http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/228059/Suns-Have-Explored-Adding-Additional-First-Round-Pick It's a weak draft, but if you think about it, Phoenix is probably the most vulnerable target to pawn a first rounder off on. They're in rebuilding mode but lack a lot of great future prospects. ...Gortat to PDX?
Not a bad idea, but it would eat up a lot of our cap space, and Gortat isn't exactly the kind of player that should be eating up our cap space. Unless we're moving Wes in the deal, which sounds too expensive to me. Wes and #10 for Gortat?
If you do that, don't you then have to blow your entire FA wad on someone like Redick, Evans, etc? Not much help to the bench, if you do that.
How do you have any wad left Brian? Unless the deal includes someone like Wes, wouldn't the deal have to be #10 + cap space?
I was talking about if Wes went out. But we're thinking the same things. If you spend #10 to get Gortat, you have about 4-5M in space left. If you send Wes + 10 out, you actually increase cap space by about a million, but you have no SG's other than Barton on the roster. That's why I was saying that you'd basically have to spend most of that 12M or so trying to get someone like Redick/Evans/Ellis/whoever, while still not really bolstering your bench.
And none of those three are good options. Rather throw money at Dalembert or hope that Howard signs with Houston so we can trade for Asik.
The #10 pick will take up 1.9 and Freeland another 2.9. If both are traded for Gortat, our cap space only changes around 3M accounting for the extra cap hold and salary difference. At that point we would have a solid starting five with three usable bench players in Leonard, Claver, and Barton along with the rights to Hickson and Maynor.
I've never had the impression that Gortat is any good at all at defense. There are a ton of centers in this draft almost all of which are likely to be better and are certainly cheaper and younger. Why would we do this? Don't make me show you how almost identical JJ Hickson and Gortat's numbers are again. (My mistake - JJ's were considerably better.)
Interesting comparison. If you compare Gortat's prior year to this past year for Hickson, Gortat is drastically better. I'd gladly trade the #10 pick for a 2011 Gortat. Other than Steve Nash leaving, is there anything else that explains Gortat's drop this year? Even his DRTG got worse, which you wouldn't expect with Nash leaving. Did he just give up on the team? That team went 25-57, so hopelessness must have been pretty wide-spread. In hindsight, the Suns should have traded Gortat when they dumped Nash. Which guy is the real Gortat?
His DRTG got worse because the team rating got worse, but he was still a little over 3 points lower than the team as a whole, which is still really good. I think the real one is somewhere in between. He can give us about what JJ does on offense, hustle points, ORBs, PnR. He can post up with better success. And, he can cover guys in the post a TON better than JJ could.
I actually like the idea of getting Gortat. He's better than any center we could get in FA, and would fill a need. You want cap space, trade LA Freeland to the Cavs for their #1 and, then resign Hickson at 7 mil to be the PF. We take McLemore #1, and the salary downgrade from LA to Hickson leaves us enough to go after another bench player in addition to Maynor. Lillard/Maynor McLemore/Matthews Batum/Claver Hickson/Landry Gortat/Leonard Take a look at that bench....that's a pretty strong bench.
LA is over-rated..he's a mid-range jump shooter, which is one of the worst shots because you have to shoot a very high % to make it a better shot than a 3pointer. For instance, LA shot 43% from mid range, you only have to shoot 29% from 3pt range to beat that. When a guard takes a high volume of 3pointers but shoots 28%, we'd call him a chucker....but that is exactly what LA is from the mid-range.
Then get a sf; which is usually a little cheaper and move batum to sf. Then use left over cap space to bring in another bench player. Although you could retain both hickson and maynor and sign then for a little less than their hold and sign a free agent starter like Evans. If we use Matthews and #10, we have 12.5 mil. If we sign hickson for 5.5 and maynor for 2.7; we could toss around 5 mil for a SF or use Freeland and cap space for a legit Sf like Iggy.
IMO its pretty clear who Gortat is at this point. Hes a big, strong, athletic C who plays the pick and roll well, has pretty good hands, can finish and score when hes set up. Defensively hes not great but with his size, strength, and mobility hes decent. Can protect the rim a little bit, won't get bullied down low, and although I don't think he's demonstrated great pick and roll defense I think hes quite capable because hes very mobile for a guy that big. Hes sort of average on both sides of the ball, which doesn't sound very impressive, but very few NBA C's can say that. I think he'd be a really nice addition for PDX and make the starting unit that much better.
Yeah I agree. There is no way you include the #10 and Wes. And since the topic of this thread is about Phoenix wanting to acquire an extra 1st round pick, like you all said that means the loss of cap space. I think his salary is very good for next year. But then he is a FA, so do we lose him? or Pay him more to keep him? This brings us right back to one of the other threads about centers. Do you draft one who will be as good as someone like Gordat, (But not for another 1-2 years) or do you buy/absorb a mediocre center after the draft? I would need to see who is available at 10 first. If one of the SG's drop I would prefer to take them with 10 and pay the 8 million on a different mediocre center. (Dalembert?) This way you have two chances of improving your team. Both are far from sure things, but 2 is better than 1.
I remember in another thread someone saying that Gortat's 1 on 1 post defense was significantly better than JJ's. Something like Gortat was the 20th best defensive player 1 on 1 in the post in the league and JJ was in the 300's. If that's at all true then that makes me think Gortat would be worth the ~8 mil in cap space and the #10 pick.
