If Atlanta is tanking, wouldn't they better off trading Millsap? Or does he not have enough value? If they're not tanking, they'll want win-now players which we don't have.
It depends. My guess is that Atlanta wouldn't decide to tank unless they got into the season and weren't competitive. At that point, Millsap would be an expiring deal that they wouldn't be able to get as much for (which would be pretty good for us because I think we could obtain him cheaper than what they were asking for last year). Millsap, while a good player and can be great on the right team, will never be a player that a rebuilding team tries to build around. Horford potentially might be. They could decide that Horford is very close to a superstar and they want to try to continue to build a winning team around him. Or, they could say they want to blow the whole thing up and start a complete rebuild. If they did that, then they would be able to get a lot more assets than they could with Millsap. There are way too many unknowns for this to even be likely right now. A lot of speculation. But it would be incredible. IMO- Horford would improve our team way, way more than Rubio or Rondo would. Even more than Dragic would...
Regardless of availability there wasn't a lot of support. I am sure Atlanta would have been interested in an Asik, Picks, etc for Horford if we were willing to make that deal then. Morey was going all in this offseason for Anthony or Bosh. Would have been nice to walk away with Horford. Would have been great marketing for the Big 3 with Howard, Horford and Harden.
There's no way that the NOP alone could get us Horford... But it could be just one valuable piece that we would have to combine with other pieces to make it work. If Horford actually was available. And if several other things happened to go our way as well....
Everything that I heard last year was that Atlanta had no interest in trading Horford, but instead wanted to keep him and try to build around Horford. This is the first time I have even heard a rumor of him maybe being available. Personally, I would much rather have Horford on our team than Bosh, Carmelo, David West or Millsap. But last year, it seemed like he was the least available.
Bet this is why Morey has not already traded for Rondo. He's not giving up the NOPick for Rondo at this stage and is holding out hope someone like Horford might come available. For example, if the lottery rules change making the pick more valuable, and Atlanta has an ownership change that green lights the tank mode.
not much of a risk. less workload = less chance of injury, he's also not the type to get injured b2b seasons. u take it and u never look back. the perfect stretch 4
best part is it keeps us in line to make a pitch at Durant while putting a possible championship team on the floor now.
Get Horford and we are officially finals faves. Them injuries though says we grab Milsap instead. Atlanta is not giving Horford up for anything we have to offer.
considering he costs 12 mil a year..how would he fit if we only traded the nop pick? we only have a lin tpe of around 6 mil.
We don't know if Horford was made available to the Rockets. Even if he was, I guess Morey may have backed out because of his injuries.