Davis is owed ~35 Million for the rest of his contract. That's a steep steep price to be paying for a lottery pick, even for Paul Allen. We like to throw around the "Paul has so much money it doesn't matter" card around, but you have to admit, even that is too much for Paul to stomach for something that may or may not even turn out to be a good pick. This draft isn't particularly deep and add to the fact that you'd likely be losing Andre as well as Joel, and it's a definite no go imo.
We've heard reports that Paul is trying to be more conservative with his money. Just because they've unwisely dumped millions before, doesn't mean they should do it again. For example, the Blazers had a payroll of over 100 million earlier this decade, they'd be stupid to try that again.
He has 2 years left on a horrible contract....but....he won't get paid during the lock-out anyway. If the team doesn't want to deal with him in 2012 - buy him out.
Unless you've got a championship core in place and you want to spend extra on better role players, being financially savvy is to one's benefit in the NBA. Bogging yourself down with big, untradable deals when you're not in contention is no way to build a champion. BTW my favorite part about this trade is that Baron is getting teamed up with Byron Scott again. You guys may not remember but Scott ran Baron out of town when and they had a lot of issues with one another before he was pawned off onto GS.
It's actually sort of funny. Davis is like Paul Pierce in that he only plays hard when he's on a team that's going to the playoffs. Otherwise, he barely goes thru the motions and collects his pay. Seems like Cleveland is a fitting place for him.
True - but have you looked at the Blazer bench recently? Rebuilding the bench may not be the #1 priority......but it needs to be done. After the Claver/Babbitt/Williams fiascos, even this draft looks pretty good.
I see the value of this trade from both sides. Clevland need to blow up, start acquring picks as much as possible and shedding salary so that in a few years they can have young talent and recruit a big FA or two to join. As for Clippers, they have enough salary that they're (Kaman, Baron) that they're probably too far along to completely blow up, but they get a younger PG in Williams and also an energetic swingman in Moon. They probably wanted a better SF, but the Clippers were known to be looking for a SF. Moon can play 20 minutes a game and while he doesn't provide much offensively, he won't need to with Griffin, Gordon, Williams and Kaman getting touches. He's a good defender, very much a glue guy who has shown down the ability to make open three's in the past. I can see it from both sides.
I wasn't talking about the Blazers rationale, I was simply saying the Clippers actually made a pretty good deal by ridding themselves of a massive financial liability at the cost of a draft pick that probably wasn't going to do them much good and in return they actually got a serviceable point guard. On the other hand the Blazers will certainly need to rebuild/reload, but IMO taking on that much salary for the privilege of a high pick in a bad draft just doesn't seem like much of a play. If they really want to move up in June, I'm guessing that their own pick bundled with New Orleans' pick (both likely to be in the mid to high teens) coupled with Miller's unguaranteed deal could probably get them into the late lottery or maybe even the top ten if they get lucky ... but I guess we'll find out.
This had to happen with Harden in the Western conference. No one wants to watch such a beard imbalance, honestly.
