hope springs eternal....now it's Gabriel springing hope. It's debatable if Gabriel is as good as Jaylen Hoard. My guess is his career path is a lot more likely to track Cliff Alexander or Luis Montero, than Duncan Robinson or Kendrick Nunn
I don't get why we had to give up 2nds to get rid of expiring contract. I though those actually had value ? Unless that Gabriel guy is any good...
Because Portland dumped ~$6M in salary, saving an additional ~$12M in taxes. 2 seconds to save ~$15M in real cash... seems like a deal to me
Simons Trent Little Gabriel Moses 6th man Hoard Let's roll with this lineup until the season ends... (And before any of you ask, no. No Swanigan.)
Those are expiring. It doesn't save anything on the cap. The only money it saves is from Jody's pocket which I frankly give 0 fuck about
And just as a note, these players are the ones that would provide Portland the largest salary dump that with players that neither team cared about
Doesn't matter what you care about. The Blazers are a buisness first & foremost... this move was 100% financial
I think Ariza is going to be an upgrade from Baze at the 3. He's a longer rangier defender on the perimeter, he's shooting the three better and doesn't have a propensity for going 1 on 5 on offense at weird times. We got another young prospect. We shed salary from the leagues highest payroll. I think this trade was fine.
Look at it this way, if that allows a small follow up deal that can be done it could now keep us at the same or less tax cost where as using the dpe from Hood would've added an additional tax cost.
This also could mean more minutes for Trent as Ariza is more suited to guard forwards while Bazemore was more suited to defend guards.
Plus consider at least one of the picks as the cost to get Gabriel as there is a decent chance he would be as good or better than what might be drafted with one of the picks. 2nd round picks are a crap shoot anyway.
Spurs are fighting for the playoffs and Aldridge has been very important for them since he started taking threes again. No way they make that move.
The most exciting part of this trade is hearing the spin narrative Neil will direct his minions in the media to pump out to fans about how good Ariza is