It seems to me adding Barbosa would only make the deal worse, then we would be downgrading defensively at two positions. Also I feel like a sports forum and a society both operate best when there are individuals who think critically and make decisions for themselves, not trusting some "expert" or "leader".
jeez i hope if these rumors are false somebody tells aldridge. it's front page on every site right now.
Really? He could have just simply drafted Gay with his #7 pick. Instead, he went to a LOT of trouble to figure out what exactly was going on with Minnesota and Houston and other teams, in order to jump in front of Houston's plan of obtaining Roy. KP may have been high on Gay, but far less so than he was sold on Roy, as proven by his actions.
Everyone thinks the rumors re: Amare are coming from the Phoenix side to increase his value. Maybe they are coming from KP to increase the offers for Raef? Or at least create more of an urgency.
Chris Broussard on First Take just said CLE offered Wally World and JJ Hickson. It seems that there's no way that anything besides RLEC and LMA is going out for Amare (or whatever we get in a 3-way)
Well yeah if that actually worked under the salary cap. But you would be 9 million off. But it is the urgency more than the value. If another team thinks a trade is going down with Raef's contract, and they really want to save money by acquiring him, then i would think they may want to stop trying to get more out of KP and make the deal KP wants.
In Pax We Trust was once practically a motto on the Bulls boards I frequented. It's not anymore. So I'd warn against the creepy cult of personality sort of stuff. I do wonder whether KP will make the same sort of mistakes Paxson made, but I don't know for sure if Amare is that sort of mistake or not. Dude is 26 and very very good. But no, not the ideal in personality and I wonder how he'd mesh with Roy and Oden. Big decision indeed
It is impossible to ever know for sure what young players are a long term or short term investment for a city like Portland. Which players (or Agents) feel they need a big market, warm climate, or being closer to home. We need our GM to figure that out. Not sure about LMA, but Amare would make me nervous.
i might be a homer, but lma+raefs super expiring is BY FAR the best deal out there for phoenix. wally and jj hickson? yi and simmons? tyrus and gooden? wtf. even bayless and raef is better than all three of those. or rudy and raef. or outlaw and raef. imo its not even close. raefs expiring>>>wallys/goodens/simmons not even an expiring. lma>>>>>jj hickson/yi/tyrus its just plain loony.
Honestly, I don't think we know how much leverage they have. A lot of their leverage is based on how much interest there is in Amare, and that's very hard to accurately gauge from reports. If Pritchard wants Amare and ten other teams also do, then Phoenix has a lot of leverage because the team that gets Amare will have to out-bid the other ten teams.
