We are in agreement on Rondo, if you look at my previous posts you will see that I've always said that about Rondo. As for anyone else I don't think so, I think Daryl is not trying to position us to win this year, he is trying to position us to get a star next year. That's why I don't believe we will be getting Millsap, Teague, Rubio etc. just my opinion.
Fair enough. Well Idk how the Phoenix situation will play out but Bledsoe has his money now and I'm sure he'd prefer to be on a winning team. The Spaniards seem to value winning (see Pau leaving money to play in Chicago) and Rubio has never been to the playoffs so I think he'd prefer to be on a winning team also. I think the "older" players will want to be on a winning team and can sabatoge (if they want) the prospect of being traded to a lesser team (especially if on an expiring contract. I think the younger guys coming off rookie deals want to get paid first and foremost (generally speaking). But overall, I trust Morey. He will add another starter quality player by deadline or next FA.
You need to paint a few scenarios to understand why we are in a decent situation. 1) The fountain of youth dries up in Portland, and their starters have injury problems again. They drop to #10 in the conference, and with Lopez, Matthews and Aldridge expiring, their future is uncertain. LMA demands a trade to a playoff team, and we have the most assets of anyone. 2) PHX discovers that PGs and SGs can only get you so far, and they are sitting around #10 in the conference. Dragic just barely misses out on all-star voting, and begins to rethink his commitment to PHX. Again, he demands a trade to a playoff team, and Houston has the best assets of any. 3) Atlanta is mired in turmoil from their owner/gm comments. The new owner decides they need to go the Philly route, so suddenly Al Horford hits the trading block. By the trade deadline, he will have just one more year left on his contract, so he will have some say on where he goes (just like Dwight did with LA). I'm not saying that any of this will happen, only that you have to be open to the possibility. We aren't going to settle for a lesser player.
You're painting a picture of "Flexibility" which I agreed we have. Even with our assets and even "IF" those things happened, it still does not mean we will get any of those players, it's still very unlikely. Morey not only spoiled us he spoiled himself into thinking that stars will keep dropping into our laps. He went for a superstar when all he needed to do was strengthen our bench and power forward position and get a new coach. If you noticed the players he is getting are very cheap and may turn out to be very good for use LATER. I doubt he changes his strategy Morey wants a big 3, not a deep team with 2 stars.
With Marc Stein's comment about the rockets offering Parsons the 2yr max and then the article about Harden to recruit during in 2yrs.... It would seem like the rockets would be open to acquiring a 2yr contracted player...if he's a top 75ish or better player. That expands our parameters.
The Clippers are a deep team with 2 stars, that are basically on par with ours, if not slightly better, and they have jack **** chance of winning an nba title against either the 2.5 teams (OKC) or the 3 teams (Cleveland) barring injury apocalypse, in part because if you go depth it means you're paying fair price for too many people to bridge the Spurs discount advantage. You seem to also fundamentally misunderstand that the luxury tax now isn't just a "can you pay it" deal, even the lakers and mavericks have to operate under it now because you basically can't improve your team at all once you're in it (the mini mle does not offset natural attrition), so even the days of that one off Mavs fluke are dead because you can't gradually improve a bit at a time, year after year, flipping $ for other players like they (and the lakers) did.
1) Jared Sullinger - Boston will give him a max contract, forget about him. 2) Mirza Teletovic - not interested. 3) Amir Johnson - no range, not a stretch 4, will be a horrible idea to play together with Howard, twin tower nightmare again. 4) Taj Gibson - will not be able to afford him, Bulls fighting for championship and all in also. 5) Ersan - he is playing like crap, no thanks. 6) Millsap - there are many teams out there will pay more for him than the rockets 7) Ryan Anderson - New Orleans is all in or their GM and coach will be fired, they are not going to trade him unless NO open the season 0-15. 8) Darrell Arthur - useless bench warmer. 9) Ryan Kelly - he can't even get playing time in the feaking Lakers?! Are you kidding me?
You're right, that's very true. We need Morey's definition of superstar is. Does he also mean star? or top 50 - 75 player?
You said we needed to strengthen our bench, other positions and get a new coach, in other words, we needed to be the Clippers, you know the team that has Doc Rivers, a good bench, decent players at it's weak spots and still has no chance of beating a Scott Brooks coached OKC? yeah them
