The Baron Davis example was brought up for comparison's sake. I don't want either of those guys but if I did I'll take the guy with equal talent at half the price over Arenas with his bad knees and $100M owed. The pro's and con's when you compare the two are pretty much equal regardless of how Arenas should be the slightly better player in a perfect world. But to answer your question -- I still couldn't bring myself to trade for him even if he was averaging 25/5/5, like you said. He's the new age Grant Hill with his franchise killing contract. I hope for his sake that he's recovered 100% but after seeing him play the last two seasons I am very skeptical that he'll be able to maintain that type of production or even return to elite status in the first place. Again, I hope I am wrong but there's not a GM in the league that would envy the situation that Ernie Grunfeld is in right now. As for the ball stopper element: it applies almost exclusively to guards or wing players that do the majority of ball handling for their offenses (ex. T-Mac, Stephen Jackson, etc.). I'm talking about players that slow the game down, prefer to ISO and in some cases don't really look to get others involved as much as they should. Arenas is the epitome of the 'shoot first, pass second' PG -- not that it's a bad thing, but when you are prone to doing the Artest thing (getting drawn into personal duels with the opposing team's best player) it means your efficiency is going to suffer. His shot selection is pretty putrid and he definitely doesn't look to get others involved as much as he should. Great player, no doubt. But not without his faults -- only in this case, his albatross contract makes him untouchable.
Arenas is too risk and expensive, so just say "No". From local radio sport shows in Houston, almost everyone likes the idea that there is a chance to get either J. J. or Bosh, I seem to agree with later scenario.
Not recently. He had a nice two-year run where his player efficiency was among the league's best but that was all 3-4 years ago. He was shockingly bad the past two years -- not just his play but his body looked horrible. His movement was sluggish and his athleticism looked diminished. Do I expect him to continue to be this bad? No, but at the same time I think it may be unrealistic to expect him to return and reach his level of play from 3-4 years ago. As he demonstrated the past two seasons, he's got a little submarine captain in him -- bad shots, lots of them, little defense. He's very egotistical so I fully expect him to do whatever it takes to try to become relevant again. Whether or not that happens at the expense of his team remains to be seen.
He has great efficiency for his career. He has been hurt the past two years. He played 2 games last season and 15 games over the last two years. The question on Gilbert is whether he is fragile and his injuries are going to diminish his game going forward. That is the "bet" that a team trading for Gilbert is taking. But there is no question that Gilbert is an efficient player and has been an efficient player throughout his career, knows how to play the game, and has been, up to this point, a top flight legit superstar player, one of the top 10 players in the game for his career since he has been in the league, that has the potential to turn a game around single handedly. He is a tireless worker with plenty of energy. Ego? LOL. That's not important when he can back it up.
If he were, there would be NO chance of obtaining him this year. But he is an efficient bballer. Two games last year. Two games. If anybody is going to come back, it's Gilbert. Note, I'm not saying I want him. I'm saying if he is available, Morey has to consider it.
I could probably argue signing Steve Francis to an MLE deal is a safer "bet" than taking on Arenas and his $100M. But to each his own.
i think a team would rather trade for tmac before they would trade for arenas. i would stay away from arenas until he proves himself. morey wont be taking any chances on a player with that much owed to him.
What? really? give away half our team and AB for the wizards version of Tmac? We already have one of those, no way!!
