What about LMA's decision making? Are suggesting you think LaMarcus has a poor hoops IQ or poor court awareness on par with Trout's?
I think he's trying to say that LMA's decision-making was poor last year and he improved a lot this year, so it's reasonable to expect Outlaw to improve his decision-making. Not that I agree. Aldridge's decision-making was never particularly poor and he was also in only his second season last year. Outlaw's decision-making is much worse and he completed his sixth season. Outlaw is likely quite close to a finished product. He's not even that young anymore. He'll be 25 next year, and a player's prime generally starts at age 26. Being so near his prime, it's unlikely he has much upside left.
I agree completely. But the Outlaw we see has productive value and is only paid $4 million. He's not overpaid for what he produces and you're not going to ever end up with 12-15 players better than him. So he's not a waste of money or a roster spot. If you can trade him for a better player, great. If not, why get rid of him?
If he has to take more than one dribble in traffic, he is likely to turn it over anyway! Actually, I am just fine with Travis as our 8th or 9th man. He is very cost effective in that role. But when he is your 6th man (and often your 3rd best option on offense), he is overexposed.
Unless you can find 12-15 better players to fill up the roster, you're weakening the team by simply getting rid of him. He's about an average player, even if he gets there in streaky fashion. That's worth $4 million and a roster spot. There's no way you can end up with a roster entirely composed of above-average players.
Normally I would agree with you Minstrel, but if we cut Travis, and a few other players, we could sign some meaningful contributors this offseason. After this summer we're not going to be anywhere near the salary cap. If we could cut Travis, Blake, Frye, and Ruffin in order to get enough space to sign a Ramon Sessions, an Andre Miller, or a Anderson Varajao, why not do it? I'm not convinced that Blake or Outlaw would return someone of that caliber.
aka addition by subtraction. Not that I'm advocating simply cutting him, but Trav-Bo leaving would help this team.
Andre Miller won't require in excess of $12 million per year. At his age, he's not worth it if that were his demand. Letting Frye, LaFrentz, Ruffin and Blake go would be sufficient to free up the room for Miller, assuming he wants to play for Portland. Sessions can't be offered more than the MLE by anyone (including Milwaukee), so there's no need to cut Outlaw loose for him. I suppose if you wanted to try to sign both Miller and Varejao, you'd need to cut Blake and Outlaw loose, but you have to renounce them before the free agent signing period...which means you're gambling that you can get them both. I wouldn't take that gamble. Teams rarely sign every free agent they want, even if they have the cash, plus I doubt Varejao would want to leave Cleveland. Ultimately, I don't see a big benefit to letting Outlaw go. If you think you can get Miller, letting Blake go makes sense, because Miller takes his place as the veteran point guard. But I don't see that there's value beyond the money freed up by LaFrentz/Frye/Ruffin/Blake.
The beef with Travis came when we relied on him to be our third-leading scorer and he couldn't live up to it in the playoffs. If he's our fifth, sixth or seventh option, sure keep him, but he can't be relied upon to be our third-best scorer behind Roy and Aldridge. It probably isn't his fault since he just isn't good enough to be a No. 3 option but he was on the receiving end of the hate anyway.
Okay, so could a trade be put together that included Travis and netted us some nice pieces? I'm really tempted to do some kind of deal with Detroit for Prince and Rip Hamilton.
Can't speak to that...I really have zero idea what Outlaw's value is around the league. I'm sure it's not as high as his biggest fans assume, nor as low as his greatest critics assume. But that's an enormous range. I'd be perfectly happy to ship Outlaw in a package for a really nice player. I'm not against losing Outlaw, just against losing him for nothing. I'm not very interested in Rip. Roy is, of course, enormously better and I think Rudy is at least comparable in talent, though Hamilton is currently more polished. I like Prince a lot, but I'm not sure how much I'd give up for him. I think Batum could be a similar player in a year or two.
The part that bothers me the most is this: Outlaw is talented enough and athletically gifted enough to be a team's 3rd option on offense. The problem is, Outlaw has a questionable basketball IQ, and is probably not being used as effectively as he could be. There should be plays run that send Outlaw to the hoop, and or that put him in position to get offensive rebounds. But, Outlaw should also work harder for high-percentage shots. If he worked half as hard as Rudy to get open, or as hard as Oden and Pryzbilla did to earn position against Yao, it'd be a different story. Outlaw lacks either the competitive drive or the focus to put it all together. Last, Nate made this problem worse by putting Fernandez into the starting lineup in Game 6, and making Outlaw the far-and-away best option on offense. Outlaw is not up for being the #1 option on offense, even against a reserve unit, if it's coming in a vital playoff game. I agree that Outlaw is not a useless player, but he has to be seen in context. It reminds me of Ruben Patterson (forget the moral and legal problems for a minute). Patterson had a limited skillset, but some of those skills were very useful. But only for 10-15 minutes a game. More than that, and Patterson would start to get too comfortable, and would become a blackhole on offense, and overconfident on defense. In Outlaw's case - put him on the floor for a short enough period that he can retain 100% of his focus the whole time. Pull him when he starts losing it. Sounds like an 8th or 9th man to me.
Just because he wouldn't speak bad about his players doesn't mean he would have to speak good about the player. He made a point of speaking highly of Outlaw and I think he meant it. He could have said nothing or been ambivalent.
Very high. He was playing awesome at the end of last season. I don't see why you are asking though. Lamarcus just finished his 3rd year, Travis just finished his 6th. Also last season there was no playoffs to base off of. I don't think they have to "trade" Outlaw. But they sure got to get somebody better than him to go to.
