"Decline" has to be a trend that is predictive of the future. A dip in one season does not constitute a trend. You'll have to string at least a couple of season of going downhill to say that he's declining and will likely continue to do so. If the dude is 35 years old well beyond his prime, then yeah. It just doesn't make sense that a 28-year old is declining.
?? Of course it makes sense. Guards around Booker's level (i.e., peaking around ~15th-20th best player in the league) tend to hit their apex around 27-28 and begin a slow decline from there. Beal, Klay, LaVine, Kemba etc. It only wouldn't make sense to you if you think Booker is in the tier of guys like Harden, Steph, CP3, Lillard -- all-time greats tend to have extended primes into their early 30's before beginning their slow decline phase. But Booker is not that level of guy.
We don’t even know if we want to keep Sengun after the contract he just signed, so such talks are way too premature. Booker wouldn’t preclude us from giving Amen a max rookie extension. That’s fine if you think Booker isn’t worth the contract but the worry about keeping players related to any star/superstar trade. KD is one of the best offensive players all time, most players would be his “sidekick”. And based on advanced stats, there is a level between JG and Booker.
First, I don't think it has anything to do with level of greatness. Plenty of role players play at their prime over 30. Second, you have to put up a picture of all players to show a general trend of declining. Picking a few guys is not convincing. For example, Beal and Walker have been hampered by injuries that is not related to age. Some players are just more injury prone. Same can be said about Klay not back to his former self after a major injury. These are unpredictable things in a player's career, not a declining trend. Lavine is a good example of a short dip and a bounce back.
I think it's more that he's picking players with 20/20 hindsight rather than predicting futures. Can't speak much about the other guys, but with Harden, many Rockets fans were turning on Harden after the disaster that was the final Dwight season, followed by the Spurs series loss and then going to strip joints. Pretty sure no one was thinking at that time Harden would have an MVP season and 10 more years of star level play after that debacle. Yeah there is risk that Booker is just going downhill from now. But there's also the risk that all the Phoenix picks suck and Booker can be a better player on the Rockets where he has more athleticism and talent around him than Phoenix.
Just watch Jalen and Booker tonight. Jalen - 54% TS being guarded by the best defenders Booker - 59% TS as the sidekick being guarded by 2nd best defenders Even at face value just 5% TS isnt worth x2 salary of Booker. When you look at the context, Phx are full of good shooters you cant leave them open so its not a surprise Booker is more efficient with all thr spacing on that team. Booker is also a lot older than Jalen and in his prime, whereas Jalen is only 23. Most importantly Jalen isnt being paid like a superstar while Booker is making 35% of the cap as a super max. We will be paying a lot including lots of picks for a very small upgrade and even a downgrade after a couple years. Its just a bad idea. Jalen may not be a star, but like I said his salary is role player money anyway. But for Booker if we get him he has to be better than every other super max player and the opposite is true. He is worse than SGA, Ant, Jokic, Giannis etc that just puts us in a disadvantage right from the start.
5% is a lot. If you add 5% to the rockets TS they go from 27th to 4th, it's a notable jump. I can't say i'm jumping for joy at booker on the 35% max though. Boston just won a title with brown on a 35% max though (a ludicrus contract i wouldn't touch with a 10 foot poll), and i think they're the best model for the rockets. 5 good starts and no superstar.
Like Harden.....no other players have gravitated to the team or worked out that see him as a viable option to win a ring.........why take on another team's reality......make something out of what you have.....much more positive than PHX's future......maybe their draft picks.....oh yeah those.........
Celtics are on the 2nd apron Fertita wont pay that. Btw Jalen 26 Booker 12 Efficiency sometimes is due to less attention on you if you are the primary threat like Green its possible Booker TS will also dip down. If Jalen gets star calls like everyone else he would be a lot more efficient like tonight.
No he is not that guy. There is often much that is subjective in conversations like this. I stand by on this one though. Booker is not the guy to add to this team at THAT salary.
Look at FVV some people just decline earlier. Booker will be 30 next year btw, he aint a spring chicken. More importantly you are gonna pay top dollar in terms of assets and salary for a guy who is not playing like he is in his prime? It's like paying top dollar for suspect goods. I dont watch Suns games but who the hell comes from this game impressed with Booker? Dude was passive AF and had bad D. Yeah he had another efficient game but was pretty much a non factor. He played like a good sidekick but he is making super max money. If we were gonna go after Booker why didnt we try to get Lavine? Lavine has been mich more efficient and effective than Booker.
