Okay, let's get some stats straight. Enes Kanter was a 24.9 PER for OKC. That's right around Greg Oden during his good season. He had a DRtg of 106, which is right around OKC's team DRtg of 105.5. Slightly below average. His ORtg was 122. That's the same as Anthony Davis and Rudy Gobert last season. (btw, Ed Davis was 124 last year... see a trend?) He averaged 21.6/12.8 for OKC. I think he's worth the money.
I don't think this is such a big deal. This salary won't be shit in a year. This isn't a 20+ million per year max offer. We NEED scorers. Who on this team, outside of Dame, is going to provide scoring? Leonard? CJ? Crabbe? If this guy can be a consistent scorer, I'm 100% okay with bringing him in.
Ed Davis has to start if Kanter comes here though That gives us Aminu and Davis protecting the rim, and 3 good starters on defense (Henderson/Aminu/Davis)
League average ORtg was 105.6; Kanter's Drtg last year was 106. He's been bad in the past (112 DRtg a couple years ago), but last year he was average, maybe slightly below average. But not end-of-the-world bad.
So to add just a bit of levity here... Presti and Olshey (two pretty bright GM's, Presti with the more accolades obviously) think Kanter is worth a max offer. Unfortunately the board pundits think this would be a terrible deal for the rebuilding Blazers. So what exactly do the posters see that those two (highly paid) GM's don't? Or, at the very least isn't it possible that any perceived deficiencies are fixable? Some of you talk in absolute certainties, as if Kanter would be a bad get for this team. Honestly, looking at his numbers last season and age, he could be a steal. And, there are two respected front offices that seem to feel the same way.
So we did OKC a favor, and they will favor us back by sending Augustin and PJIII? With Olshey, anything is plausible.
I don't think it's a favor Neil wants Kanter and is making it hard for OKC to match. There are no favors here.
Not really. OKC had pretty much admitted he was a max player. OKC is keeping this guy. There's no way they let this guy go. Durant is a free agent next summer, and a lot of teams will have solid money. If they let Enes walk without acquiring someone in return (maybe via S&T with Portland for one of our bugs?), you're sending the wrong message to Durant in his walk year. He'll take it as a sign they're not committed to winning. Then, they'll lose him for nothing. Presti has a fresh example of this in his face (PDX and Aldridge).
