You'd start that player, get the coach to say he's your starter in that position, go through all the right motions to up that player's value. Especially if that player started for you last year, but is looking at being a bench player for pretty much the rest of his career. I mean, other GMs would look at that player (if he wasn't starting) and say "Yeah, he started last year, but obviously he's just a bencher now. How about I don't really give you much back in value seeing as how you're not trading any of your starters?" But if you got your coach to stand firm on a "starting five" that included this guy, get him and maybe even another player to say "He's my guy" (that player owes you big time for not courting any free agents for you over the summer, anyway)... you might be able to drum up some interest for him. There are two, maybe even three players in Nate's announced Starting 5 that fit this description in various ways. Add in the Mills signing, and you have (as others have put it) the makings of a trade where value of players is key. Often, this points to a consolidation trade, where none of your pieces going out has a ton of values (i.e., no star for star), but the piece coming in is pretty good. Position as many of the outgoing pieces as highly in value as possible, and you might just make the deal happen... Time to go put on my tinfoil hat...
Kind of a ridiculous notion for a playoff team...you're basically cutting minutes from a more deserving player in order to boost your bait's value. Factor in the opportunity costs of sacrificing the present for a perceived future benefit, and at best the equation equals out again...if your new acquisition can have a huge impact, that is.
I would guess it's very rare that any GM would do that, knowing that other GM's are quite a bit more informed than message board fans about players. They know who can play and who cannot, and realize sometimes good players just don't fit on certain teams. Besides, starting your 2nd best at any position is bound to just make him look incompetent. Now, if other GM's had only message-board experience rather than real world experience, it might work.
Yeah, I guess the idea's a bit daft. The only way it'd happen if it the deal was done before regular season started, and even then, it's kind of a dumb idea.
Then again, that's probably why KP had Nate start bench-boy Miller twice even though it cost us 2 pre-season games. Hoping someone will make an offer.
I don't think it works that way among GMs. GMs have their own independent evaluations of players. I don't think you can boost Blake's value by starting him over Miller, for example. GMs who already valued Blake above Miller (I doubt there are any, but for the sake of argument) obviously don't need to be swayed. Those who value Miller above Blake aren't going to throw away their evaluations and place higher value on Blake just because Portland benched Miller and started Blake. They're going to think Portland is making a mistake benching the better player. I don't think you can game the system that way. I think the only time "showcasing" a player for trade matters is for a player coming off an injury...then you have a chance to show that the player is actually recovered. If you benched a player coming off injury, GMs might suspect that you're hiding a failed recovery.
We're going into the season a month behind most teams already, so if it gets rid of Miller, it will help the team in the long run.