If tilman won’t pay than the whole discussion is pointless unless you have a top 3 player which we do not and will not. This era is over in that case.
I'm not saying I want Booker. His salary is a huge concern. But saying a 28-year old guy is declining just because he has a down year. is pretty presumptuous. And people are acting like Booker won't be an upgrade. To me, this is like the Harden-FVV debate. Nobody is arguing who's the better player. But some people think he's not good for the team long term, which is a legit stance.
I'd rather not trade for Booker or KD. Our guys will keep getting better every year, and we will keep reloading with lottery talent from picks. We should end up having a long window as a contender, even if it takes us another year or two to get there.
Celtics are the model we should follow, this is what I've been saying. Brown and Tatum are not these megastars, they have not been up for top 3 MVP voting to my knowledge, they are paid a lot, and with elite role players they won a championship. Udoka believed they could win a championship. When I say you don't need a pre-proven franchise player in order to have a path to a championship, this is exactly what I mean. I'm not talking about the Detroit Pistons bad boys. You need elite role players like the Celtics and the late-career-Duncan/Ginobili/Parker Spurs. Your stars may not be clearly future MVP winners and they may never be up for MVP and you can win it. It's not as uncommon as people think if you limit your scope to what was being SAID about them the year before they won the title. You can see all the bias over there. That's a good style to follow both for our personnel and for Udoka's expertise. When I hear people talking about forking over tons of assets to acquire a "franchise player" I don't think they realize that teams who spend too much an acquisitions ALWAYS end up with luxury tax problems for some reason so you better be ready to win it all quickly before running into those problems. Nowadays that's probably more likely than ever since there's a semi hard cap going on. The whole point of the rebuild - in my eyes at least - was that the model of acquiring multiple stars will most likely end up with you acquiring stars that have failed at other similar gigs. We had an MVP level Harden and the best sidekicks we were able to acquire were stars that had been given up on: broken down Howard, Westbrook and chubby Chris Paul on minutes restriction. We tried like crazy to acquire better players than that, and all Harden needed was what Lebron needed for every single title: an elite sidekick or two in their prime. It was a dead end for us. It's even sadder when you think how close we got with just declining Chris Paul. What if we had a prime Kyrie? A prime Klay Thompson? A Durant? You can't cross your fingers and hope to get one, a lot of luck and off-court considerations involved in those. The whole idea of growing your own talent is that you can develop guys in a system custom made for them so that - like Tatum who used to struggle badly at the rim - their games can be elevated and their statistics will enter that general tier of "franchise player". Late career Duncan was not a franchise player. Late career Klay and Dramond are not franchise player but they still won a title with a declining Curry against those same Celtics. It's also because you can develop your own role players free or trade your 1B and 1C guys for elite role players. Homegrown franchise players, homegrown elite role players and consolidation trades is the way to go. Requires maybe getting results 1 year later, but ultimately it's worth the investment because even if 1-2 years into that you don't like it - you have enough team control to not lose people for nothing, not allow them to force a situation on you. You have a ton of team control. Just the way we've started Sengun and Green at $30mish, this has put a cap on how high their future extensions can get and correct me if I'm wrong but we can match anything they get from anyone for another contract after these ones. That's a lot of control within a very flexible situation. Spoiler Side note: Can't agree on Brown. A Finals MVP who can also be a top 15 player in the regular season and a two-way player is massive value. Incredible amount of playoff experience for his age and an alpha off the court too. Not a guy who's drive you have to worry about like an Embiid. He makes between $53 and $65m till 2029. Locked into that contract, no need to worry about extensions. That seems pretty manageable in this era. If you're missing just one star and need one, 90% of people making those salaries right now are lesser players. Only a couple of people in the $40m range are comparable players. I'd say Brown is an acceptable risk. Tatum deserves credit of course too, but a lot of hiding and scheming is necessary to make Tatum excellent (shooting bigs, he's been the worst defensive starter on great defensive teams practically his whole career). Brown is a lot more plug and play and the more balanced two way player who can shoot doesn't even need you to build things around them. Both of them have benefitted tremendously from their coaches - aside from Udoka - making drives super easy by going 4-out and 5-out 99% of the time. Brown and Tatum have rarely had to face a packed paint in their career save for a brief period where Smart and Brown were both shaky shooters.
Their salaries don't match. Booker is better than Jalen. The Rockets don't need Booker with his huge contract.
