Salmons and the Raptors There has also been some interest shown between the Kings and the Toronto Raptors, with the Kings offering up John Salmons. As a free agent, however, Salmons made it clear he didn't want to play in Canada and Bryan Colangelo has a policy that he won't acquire players who don't want to make Canada home. Interested?
I don't mind him, but if Toronto was willing to part with Bargnani, I'm not really willing to outbid them for him.
He plays both SG and SF. He's incredibly cheap for his offensive production ($5 million per year) and could take a hell of a lot of pressure off Roy. We could take a bad contract back from them (Kenny Thomas?) and give them one of our SFs. This trade works: http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...454~2015~1726~849&teams=23~23~22~22&te=&cash=
It would be astonishingly cheap for a very good player. But where does that leave Rudy? Neither Roy nor Salmons should be playing huge minutes at PG, and none of these three players makes a great SF. iWatas
Do you think he's an upgrade over the SFs you have now? And enough of an upgrade to take back Thomas' contract? I agree he's a good value but I wouldn't want him to play over Outlaw, Batum, or Webster. I think he could help Portland out the most from the PG position. He's not a true PG but he's no more out of position there than he is at SF and he could provide a nice scoring punch from the 1 and improve the D.
Salmons plays the SF when Kevin Martin is healthy (he did it all last season). He's playing SG out of necessity for the Kings. He's got a money jumper to stretch the defense and runs the break well.
He's versatile but he's not a SF. Of course he's not going to move Martin to the bench so the plays 3 when Martin's healthy. But he also plays PG when Beno is out and he's not a PG either. In Philly he played the 2.
Salmons is a 20/3.5/3 guy. That's a significant upgrade over any of the SFs on this squad. Kenny Thomas only has one more year left on his contract so it's not a crippling deal. I'd still rather see Gerald Wallace on the team for defensive reasons, but Salmons would also be a nice upgrade.
I don't have the stats in front of me but I live in Sac and see a pretty good amount of their games. Most of the games he scores well, he is the primary option. He plays well when Martin is out and last year he played well when Beno was out and the ball was in his hands every play. With a full compliment of players (if you can call the Kings roster that), he doesn't look all that impressive. Portland is stacked so there aren't going to be many plays run for him. I think you'll be left with good playmaking, not not much rebounding or scoring, and an undersized 3 on D.
That sounds like Prince is doing at times in Motown. I'm not going to knock a guy for being versatile. He's a ballplayer that can handle the rock, slash and score. A staring 5 of Blake/Roy/Salmons/LaMarcus/Oden looks like a big upgrade in offense.
I dunno, he's pretty much a 2/3 (not sure where somebody above got the impression he's a point guard?), a decent shooter, a good slasher, he's not too old at 29 and not horribly expensive either plus is also a pretty good defender for a wing. Yeah, I guess I could see him working out as a three for the Blazers.
As a Raptors fan, you guys have significantly better odds. In BC's first off-season here, he almost signed him but he shunned us, so we had to settle for Fred Jones. Eventually you guys got Fred because He didn't work with us.
Salmons isn't too big of an upgrade to justify trading for. He's a good player but I don't think he's the answer.
I see Salmons as more of an outside shooter. He is good at it, but is that our weakness? If we make a trade we need a guy who can take it to the hoop consistently.
"Salmonchanted evening at the Rose Garden"? I don't think Salmons is what we need. Good scorer, good shooter, not a playmaker. No way he scores 20 ppg on a playoff team. He couldn't break down the type of double teams B-Roy is being faced with. Then again, he's still an upgrade over our current SF's. What do we have to give to get him?
All you have to do is watch him play and then go look at his stat line and you realize that he's an excellent slasher and shooter. He shoots for over 50% from the floor and is hitting at 43% from the three point line this year. Granted those numbers are way above his career averages and you'd probably expect some regression to the mean, but if anything you have to give him credit for stepping up big and filling the number one scoring option role with Martin out. I'm not blown away by Salmons, but he clearly has talent, and would be a substantial upgrade over Travis or Martell.
