The Warriors may draft a power forward, but that won't necessarily mean they intend to trade Anthony Randolph. "I told (Randolph) Monday, 'I'm not trading you unless there is a heck of a player on the other side of the deal. You're not going anywhere,' " Riley said. Randolph's name has been mentioned in trade rumors involved Minnesota. "I really am not looking to trade him," Riley said. "I am not in search of trading Anthony Randolph, and I'm not shopping him. ... "This is the year we'll make a lot of determinations on him, and he'll make a determination on his career. There is huge upside there, and I would hate to walk away from that." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/18/SPKP1E0TF0.DTL
Riley continues to say questionable things. First of all, "only if there is a heck of a player on the other end of the deal," what does that even mean? What defines "heck?" Isn't Randolph a heck of a player? Isn't Kevin Love a heck of a player? So you're telling him you're not going to trade him unless there's a trade you like, in which case you would actually indeed trade him? Basically, that's "I'm not going to trade you unless I decide to trade you." I like when Coaches and GMs are straight and frank with the media. I like how Nellie actually gives answers with substance. But in this case, Riley actually needs to be the opposite, and basically stop saying things at all. Now, if he does trade him, he'll seem two-faced, or untrustworthy, and that might not sit well with the agents of the other players on the team. He just sounds kind of in over his head, IMO.
I think you're over-analyzing a bit. All Riley is saying, IMO, is that the NBA is a business and if a deal presents itself that is beneficial to the team over keeping Randolph, they would have to consider it. He's saying, so far, nothing has presented itself that warrants trading Randolph, who they like. Sure, it's a safe statement to make but probably a true statement as well. They value Randolph, but he's not an untouchable (as he should NOT be). I think Riley's statement sums up my opinion of Randolph too.
Mullin did the exact same thing with J-Rich who had proven a hell of a lot more in the league than Randolph has. Actually Mullin said flat out that he WOULD NOT trade JR at all just before he did. I don't think it really hurt Mullin's relationship with the players- granted I think he had a much better relationship with the players than Riley does. Additionally, most of the players on that We Believe team really wanted to get paid via one of Mullin's trusty 5 year 40 million dollar contracts as most of theirs were close to being up. These guys know its a business and if Randolph is traded for a very good player like Riley said would have to be the case then I can't see anyone else on the club being mad about it. They all know its a business.
You're right, Mullin did do the exact same thing, and from what I remember that was about the last thing he did before getting chased out. Yes it's a business but why even say something like that? There's no need to say something like that unless you're looking to earn the trust of Anthony Randolph by publicly declaring he won't be traded. However, that is not even a smart move anyway. Frankly, he's one of your best assets and if you have any sense at all you should at least be entertaining all Randolph trades that could improve your team. The other GMs are probably looking at Riley in one of two ways: either he's full of crap and he really is looking at Randolph trades, or he doesn't have a clue how to use one of his prime assets to leverage potential trades. Riley was a much better assistant coach (I actually liked what he did there) than he is appearing to be as a GM. Time will tell, but it's little things like the way he speaks to the media that lead me to believe he just doesn't have the "killer" business instinct to deal with all the sharks he's swimming with.
Pretty sure Mullin was still around for another year after the J-Rich trade. The We Believe team was still together a year after J-Rich left IIRC (when Monta first scored 20 ppg I think). As for judging Riley thus far, I could care less what comments he makes publicly. So far I don't think hes made any poor moves as a GM. He hasn't traded for a 20/10 big but no one has for GS since Webber. He dumped Jack and Crawford for reasonable cap cutting. I have no problem with this as Jack had cut his value drastically by acting up and had a TERRIBLE contract. Crawford just sucked in general and made no sense considering our depth at G. Keep in mind Cohan was likely commanding him to cut those shitty contracts. He held on to CJ Watson back when I was trashing him and CJ ended up having a very good year off the bench and really earned a lot of my respect. You could give Riley credit for finding Chris Hunter, Reggie Williams and Tolliver if you also give Mullin credit for finding Azu and Watson. Not many dynamite moves but he was given a pretty crappy hand to play with. He nailed it with Steph Curry. One season isn't much to judge him by, especially when the team was so injury plagued (can't trade them) and loaded with crappy contracts.
Also consider that Riley is basically auditioning for his future as a GM in the league. He won't be making moves that will make him look incompetent. Keeping Randolph is probably the safest "move" that wouldn't hurt his future reputation.
