I'm not trying to sweep away the great season this has been, but I was thinking. With half a brain that is a dangerous thing sometimes. With the improvement we made with Nurk, we are much better. But will it be enough to be something more than a low playoff seed? Taking health and future acquisitions out of the equations, where are we as a team? GS SA UTAH HOU Should all be locks for the playoffs as of now LAC OKC DEN MEM POR NOP MIN DAL I don't see a ton of separation between those teams. Min will be a year older. NOP is playing very good right now, and should only get better. Dal playing better with Noel....although I don't think they have enough. Should be a brutal year in the west.
You say brutal, I say fun. I agree with your assessment of the conference next year, but I'm looking forward to it.
There's a few teams that should really blow it up. LAC DAL MEM They're teams that are built to win now, but they're not good enough to beat the top teams in the league. GSW, CLE, and SA are all much better than the Clippers, Dallas, or Memphis. The Mavs should just cut bait and build around Barnes/Noel. The Grizzlies need to trade Conley and Gasol. The Clippers should trade Paul and possibly Griffin.
Call me crazy but I think we should try to get Nic Batum back. I think he might be attainable. Trade back for him with one of our draft picks as sweetener and I think with Vonleh possibly being ready to start at PF we might be an actual threat in the west.
They may not have that option. They players have ETOs this summer. Balmer needs to decide if it's worth it to severely overpay those two for more first and second round exits. If they get bumped in the 1st round, I'd be surprised to see CP3 opt in. He's not getting any younger and right now his legacy is best PG to never make it past the second round. I don't think it's about the money for him (although we shall see). I think he wants to win. Tony Parker is about to turn 35 and has been fading fast for the last five years. If Paul really wants to win, SAS would be his best move. GSW and CLE don't need him and he would fit in well in Pop's system. BNM
SA would be amazing with cp3, thats a pretty great idea. looks like they will have around 10-12 MM in cap room.
We'd need to send out a shit ton of salary to make that work. He's in the 1st year of a 5 year $120 million contract. Kind of makes Turner's $70 million look like chump change, doesn't it. We are so far over the cap (and at least $12 million over the expected luxury tax threshold) we need to dump salary. Which pretty much rules out a trade with CHO for Batum. If they trade him, it will be to get out from under that contract, which means they wouldn't want to take back even more salary in return. It would require at least one other team, that is WAY under the salary cap and willing to take our crappy overpaid players (Crabbe, Leonard) off our hands - which means bribing them with draft picks. Batum is simply not worth giving up multiple 1st round picks (one to CHO at at least one to dump Crabbe/Leonard) to get back. Nor is he worth his contract. BNM
He'd be walking away from $24 million in LA, but if they have another early exit, I don't expect him to stick around. SA manged to move a few minor pieces last summer to sign Pau. I'm sure they could do something similar to get CP3. BNM
although...whats the largest contract LA can offer? because if the difference is more than 100MM, he would be a fool to pass that up.
If they lose in the first round again, LAC might not be interested in offering him the super max. They may decide it's time to blow it up and rebuild. BNM
they would be fools not to approach that. someone needs to take their money, might as well be a first ballot HOF who is still producing at peak levels. you can do a lot worse with the supermax than Chris Paul. and he would be a fool to pass that up honestly.