Was Tilman cheap for not going all in? A response.

LOL. Great post. If Shumpert could pull off a Brewer in one of the playoffs series (preferably against GSW), it would be worth it.

 

I got no prob with Tilman - just like i had no prob with Les...

IF an opportunity presents itself to vastly improve the team - i believe either would do it - regardless of cost... ie Jimmy Butler.... CP3....

Prob is, the 'fans' want to ride the owner to the poor house on mediocre 'upgrades' - and that just aint good business...

For all the fan drivel about 'missing our window' or 'wasting Hardens prime' or whatever... I dont believe Morey has ever passed on a deal to bring a needle mover to town... but financial suicide for an unproven commodity or even a questionable one is just stupid...

Remember Ty Lawson? I believe he got a 90%+ approval from CF when we acquired him - how'd that turn out?

So I dont blame mgmt for not overpaying (asset or salary wise) for middle of the road players in the hope that they are 'the missing piece'... cause this isnt a game to them - it's a business. While fans are happy to gamble millions when it aint their money - i dont hold it against the owner if he's not willing to do so...

 

Who said anything about giving up?

 

@BasketMAD gave up on rockets

 

You are right , making the trade with Memphis for Green and Temple would have changed the narrative.

Since they couldn't make that move and get the player they really wanted , they went to plan B and got a player Morey liked …. and allowed them to punt the financials to next year - that is assuming they retain Shumpert. Next year you can either move EG or wait 90 days and move Shumpert - that contract / pick isn't the net zero it is if Shumpert isn't retained.

Short term … plan B is better than nothing but it didn't make them serious contenders this year but then again , who really is !?

Really gonna be interesting to see what happens at seasons end with Shumpert. Keeping him … the narrative changes , letting him walk - not so much.

 

This team hasn't shown this season that they're capable of winning it all like they did last year. In that respect, then I'm fine with him ducking the tax, although it is disappointing that we had to give up so many future assets that could have been used to actually upgrade the team. Why pay all this extra money for a team that likely doesn't have a realistic shot?

Now, if we had an opportunity to significantly upgrade the team with all the assets we used to duck the tax, but didn't because we were scared of paying tax under any circumstance, then that would be more troubling.

 

The issue is always perceptions based on imperfect information. It may be that he is cheap and didn’t want to pay the tax. It might be that he would have, but given poor options, it’s just better to cut the losses. And it might be that he isn’t cheap per se, but his operating margin is so poor that they really have no choice. Only a finals run can generate revenue necessary to pay the tax.

Unfortunately, narratives have a long life span, whether true or not. Take the Thunder-Harden situation for example. The narrative has been that they chose Ibaka over Harden and traded him because of cost. That perception was allowed to dominate the narrative because their management is so tight-lipped. It may be true, or not, but they did offer him 55m of the possible 60m. It might be that they thought their would be issues with chemistry given that three starters had taken less than max at that point. Many years later, we learned from Scotty Brooks that hardest didn’t want to start in place of Thabo S, and had asked to remain with the second team. Since they never discussed it, maybe this just ticked off the owners or Presti. So when given the chance to pay less for a starting SG, a young SG option (Lamb), and a draft pick, that looked more promising than losing him for nothing the next year - something that people then criticized them for having happened with Durant.

Hindsight is 20/20, but only if you have a clear line of sight - which I’m not sure we really have today. Obviously the Thunder have no problem spending luxury tax money now, but that could either be in response to what happened with Harden, unrelated to what happened with Harden, or the fact that they essentially replaced two absurdly highly leveraged and financially distressed owners with one of the richest men in the world (and perhaps not coincidentally, is a major philanthropist who doesn’t own a single vacation home or yacht).

Ultimately, we will see over the next few years what motivated this year’s decisions - but it will be hard to shake the initial perception that this was just a cheap move to save money.

 

This y’all! We always complain about the moves... Morey does a lot of micro moves no one can see. We create assets in the G-league used for trades. “All-in”moves are spared to acquire people we want hopefully at no expense to our team. Here’s our defensive wing y’all!

 

Agreed. I’m frustrated that we didn’t use our assets to materially improve the team (picks and MLE), choosing instead to duck under an artificial cap.

But I choose to be optimistic here. If Morris comes along, our team is deep, versatile and in a great position to make a playoff run:

Paul/Rivers
Harden/Gordon
Shumpert/(House)
Tucker/Morris
Capela/Faried

What upgrades were available that we didn’t pursue to stay under the tax? Let’s look at a few players dealt during the deadline -

-Gasol: didn’t have the assets
-Mirotic: yeah he would’ve helped
-Harris: didn’t have the assets
-Green/Temple: to be honest, I’d prefer Morris and Shumpert to these two

IMO, none of these players swing the odds in our favor that much more than the roster I posted above.

 

agreed on Mirotic, but no way do we have a pick worth as much as that MIA pick that Philly sent out in the Harris deal

 

why this guy suddenly no money to sign players?

 

What can I say, I love hookers and blow.

 

The most hilarious narrative is the one where "we didn't seem like contenders so might as well duck the tax".

We didn't seem like contenders because they cheaped out. If you are going to lose a starter and a key backup from last regular season (who the market priced a combined $19m) and then you replace them with 5 guys the market priced at $8m, of course you are not going to look like a contender.

The Rockets were betting on pure luck. That a STAR would land in their lap and their mediocre assets would secure the deal and then we will get the best players on the buyout market basically for free. We needed to improve on LAST season. Then they changed the narrative to needing to MATCH last season. Then it became we don't need home court. Then it became well everyone in the middle of the standings is mediocre. Now it's "oh poor health". I said it before the season and I'll say it again, injuries were always a certainty, only their timing is a mystery when you have the oldest team in the NBA playing career high minutes. Now people are bickering about Danuel House and James Harden's extra 2 minutes and Chris Paul's 0.1 millisecond loss of speed.

When you grade a team that took the Warriors to 7, the grade is based on whether you improved on that team or not. We allowed players to walk based on the fact that they were overpaid/injured so the logical conclusion is that you would be able to get someone to replace them at a decent price. If this team (even HEALTHY) played last season's WCF team, this team would lose 4-1 in a series. That's where we are, and we are the least likely team to enter the playoffs healthy.

Harden has to go full Hakeem mode for us to even have an entertaining playoff series.

 

Tilman will try find a way to hide them under the tax too.

 

Hide? Lord come with me to the Nugget I'll show you a good night

 

Tilboy lonely this Valentines

 

last one to call me boy got popped on the 2900th block of Leeland watch yourself

 

is there any precedent for an nba team going on a massive salary shedding spree throughout the season while having the best player in the league healthy and in his prime? what this front office has done has got to be shamelessly groundbreaking, rite?