Now they can forget about Whiteside and Isiah thomas " J.A. Adande @jadande They drafted Boogie, Isaiah Thomas and Hassan Whiteside in a 2-year span and now have none of them.
Because they coveted Hield. Maybe you don't, but they do. If they are right Hield could be a star at a position that you rarely find stars at. Other than Harden, Klay and Butler, there aren't any stars at shooting guard in the league. I for one LOVE the way Hield moves on the court like he owns it, similar to the way Harden does, and Brandan Roy before him. They might be wrong but they also might be right.
That's exactly my thought during this year draft. 23 years old!!! He's old!!! He has zero upside at age 23. This reminds me when everyone was talking about Wesley Johnson, a 23 years old rookie and how great he was going to be. And I said, "He's 23 years old!!! and a Rookie??" The elite players have already been in the league for 4 years at age 23!!!! I can't believe Rockets couldn't give a better offer.
Hield is 23 years old!!! That' s the #1 stats, not the 39% FG shooting. Harden is 27 years old and have already played in the league for 8 seasons!!!!
From New Orleans' perspective, both Cousins and Davis have the ability to spread the floor. So while they are both bigs, it could work out. However, they have such a huge logjam at bigs right now and, while Holiday is a nice player, they don't have any good depth for the wings. Not even to mention everything we are saying about the fit of Cousins and Davis is just speculation. They are a good ways out of the playoffs right now, Cousins has to sit for one game plus one more game for each technical he receives between now and then. In order to make the playoffs, they probably would need to go at least 15-10 between now and then, if not even better than that, which is a pretty tall order when you consider how weak they are on the wings and how hard it might be to incorporate Cousins on the fly. If they miss the playoffs, will Holiday walk? If so, they don't have many moves or flexibilty to build around Davis and Cousins. I understand why they took the gamble and they gave up so little it was worth taking the chance, but there's a pretty big chance that this fails for New Orleans too.
Thanks! I'm sure it was mentioned in this thread several times by now but I didn't feel like reading through the previous 17 pages.
You said flashes of being a young Harden. He's not very young, he's the same age as Anthony Davis and older than Dekker. He's also shown a lot more flashes of being a bust. I seriously wanted the Rockets to draft him because I thought his scoring ability would be like Booker's, but he's really underwhelmed on a team that could use his talents. That's a bad sign for a guy his guy his age who is supposed to be polished and seasoned. We have assets. We have three productive young players on cheap contracts in Dekker, Capela, and Harrell. We have our own picks, which aren't high but better than some crappy teams like the Nets and Lakers have. If we wanted to be crappy, we could. But let's not complain about not having high picks when we have the 4th best record in the league. It's one or the other and I choose the latter.
funny thing is they have someone pretty comparable to Hield in Ben McLemore. Obviously, they've given up on him with this move. Hield could very much be another one of those type guys. Time will tell
Does that really matter? Listen, I expect Hield to have a season like Harden had at 22, next year where he bumps up to 15 to 16 a game. So he'd be a year behind harden. Harden's first 2 seasons in the league were give away seasons. In fact, if Heild does become a star by his third season, it is better for the kings that they got him as a rookie at 23, because they would have more control over his prime years. This has nothing to do with age (as you can see), all has to do with heild becoming a star or not. If he becomes a star then the age actually becomes a benefit for the kings, not a deterrent.
This is proof that they wanted Heild. The only other guy I could see them wanting as much would have been Devin Booker, but the suns wasn't going to part with him. Same goes for Zach Lavine.
There is a tweet earlier in this thread saying it won't be too hard for NOLA to create $30m in cap room. The one added value a Davis and Cousins match provides with little doubt is great incentive for a star free-agent to want to jump aboard. As for playoffs, I agree. You really want both AD and Cousins in the playoffs this year. They have to start gaining that experience, albeit AD did make it when Durant went down, to be swept though. I think it is big they make the playoffs, and give GSW or SAS a fight, for my reason above ... to attract free agents....namely Chris Paul. As for chances, I think you might be making it sound harder to get in than it will. Cousins has Sacramento 1 1/2 games out of he playoffs all by himself. I think Cousins and Davis can make up that 2.5 game gap with Denver. Denver is retooling now, too. Plumlee and Jokic are starting. That's quite the experimentation, too. What if Denver trades away even more rotation players for picks, like all the rumors are saying. I don't think Denver has the same incentive to get the 8th pick as AD and Cousins do. That said, failure to make it (while maybe not being huge), will imso be a big sign it ain't working. If Cousins can't overtake Plumlee and Jokic playing with AD, he sucks. flat out.
If someone would have suggested this trade 3 days ago the answers would have been: "Pipe Dream." Yet here we are. Because trades like this can happen depending on circumstances.
