people like to think of Hakeem, D-Robinson, Duncan, ect. when they're thinking of twin towers, but all those guys could consistently knock down a mid-range shot--something that can't be said about Dwight or Asik. Now that defenses have evolved, even a mid-range shot doesn't quite cut it, which I believe is part of the reason PF's like Duncan, Garnett, and Bosh have all moved to center.

ONLY TWO YEARS LEFT ON HIS CONTRACT:
The best GM's think several steps ahead like a chess master, and that's why it's important to think about what will happen when Asik's contract runs out in 2015. If Asik can only play back-up minutes in Houston, will we want to continue doing that for the rest of his career? I doubt it. Some team out there will offer him a BIG contract and a starting position, and we will have lost an extremely valuable asset for nothing. We don't need to rush, but there are incentives to trading him this off-season which I'm about to get to.

TRADE VALUE:
Obviously Asik is too valuable to play only back-up minutes, but it's impossible to win a championship without offensive synergy. I think it would be much wiser to trade Asik while his value is very high, assuming the likelihood we can get a big haul in return. Ofcourse, we don't need to rush, we can wait for the best possible offer while Furkan Aldemir proves to be a capable back-up center in the NBA (assuming we bring him over from Turkey this off-season which I'm guessing we will), but if we do decide to rush we have two great incentives--more cap space for second free agent target, and the likelihood many teams will be willing to pay a pretty penny for a defensive 7 foot center who rebounds at an elite level.

POSSIBLE TRADE SCENARIO:
Like I said, there's on need to rush, but lets say for discussion's sake Dwight or Morey wants to win a championship right away (very likely), obviously it would help our chances if we had a more experienced PF (especially one with a consistent shot to space the floor). Portland Trailer blazers are shopping to win now, and it's rumored that a defensive starting center is what they're looking for. This makes sense considering how Aldridge is not a true center, and Porland's defensive shortcomings (ranked 26th defensively) is a big reason they missed the playoffs. GM's are already starting to circle like sharks, wondering whether or not LaMarcus Aldridge is becoming disgruntled and might demand a trade soon (he's a free agent in 2015 which gives him leverage). They have picks #10, #39, #40, and #45. All those second round picks are un-guaranteed salary so they won't count against our cap space, and that #10 pick won't count either IF we draft an international player to stash overseas for a year (if a draftee signs a contract saying he will play overseas for a year, his salary doesn't count against our cap space. We did this with Donatas Motiejunas in 2011). Daryl Morey has been on record saying he likes the draft and stash method, and he also said that early 2nd round picks are arguably more valuable than mid-late 1st round picks.

If we were to take this trade scenario, not only would we have 4 new prospects (in addition to our own 2nd round pick, and the mid-late 1st round pick we might get for Thomas Robinson), but we would also have over $8 million more to spend on someone to compliment Dwight Howard at PF. Or we can find a taker for Lin too and go for another max player like Chris Paul (which works if each Dwight and Paul take a discount of $1 million).

So there you have it, a plethora of good reasons why it would be a good idea to trade Asik if we get Dwight. Don't ge tme wrong, I'm a big fan of Asik's defense and rebounding (I think he's as good a defender as DPoY winner Marc Gasol), but trading him if we get Dwight makes too much sense to me.

 

Difference between those guys and Dwight is that Dwight can still average 40 minutes in the playoffs. That would leave only 8 minutes for Asik.

Also, while 48 minutes of elite rim protection would be a nice luxury, there's a limit to how much should be spent on such a luxury otherwise Chicago would have matched.

No matter how I look at it, there are too many good reasons as to why we should not spend 50% of our budget on one position.