You still have to get to golden state to beat them. Capela neutralized two of the top big men in the NBA in the two series leading up to the wcf.
That is the bottom line, who would you bring to replace Clint? I only see Tyson Ch, but too old so nope. We need a dirty bad ass player to keep donkey on check and more important: scared. Hey, I heard Rob Artest is available, including his elbows
Yeah, there's no way I see DM letting Clint walk, even if it means matching a max offer. Even if the decision is to better allocate resources, Clint likely wouldn't be viewed as a Ryan Anderson type contract. He'd have value. Plus its hard to really think of trades that would make sense. Forgetting salary match and free agency status, two random names just to gauge your thoughts. Assume they're all on your books for similar salary. Wiggins Randle ?
Feels pretty obvious the Suns will take Ayton #1. Fills a need and he is a LOCAL guy. Nice marketing opportunity too. I see a number of people mention Dallas for Capela, but more likely Dallas DRAFTS MO BAMBA at #5 and then has a cost controlled C. Why pay max dollars to Capela when you get Bamba for cheap? Better resource management.
Hard pass on giving Capela the max. You cannot give such a limited player the max and expect to build a roster which can contend.. IMO a max player has to bring more to the table in regards to play making, ball handling and offense... Clint is great and all but I think you hamstring the franchise if you give him too much. Are all the limited centers who have gotten max contracts really worth it? Jordan? Adams? Gobert? eh... I don't think so. Sign a big for the veterans minimum... a guy who won't be nearly as good but will cost 10% of the cost.
No, for about 1000 reasons. First and most obvious of which being that it wouldn't actually create any cap space, but it would make the team worse.
said this before if dallas didnt want to give noel max, i see no reason why they would offer capela max. and also i believe dallas is likely to target Bamba in the draft
Booker + Twin Towers sounds really good on paper, though. Payton / Booker / Jackson / Ayton / Capela Athletic. Speedy. Defensive. Youthful. Instant dark horse to make the playoffs, or at least be competitive for the 8th seed.
I think it's pretty much assured that he will get even better. He's so young and he's made enormous strides each and every season. There's no reason to believe he's at or near his peak. And he just embarrassed KAT and Gobert (both max contract candidates) in the playoffs where it counts. I tend to think people here would be fine with max contract for KAT or Gobert but this seems to be the unusual case of homers under-valuing one of our own players. I think Capela deserves the max, both for what he's done and the steady improvement we can expect out of him for the next few years at least, barring injury. I hope we match any offer for Clint, that he re-signs here and has a long, glorious career with us before retiring as a Rocket in 15+ years.
Totally agree except on final point. Not "could" get even better--is almost guaranteed to get even better. He has grown by leaps and bounds every year so far and as you say he's 23. Put that together with his incredible improvement in each season so far and of course he's going to get better. And he's already a top 5 center in the league and is typically rated lower than either of the centers he so blatantly outplayed in rounds 1 and 2.
How can Tyson Chandler possibly switch onto Durant or Curry or Guards like Capela can/did/does? With Clint on them, they have to work. W/ Tyson it'd just be a gimme.
You guys must have watched a different Western Conference Finals than I did. Capela was completely neutralized offensively. Nobody had to guard him. Draymond Green got to stand in the paint waiting for Harden, CP3, and EGO without even sweating the fact that Capela was wide open. It turned into 5 vs 4 in favor of GS. Maybe I could live with that if he made Draymond work for position. Or if he was just freaking mean and stomped anyone who dared to drive the paint. But he's not a mean, physical player. GS switched him onto a guard and attacked the basket at will. I will say he did ok defensively (for the money) but that's not good enough for a max player. As far as bigs go, very few, if any, are worth the max. We need to spend all of our money on All-Star caliber guards who can switch on D and reliably make open shots in order to spread the floor. Basically, we needed Ryan Anderson to be what he was supposed to be. If you have him (when he was mentally stable) in one corner and Tucker in the other, can Green just stand there in the paint? That just opens everything up. We wouldn't even need Capela. So focus on getting a player like what Anderson was supposed to be, another player who can run the point when CP3 gets hurt, and a mean center who isn't afraid to hurt some people. Whatever we do, I sincerely hope it's not overpaying for a guy who is almost useless against GS. I'm not worried about it though. Morey only cares about beating GS and I bet he saw what I did. Matchup against GS and forget about the rest of the league because if you can beat GS, you can stomp everyone else. We already proved that this year.