I was going to reference both of those trades as well -- I was totally in favor of cutting Jack and Crawford. I would have given Crawford away for a bag of Doritos. But that's the point -- I'm an emotional fan, and Riley is the professional GM. Riley's job is to use his assets as best he can to leverage trades in the Warriors' favor. And while I was all for trading both of those guys, in hindsight those were lopsided trades. Crawford for Speedy Claxton and AC Law? This was horrible. One has to believe Riley could have done better than that, seeing as how highly the Hawks seemed to value Crawford, immediately plugging him into the rotation and declaring him a leader. Lets look at both those acquired assets: Law showed some serious promise in his short stay here. I liked him. But then Riley tossed him into the Stephen Jackson trade (see below). Speedy Claxton: a considerably valuable chip, because he was a $5.2 mils expiring contract, usable before the deadline. What did Riley do 12 days before the trade deadline? He threw that trade chip out the window, cutting Claxton to make room for D-Leaguers. Riley also cut Mikki Moore's $1.3 mils expiring contract too. So, before the trade deadline, he cut a total of $6.5 mils in exp, more than most teams had to work with. That sucked. In the end, all he got for Crawford was... room for D-Leaguers. Then Riley got squeezed to trade Jack. Again, yes, I wanted Jack gone, but the whole league knew that we all wanted Jack gone, you still have to get the best value for your money. Riley traded Jack + AC Law for Radmonovic and Bell? Yes Jack was disgruntled, but this was a guy coming off a 20/6/5 year, and most players around the league would tell you they'd love to play alongside him. When most of us were thinking of possible Gerald Wallace trades, or Raymond Felton trades, you know -- trading one of our top scorers for one of their top players -- Riley goes and gets a couple of journeymen bench guys? I love Raja Bell, don't get me wrong. But it's not about what I like, it's about being a savvy business pro and getting the best return. Who really believes that Riley got the best return there? Basically, he traded Crawford +Jack for Speedy Claxton, Raja Bell and Vlad Radmonovic. Then he cut Speedy's exp contract for nothing, Vladamir will probably be cut, and Bell may retire (or I hope he comes back, I like him.) Instead of using the exp contract to leverage cap space, he picked up D-Leaguers instead. And hey! I like our D-Leaguers, don't get me wrong. But that's all he really has to show for Crawford and Jack? Awful. Besides, I give Nelson most of the credit for our D-Leaguers anyway -- both when Mullin was here and while Riley is here. Riley got much less than he could have for both of those players. And then, what little he did get, he basically threw away. Now all we have is Radmonivic getting beaten out for a spot by D-Leaguers, and a severely injured player/coach in Bell. I wonder if by getting a "heck of a player" for Randolph he means trading him for someone like Mark Madsen?
I reckon that by the trade deadline Cohan had long made up his mind about selling the team. It makes no sense to trade those expirings for a large salary player for a) a team that is being sold and b) a team that was vying for the worst record in the entire league. Even after dumping SJax and Crawford- who had TERRIBLE contracts- for almost all expiring contracts (I think Vlad is the only one who wasn't expiring and his last season is this coming one) we're just now on the brink of having an ok cap situation. Those expirings weren't going to land us a legit franchise guy, probably a max contract borderline all-star at best. No one was going to give us anything of value for those two. No one wants to pay Stephen Jackson 9 million a year until hes about 37 years old. Likewise, everyone knows Crawford is a poor starter in the league. Atlanta can make some sense out of putting him in his natural role, 6th man, because they're a contender in the east. Few other teams would gladly take on a 7-8 mil/year bench player. Dude was bad enough on defense and took crappy shots to the point where Don effing Nelson had to shut him down and told him he can't play in GS lol.
Definitely, I couldn't stand to watch Crawford play 0 defense and jack up shots. Couldn't stand to watch Jack do it either. But what I couldn't stand to watch even more was Riley make two terrible trades just for the sake of getting those players out of town. Of course Cohan wanted to sell the team. But I see the exact opposite: the best way to raise the $$ value of your team is to improve it. Cap space doesn't equate to a high selling point. A good team does. If Riley were able to make a good trade for a good player, that made this team better or attracted more fans, that would raise the $$ value of the team. Bottom line, IMO, is that Riley had a handful of assets, and he moved those around for another handful of assets which were less valuable, then he gave away a few of those for nothing. In the end, all it did was hurt the team and hurt Cohan's chances of selling higher.
Historically teams start unloading salary when the team is up for sale. If the team were winning and doing well Cohan wouldn't be selling, I can't remember any instances of good teams being sold. Buyers don't want to buy teams with tons of huge contracts on them because the price to buy the team goes up but that much. To me, (I believe you stated the same thing earlier as well) dumping Jack and Crawford almost completely for expiring and Vlad on a 2 year deal was a good move. Jack was good but his contract was fuggin awful and he had acted up again in GS which killed his value. IMO we're lucky to have gotten out of that contract so easily. Crawford just doesn't = winning unless hes coming off the bench. You and I both know he SUCKS and is overpaid- why would any GM give anything of value for him? We would just get back another overpaid bench player and even if that player isn't terrible our team blows and we're rebuilding and trying to get the young guys playing time. If we got any rotation players for these guys they would be similar overpaid vets who we would all be bitching and moaning about on a daily basis. IMO dumping those two were good moves. I don't think we could have gotten any prospects of value, I think if we did trade them for vets we would be the ones trading the best player in the deal and I think that anyone we got back would be similarly on a long deal in which they were paid too much. I'll take the expirings and let the kids play. I think cutting your losses and moving on is the best move there IMO.
