Bill Simmons has a term for players like Bayless and I tend to agree with applying that label to Jerryd after watching him in fits and starts here and catching him occasionally in his role with Toronto this year: "Big numbers on a bad team" guy; he's the kind of player that will probably find ways to score and get his as the years run on, but I seriously question whether he'll ever learn how to play a winning brand of basketball -- it's incredibly tough (nearly impossible?) for a player to radically improve their court vision and convert themselves from a small scoring guard to an actual point guard once they are in the NBA, the only guy I can think of is Billups. Bayless probably would have been an improvement over Patty or Armon this past year, but long term? He feels like a dead-ender.
I used to post that Bayless had chosen the wrong sport. Just because a guy has quickness and plays aggressively doesn't mean he is suited for the game of basketball. He'd have been better at any sport not requiring a lot of passing. He would have had the same problems in soccer or hockey or maybe rugby. He should have played football or baseball or croquet or bridge.
That's a pretty novel idea by Bill Simmons. He's always on the cutting edge. Reminds me of the term I pioneered: "politicians who make overly ambitious promises to get elected." Wonder if it'll catch on. So "winning basketball" means being a point guard? That's bad news for Dwight Howard, he'll never win! I think Bayless can be a part of a winning team. Probably not as a point guard, but as a scorer who can pass.
Technically POR gave up Bayless to get Wallace, at least that is how I look at it. As viewed as a trade for the #20 pick, I would agree it was not a good deal for POR. I would agree that Cho miscalculated on that trade, which he even surprisingly admitted. However, CHA wanted multiple picks and having the pick allowed POR to make a deal for Wallace, so I think it worked out ok for POR. I mean if you asked most fans would they trade Bayless, Cunningham, Przybilla and 2013' pick for Wallace? I would think most people would respond to that with a yes..... Not having Bayless, and with E.Williams being out all year, certainly negatively impacted our backcourt leaving only A.Johnson and Mills as b\u PG, both of whom were awful IMO....
I think that NO WAY do they take Bayless over a draft pick. Draft picks, not 9th-men guards, are the major currency by which trades are made (expiring contracts as well). Cho understood this, and made the trade early so he'd have ammunition. I'm stoked to see what he does in the draft with Uncle Paul's millions.
Meanwhile, the team lost 2 more games than last year, and didn't have a legitimate back-up PG the entire season. Still doesn't have one, actually.
personally speaking, would you have still made the trade ASSUMING that with Bayless here all year, you don't get Wallace, and with a draft pick, you do? I don't think the dropoff from Bayless to whoever our other PG was (Mills, Rudy, Johnson, Roy, ?) was on the top 10 list of reasons we were two games worse than last year. I think the long-awaited consolidation trade helped out a lot more, especially in the long run, than the dropoff between Bayless and whoever our backup was. And in a consolidation (especially if you aren't positive who you'll get or who you're trading with), having a draft pick is generally more popular than having a player (and concomitant salary that comes with him).
I assume that Charlotte would have taken the Blazer draft pick. If having draft picks is such a big deal, why has Paul Allen been able to buy them late in the draft? I'm sure Paul could just buy another pick this season is the Blazers wanted one. I don't think it was worth giving up a young guard who averaged 14/3/4 with a PER of 15.6 in the previous playoffs for a first-round pick and no PG last season. Bayless would have helped against Dallas because he can create his own offense and can get to the line. Would that have changed the series? Unlikely. Would it have increased the chances of not having long stretches without scoring? Likely.
Because at the draft, selling your pick both gets you cash (3M a pop) and removes the need for you to shell out a guaranteed 4yr/8M deal to someone that you think may not be worth the cost of, say, the 25th pick. So it's a 10M or so gain for selling the chance to draft the 25th-best player or whatever. Conversely, at the trade deadline, it's not about costs savings in draft picks...it's about costs savings in salary or stockpiling assets that don't cost you anything and represent promise/upside. But that wasn't the case when Bayless was traded. You won't hear me say that he was horrible, but at the time the NOH pick was looking like a low lotto pick (7-14), and that represented significant value in trade over the difference between Bayless and Mills/JOhnson. I grant you (and Cho already has) that if he knew it was going to be for the 20th pick, maybe he doesn't make that trade; but if you do that you also should acknowledge that if he knew it would get Wallace he probably does anyway.
Even better to not have a pick then. If a player is available that you like, you try and buy the pick (like what happened with Batum and Rudy). I'd rather have the option to not draft a player than to be forced into drafting a player in the 20s of the first round. Also, are you saying that Cho knew he'd get Gerald Wallace with that pick (which was unnecessary anyhow, as already explained). Maybe Bayless will be a complete bust. I don't know, but he has shown improvement, and could turn into a very good bench player/6th man. I just didn't like giving up on him, and it did hurt the team this season.
No, I'm saying that he probably had a sense of what kind of consolidation trade he wanted to make, and instead of having a backup PG to peddle (which has value limited to teams who need a young backup PG/SG), he had an (at the time) lotto pick, which every GM has some kind of value for. It's like the difference between selling your old coffee table for $40 cash or a $50 Bed, Bath and Beyond gift card. If your wife has told you she wants something specific for her birthday from BB&B, and you can pick up the gift card, then it's worth trading for. But if you're not sure what you're going to get, then having the gift card over cash (even if the cash is less value) is limiting your options.
It's a timeless classic. Perhaps I'll just put in a random Spinal Tap drummer in the subsequent months nd years.
Let's assume that POR didn't trade Bayless for a draft pick, the main point I look at is that if CHA requested Bayless, Cunningham, Przybilla and a 2013 pick for Wallace, would you have been in favor of that deal? I agree that the lack of a b\u PG was not good, as was the lack of any players outside of Aldridge and an off\on again Roy to create scoring opportunties. But if Bayless was required to get Wallace from CHA, would you say no? b\c I don't think you would.. I think he took a bad deal (Bayless for #20) and turned that asset into something good (Wallace)
I'd happily give our first rounder for Bayless. Presumably our first rounder would have been enough to get Wallace. The deal was a bad one, irrespective of the Wallace trade. Ed O.
The motive to trade Bayless wasn't to pick up a trading chip (the 1st round pick). They traded him because there wasn't a spot for him and he wanted out. Maybe you don't concede to player demands, but we have a long history of sitting on guys and eventually ridding them at low value. In hindsight, he probably could have logged some minutes at two with Roy missing so much time, but at the time it was a necessary move and we got decent value. I see no reason to look back on this one.
