Dont forget we still have Papanikolaou and Todorovic, Papa is supposedly a good prospect. Probably not enough to swing a trade by himself (and obviously no cap balance), but still a good pick up for a rebuilding team looking to offload a vet 3 and D guy. Along with Smith, DMo or another, Morey can still put together an enticing deal
In case you guys haven't been paying attention to Orlando games: Arron Afflalo doesn't play defense anymore.
I don't think that many people are watching bottom-feeding Orlando. I certainly have not been. On one hand, I do recall that Grantland.com's Zach Lowe lists Afflalo among his personal Eastern Allstars, and Lowe is a trust-worthy source who does watch a lot of games, including those of crappy teams like Orlando. On the other hand, despite Afflalo's nice personal box score, he doesn't seem to make that crappy team any better. The team is bad and the +/- numbers say they are worse with him on the court than with him off the court. So, I do wonder about him.
Exclude starters, Lin, Brooks and Garcia? That leaves Asik (too obvious), DMo, Casspi, and end-of-bench/Dleague fodders. So the only "interesting" information we got is that DMo and Casspi could be dealt?
unless we're trading Asik we can't afford afflalo, he's $7,300,000 a year & has player option 2015-2016 not moreys type of contract especially for a backup. Shumperts on a rookie contract until 2014-2015 & would be reasonable deal we could wing, Knicks are rumored to be looking for another c-pf with bargs out. Shumpert is a guy I have my eye on if we're keeping Lin & asik.
People don't pick All Stars based on defense. Remember what Yao said to Thibodeau at the All Star game when Thibodeau was there coaching the rookie/sophomore game? "Coach! What are you doing here? This is the All Star game! It has nothing to do with defense!" I remember when Kevin Martin came out of college, one of his "pluses" was actually "good defender" (almost unthinkable these days), and for his first year he indeed tried hard on defense and was pretty good, then his offense started to pick up and he just stopped trying on the other end of the floor. The most fun thing about Orlando this year is without a doubt the Oladipo at the 1 experiment. I have no idea aside from tanking why in the nine hells ORL coaching staff and management thought that Oladipo could work the point. The dude was not even a decent passer/court vision guy in college, and to call his ballhandling skills "mediocre" would be kind, as he can only drive in more or less in a straight line, and loses the ball half the time he had to make a sharp change of direction. Watching JV trying to use Oladipo as a point guard has been hilarious. I was very sad when they declared the experiment over halfway through the season.
So, can we mark Feb 21 as the likely date that Asik returns to the court, fully recovered from his "injury"?
I like the idea of Shumpert. He shoots the 3 pretty well and defends well and has instant chemistry with Lin - man, those 2 dudes coming off the bench would be pretty sick. I like Garcia, but with the way he's been playing I'm a little disappointed he's not on the block. He does have that veteran thing going, but not really the winning kind.
That is what I expect. There is no reason to do that. D-Mo won't get us a very high pick. He is showing true value for us. He will get better with time.
