Because I have seen him obtain great value from his draft picks. I don't think Scola/Martin/Dragic/pick/additional youth is a great value for Gasol. I definately don't think near max $$ is great value for Nene.
The solution is to improve your odds of obtaining star talent. I would rather not have to overpay for it. I think it's best to draft it like the majority of NBA champions have. Yes, I realize that requires having the right pick in the right year. This just so happens to be one of those projected years.
What do you call dumping off all of your good players so that you can be bad enough to obtain a high pick? I call that paying a steep price.
I realize this roster is going nowhere as currently assembled. I realize getting Dalembert or some other replacement-level big won't change that. I'm not delusional. But sell me on the idea of that getting rid of Martin, Lowry, and Scola for picks is worthwhile if we end up drafting anyone other than Andre Drummond. And not just on change for change's sake.
Many fans like the deal because it would give the rockets more cap room. However, the difference between the salaries of Pau Gasol and Martin+Scola is ~2M/year. If Morey or Les really want the cap space to sign a free agent (aka. Nene). Why not just cut some players from the team. Speak of cap space, why did morey traded Battier for Thabeet? We could have saved the ~5M on Thabeet this year. Lots of people just look at the "good" trades Morey made but they just ignore the bad ones. As for Morey, I understand he has pressure to get a star but he needs to be patient. Trading an high-salary aging Gosal is not the answer. Pau Gasol 11-12 $18,714,150 12-13 $19,000,000 13-14 $19,285,850 Kevin Martin 11-12 $12,019,840 12-13 $12,939,675 $0 $0 Luis Scola 11-12 $8,591,793 12-13 $9,408,207 13-14 $10,224,622 14-15 $11,041,037
I call it rebuilding. As the other postse stated, the majority of championship winning in this league comes after a team bit the bullet to be bad and draft elite talent, including the title history for this team!!
It's worthwhile because most title winners are led by studs they drafted. It's worthwhile because you can use high draft picks to trade for star players (see the Celtics and Allen). It's worthwhile because you can use highly drafted players to trade for star players (see D.Will and Favors). Nothing is a guarantee. You can only increase your odds. There are some drafts where a talent like Drummond is there and not much else. The 2012 draft is not that kind of draft.
Well said. And if we went the full rebuilding route, it could easily be 2016 or later before we're even beginning to be relevant again. Mediocre>sucking..with no guarantees of drafting anything better than we now have (just my point of view).
Gasol/Nene had a greater chance to get us a superstar in a trade, or in the draft through a trade. End of story. Without upgrading and consolidating our assets, we acheive mediocrity, and the 14 th pick in the draft, without the ability to trade up for a top 5 pick. Having two top 5 C's gave us that chance.
A rose by any other name. We're giving up talent to get talent, but in your case we're doing it for an 'inknown' commodity. Someone just show me an in-depth, statistics-based argument that says we're MORE LIKELY to draft a Magic/Bird/Jordan/Hakeem/Duncan/Shaq/Kobe-type than we are to build a team that can make serious runs at the Finals a la the '02-'08 Detroit Pistons, and I'll at least shut up. EDIT: Actually, I think I'm going to shut up anyway. The GARM just gets me too cranky, time for another break. But I'm still interested in hearing the reasoning. I realize that the superstar model is the blueprint for winning a championship, I'm not blind to history. What I'm saying is that getting those guys through the draft is incredibly rare, and if we're just getting someone pretty good, it's not worth it.
We could have a top 5 pick for years and not find anyone better than Pau Gasol will be for the next 5 years. In fact, it is extremely likely...
And you can ALWAYS tank. You're not always in a position to take a shot. Getting Pau and Nene was at least taking a shot.
Gasol and Nene to go along with the rest of the team would have made us easily a playoff team, most likely a top 4-5 team in the west. How is that mediocrity when we are ****ing stuck in mediocrity RIGHT NOW? The first proposed deal we had in place before Stern eff it up would have been a highway robbery. We lose just Martin and Scola for Gasol and Nene. And if things didn't work out we could've flipped them for other "assets". This thread doesn't make sense is just stupid.
There are other players performing much better than Drummond right now in college. Barnes, Davis and Jones all have just as much potential as Drummond does.
1. On whom? That's my point. If just for the cap space, why dont les use Amnesty rule on Thabeet to sign Nene? 2. A player that gets drafted and not brought over??? Why do some people always excited about these players?
