Would you trade Donatas Motiejunas for Goran Dragic?

That's a pretty short sighted way of looking at things, but it explains why your position is what it is. Looking at skill set is more important than looking at the raw numbers sometimes. There was a time when Dirk Nowitzki was a 14/6 player per 36, it's probably good that the Mavs didn't trade him away simply because they had a random athletic tweener behind him that could match that production with putbacks and transition baskets. You hold on to the rare players because athletic 6'9 PF's are a dime a dozen....as are good PG's, the NBA's deepest position.

 

Good Point!

 

If DMO can get me Dragic and Plumlee, I drive his butt to the airport.

I still have the Pelicans pick and expirings to get an adequate PF.

Dragic is the better player.

 

Dirk did that for 1 year and he was 20.

His second year at 21 he was averaging 17 and 7 with great percentages.

Not comparable to Dirk.

 

Horrible point actually when you consider Dirk was a 20 year old rookie fresh from overseas. You could tell Dirk had potential to be something very special his second season. This isn't a good comparison at all.

 

This is Dmo ' s 1st yr getting consistent touches,on the block not the 3 point line

 

Dragic was all nba 3rd team last year.

If we go for Dragic, it would be with the intention of resigning him.

 

LOL, Why so literal. THE POINT IS SKILL SET AND POTENTIAL. No one is saying Dmo is Dirk but with his skill set and potential he can really be special.

 

No one said DMo was going to be Dirk but if you look at the minutes, DMo's 2nd year minutes are similar to Dirk's rookie season, and he has no where near the minutes of Dirk's 2nd season, but with more consistent play this season, he's averaging 16/7 per 36 since Christmas making almost 54% of his FG's with just north of a 34% 3 point percentage and a TS% of 58.5, numbers fairly comparable to Dirk's 2nd year.

Again, so there is no confusion, I'm not saying DMo will be Dirk, but they are both rare talents and the Rockets would be foolish to trade him away....especially since there's no reason to in order to land Gogi.

 

Most people can tell that DMo has potential to be something very special in this, just his second season of getting legitimate playing time.

Sure, it would be with the intention of re-signing him.....the Lakers traded for Dwight Howard with the intention of re-signing him too, how'd that work out? Until he signs a new deal he's a potential rental...and even if he wasn't, good PG's are so common in the NBA it makes it not worth trading away a rare commodity for. As it stands there aren't any teams willing to make an offer that could beat the NOP first and NYK second.

 

There's more to stats than just the box score. Tjones got his numbers as a garbage dude slipping in between holes created by Harden/Parsons/Dwight/Lin, while DMo is a legit go-to option late in the 4rth. Maybe they have the same stats, but the way they were utilized were completely different DMo can thrive both as a main weapon and as an auxiliary, I don't think you can say the same for TJones can he create on his own 1-on-1 like DMO does?

Also what about defense? If they have the same stats but DMO is a good defender while Tjones gets abused defensively by almost every PF in the league then obviously DMO is 2x the player Tjones is. Not to mention TJones is injured, we have no idea what shape he comes back.

Comparing Dragic vs Dmo and saying Dragic is better is stupid IMHO, Dragic is 29 years old and pretty much in his prime, DMO is just in his 3rd year and first time getting consistent PT, he's barely better than a rookie. In 3 years Dragic will be washed up and still making the max, DMO will be hitting his prime and hopefully still signed to a non-max contract. IF Dwight was old Dwight then yeah you make that move for that 3 year window but with Dwight looking like he's breaking down why the F would you gamble everything on his health? We can find similar quality pgs in the offseason, why does it have to be Dragic when he's 29 and demandng the max?

 

DMo is not much of a go-to option. The Rockets cannot really rely on him to be a hub to generate offense. This is why the offense still grinds to a halt when DMo is on the floor and Harden sits. He'll have some success scoring, but not really the kind of sustained high level success that a primary scorer has to have. DMo's post-up offense is more similar to Luis Scola's than Hakeem Olajuwon's or even Yao Ming's.

Dragic, on the other hand, can be relied upon to generate offense for the team. He did that for the Rockets during the last couple months when he was here. He has done it for the Suns the last couple seasons.

 

Potential doesn't win you championships when you have a Harden and a Howard in their prime at the moment. Dragic starting and with Beverly coming off the bench the PG position for the Rockets instantaneously becomes one of the strongest in the league. They will finally be able to close out games with a fresh Harden. That to me is more valuable than 5 DMOs with potential. I don't want to give up DMO for Dragic like most Rockets fans, but the Rockets are dramatically better with a Dragic even if they had to lose (The Big Skill Set) DMO. Harden is having to play like superman alongside DMO for them to currently win and that won't work long term.

 

But it's not shortsighted to compare a 20 year old rookie to a 24 year old 3rd year player.

 

Again we don't necesarily need Dragic, we need another creator. If we can get Dragic without giving up Dmo I'm all for it. There is a reason we are still successful with Dwight out, Dmo is one of those reason. Dmo took a huge leap this year imagine what he will be like next year.

 

Well of course it's a risk. But most of the time they stay and take the extra money.

Are good pgs really more common than good pfs? I'm not so sure about that.

The real shortage is elite players, which Dragic was last year.

Now this whole conversation might me moot as we may not even be offering DMo.

 

#SOON

 

Several issues with this.

1) It's not DMo vs Dragic, Dragic can be had without DMo being traded and there's the obvious fact that they play completely different positions and have different roles.

2) The offense doesn't "grind to a halt" when they are going inside to DMo in the post, it grinds to a halt when Harden isn't on the floor and they aren't going inside to DMo in the post.

3) "DMo is not much of a go-to option. The Rockets cannot really rely on him to be a hub to generate offense." This is just flat out inaccurate. He's by far the best go-to big man on the roster and he's made some of the best defensive big men in the NBA look absolutely foolish trying to guard him in the post.

If you lose DMo, you have absolutely no big men that you can count on to generate offense....even when Howard is back. Jones is a garbage man, scoring on putbacks and in transition and Smith, while playing more efficiently than he ever has before, is still Smith meaning not efficient at all.

 

Not if you payed attention to what I was saying. I was talking about skill set and I was comparing 2 players first consistent minutes in the NBA. DMo got a much later start than Dirk, and no one is saying he'll become what Dirk became, but they are both rare talents....and when you compare DMo's first legit minutes to Dirk's rookie years (Dirk got legit minutes from year 1) they are similar.....so a short sighted person might have concluded that he should be traded if there was an athletic tweener on the roster behind Dirk that could match stats with garbage baskets and transition.

Good PG's are the most common thing in the NBA, 7 foot tall PF's that play plus defense and have polished post games are just about the most rare thing in the NBA.