CP3 May not resign [Bill Simmons tweet so grain of salt needed]

Blake Griffin doesn't have a post move he can execute three times in a row.

 

When you have players like Lebron James going to the absolute best scenario to win, it would actually make sense for Chris Paul to do the same thing, unless of course he and Dwight don't want to win as much as Lebron and Bosh did.

 

If all parties involved are interested and willing to take salary cuts, you could have something like Horford + Howard + Paul down in Atlanta. But that's a pretty big IF.. that's why "the Decision" was so shocking. Also, just practically speaking, it's not the same thing since both LeBron and Bosh had been on their teams for their whole careers and the management of those teams had not landed them even a single player of the caliber of what both CP3 and Howard have as teammates right now.

I don't see either of these guys leaving LA. IMO this offseason is going to be underwhelming compared to last year.

 

It changed the landscape and created a new paradigm, it might have been shocking at the time, but times change and that exemplified those times.

If Chris Paul's exit interview of "I don't want to win, I need to win" didn't solidify it, I'm not sure what will, until then I sort of expected him to be happy with a team in a big market that might make a conference final here or there, whilst being roadkill for a healthy okc or san antonio whilst father time keeps going, and that's about it.

 

I just think you guys are really underestimating the team the Clippers have assembled. Two stars (and yes, Blake is a star) + solid role players is the foundation for a contending team. The Clippers are only two years into the CP3 experiment... were they supposed to be contenders already? This year, had they won game #6, they prob. would have been favorites to at least make the WCF. I just don't see how one game makes such a huge difference. The team won 56 games! That is very quality. Moreover, it should improve this offseason mainly because (I assume) they'll unload Bledsoe + Butler for someone who will give them real minutes; or else they'll put Bledsoe in the rotation.

 

from yesterday:

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=7924120&postcount=54

 

Yeah, I suppose the sarcasm didn't come across there. Basically the gist of it is 'what' kept talking about how crappy the Clippers were so I was pointing out that since this crappy team took his might Grizzlies to 6 games, how good could the Grizz really be? In truth, the Grizzlies are very good (although I think OKC is still pretty good themselves).

But really, I shouldn't have to defend them to make it clear that both the Clippers and Grizzlies are good. They won 56 games in a tough conference.

 

That's just it, he's being contrarian for the sake of talking up his team.

CP3 won't win **** in LA, if all the other stuff around the team is enough for him, his life and no one would blame him for it, their peak is the old suns. only there is Showtime/Celtics calibre big 3's to go through these days, I'd always figured that it was ok with him, I'm not anymore.

If he wants to see a shot at a title without him becoming a vet min some time in his twilight years, he won't be at the Clippers next year.

 

Well, I suppose if there is a "big 3" opportunity that he should take it, but I don't think there will be one. I'm not sure if even Horford, Howard, and Paul would really be that great (certainly not compared to Miami's three) and there aren't really any other options AFAIK (please put down the pipe about Houston landing Howard and Paul LOL).

I feel like we must really live in the age of instant gratification where a team gets better for two years, winning near 60 games, and it can't possibly have a shot at the title in the near future.

 

BTW, the Mavs 2011 title is a great example of a team rebounding from a number of disappointing years where regular season results were met with disappointing playoff performances. No one seriously considered them as a contender even though they consistently were winning 50-60 games. There's absolutely no reason a number of teams couldn't make a similar sort of run even in today's "big 3" age.

 

I doubt CP3 nor DH know exactly what they are going to do right now. We can make all the predictions we want, but when the players are probably sorting it out, how can anyone claim to know?

 

Please explain me why this is a pipe dream specially compared to Atlanta? Lol shows you know nothing.

First harden >>>> Hortford

Cp3 is hardens close friend and his kid calls harden his favorite player.
Both Howard and cp3 view harden as a superstar ...so your opinion does not matter.

We can just as easily make cap space to sign both without SNTs. Ie declining options and trading asik, t rob, Lin to team with cap space for draft picks (more assets) Lin is average for his contract but is a marketing cash cow ...will be easy to find takers.

Our gm is one of the top In The business. He has shown he can pull starting caliber players out of thin air. Pay them the minimum. This fact alone is most crucial when building a super team with 3 max contracts.

So while your gm pays Matt Barnes 8-9 mil a year (hahahaha) we have chandler parsons for 800k and Patrick Beverley (800k) , and Greg smith (800k) ... And phx pick in second round which will no doubtfully be another great cheap pick up on the morey spec 4 years 800k

No other team can put a supporting cast around a big three now like we could and no other gm has any where near the resume as morey.

So get off your soap box and say buy to your pg buddy.

Even after acquiring dh12 and cp3 we would have a crap ton of assets to deal. All our draft picks , rights to Sergio's lull, all picks we got from trading Lin, asik, trob, plus nearly every player on our team has player options we can accept or decline or trade a team to make salaries work and then they can decline a d save them millions on the cap.

