You need to get those rants outta here. Pay attention to the thread and READ it completely. I specifically stated the Nash/smith trade was to reload ASAP and under the assumption that YAO REGAINED HIS OLD FORM EVENTUALLY. Now i'm talking about a DIFFERENT scenario where instead of reloading within a season you set the team up for YEARS with a younger core. It's simply different options to consider. I'm not completely one side or the other, but rather looking at options on both sides. Please show me where it says you can't have weak defenders on the perimeter?? Ideally you'd want to have all around D, but that's not realistic at all. Incase you haven't been watching NBA finals for the last 15 years your chances of winning with "softies" inside is practically ZERO. Olajuwon, thorpe, horry, duncan, shaq, zo, robinson, wallace, sheed...the only exceptions are really LA and the bulls (and even they had grant and Rodman), but guess why that is? If you have a Jordan or bryant you're going to let Houston borrow, then i guess it'll work, but i doubt that. Yao can help defensively, but he's got defensive weaknesss that need to be covered and scola isn't going to do that, neither is Iggy. Why is this? Because there's something called A PICK (suprised that wasnt talked about in basketball101) where it can pretty much cancel out that first defender immediately. It may not happen every time, but it'll happen when it matters most and that's when your D is going to get broken down, because Iggy can't cover that AND back up scola, who will need that back up. It's what Battier is having to do often and he gets caught out of position. The "softies" in the paint will twirl around and play matador. If you had a prime time defensive talent at center like D12, then you can get away with having a softer PF and having more defense at the 1,2, and 3, because he can move or react faster to cover more gound....but even all these championship teams didnt have that many defensive holes...they usually had defenders at about 4 of 5 positions. You need to understand that i never claimed my proposals to be the ideal model, but simply a way of making the best of what we have or could have. When you have Yao at the 5 and scola at the 4, you better have D at the 1,2, AND 3 spot to cover Scola and help yao, but it's not likely that we can flip our assets into that and become contenders, which is why i suggested you pack the D at the 3,4, and 5 spots instead and keep the weaker defenders up front.
Wouldnt we all, but what's more realistic? Trading one guy with great value or trading a couple guys who's value is shifting inconsistently? And i hope you're kidding about Thabeet, that guy is rawer than sushi. By the time he comes around, Scola will be ending his contract, which is exactly why it doesnt make sense to keep scola, if the help you're getting for him won't develop in time to actually help him. I didnt completely disagree with that, but i think at that point you have to give it a go in the short window of yao, scola, tmac at the time, and battier, especially with their end of contracts coming soon. If it works, then keep it going, if it doesnt, then you let them go or trade. They were only a player or two away from breaking out, unfortunately you can't predict injuries.
What i mean by thabeet is when he started playing last year,he started being that goaltender type. Now, I will trade anyone on this roster and right now, scola does have the highest trade value because of his durability,ability,and production. Right now, if I'm looking into that window, I'm looking at the goaltender with upside like thabeet and a veristile,larry nance type in anthony randolph at the 3 to pair along with brooks and martin. Even in full reload and scola is traded, i like the thought of thabeet,hill,and randolph on the frontline with martin and brooks in the backcourt. I would settle for jason thompson also as a center if i could get him.
Could be that Scola is the lucky charm that keeps the whole damn team from getting ankle sprains. He leaves, we'll start having players get heart attacks. You can trade for the Power Dancers? I have a sudden desire to become a millionaire.
You cant trade your best player now. And people saying "how is he the best, if we are not winning with him?" its stupid, Kobe was the best player in the LA, but with him alone, they didnt do anything, they had to bring another player to do something.
are you serious lol Kobe can elevate a teammate's play, when you have trash like Kwame Brown, Luke Walton and Smush Parke starting besides you you won't go far. The minute he got Gasol he lead them to the finals, nuff said. What a joke of a comparison
Shame Scola is like 31 years old now. If he was 5 years younger he would be the perfect centerpiece to build our team around. And no, Scola should not be traded (yet). We got plenty of other players that should be traded.
