No, no, no, no and no. Mr PM, I could not be in greater disagreement with you on David West. I do not have hopes for his arrival, but I can have 'dreams'. This man is very much a NEED for this Rox team!
True, but it is still dependent upon the ball handler. I really do hope that the Harden-Howard chemistry goes to a whole new level next year. They could truly be something special.
So xiki, What do you like about his game? I always saw him as a scorer albeit inconsistent and not much else.
To start with, he is tough. He demands toughness from his teammates. He can hit a J consistently, rebound, play physical D on the likes of Blake and take Bosh out of the game. IMO what's not to like about his game?
Have you seen him play for the Pacers recently? He may have been primarily a PnR/PnPop threat with New Orleans, but he has transformed into a smart, tough and gritty defender that can get his own shot (to a degree). He's a solid rebounder and a very good hustle player. Of particular importance to our team is that he is a respected vocal leader and will get on his teammates to get back on D or execute (Harden). We'd be lucky to have him.
I would love to have West, he is an excellent team defender. Not to mention rock solid offensively. Over the last 5 seasons he has shot 49% from 16ft+. You would of course prefer he be able to hit the 3, but that is still good enough to reliably stretch the floor. He would be a massive upgrade.
How much flexibility will you really have? As we currently stand, we can create caproom again next offseason. Can we do that with West on the roster too? At his current market value, you can probably trade him again to make space if you needed it, but at his age who knows what his value will be a year from now. I'm not really comparing a West deal to a Parsons deal. But, I have a hard time seeing West as good enough to be the 3rd star if Parsons wasn't good enough. If we chose flexibility to get that 3rd star, I want a real 3rd star. And, if you need to build assets to get there, trading young players for a proven but aging vet isn't the way to get there.
Great way to break down the comparison. I'd go with the former for the reasons you stated. We gain or at least keep flexibility for when it matters (2016) and we switch from the development and performance window going from jones to west to help take advantage of the 2 year window with Dwight. There aren't better upgrades out there at the pf spot so unless it's clear a third star is made available and can be obtained with what we have this is a good move for the interim. Some of you guys are down on west but he's exactly what this teams needs given what he can do from the 4 and from a leadership standpoint.
You couldn't for next off season since he has a player option. But 1) who is really available in 2015 that you'd could chase after and 2) the cap space we'd have isn't enough anyway to go after a 3rd star anyway. 2016 is the next realistic target to add a 3rd star in FA. Until then it's through trades if one becomes available and even then I doubt we have enough (but we do for an upgrade like West). West certainly isn't a 3rd star, and neither was Parsons. The biggest difference being Parsons contract wasn't friendly but West's contract would be. He'd be a nice expiring piece to trade come 2016. Again, if you want a real 3rd star, you aren't going to find one on the FA market that fits our team until 2016 and as long as you can keep one of Dmo or Jones + a nice pick you can develop value in your assets by putting your team in a position to win now and let the young guys learn from vets, which is what a player like West can do.
You continually miss the boat because we have already given up Lin and the assets to get the TPE. Getting the TPE already cost us the assets and now we cannot salary match. There are teams that could take on Lin and the assets and we could still salary match. Now we would have to clean out all of those NGDs to hopefully get up to a matching point and then use the TPE to absorb the contract. With just the NGDs we could absorb a higher contract number (little over $8.6M) and still have the Lin Contract to match with, plus the assets we already gave away. And even with those benefits being clear, we also get a guy who is a decent player for however long we have him. Instead we are counting on 2nd round picks with absolutely no NBA experience. And during that time, his salary imbalance becomes less of an issue and thus costs us fewer assets to unload. The trade was awful and keeping Lin clearly would have clearly been the better move as we sit (without Bosh and Parsons) in August. Of course, at the time, it was done to be able to bring in Bosh, when we thought he was ours. Sucks it didn't work out.
I doubt Indy will blow up the team. They didn't blow up the team and tank during those mediocre Dunleavy & Troy Murphy days, I doubt they'd do it now. They'll trade West, Hibbert etc if they think it'll help the team when George returns. Odds are highly likely that whatever player that is still available with the Pelicans pick (probably a late lottery or worse) will be a significantly worse player than West or Hibbert (for the first couple of year at least)
I think they'll look at this year as a tank year which means move West to a win now contender in exchange for a young prospect that can develop in a rebuilding year. Ideally that young prospect(s) will be able to contribute nearly the same way as west did but then they'd be on the right side of the curve with a young guy to develop and peak along with PG. It all comes down to if they want to compete for a playoff spot or just go into rebuild mode with pg out for the next 12-18 months. If it's the latter than that means moving a playe like west who only has a couple years left to win now. At the very least I think they'd owe it to west to decide what he wants to do.
Point to remember is that West chose to re-sign with Pacers at a price probably under market at the time.