Our gm has us set up perfectly, our owner will spend. Right now it's like he's playing chess with a bunch of children

 

All it takes is being able to find someone who will take Jeremy Lin for nothing (or Jeremy Lin tacked onto Asik, who has tons of value right now, as much as the kid gets criticised, after the first cpl months post knee surgery, he put up 15/7 at reasonable %'s in his first full season and plays reasonable defense, he's hardly a dud contract) to have room for all 3, it's not hard when you don't sign DeAndre Jordan to $10m or Steve Nash to $9m.

Houston's salaries are Harden at max, Asik and Lin a bit above mle and a bunch of team options (a lot of them at minimum), rookies, with the exception of Royce White, the rookies are easy to move.

No we live in a world where a team that's best result is getting swept out of the 2nd round isn't winning a championship any time soon when you have 3 teams with 2 of the best 10 players in the world (and in one case, 3 of the best 15, inc the best by a long margin) and awesome supporting casts, you know, the real world circa Cleveland Cavaliers?

Lou is probably right though, that neither of them have an inkling of what they're going to do, and the two people in question probably don't even want to think much about it until July. But I remember when Cleveland lost in that 2nd round, and my first thought was, he won't be back, without at least challenging for the conference finals, there's just too much improvement required, and guys 8-9 years into their careers aren't being sold on hope for a better future.

Although in a way I find it ironic that you don't realise a league made up of Gen Y aren't being patient and aren't being loyal, they're like everyone else their age, except they get paid a lot more to do it. Does it not worry you that the only thing that the Clippers have to sell Paul is "Griffin might get better" or "we might get something mediocre for DeAndre and Bledsoe"? At least most of the Lakers fans are realising that they have nothing to sell team wise.

 

You've proven not to know much about our cap situation any ways that we could offer the max and still keep our core players so perhaps you should study our cap situation before saying that?

Rockets have one of the best cap situations in all the league and Horford is not even on the same level of Harden...Or Griffin for that matter. Horford is in that area between really good player-Allstar player. A big 3 is 3 all-stars and Horford is not that.

Any ways no one knows what these guys are going to do. Morey would have to gut the team to get Howard and Paul, like what Miami did...but if he got a verbal commitment from both guys he'd do it in a second I imagine and these guys are not THAT hard to trade.

Asik is on a bargain deal with what how he plays lol. Lin is NOT that bad, he's still young, and at least is highly marketable. All the other players are young guys on young guys contracts and those are easy to trade because I can bet there is a GM or two who still covets these guys...then the other guys? They are on team options.

 

I remember when Miami formed their big 3. People said that Wade and LeBron couldn't exist together, people said the Miami's remaining roster outside the big 3 was so bad that they couldn't win it all, people said Bosh was weak and not a superstar, people said Cleveland would win a championship before Miami would, people said you can't have 3 superstars on the same team because there wasn't enough ball to go around.

Now that Miami has proved everyone wrong, you guys are all supporting the concept of a superteam, even without a dominant center, it's proven to work. What the Miami Heat have accomplished over the past two years is historic, especially based on what everyone said, even professional analysts like Jon Berry said they would not do. Now everyone wants to be like them.

 

It's a pipe dream for two reasons.

1) it's contingent on both Howard and Paul wanting to take less money to pull a big 3 and wanting to go to Houston. This is the big one obviously.

2) It requires the Rockets to get out of the relatively bad contracts of Asik and/or Lin. If I'm reading the hoopshype salary info correctly, these guys are each owed about $20M over the next two years because the contracts are backloaded. I can't see any takers here unless you heavily incentivize (maybe by including Parsons and whatever picks you have). BTW this is the same reason why DJ is such a problem for the Clippers-- he has a similar contract and the only way to get takers would be to bundle the deal.

No one is talking about Houston as a legitimate destination here because it's not realistic. I guess we can speculate on anything but this is not happening.

 

LOL. So in this thread, you've told us that:

1.) Every GM in the league would take Griffin over Harden

and now...

2.) Omer Asik, a double-double machine and one of the top big-man defenders and rebounders in a league starved for them, is overpaid at $8.3 mil/year for 2 years.

This is amazing. You've completely redefined the term homer. Congratulations!

P.S. DeAndre Jordan isn't comparable because his contract averages over $11 million/year and he is not as good of a player.

 

I think Lin and Asik contract cap hold is averaged so it's about 8.3 mil per year. It's big enough to make them tough to move. Teams with enough cap space to absorb these contracts are likely in the hunt for bigger & better FA targets, and are unlikely to want to help the Rockets out. Teams with plenty of cap space but no chance of landing any of the big name FA this year are pretty much the terrible teams in rebuilding mode, they will not be interested in players like Lin or Asik since these players are not good enough to help generate interest or provide much improvement.

 

They're good players who are 24 and 26 years old. They make perfect sense for a rebuilding team.

 

Ok genius, since this makes perfect sense, why don't you come up with a trade that puts the Rockets under the cap? Those are bad contracts, sorry. If the salaries are averaged, not as bad as I thought (can someone provide a link to how that works.. i thought one of the points of backloading was to make contracts lesss tradeable?)