OKC has every reason to believe it's better to keep their core together and just build a natural dynasty off of their own drafted talent. They drafted well enough for that with Williams and Chet. The Thunder would be insane to consider breaking up their core for a superstar that is a lot older than the rest of their core.
I worked for Wes Edens for several years. As long as he is a significant part of the ownership structure they are not trading away Giannis unless it's for another top 5 player. Wes isn't getting younger and he made it clear to all of us he wanted to win, win big, and win now with all of his sports ventures. We thought it was pretty funny that he'd make that claim and then buy Aston Villa who wasn't even in the top-flight Premier League. Fast forward 5 years later and Villa is a fixture at the top of the premier league and we know how good the Bucks have been. That's just my own personal experience and I have strong conviction with it but I suppose never say never.
Giannis is 29 and SGA is 26. He still has a ton of winning left to do. He's also displayed an almost superhuman ability to recover from injuries and plays through minor ones. Upgrading from JDub to Giannis would guarantee a finals appearance.
They can already generate a finals appearance with their current roster more than likely. They already seem to be a team that will win 60+ games every healthy year. Guys like Williams and Chet provide a much longer runway of being contenders due to how young they are.
Didn't he actually say explicitly he would ask for a trade if they fail again this year? I think he said that somewhere. I'm not sure the rockets would be on his list unless we really exceed expectations this year, but it would be cool to get Giannis.
I think the Rockets are on watch for any star.... as they sort of openly sell out there through their media surrogates. If Giannis, Embiid, Luka, Booker, etc. ever shake loose the Rockets will be aggressive. Can they compete with OKC??... That's the big question. The only advantage that Houston might have though is nobody isn't expendable while with OKC I think at this point they take a hard stance on Chet being off the table. Everyone is on the table for Houston... at least after December when Sengun and Jalen are tradeable of course.
Giannis should come to Houston bearing James Harden's 2019 MVP trophy and present it to him at midcourt.
OKC has the draft capital to pretty much get anyone. A line up of... Chet Giannis J Will Caruso Shai Would be sick AF. BUT... Hartenstein Chet Flagg J Will Shai Would be crazy AND a lot cheaper.
I would keep a very close eye on Giannis and Morant. You never know at the beginning of the season who's going to be unhappy. Players always become available.
Hard to know without knowing the personal relationships and it being the start of the season when seemingly none of them are expendable since every team that has a superstar thinks they can win a championship. I’d guess that Kevin Durant is likely the one superstar that their team has the most incentive to move soonest in order to get the biggest return on investment. Least likely I guess is Wemby who has to be the most untouchable superstar in the league imo. However all of that can change if the star player requests out of town and threatens to raise hell if not. If it’s the most likely to request out of town then yeah I think Giannis is the prime target… unless you think like Harden is still a superstar then I’d say he’s likelier to ask out.
Ohhh… yeah… everyone is expendable to Stone. Most expendable is Tate (or should be). Least expendable… good question but the team would probably say Jalen or Sengun or Amen are their top tier assets. I think they’d demand like 4 to 6 first rounders for each of those players if they were on the block this season. Still Stone would probably give up all 3 for Giannis plus the Suns picks. That’s actually why I think Giannis or a top tier superstar is out of reach though for us. I think Giannis would veto a trade to a team like us where he’d go and basically be alone (at least in his opinion). You need to get that first star player by draft or chance and then you are in a much better position having your superstar off the table in that trade. That’s why despite the assets on the board the fact that the Spurs have Wemby and the Thunder have SGA automatically puts them in a major advantage and they’ll need far fewer assets that we have to get a Giannis type of star.
Was this prior to the Bucks winning a championship or was it after? Wondering if he is content with the ring he has.
I would think they try to move Dame before trading Giannis, I don't think Dame was worth bringing in anyways was kind of surprised by that move. I would try to retool around Giannis first. There will be a lot of opportunities for them to retool i think in the next 18 months. The Clippers look decent now, but the Kawhi situation is worse than the team is leading on, Bucks should have gone after Harden in off season. Kyrie is also a free agent after this season as well, he is still in his early 30s and would be a better fit.
I thought Giannis and Harden hated each other? Not sure that's a move they'd make. Kyrie? I could see that, significantly better player than Dame.
