The incompetence of Eastern Conference GMs is fucking us over! Just get Tatum and Smart for George and old players you Pritchard asshole you.
For a short while, it looked like the imbalance between the West and East was finally evening out, yet here we are again. Two of best players in the east going West for peanuts.
So, Quick thought Portland's offer was better? Sabonis had a PER of 6.3 last year; have to say that Vonleh is at least as good. Then the 10th pick in the draft or Zach Collins (depending on when the offer was made). plus Crabbe and Harkless. I don't know: I guess Pritchard thinks that if Oladipo is away from Westbrook, he becomes an all-star.
Have there been any details about what those other offers were? All I'm seeing are tweets saying "Can't believe he turned down better offers!" but no mention of what those offers were. By default, I'm skeptical that anyone gave him a great offer, since George is a one-year rental who's determined to go to LA, but I'd certainly agree that Pritchard is dumb if a better offer was reported (reported what it was, not just someone saying, "Jeez, he turned down a better offer!").
Honestly, Paul Allen fired Pritchard on draft night, then forced him to run our draft afterwards. Basically because Paul Allen and his minions were jealous (to the best of my knowledge). He wasn't going to get embarrassed by Paul Allen again. I don't think that's petty. He knows he's going to have to rebuild anyway. He just as well help his buddy (Presti) out in the hopes that he'll be made whole in the future. Just business. It's not what you know, it's who you know.
By KP's own admission, and all parties around the team, KP wanted to stay on for the draft. And he got his last laugh by dumping Luke Babbitt on us.
Even if we offered Harkless, Vonleh, Davis and a 2018 unprotected first round pick, it would have been a better offer than what Indiana received IMO. Vonleh is probably equal to Sabonis. Harkless is maybe slightly less valuable than Oladipo, and it's better to have a pick with which you can select anybody than not.
Kurt Helin @basketballtalk about 11 minutes ago Report: Celtics offered Pacers three first-round picks, two starters for Paul George on draft night wp.me/p14QT0-3r4j reply retweet like
Steve Kyler @stevekylerNBA about 45 minutes ago Also hearing Pacers were not moving George to a team he might actual re-sign with in the East, hence huge asking price from Cavs & Celtics twitter.com/CSmoove_NBAHoo… reply retweet like
I believe these tweets about PG. And we'll likely never know what Portland was offering, but with all the other tweets defining KP's actions, there's a body of evidence that would seemingly make it likely that KP's bitter ouster as GM of the Blazers played some role in KP choosing to send PG to OKC instead of Portland.
Pretty much agree with you, but would slightly tweak your groupings thusly: GSW HOU OKC POR SAS MIN UTH MEM DAL DEN NOP PHX LAC LAL SAC
If the tweets are correct, KP should have taken that offer. If you're going to rebuild you will need 1st round draft picks.
A rare trade that not only hurts both teams, but destroys them! Apparently, the reason the Thunder made the deal now was to get RW to sign an extension ASAP.
Agreed - I think A LOT of people are overrating George. Yes, he IS very good. But look at the results - he BARELY got his team into the Playoffs (1 game!), and that's in the East. Very good player, but Westbrook is better and a lot of people here don't think Westbrook is good...so if that's the case, the George is garbage. LOL!
Well, if that's true, it was silly to turn it down. Keeping George in the conference is irrelevant when you're starting a rebuild. According to Zach Lowe, those starters may have been Crowder and Smart. Useful players, either to add to Turner or to trade for more picks.
In the playoffs, though, he carried the team to four close games against the Cavaliers. Yeah, they got swept, but the fact that every game was competitive is very impressive considering the talent disparity. I prefer to judge players by their skillsets, though, not "what they've led their teams to," as their teammates matter a lot for that. I don't think Michael Jordan would have led his team to any titles if he had been mired on the Kings his entire career.
True enough. I still think that most big name players that aren't LBJ tend to get overrated by a lot of people.