re: Dell Demps

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Never brought up the Okafor/Ariza trade AT ALL.

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Who said you did? Bmark did in his post, saying he wouldn't have done it. And danman called it "neutral".

Why would it be? You were the post in front of me. I thought it was readily apparent what I was talking about given the flow of the conversation and context of the post. Guess not.

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Good lord, I said in retrospect I didn't think it was necessary. The team doesn't need cap space until next year (or later). They aren't going to need it this summer, cause they aren't signing anyone big. Okafor and Ariza would have been decent vets to keep around Davis and would have made his transition easier. That was my point. It would have been better than almost 14 million in wasted/dead money this year. That's all I meant..

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It wouldn't have been better. There are many, many factors why that trade was necessary beyond "cap space".

This thread has epic amounts of fail in it:

1) Wanting to keep Okafor/Ariza should get you banned. Let's pay an aging, average, unathletic C 14mil and a SF that can't even see court time for the WASHINGTON WIZARDS 7mil.

2) People bagging on Jack cause he doesn't start is foolish. He finishes every game and plays 30+ minutes most nights.

3) Monty Williams admitted that they let Jack go as a courtesy to Jack. They knew that Captain Jack wasn't in their long term plans and was going to have hard time seeing minutes this season (expecting EG10 to be healthy at the time and knowing that we'd be playing youth to evaluate them) and let him move on for his sake, especially being a contract year.

4) Though Anderson is slumping lately, we gave up peanuts in a S&T and he is one of our most valuable assets still because of his contract.

5) The Lopez signing was an experiment as we have team options in years 2,3. again, he's still a tradable asset, just read the boards. When Gasol for Anderson bullcrap was being thrown around, the Lakers fans actually wanted us to throw in Lopez and/or Vasquez to sweeten the pot.

6) Vasquez could likely fetch us a 1st round pick in this year's draft. Q-Pon would be lucky to fetch a high 2nd.

7) Jason Smith/Willie Green for Songalia/Brackins, enough said.

8) Scouting overseas to find the likes of Brian Roberts / Gustavo Ayon.

9) The Marcus Thornton thing was a disaster of epic proportions. However, the blame could hardly be laid at the feet of Dell Demps. Monty Williams essentially buried an asset that should have fetched us back legitimate assets in return on the bench and killed his trade value. Not only did he bury him, we didn't have Tyreke Evans playing in front of him, we had Marco freaking Belinelli and Willie Green. Don't think I'll ever understand the handling of that situation.

10) There was definitely two bad moves though by Demps. The first was Collison for Ariza. How you have a young asset like DC coming off the year he had and all you can end up with is Trevor Ariza is beyond me. That first CP3 trade with the Rockets/Lakers was god-awful. Even with the EG10 drama to deal with, it's STILL better than that first package.

Bottom line: Dell Demps has managed to rebuild a terrible situation way ahead of schedule and caught a few breaks along the way. We suddenly have cap space and another high lottery pick with loads of young talent instead of an aging/overpaid roster. You are downright crazy if you don't think that at least 20 of the 30 NBA teams would steal this dude from us right now if they could.

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I love that some guy that has been on the site for a couple of days is calling for people to be banned cause he doesn't agree with them. Not sure reading a forum is going to be much fun for him.

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Haven't been on the site for a couple days, finally signed up after 3 years and somehow you seem to disagree with everything I say. We're gonna get along great.

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The future obligations are worrisome, but now they are trade bait, same as last year. Except now they are expiring trade bait. There is already talk of a Okafor for Stoudamire trade in the works. shite moves on..

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Woah you mean we could be getting AMARE STOUDEMIRE if we held on to Emeka Okafor? DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT DELL. A $20mil/yr contract that's uninsured and pretty much the most un-tradeable contract in the league. Of course the Wizards want it you moron. They wanted Okafor/Ariza after all.

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Me proposing that I'd have rather have used that money on guys that actually play on the team just makes sense to me.

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I don't understand why so many people wanted to be mediocre this season. It'd have been one thing if Gordon was a stud and lead us to the playoff bubble, but since that didn't happen this team clearly needs more assets which it wouldn't get by winning more games and having its cap space still being taken up by Ariza and Okafor.

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There is already talk of a Okafor for Stoudamire

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You're saying this like it's a good thing.

When you are rebuilding, you rebuild.

You completely tear down the roster to give yourself a blank slate. You do that so at ANY time, you can add more talent via trade. You can add more talent in the offseason...or you can wait until the season, or the following offseason.

You get your young players as many minutes as possible. You try out players that weren't given a shot elsewhere.

You save your owner some money in a shitty year. I know that some fans don't want to think like this, but its an economic reality and a plus. Get over it.

Its all about flexibility in the rebuild. And Okafor and Ariza were anchors around our neck. You shed all the guys you can that are in no way part of a long term process. Move on.

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The future obligations are worrisome, but now they are trade bait, same as last year. Except now they are expiring trade bait. There is already talk of a Okafor for Stoudamire trade in the works. shite moves on.

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They're only trade bait if someone gives you a worthwhile offer.


Look at the kinds of offers we were getting for Kaman, Landry, and others last year as an example of the kind of lowball bullshite we were dealing with.

Detroit was expecting us to trade them Kaman and Landry for Charlie V's shite deal and 1-2 other bad contracts.

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And we don't need to keep going to the lottery to find compliments to him.

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Draft picks are merely assets and the 5th pick is a much better trade asset than the 12th pick. For example, if Boston performs well in the playoffs without Rondo I could see them trading him for a package built around our pick, if we had the 12th pick they probably wouldn't be interested. Monty is definitely frustrated with all the young guys so unless a guy they love is on the board I'm sure Demps will be working the phones.

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Someone on the team has to get paid. If you have a ton of young/cheap players, how are you going to reach the salary floor?

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Next years goals and expectations will be completely different. Anything short of fighting for the 8th seed will be a huge disappointment. If you don't use the cap space available on a FA or trade target then you simply make a Carl Landry type of signing and overpay a useful guy for one year.

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If someone can actually prove to me that the more lottery picks you have, the better you are, then I'll change my mind. But I think it is a bad plan..

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I don't think there's a single poster that's hopped on the 2014 tank. Most weren't on board to start this season but when it was obvious our new core wasn't as good as we had hoped then ping pong balls became more valuable than wins to many. This is a big offseason for Demps. If he does a good job then he and Monty are probably safe, if he does a bad job they both may be on their way out.

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I was using it as an example that things do move on. Anyone can be moved at any time.

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Yeah, but expirings have very little value in the NBA since the new CBA. See Chris Kaman.