Bill Simmons NBA playoffs mailbag: Very Interesting Trade scenario for the Rox

LOL. once more, you've completely missed the point. they wouldn't be trading him to improve their team.

 

Since the Tmac trade, the players Rockets let go are all end of bench scrubs, most of them no longer playing in the league.

CD didn't do a good job finding or adding talents.

 

I say hell to the naw.

 

This trade has the same chances of happening as some of the other ridiculous internet trade proposals made by fans.

 

Yes I know the point but you along with Simmons complete fail at the logic. No team in the modern era has ever traded a franchise superstar in order make their balance sheet work. Yes many superstars have been trade numerous times but that is due a player demanding a trade or team wishing to go in a different direction. Chris Paul does not fit any those two situtations. Trading away your only marketable player that can fill seats is sheer STUPIDITY and to trade him for expring contracts and role-players in order to save money is LUNACY.

Yes I understand Hornets are facing bankrutpcy type fianacial situation but just giving away Paul will turn away all the fans and game attendence will tank regardless. The only way this works for New Orleans is if they can get some team to swallow all the salary and return at least one future all-star type player in exchange for Paul otherwise New Orleans will never forget this trade and will be haunted for decades.

 

Was our whole season really defined by role players? Or was it only the last few games?

 

I can't believe there are people actually saying no to this trade...and the implausible assertion that no player is worth Brooks, Scola, & Landry. If you can get the player at a position that's the hardest to fill without trading your team's best player, you do it. Even if the Yao Ming era is doomed to fail, we don't have to luck out with a #1 pick; we got it in Chris Paul.

 

What kind of nonsense is this? Trade the entire core of the Rockets roster sans Yao to New Orleans for Chris Paul and a jumping jack? How asinine is that?

Well ... it must be the offseason.

 

Didn't Memphis trade away Pau Gasol last year for Kwame Brown's expiring contract?

 

There hasn't been an economic recession of this scale since the modern era.

With that said, I still think it's highly unlikely that the Hornets resort to trading Paul. It's just too far fetched. The point you seemed to have missed in your previous two posts is that if they do trade him, it would be out of dire necessity. He's just the icing that allows them to unload their garbage. Your proposals of trading Paul for equal value or another All-Star miss that completely. They don't want to trade him. They aren't trying to improve their team and there isn't any scenario in which trading him does so. So of course any of these deals look lopsided - he's just the only avenue by which they can unload the other guys. It doesn't matter that other teams can offer better players. It's our expiring contracts that would enable the deal. Our wealth of young talent is what at least makes it somewhat palatable for them.

So again, this thread isn't about whether or not the Hornets would trade Paul. It's a given that it's highly unlikely. The question being discussed is if it came to the point that they felt it necessary to trade him for the sake of the existence of the franchise, then, who could offer the best deal?

No one in their right mind is seriously arguing they would trade Paul for any other reason.

 

most would just move their franchises to another location instead of trading away a young franchise player to save money.

 

like i said, i put the chances at 1%.

 

Bingo! I mean, the whole league is STILL up in arms about that fire sale. Can you imagine what Greg Popovich would say if Chris Paul was obtained in the same way?

 

Pau Gasol = Franchise player?

I am talking about someone in same category as Kobe, LeBron, Howard, Wade and Melo. Chris Paul is the best PG in the league right now and and was an MVP candidate behind Kobe last year.

 

and a realistic trade is not always possible. And technically, any trade that can work out according to the CBA is plausible. Logic would also dictate that if a trade can't work out according to the CBA, it is implausible. You are completely changing what I was calling you out on. You said "if they trade Paul," there are 5 teams in better position to make the trade then the Rockets. You continued to say that the best team was the Blazers. Roy makes 3 million next year, Paul will make 14 million... how would that work?

We are dealing with a theoretical scenario, obviously the debate isn't over plausibility. The question is "if they trade Paul" (like you said) would Portland be a front runner in a trade? No, they can't make it work. Chicago is a better answer but they have Rose and Hinrich. NOH is not trading for a player like Hinrich with a big contract. New York is an even better answer but I still don't see how their trade would completely trump ours. Is Robinson and Lee that much better than Brooks and Scola/Landry? They can throw in a draft pick which is nice. Their team would have nobody left and would still be over the cap. That means no Bosh or James sweepstakes 2010. They would have to trade Hughes, Harrington, Richardson, Duhon, Robinson, Lee, Chandler, plus their pick to make it work. That could objectively be considered a better trade than ours. You have to ask why they do this. They would have a line up of Curry, Chandler, Peja, Posey, Paul with a thin bench. No big splashes after that and they would have to live with a bunch of bad contracts. That team is worse than NOH's current team. An improvement over New York's current squad, but barely.

It is not about having rosy shades (mine are Rocket-red actually), it is about evaluating the merits of a trade. Don't try to make it seem like we are saying this will happen. That is not the debate. "If Paul is traded" you said it would make way more sense for "5 other teams" with Portland as the "front runner." We are not "making them" want to trade CP3, the question is if they had to, are there 5 teams in a better position than we are. Portland and Chicago does not work and NY could work but it doesn't make that much sense. So you have 1 team, and objectively I don't know if that is a better package than ours. I would prefer our guys to NY's in a package. Major insult to CP3 trading him into an even worse situation. I mean part of the idea of trading CP3 is that he will eventually want out of that bad situation. That is part of the scenario we are discussing, so trading him into a worse situation doesn't really work. Let's just say we'll let you have that one.

What are the other 4?

 

if we can keep Battier... i might consider this

 

Yes, Gasol was Memphis's franchise superstar, and he's one of the top power forwards in the game.

If you're going to set your parameters to include only top 10 NBA superstars, then your argument fails.

 

That would make sense but they can't move to a different location due to contract stipulations. They are one of the worse in the league in terms of attendance and revenue, yet they still meet the minimum threshold. If you want to be really cut throat, trading cp3 makes the team less entertaining, attendance would be even worse (drop below the contractual threshold), and then they could move to a more profitable location. They are bleeding money every year they stay in New Orleans and that is with a top 5 talent. People here who are arguing that NOH should stay the course because "they can only make money with CP3" don't understand how a business works. They also aren't the ones that are 20 million in debt every year and counting as they go forward. Do you think next year will be even better for NOH in terms of of revenue and attendance?

-V

 

Vivid - i've repped you for your complete ownage in this thread. you basically answered the question i have been asking in various threads as to who could plausibly offer the best package.

 

Yao is a very dominating center that does not like a face-paced offense. Chris Paul is a dominating point gaurd that loves a face-paced offense and LOVES going into the lane. Yao can shoot, but that's not where he is most effective. Yao loves staying in that lane, as he should. Thus, Yao would clog the lane that Chris Paul loves moving through people in.

Anyone see the all-star game? Yao Ming did not catch any of Paul's passes. You lessen the effect of either Yao or Chris if they're on the same team together. You do not get players on the same team because they're great. You get players on the same team because they would help their teammattes get better.

Don't get me wrong, Chris Paul on our team is a wonderful thought. Getting rid of T-mac's contract, just as good. Setting high hopes that are soon to be dissapointing is what Houston has been doing for a while now. Yao would not be able to be on the team in that scenerio. Sorry.