I think that is a great poll question BTW. For me, I would go with Anthony+more assets. But it is close.
I would be happy with either..... a couple things to remember..... Anthony makes more than Love Anthony is 4.5 years older Love has a history of injuries while Anthony is an ox Contrary to "sources", Love and Harden are good friends
The Harden acquisition was different in that Harden was on his rookie deal and could sign a 5-yr extension without going through free agency. Love can't do that. He's either got to opt out, become a free agent, and sign a new deal, or take his player option and then sign an extension which will still only yield him 4 seasons total. He has to go through free agency to get his max 5-year deal. Harden didn't have to and the risk wasn't there because he signed his extension almost as soon as he got to Toyota Center.
Love stands to lose A LOT OF money if he signs an extension. He is eligible for the 30% max as a 7yr vet next season when he becomes a FA. If he signs an extension now, his salary can only increase by 7.5% from his current salary. This doesn't even include the difference in terms of extra years and stuff. We can agree to disagree on this. But I feel certain enough that I would not mind making a tipjar bet with you on this. That if Kevin Love were to be traded this offseason to any team but the Lakers, he will neither sign an extension nor commit verbally to re-signing next offseason.
Right... though there is the "comfort" of knowing if he walks then, then he again stands to lose a lot of money. Of course, Dwight did this, and walked. But that seems like a pretty unique situation. If traded to a crappy team, perhaps that chance of walking increases. It was a bit of luck, poor chemistry, etc. that made the Lakers with Dwight crappy. If we are to believe that the Warriors, Lakers, Celtics and potentially Cavs are in the "running".... all of those teams you could say that with Love he has good good reason to stay. - Lakers = Lakers mythology, in LA his home - Celtics = Celtics mythology, plus could actually make playoffs with him - Warriors = would be a really good team, plus in California - Cavs = least likely, but again could make the playoffs with him, and if he commits to stay with Kyrie together, could be a decent team for a long time in the East. But still Cleveland and probably not championship quality good. So while he won't "commit"... with all of the teams it is likely they feel good enough he will re-sign. As it would be with the Rockets, banking on Houston being a solid place to live, Texas being very friendly on the tax front, and the team theoretically being really good, one would expect him to stay.
You and I agree on this 100%. It's why I would have no problem with the Rockets trading for him at the right price, even if the rumors states he wants to be in LA. However, I do want to note that my response to aelliot was in regards to this particular post. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=8982875&postcount=1370 That is a different story. He maintains that Love must give commitment or no team would trade for him. I believe differently, mainly for the same reasons you outlined in your post.
Why do you act as if you're some sort of insider, a la cyberx? Morey wouldn't hesitate to trade Parsons for the right deal. He's not some untouchable piece that you think he is.
The point wasn't the contract specifics but rather that Houston wouldn't have made that trade unless they already knew that Harden wasn't going to be a one year rental. Same with Love. I don't believe that your going to see a team give their best offer unless they get assurances that Love will be around past 2014. For that matter, why would they? That's not to say that there won't be teams that would make offers for Love without an assurance but those offers will be for much less.
Certainly it matters. But even a "lesser" offer can be a lot. Remember in summer 2012 Morey was willing to offer Orlando essentially the same package for Dwight that he later traded for Harden? And this is when team didn't have a marquee guy and Dwight's agent was threatening through the media that Dwight would never stay if traded to Houston.
Did Morey say this? Don't know how this can be true when we traded almost our entire rotation for assets the summer we traded for Harden (after the trade deadline where we almost got Dwight).
It was well reported. A number of us fans, including Clutch, were at the Vegas Summer League in 2012 when the Dwight trade rumors (and plus the Lin/Asik poison pill drama) were going on. I remember that the summer league team looked great and a number of us were talking about hoping that Morey doesn't give up the farm for Dwight if he doesn't want to be here. Some of us even shouted at Morey (not in a mean way) about how we love the young guys and he should keep them and not give up all these prospects (Lamb, Jones, DMo, Royce....) for Dwight. I remember talking about which guys we want to keep the most. I REALLY did not want to trade Royce White...
I don't remember Morey saying that and I can't find any reference to that anywhere. I would think that it would have been all over CF.NET if Morey had said that. What I do remember is that ESPN published a bogus story that said that we were going to take on the contracts of Big Baby, Duhon and Richardson along with sending a slew of picks and two of our three 1st round picks (Lamb/Jones/White). Everyone around here was up in arms over that and saying that we were gutting the team and killing the cap for a guy that would be a one year rental. Here's the original report: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8...howard-trade-orlando-magic-release-luis-scola That story got picked up and then articles like this picked it up and embelished it to include Hedo in the deal: http://www.businessinsider.com/rockets-dwight-howard-trade-2012-7 After the trade deadline Aldridge ran a story that said that the Rockets had only been willing to take on one bad contract, offer one draft pick and one of Lamb/Jones/White. Here's the Aldridge article: http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2012/07/13/dwight-update-not-close-to-a-trade-with-rockets/ Maybe that's what your're thinking of? While that was certainly an aggressive offer by the Rockets it was still pennies on the dollar based on Dwight's actual value. Because Dwight wouldn't give a guarantee to resign most teams dropped out of the bidding and the best of the bids was way below his market value. Minnesota is going to be facing the same situation if Love won't guarantee to resign with a team.
This is how I remember it. Plus, the fact that Orlando's return was way worse than our supposed offerings led me to believe we weren't willing to give up what was reported.
