What Would You Be Willing to Give up to Get Mobley?

Cavs spent in free agency and were no longer bottoming out, and that was before Mobley even played.

On the other hand, our FO designed this team to get the best odds for the draft.

Kinda different….

 

The owner always makes the ultimate decision. Tilman wanted to save money during the Ariza to Ennis deal.

Ariza was bad but so was spending money on Ennis.

Tilman makes the ultimate decisions, like Les did.

 

… that was the point even before Jalen played a game with sitting John Wall, not spending much in FA, making KPJ the point guard.

The FO is going to take advantage of owning our picks for this season and next before OKC gets them.

 

they’re all at fault, but there are levels. final say is with fertittas. Let’s not act like tilman handed over the reigns the way Les Alexander did. His f*cking child is in the front office.

Morey technically made the RWB trade, but no one with any sense puts him at fault for that. That was orchestrated by Fertitta dumbsh*ts. we are so screwed with this ownership and every major mistake has been so obvious.

 

So since Stone is just a puppet and every move made isn’t his own, why all the “in Stone we trust!” talk on here? Doesn’t make sense to me

 

A true generational talent squandered by the Fertittas. He does EVERYTHING and this was SO F*CKING OBVIOUS. Every Nba analyst/expert/smart fan had him in mock drafts at 2. Seriously, everyone.

And yet, the Fertittas saw a shiny car in JG and never looked back. If I was 10 years old, I would’ve made the same pick. I remember thinking Gerald Green should go that high when I was that age. I hope they’re loving his 4 cool dunks this season!

 

Lets expand from FA and just overall team building since I can see we are missing the forest through trees due to semantics.

They gave Allen a $100 mil contract. They signed Lauri Markkanan. They traded for a veteran, pass first guard in Ricky Rubio. What's left of their multi year rebuild are a competent, young pg and a bunch of of young, complimentary players. They've been rebuilding since 2017.....

That's pretty much the opposite of what we have done since Harden was traded which has been what.... almost a full NBA season since then?

Mobley is clearly awesome but he's even more awesome playing with a decent NBA team, especially one that plays to his strengths. Jarret Allen is a fantastic center to put next to Mobley.

 

The Fertittas have final say on everything but the biggest mistakes they enforce outshine any smaller clever moves stone made and they approved. RWB and Mobley mistakes are some of the biggest moves franchises can make and can set you back multiple years. Getting creative on smaller cap moves/trades or finding promising undrafted talent are great but ultimately meaningless when you make the big mistakes

 

This gets lost when people say well everyone had Green going #2. No they fking didn’t, all year long Mobley was the consensus #2 pick until it got leaked that the Rockets were leaning Green at #2. How they botched this pick is unfathomable which is why there was a Mobley thread for like 200 pages.

 

Let's be clear, I think Mobley is playing a key role on the Cavs team, but a role he wouldn't be able to duplicate here or many other teams. Mobley and Barnes were the highest draft picks who were also put in great situations, thems just the facts. Not sure why you want to minimize that?

Allen was only there half a season and is far more important the Markkanan. Garland keeps getting better every season and is objectively much better than KPJ. Okoro is nice defensive combo guard. They have decent wings. They are better than us with without Mobley and much better with Mobley.

MOST IMPORTANTLY...... the Cavs FO aren't trying to get a the best pick possible like us. They flipped the switch to competing over the off season. Pretty simple.....

 

that doesn’t really address my point.

if DM went to Tilman and said we HAVE p sign Ariza even at $15 million per it’s just super imperative it is my belief that Tilman might have said “really? Well ok than”. The opposing view is that Tilman went to DM and said “we can spend more than $x on Ariza or replacement”.

that replacement of Ennis btw was like a $1.5 million deal.

i think we actually know what the reality is … as they told us. Tilman was willing to open his pocket book if it got the results I wanted, and he left it up to DM to “figure that out” with of course Tilman making the ultimate decision. DM decided that wasn’t on Ariza… and in my view that was correct, even though the Ennis signing wasn’t great and the result wasn’t a ring. Not resigning Ariza wasn’t the issue… the issue was CP3 sucked (and he did, it wasn’t the Rockets fault he was off injured and changed his diet and career course AFTER he left) and Melo was unwilling to accept his role (Clutch has tweeted about this very recently).

in any case, relevant to the current issue… I think if Stone went to Tilman and said the pick is Mobley no doubter Tilman would have signed off on that no doubt.

