Ron artest is low risk because if worst situation occured, they could just cut him and move on, which they couldn't do if he had a sizeable contract.
Yes, but what I'm saying is that if you're looking to build a team and make a move for him, you are taking on a risk despite the contract. If all you're talking about is from a contract perspective, I don't disagree. I'm looking at it from the perspective that we sign Artest, he does great for a couple of months, the team is doing great, then he decides to deck Les Alexander or Yao. That's risk in that you've spent half the season building a good team to only have it fall apart mid-season. lol. I'm exaggerating, but... It turns out that didn't happen, but even in re-signing him, they have to take that into account despite whatever contract they can get him signed under and however low-risk that contract may be.
The thing is the contract is the risk, there's nothing you can do to mitigate risk on the player side, a player is going to do what he is going to do. However, the contract you give a player is how you mitigate that risk. I mean if you have artest on a minimum wage contract, it doesn't matter if he goes into the stands again, you just cut him and that is that, there's no risk. he can't really ruin team chemistry if he is traded or cut. The same thing with wafer, imagine if he had an MLE contract for multiple years, his little spat with adelman would be a huge risk heading into the offseason, but because he is a minimum wage free agent, there is no risk at all.
Sure there is - you don't take the risk of acquiring the player. You don't take the risk of him wrecking team chemistry. Von Wafer's low risk comes from the fact he was never expected to be a major cog in the Rockets' scheme. He was a gamble - a true low-risk gamble. A player of Artest's caliber cannot be judged the same way - he is a #2 or #3 option on this team (and in the end became a #1 option toward the end due to the TMac and Yao injuries). If the same thing happened during the season, the Rockets' season could be toast no matter what the length of the contract or how small the dollar value. If Artest had a mutiny against Adelman or had a spat with him, you're losing a major piece of your team. This isn't true with Von.
i'm siding with trugoy on this one. gd thread btw. gd idea to reinforce this board. hopefully this helps mitigate some of those random idiotic trade threads around this board which uncontrollably will turn into a tmac bash thread.
this is the part where we disagree with you. As it turns out, Ron Artest did stir up something in the locker room which contributed to rafer alston being traded. Remember what Clutch said he had heard? Again, if that locker room thing had been bigger than expected, it is still low risk because we could in turn trade his expiring ass. which again makes this a low risk move.
Actually Artest has a history of being quite mild-mannered for the first season or so. So it's not like it was a huge risk. And even then, all it means is that the team is back to square one. From the Rockets perspective, two very low, 1st round picks(which is what we gave up for him), is pretty much negligible. Especially as a team that already has a set rotation and those picks take up quite a bit of the cap.
Not to nitpick, but I wouldn't say a package of two first-round picks and (don't forget) Jackson's expiring contract of $6 million is negligible. It's certainly a bargain for Artest, but still a pretty substantial bargaining chip. If we didn't get Artest, we still might have picked up a pretty decent player within the $7-8 million range with that package. But it was a calculated risk that could've netted us a huge payoff - a championship - if it weren't for injuries. So definitely one to take.
Like who? The thing about judging these trades is that you never know what other offers are out there. How many other players out there makes $7 mil, is on a crappy team who wants to trade him, makes as much impact as Artest(or comes close), and can be gotten with 2 1st rounders? Your argument works if the Rockets were looking at several players, all of whom were available for that cost. But considering the situation last season, that seemed very unlikely.
Low risk??? Really??? Trading for a seemingly crazy man in Ron Artest was not risky? Trading your starting pg in the middle of the season? Trading Bonzi and Mike James for a pg that no one thought would play?
1. Ron artest expiring contract while giving up no core pieces, low risk because really the worst that can happen is that he gets cut and the team stays the same as 2008 2. low risk considering your backup guard played really well when your starting guard was injured. 3. Much lower risk than paying mike james the MLE for sitting on the bench with a long contract. pure salary dump.
1. They gave up 2 1st round picks 2) He did play well, but it is still risky giving up your starting pg of 4 years for an unknown commodity. Yes this worked out and I would have pulled the trigger on it as well, but it was still risky 3) There were not "dumping salary" when they were making a playoff run. They dumped Bonzi who was a conrtibutor off the bench, and also, James did not have an MLE. At the time, James and Jackson were both riding the bench on their teams. Neither were playing at all. So giving up 2 player, 1 being a contributor off the bench for a guy that had not played all season was in fact a risk.
original poster, referring to the thread starter. also can be used as original post, which started the thread. ------------- as for morey and his low risk moves... i think we are all forgetting a major part of the equation. he looks for low risk / high reward. meaning the higher the possible reward, the more risk he's willing to take. that's why he made the trade for ron. if tmac was healthy and we had ron as option #3 we would've been a devastating team. with ron the risk was high that he might ruin the great chemistry we had, but not too high because of his contract being in it's last year. when talking abut baron davis (long term / injury prone) it's too risky despite the reward possible. steve nash on the other hand is similar to artest. one year left on his contract. see how it works, if it doesn't then he can walk and the rockets will keep whatever else came in the package from the suns.
1. 2 VERY LOW 1st round picks. In fairly shallow drafts too for that matter. This isn't the NFL. 1st round picks w/ guaranteed contracts can be a negative depending on the situation. 2. Starting PG can range from CP3 to Rafer Alston. Please don't use such a general term to overvalue Rafer. That, and Lowry was not an "unknown" commodity. You do realize that the scouting report on him before the trade was exactly what he gave us, right? 3. Where is Bonzi now? Being in the rotation doesn't make you good. Remember the time when Luther Head was in our rotation? No one complained when he got released. Just because a player played for the Rockets doesn't mean he's any good. Morey gets rid of the dead weight and bring in contributors or scrubs who may surprise.
Redd is injured only slightly less than T-mac. It would be repeating the same mistake with another player.
I'm with Dr of Dunk on this one, and think he's made his point clear. Perhaps you simply disagree, or perhaps you're still not seeing exactly what he means. So, let's try one more time. Let's use your scenario, but change the event. Let's say in the locker room that rather than "causing a stir," he gets into a scuffle with someone. When tempers flare, and people disagree, sometimes people do stupid things. If Ron flies off the handle in anything but a completely insignificant way, say, punching someone in the locker room...[here's the big difference b/w your scenario and mine]...he likely becomes completely UNTRADEABLE. That is your risk. If Ron does something that makes other teams balk at taking on his contract, then it's a HUGE risk when he's such an integral part of the team. You lose offensive option #3, and you lose one of the best perimeter defenders in basketball, and you get nothing in return for it. I believe Ron when he says he's changed, and I HATE how he doesn't get much of a chance to prove it. So, I'm not a Ron hater b/c of his past. But when you're talking trade asset, you unfortunately have to consider this.
Totally agree with Morey being a good risk manager. BUT, McGrady's contract does have value because it is insured. If he doesn't play in a certain number of games next year (I forget how many) the team he plays for can re-coup up to 80% of the contract value. That's potentially a lotta $$$ for cash strapped teams....
