Wait what? If Tillman told him to make the trade then Morey has to make the trade no matter what. Presti knew that Tillman was the one instigating the trade and took advantage. All of the reports have said Morey wanted to keep Paul, you are making zero sense. Morey was not the last decision maker on saying yes to that trade it was Tillman.
Been reading on the wizards message boards all morning. Consensus takes there... They mostly hate losing wall. They think WB will be a fit with shooters. Wall did great things charity wise. Their owner and GM are not their favorites right now. They think russ is more tradeable moving forward. Wall has very high BBIQ. They say 'zards way too much.
True it does appear that stats matter to him. Shouldn't be surprised after seeing him go hard after triple doubles. I think winning matters to him but when he is the focal point.
This is how I feel. When Russ can't dominate 1 on 1 he starts to force it because he takes it personally which is actually worse. Has happened the last several playoffs. He makes it about him and not the team which is why he will fail again in the playoffs and will soon lack the athleticism to will his team to victories. Hopefully Wall will know his role on this team and his limitations, if any. It is promising that he has been working on his 3 ball since the league changed so drastically while he has been out and there is more focus on the 3 ball than ever before. He will get some good open looks on this team and has been at least an average shooter from 3 on catch and shoot and wide open looks. Wall can effect the game with passing, ballhandling and steals/deflections better than Russ. Hopefully he plays like Paul did next to Harden in 2018 where they had decent ball movement and each player knew when to attach or take an open shot, etc. Paul was also a good fit next to Gordon so hopefully Wall can help Gordon's game. I realize Wall is more similar to Westbrook but we already know he has a much better Bball IQ than Russ so maybe his maturity and hunger will allow his game to develop to a next level and not rely on his athleticism as much. Ideally Wall can add the good aspects of Paul (decent man defense/steals, ballhandling/playmaker w/ relatively low TO's, decent mid-range game and open shooter, running a 2nd unit that sometimes looks better than the 1st unit). Also, hopefully he can add the good aspects of Russ's game (driving to the basket to get himself or others easy looks, transition offense). Those are really the main strengths I can see from Russ that are helpful for this team and that Wall should look to emulate. Shooting at a 26% clip from 3 on almost 4 attempts a game is just not good basketball at all.
Biggest takeaway from this, Wall's achilles rupture was on his non-jumping leg. This is huge, I'm dealing with an achilles rupture myself currently and the hardest part is getting that range of motion and strength back in the affected leg, if that's not his primary leg that he jumps off of that will help a lot in maintaining his athleticism. Second is that he had bone spurs the last 6 years that he was playing through which now got fixed. This is important because health aside, Wall is two years younger and Westbrook hasn't been an effective player since his mvp season after which he fell off dramatically. They literally had to change the way they played the game last year, taking away Harden's lob threat to accommodate Westbrook because he was so ineffective. Westbrook puts up numbers but he is not a good player anymore.
That's pretty clear and good imo, hopefully we don't throw them away though, unless Harden signs an extension, don't move those picks.
Right now. Dude was in a down year but has half a season to prove all the doubters wrong. This is literally a buy high sell low situation. Bruh last year he was worth 5 FRP. You don't go from 5 FRP to "Nobody. Wanted. Westbrook." without any freak injury. Remember how Nobody. Wanted. Jimmy Butler? What about Nobody. Wanted. Kawhi? Point is you don't panic sell look at Clippers they could have traded George cuz he sucked but the market for him is too low right now so they kept him instead. That's the right move instead of trading your assets when their value is rock bottom. But again if Harden is the mastermind behind this maybe Stone didn't have a choice. And Fertitty would def be all over this trade cuz if Wall can't play insurance will pay his salary.
My 2 cents. I like the trade, if you had told me we could trade Westbrook for any average player and get a 1st I would have been happy, IMO you just can't trust him in crunchtime or the playoffs he takes in personally and is a TO machine. I don't hate Westbrook but he is just not a championship level player, especially since he thinks he is a superstar, that Lakers series was brutal even if hurt he should have realized that and played accordingly, him wanting his own team again speaks volumes. I predict by midseason Bradley wants out, I just don't see him and Westbrook working and with brooks WB will think that's his team. I like the idea of Wall and was wrong to think him and Westbrook are comparable shooters especially at this point in their careers. If healthy and that's a big if I see him as being 90% of CP3 2018 but a better finisher and bigger, would have liked to see what Dantoni could have done with him healthy. In closing I will just say I like this team much better than I did 2 months ago.
why do you guys keep saying this? NO they do not have to guard him off ball, and they won't in the playoffs. (not that the rockets will make it since James will be traded.) its comical you guys think he's going to turn into Klay Thompson if you leave him open
So why would this half a season this year mean more than the half a season of peak Russ last year? When did nobody want Jimmy Butler? The Rockets where trying to get him for 2 years.
Dumbtoni would totally play him 40 mins a night and let him do all the work so he'll get injured in the playoffs anyway. Being the consultant/offensive assistant is the best role for him.
There was a peak Russ last year? He started the season with arthroscopic surgery and then got Covid and tore his quad. What peak Russ last year are you talking about? You seem to be a contrarian just for the sake of it. Claiming Russ had a peak season when he came off the worst year of his career and forgot Butler had a rep of being a cancer prior to Miami. LMAO