this idea that Mobley was the clear #1 or even #2 doesn’t track reality. Cade was consensus #1 and then Green was slightly more favored at #2. Heck he was still the ROY favorite in preseason betting… because even through summer league he looked the best.

grated if you’re a millionaire GM you’re job is to make the right choice regardless of consensus or betting lines. If you’re a keyboard warrior like me… you just say **** and when you’re wrong ou don’t admit it and pretend you were drunk during those posts!!!! (Lol, jk… I was wrong).

anyway again I don’t think it’s a money issue or seat filling issue in any way. I think the whole organization was on board the Green+Sengun train. Honestly I bet Stones board had Sengun above Mobley too.

we will see ultimately how it pans out. The GSW are fun to try and model but ultimately that’s rare and the Rockets had one of the top 3-5 players on the planet for half a decade and still couldn’t make the Finals. I want ring(s) ultimately and at the moment Green over Mobley seems like a flaw in that plan but I wouldn’t say fatal flaw by any means. But I recognize I already undervalued Mobley’s immediate impact so might be undervaluing his long term Impact as well. Perhaps he is the rare Duncan esque big that becomes the backbone of ring(s) in a second/third tier market.

we shall see!

 

Stop.....

The consensus top three were Cunningham, Mobley, and Green. There was no surprise and disbelief when we took Green in the NBA media because of how close it was. Let's not pretend we overreached or something. This revisionism is unfathomable.

 

I don't think Tilman told Stone to pick Green because of marketing or something like that, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Tilman told Morey to turn chicken **** into chicken salad so no surprise when it was still ****.

We missed on Mobley and Barnes (who I think will ultimately be better) but that's the NBA/pro sports. I'm not as down as the Mobley Mob is on Green, but there's little doubt Mobley is a stud.

 

If you think Mobley would be putting near the same numbers on the Rockets then we will never agree. I'm not arguing Mobley isn't a stud, but that he's in a good situation. I think your cause and effect is mixed up.

The Cavs were tanking last season..... and had pulled the plug on trying like we did towards the end of shortened Covid season. After 4 years of rebuilding, the Cavs FO smartly drafted Mobley and had the competent, complementary pieces around him by the time training camp started.

Our pieces don't intentionally fit because of how early we are in the rebuild.

Jarret Allen was already an Eastern Conference Player of the week for averaging 20pt and 15 rbs on 66% shooting. That seems like a great complimentary player for a rookie like Mobley who excels at being a weak side havoc.... and not having to box out and bang with bigs.

 

It's fair only because you never know what might happen. We're way too early trying to determine if Green was the right pick, 10 years from now it could look funny.

Sometimes guys get better, sometimes guys get worse, sometimes they are what they are and don't change much. MCW was a player that came into the league and won ROY...hard to imagine since he's been a scrub most of his career...but alas. He did win it.

I think it's incorrect to assume they will get better, that that is the default assumption. There is no rule that anyone has to get better at a skill like basketball that is reliant so much upon physical ability and confidence.

My point was we shouldn't assume that Mobley will get better. That Cade will get better. that Green will get better. There is nothing that says just because a guy is young that he has to get better by default...but everyone always says "He's young he'll get better..." no, that's not always the case. You can find many young players that get worse over the years.

For all we know, this is as good as Mobley will be, maybe he's not durable? Maybe he's the kind of guy who once he's injured it will derail his whole career? For all we know Green will work with Curry in the offseason again, have a shooting epiphany, and become completely unstoppable. Or neither happens. Or both. Both could be multi-time MVPs and champions. I wouldn't bet on it, but no one knows anything about how these players will respond and react to the obstacles in their way. If they did, Giannis wouldn't have went 15th or wherever he was picked.

It's not unfair then to say that, or if it is unfair, it's also unfair to say Green was the wrong pick...based on what, 10 games? This is coming from someone as most will tell you, wanted Mobley...but I don't think it's fair to say Mobley can be generational and Green cannot. No one would have thought Kobe would be a top 5 all time SG based on his first like 3 seasons (same for Harden)...just that he had potential...all these guys have that.

With all that said, it's fair to react to the now and right now Mobley looks great and looks like he's at least a top defender in the NBA while putting in 15ppg. That's his floor...but that's the thing right....what people don't seem to grasp is floors can drop because of injury, lack of confidence, whatever. It looked like MCWs floor was at least a starting PG...and nowadays the guy (former ROY btw) is lucky to be on a team.