I fail to see that obvious Pau Gasol's "quick decline" that some people here are talking about. With his playing style, and his health, he should be a good player till he's 40. If he wants to play that long. He'd be great for this team. And I do think you would be a contender --- a 2nd tier, Pacers-Grizzlies level contender. And you'd still be overall a very young, still have trade assets, and you could still pull off something else. Some guys here are dreaming about Aldridge, Love, Cousins, but I hope they understand that those are years away and even then they are all long shots.
I agree. Gasol takes care of himself. He has the body to play until 40. The questions are: 1. Does he have that kind of drive and desire? 2. How much decline is he going to experience? Remember Shaq in PHX, Cle, and Bos? Just a shell of his former self. And your comments about years away............I think that's true for Love and Lamarcus....if they ever become available. But not necessarily Cousins. Sacramento, along with Washington, is one of the most unstable franchises in the NBA. This is his third season. Next year is his fourth season. If he wants out, he'll simply not agree to an extension. That may be enough to push Sacramento to the tipping point with him, especially if he is giving them trouble because he wants out. Although I think it is poor taste and bad character to do that, Cousins is just the type of personality that will do such a thing and leave them hamstrung with the threat of opting in for his 5 year and walking away from them for nothing. Similar to Harden, Cousins' trade value goes in the tank if he doesn't agree to an extension, because nobody is going to offer anything in trade for him if they think he doesn't want to be there. And the players association and agents seem bent on using this tactic (see Harden) to get their max money. So, I think we should really watch Sac and Cousins this season. If they have more mutiny up there and they can't get Cousins to be more franchise friendly, then a move could happen sometime between the February trade deadline and the extension signing deadline in 2013. I am thinking Morey is going to try to position himself with a couple picks in the 13 draft...so he can either make a move for Zeller or possibly have picks available to snap up Cousins. That's why I've got those two as Morey's primary targets. And if that doesn't work out...then the Gasol option could come into play. This also means there is going to come a tipping point at some time in this season where McHale puts TJones and Donuts out there to see what we've got. In my humble opinion, I think they are trying to hide Donuts. I think they'd like to make TJones look really, really good...so they can use him for trade purposes. So, I fully expect the rookies to play. But I wouldn't be surprised if they play TJones first and if they continue to slough off on Donuts. I expect we'll be reading many threads this season from posters wanting to see Donuts and not understanding why he isnt playing. Heck....after 3 games I'm convinced we have nothing to lose if we threw Donuts out there to start alongside Asik. And I think we'd see a whole different team with Donuts playing alongside Asik. The tipping point is going to come when we decide whether we are going ba..s to the wall for the playoffs or whether we are going to make a move to increase our lottery chances in 13. Despite all the rhetoric I'm not convinced we're gonna play for the playoffs yet.
I don't see Cousins taking the qualifying offer (no max player ever does that) or forcing a trade from Sacramento (where he can get 5 year extension next summer) to Houston (where he can't). I think your best hope would be for him to sign the extension, and then hope it all blows up and they are looking to trade him. But that's years from now, it wouldn't be extremely cheap (because he'd be under contract), and I can't guess if it will even happen because I've no idea about Cousins priorities (maybe he's fine with being the main guy on a bad team).
He can go get his 4-yr max offer and then get matched. That's the best he can do in Sacramento unless they offer up the max. They're in financial trouble, trying to move, etc. The question is do they offer up that max deal and does he take it? I'm thinking if they are still sucking and he is still jacking the organization around with his antics and complaints that they will start to look at trade offers that offer them a couple picks and the opportunity to reset their window over giving him a 5-year deal. The Harden trade told us a few things about the new CBA. It's a tough penalty....even on teams trying to compete. And it's so scary to them that they are willing to make moves to preempt it. If OKC, who was in a position to compete for a title with Harden, decides to make moves in advance of the looming tax, then what do you think Sacramento is going to do? The picture out there is very, very foggy right now. It bears watching.
I think this team will lose more than win especially once teams learn that containing harden pretty much will contain the entire team. Harden will need help and he won't get much with this current squad and last night was a case in point. When Harden struggled, so did the whole team. So we have a good pick coming this year I think. And the rest is clearing cap space. I dont get the osik signing at all - he's a good rebounder and defender but couldn't we have plugged that hole later? Anyway, we still need a lot more talent and one more big name to really push this team to contender status. Whether it's free agent signing or trade we'll see. But I tend to agree that the draft will be harder now because we won't win it. But we still can get a very good player who can help this team immensely, and combined with a big free agent signing it might be enough especially if Wade begins to fade a bit as he passes 30 and 10 years in the league.
The Asik signing is very simple. 1. He's value at that salary. He can be traded if we need to. 2. The more teams that get clogged up under the new CBA makes it easier for Morey to make moves. Asik is worth every penny of what we're paying him.
yes, he will get the max obviously. Unless he gets injured / plays bad or something. They can offer him 5 year "Harden" extension next summer. Houston can't, because they gave it to Harden. So financially, it would make no sense for him to force a Houston trade. Re CBA... the Kings don't have to worry about luxury tax, they have to worry about reaching minimum salary floor.