Scola is a liability defensively and i would be in favor of moving him for more athletic and young bigs around the league league. (i.e. i would welcome a trade involving scola for serge ibaka and jeff green) i think scola is a great player, but i think we should sell high.
Isn't that a HUGE assumption? Even if the huge assumption were to made true, are you aware that Nash is SIX YEARS OLDER than the too old Scola? Are you aware that Scola is the only unbreakable player in a team flooded by injury-prone players? If Nash is able to play at age 36 practically at his best shape, how come are you so sure that Scola would not be still at his prime at 36? Are you aware that athletic freaks that can't compensate later with IQ (the way that Jordan did when he got older)....tend to diminish his performance quite fastly near 30 (due to most relying mostly on their athleticism to perform), are you aware most athletic freaks tend to be injury prone? First, are you denying that DEFENSE STARTS AT THE PERIMETER? have you talked to a coach and he denied that fact? care to show me an article of a well known coach denying such fact? Besides...Were did I say you can't have weak spots on the perimeter.....? One thing is having one weak spot in the perimeter (Spurs' Parker, Lakers' Fisher despite both were Payton compared to Brooks at D)...other thing is having BOTH GUARDS being lousy at D playing many minutes at the same time......like it happens when the tandem of guards are Brooks/Martin....do you understand now? or should I draw apples? Horry a though player? he had phobia to the paint!!! Of course an inside defensive presence would be cool, specially at C (Dampier anyone?).... but that doesnt' deny that DEFENSE STARTS AT THE PERIMETER, neither denies that playing Brooks/Martin as a tandem of guards and an aging Battier well past his prime as your 'D specialist'..... would make even an inside tandem of Hakeem/Rodman suffer a lot at D.... would you deny it? If you can fix your whole perimeter with a couple of trades (one getting Iggy, other getting Hinrich)..... why not doing it?, instead of far more radical and unwise options, like blowing up the roster, tanking, or trading for one inside good D (inside players would be more difficult to trade (specially Yao), would change more the philosophy if both spots are traded at the same time, and would still have a lot of troubles if the perimeter D would be as bad as now (well, with lowry perimeter D improved, but he can't shoot, so he brings new problems, that's why a 2-wat PG would be a huge upgrade over Brooks or Lowry as starting PG).... Do you understand that trading for Iggy+Hinrich + getting Dampier would improve the roster enough to bring balance, without the need of radical movements (Scola traded, Yao traded (unlikely FO would do that saying bye bye to chinese deals))?
HELL NO. Its obviously painful for all of us to look at the standings with a little (or big) sigh. Everyone in the forum knows we're better than our record. We could easily be above .500 right now with literally a few timely rebounds or missed shots. Hell who knows what our record would be right now had the Lakers not torn our hearts out on opening night? We HAD that game. But why trade Scola? You'd think we were 12-0 by the way he brings it every single minute of every game. He's got a very fair contract IMO, is still fairly young, and most of all, has proven to be durable year after year. The way he plays the game (er, well, his utter lack of athleticism) leads me to believe he'll stilll be a 15-9 guy well into his contract. Most of all he's been a winner nearly everywhere he's gone...a couple of MVPs overseas, the co-leader of a pretty damn good Argentinian team, and lets not forget we REALLY started rolling in 07-08 once he became the full-time starter. He's most definitely a keeper. ...but we do have to remember this game is played for money. I think if we voted, the majority of us would like to see Yao finish out his career as a Rocket, preferably with a ring. I certainly had my hopes high Yao would make a come back. Now this latest freakish injury that is somehow getting worse has taken me off the Yao wagon. He's gotta be the one to go, not Scola. If Scola does get traded, even for Melo, it would be a sign Yao is here to stay. Morey really has his work cut out for him this summer. His boss, with the ultimate say, will want Yao to stay even if it means rebuilding rather than taking a legit shot at a title. Man I'm ranting now, but I really believe we're right there on the doorstep of competing for a title. With 30 teams competing for the same glory, its only a once or twice thing in a lifetime to be this close. /End rant. But trading Luis Scola is a most definite no-no.
