Pat, since JJ has not reported, my guess is that they really wanted Boki and JJ was the salary throw in.... DD
DD, I disagree. I think they are just trying to make the best of a bad sutuation. Nobody wants to take back players after a busted trade. I know you are a Boki fan, so you will disagree with this, but I really don't see what Boki has shown the league that they would give up a solid starter for him. Even age allowed.
DD, the fact of not reporting aside, my hypothetical question still stands. Would you give up Wesley for JJ one for one?
DD -- Or you could theorize this way: The Hornets evidently agreed not to make the deal contingent on JJ reporting. Therefore, the reason the deal looked lopsided was that JJ not reporting was a known risk discussed up front. The Hornets took the deal gambling that he might not report. To make that gamble worth their while, we had to guarantee them Nachbar and accept the possibility that they'd get two players to our one.
Since NO are... not very good with or without JJ, they are saving themselves money and increasing their flexibility for next year by not having him. So it magnifies the benefits of the trade for them. Hate to say it, but I am starting to like the trade, myself.
If you look at it from NO point of view, they take a tilt at Nachbar, which has a low probability of success, but is a hansome young guy for their fans to look at for the next couple of months. And they save some money. I presume that being 2-25 is not so good for the finances, in general. Wesley gets the chance to play for a decent team. Boki gets his minutes. JJ... oh dear.
I agree, and if Boki does pan out they have his rights. When you are 2-26, what have you got to lose? DD
Well I don't really know much about the Hornets' players and what their strengths and weaknessess are and their needs but I assume they must need much of everything since they have the worst record in the league. But yea, if I was Allan Bristow, I would trade Wesley straight up for JJ because JJ is a little younger and I believe makes less money than Wesley. I mean on the surface, it definitely is a trade that favors the Hornets (that was assuming that JJ showed up for them). But as Daddy pointed out, you have to look sometimes a lot deeper than just raw stats and salaries to see if a deal is really that good or not. Obviously, Gumby felt that Wesley would fit more into his style than JJ and definitely moreso than Nachbar. I just find it hard to believe that Nachbar had become that big of a distraction, that Gumby felt that he had to also deal a man that many called a pet of his in JJ. That is why I wondered if there wasn't more to this deal like something had happened behind the scenes involving JJ and Gumby. To answer the other part of your question, Pat, I doubt JJ would come back to Houston after being traded to the worst team in the first place, so I wouldn't do a deal that I felt was unrealistic.
I believe that the chemistry experiment is headed in the right direction. The two recent trades gave me hope that the Rox management team finally gets it. They have been needing good shooters in the worst way for quite a while now and that's what Barry and Wesley are. So here you have the outside threats, you have the inside presence of 7'6" Yao, and the do it all star power of T-Mac. The only thing they are missing is a hard-nosed PF that can bang for rebounds and keep Yao out of foul trouble. If we could somehow fill that hole, then we'd be in the Finals once again. That's what I believe.
From what I have heard, Coach 'Pop' is no bowl of daisies to be around, and San Antonio doesn't seem to have much trouble convincing players to play there.. hmm.. yeah, winning IS the ultimate deoderant, isn't it? All it will take will be for JVG to bring this team fairly deep into the playoffs, and this town will love him, little dictator or not ...
Really that's amazing..that's all we need that PF. But I don't know how we are going to obtain that PF. The Rockets have many options..and well our backcourt is gonna get older..we'll have to replace them...maybe with veterans or develop some good players gradually. At PF...we'll have to do something and yup then we will be good.
If this is true, then when would you have broken that team up? When would you have fired the coach? When would you have fired GMs? They had a streak of something like 18 or 19 straight seasons in the playoffs, yet by your standard, they were as futile in their efforts during that period as the Clippers.
Yes, I would have broken them up at somepoint earlier. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but they made it to the Finals and couldn't get over the hump twice in a row. They never made the right moves to either make the team that much better or to significantly shake up the roster and try a different approach. I wouldn't have fired the coach first but eventually might have. Of course, this is all from a fan's perspective. That is to say, though it is nice as a fan to see a player play his entire career (and a good one) for you (John Stockton, almost Karl Malone), it is often even nicer to see some other team way overpay to get said player in a trade at the end of the career, which I certainly beleive could have happened with either of those two guys. Also, as an owner, my thoughts would be different, because from a profitability standpoint, I'd imagine making it to the playoffs every year year after year, even without winning, is better than winning one time and sucking for years thereafter and then being again and winning again for a year or two and then sucking for a long time.
But the coach failed repeatedly for years. Why wouldn't you fire him? Are you condoning failure for a while? Sloan's one of the best coaches in the business... and the lack of championships does not indicate otherwise. Larry Brown wasn't a failure simply because he didn't win a championship until last season - he was a great coach prior to that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the championship "is all that matters" and anything short of that is deemed failure, nearly the entire NBA for the most part is a failure and has been for over a decade. As a fan, I don't expect a team to win a championship every year and don't deem them failures if they don't simply because it's an unrealistic proposition. I expect a competitive, entertaining product that has the potential to do damage in the playoffs and possibly go further. Winning a championship is a goal, yes, but not winning one doesn't mean failure to me. Repeated seasons of mediocrity is failure. Never sniffing the playoffs year after year is failure. In those cases you've failed to be entertaining to fans and failed to put a competitive product on the floor.
Yeah Jerry Sloan really is a great coach. Wasn't he supposed to retire? JVG's team is getting more entertaining and well we're being competetive. Let's not get blown out by the Suns. Wesley and Barry have played well and seem to fit well. BOth good acquisitions GJ CD