Given the fact that he's going to be a large expiring contract next year, and folks like Cousins/Love/Monroe are still another two seasons away from potentially being moved, its a short term move that makes sense, given the Rockets are a bubble playoff team now with Harden/Lin keeping this team competitive. IMO, if your'e going to be a bubble playoff team to begin with, you might as well be a playoff team. No need to keep adding the 14th pick in the draft when you're already stacked with players needing PT to develop anyways. The problem with this trade though is the Rockets no longer have much salary to send back to make this trade possible. Its going to be a tricky one for even Morey to pull off financially. In terms of Laker & National fan/media perception, this one would be a tough pill for the Lakers to swallow. However, if you look at Morey's acquisitions as of lately... every single major acquisition came from teams with financial burden. The Lakers have 78million committed to 7 players next season already, and thats BEFORE the Dwight Howard contract(which will bring their salaries to at least 96 Million for 8 players... Add the repeater tax that comes in next season, and the payroll could be close to hitting 170 to 200Million!!! IF they are not able to shed major salary. The Lakers should be seriously considering moving Gasol sooner rather than later. The Rockets can swallow Gasol's salary this year and next, and still be under the luxury tax. Even for the Lakers, that major bucks for a team that isn't even the favorite to win it all. However, if the Rockets feel that they are in a worse position moving forward to acquiring that secondary star they can build with, you might see them hold out till the Summer to make a move. IMO Gasol is a perfect secondary star, its just that his age makes him a question mark moving forward. Despite all this, Gasol is a relatively low risk move for the Rockets given they do not have to mortgage the future to get him, fits amazingly in with this group on the basketball court, and is still an extremely undervalued basketball player(ring ring... Dork Elvis calling). If the Rockets feel like there is a very low probability of getting that secondary star before next Summer, acquiring Gasol seems like a no-brainer given the Lakers are actually willing to move him. -Also- I do not think adding Gasol immediately impacts this teams rebuilding plans. Keep in mind that 19million as an expiring in 2013/14 could key in bringing back another star player in trade next season if one's available. Without Kevin Martin's expiring contract this year, the Rockets wouldn't have been able to acquire Harden. The Rockets would most likely have to give up some youth to get him, but its not like they don't have more than enough young disgruntled PF's right now to trade one or two.
So true. Aldrige/ Love/ Cousins are in the "unattainable" basket since they would be seen as the franchise player for their current team. And franchise players are hardly ever traded unless they quit mid-game or something.... Gasol would simply defer our ability to sign a max FA by 1 season, but in return he'd make us 'semi contenders' for the next 2 seasons. If Asik/Lin and one other player develop somewhat, then we'd be one of those teams that could make a run to the conference finals - and from there anything can happen. That kind of run provides a FA with enormous incentive to take the max here rather than elsewhere! Having said that, not sure how we'd make a Gasol trade work? Can't see LA wanting to take back youth, they'd want to be in the contending market, so it'd have to be a 3-way with someone who wants to blow it up and get some 'young talent' while giving away a 'piece' to LA.
Yeah, an in-season trade for Gasol would be tough. Even though the Rockets have about $7.8M in cap room to give them some leeway in trades (i.e., they'd only have to send out about $11.2M in salary to absorb Gasol's $19M salary), the number of players who would have to be involved would make it tricky. Also, the Lakers will want to actually give this group a chance to compete for a championship for at least one season before breaking up their core. FWIW, though, I've heard that the Lakers rated Marcus Morris as the #5 overall prospect in the 2011 NBA Draft. If he continues to have a strong 2012-13 season, I could see the Lakers having strong interest in Morris as a Metta World Peace replacement (a floor-spacing SF/PF).
Trying to integrate Pau into this years roster Rockets would be a bad move. I am a huge Pau fan, and he certainly would have made last years team competitive with the best in the league, but the Rockets have room for only one max contract. Using it for Pau now would be huge mistake.
i think it would be a summer / next season trade. I'll be stunned if the Lakers change their core this season. But the new luxury tax system comes into effect next season, and if they keep that team together, they'll pay 100 mil + in luxury tax alone next year. I doubt that even the Lakers are willing to do that. So I suspect they'll amnesty Metta this summer, and they'll look to trade Pau for cap space and young, cheap pieces.
Just want to mention, this is a good thread; I like everyone's contributions. Thing is, Pau would infinitely help this team, but we'd have to give up too much young talent to make it happen. If, in two years, when Pau's contract is up, we can jump on the best FA available at that time with all our cap space, and losing whichever players we traded for Pau wouldn't matter so much. Still, I don't want to waste two years of Beardsanity. This loops back around to, Who could we get now? Because McHale is by all accounts a mediocre coach (I'm being kind) and he's going to drive our stud guards into the ground and let our future PFs rot on the vine. Gasol could help save that, and yet he isn't the answer going forward.
Interesting about the Lakers and Morris. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the Lakers were willing to deal Gasol since he has lost a step and is getting abused on the defensive end, but I see the main issue being the difficulty in making the trade work salary-wise, as you mention, since the Lakers would need to waive 3-4 players to make it work after the trade. One factor to consider is that Gasol simply can no longer play PF on a young running team like the Rockets. He can't defend many of the younger PFs in the league now and he would need to play Center. So he and Asik would form an offense/defense Center pairing, which would actually be interesting. Assuming the Rockets traded Morris and a couple of their PFs in the deal, that would eliminate their glut of forwards. I'm guessing they would try to hang onto Jones and would still have White (since he is not tradeable now IMO).
If only he could make a layup. Or attempt a dunk instead of a weak putback. 4 pts in 70 minutes on 2 for 14 shooting is pretty sad, no matter how you slice it.