If we're still sucking 40 games into the season, it's not a bad idea at all. Scola's the perfect player for a team contending right now because of his hustle and production. We're not a contender, and are in fact not too far from straight rebuilding. If someone's willing to give us some nice assets for him, I don't see how you couldn't at least consider it. Scola's playing out of his mind, and he's getting old. His production will never be better and his contract will never be cheaper.
He is playing out of his mind. And he is 30. But the idea that he's only got a couple years left may be stretching it. He's always been healthy. He's got a big NBA body and he takes care of it. And his game is not predicated on athleticism. I can see him playing until he is 40 at basically the same level he is now.
And? I have the right to make that assumption. As long as as i'm not declaring it a sure thing, what's the problem? And again, if you read what i wrote more carefully, you'd see i wasnt too convinced of it happening anyway, so it's not like i was claiming a very unlikely thing would surely happen. Why do you keep insisting on bringing up their age??? Understand this: IM NOT SAYING SCOLA SHOULD BE TRADED JUST BECAUSE HE"S OLD AND THEN WANT NASH TO BE ACQUIRED. It's two completely separate suggestions. WE either reload, get nash and trade scola for the purpose to balancing the team, not to get rid of an"old player". OR we rebuild completely, dont get nash, trade scola, and keep the young core. Why is that so difficult to undertstand?? There's no contradiction here, it's two separate suggestions that could happen under two completely different situations See my reply above, i never implied anything close to that and wasnt my reasoning for trading him. Are you aware that Smith's is TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD??? And his contract would end when he's TWENTY SEVEN YEARS OLD??? He'll play here during his exact athletic prime, not when he's 30 + and can't cut it anymore. Are you also aware he's played 6 yrs in the league and always played at least 72 games, except for one season of 69, and had 3 seasons of playing 80 + games???? There's always exceptions and so far he sure looks like one. If you're going to avoid a player who's showing to be durable simply because he may get injured because he jumps high, then a lot of superstars would not be wanted. You seriously have an issue with reading comprehension or maybe you're just choosing to be picky, but i clearly said the defensive distribution wasnt ideal, but that was a way to solidify it without giving up martin and having nash, in other words, keeping a great offense. So no, I'm not denying it, there's DIFFERENT ways to distribute it. Horry was at least a shot blocking threat, he wasnt the toughest guy out there, but far from being irrelevant defensively. And what does having battier at the three next to martin and brooks have to do with any of this? That's a completely different scenario from what i suggested. In my suggestion the perimeter defender is Smith and in his athletic prime, of course and older and slower player wouldn't be as helpful. Smith, on the other hand, is very good at running down guards driving in blocking their shots... Your initial suggestion only was to acquire iggy and hinrich, while keeping the same frontline. That's different from what you're proposing now, which is to also acquire dampier. I understand this latest suggestion on your part, but only because you tweaked, i guess after realizing you needed some interior help still, which was what i was concerned about. You may know a lot about basketball, but that knowledge often means squat when you dont check the facts and have a clear picture of what youre really discussing. Then, you changed your proposal and tried to pass it off as the original to prove your point, not very honest of you . If you're going to keep it up, then don't bother replying.
RV6, to make it short, the perimeter D is by far the biggest problem right now.... ...perimeter D improved by Lowry instead of Brooks, but at a high price (a PG who can't shoot).....so, I wasn't being dishonest at all, my point was always that....I never denied that Dampier could help, but getting Dampier is far from things proposed here, that included trading Scola and Yao... ...getting Dampier to help inside D in a MINOR change in the frontcourt....as oposed to the radicals changes proposed in several threads, wich I'm still agains such proposals....because I think where you need a major change is in the BACKCOURT (Iggy and Hinrich would provoke a major shift, with realistic thread, not with utopias landing a Superstar with unlikely to happen trades)....do you get it now?
another month losing games would be too much waiting IMO, it could be too late when the trades finally happen....the trades are needed ASAP, specially the Iggy trade (getting a 2-way PG should be the next priority).
Sure, this would probably be a deadline decision, but considering the emotion the very idea provoked, I do not think the point is moot.
