re: ESPN's Zach Lowe on the Pels

We are gonna be into the luxury cap for the foreseeable future regardless. What we need to be positioning ourself for is flexibility for AD's looming free agency. Having Jrue at 25 million does not help that. Frankly the first sin was a 5 year deal at that price, but if you are going that route anyways, you are making it much more difficult to manueveur when we need it most by not at least pushing harder for a flat or decreasing arrangement.

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We are gonna be into the luxury cap for the foreseeable future regardless. What we need to be positioning ourself for is flexibility for AD's looming free agency.

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We are not going to be in the tax this season. Repeater tax is a big deal especially for a small market. This season is also the most important for keeping AD. Get Boogie to re-sign and AD is assuredly signing super-max. So you really need to be able to use MLE this season WITHOUT going into tax and getting repeated next season.

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AD is going to have NBA Allstar poon thrown at him left and right with other team options when he's an UFA.

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And if Boogie resigns, we make a compelling argument and he signs the supermax a year before that can even happen.

I think you are way to assumptive to think that re-signing Boogie is all it will take to keep AD.

Hayward just left a 50 win team, a city by all accounts him and his conservative wife loved, and by his account some of his best friends in the league. Traded for a guy in Rubio he really likes. Hard to say what the Jazz possibly did wrong.

I think you severely underestimate how alluring it is for a player like AD to fall prey to the grass is greener way of thinking.

There are any number of places AD could go and have a 5th or 6th seed team, it is going to take championships or close to it to make that case, and if not, the flexibility to meet with AD and say "look, your commitment here will allow us, thanks to our flexibility, to get commitments from x, y, or z. Or to make x trade happen. Which is why the next contract period will look better then the last one." I think it is very hard to do that with Jrue making 25 million. You basically have to have Jrue over-perform his contract by a good bit, something Demps has not proven he has been capable of doing on these big contracts.

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If Calipari gets a job somewhere,

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Agreed, but I don't think that's a problem this year. I'm not saying he doesn't want to come back to the league, but why go to NY and be set up for failure? I think the flirtation with NY is the thing he does most summers that gets a few more years added on to his UK contract.

Listen I am not saying Boogie doesn't put pieces in our favor at retaining him. Or that there are not circumstantial differences. No two scenarios are exactly alike because no 2 people or team situations are ever the same.

My only point is ultimately you want to maximize the things in your favor for those inflection points that your franchise hinges on, and Jrue's contract size, length, and structure, barring the sort of leap he hasn't made yet, aren't adding notches in our favor on that front. And I am a bit disappointed we couldn't manage to get things a bit more amenable on the organizations end.

If you are convinced a super max and Boogie is all it will take, thats your opinion to gladly have, I personally do not think it is enough. I think AD has shown himself to be the type of competitor and person that money is not the be all end all, nor is just having one or two people he likes around him. Basically, I am not convinced AD is the type of person that would not turn down the immediate security of a super max on a 5th seed team with a good friend to jump aboard a more competitive team with other friends, and sign that super max there in the future(or try for a sign and trade as a sign of goodwill).

I think that is probably drawing a little too much from a this or that question years out from the real decision. But like you said it was a fluff piece.

But i also have no doubt the super max won't have a big influence on his decisions. It's probably our best playing card.

At the same time, there are plenty of other tea leaves that speak to Davis not seeing the NBA solely through dollar signs. He didn't throw a fit after getting shut down in 2016 and ultimately missing out on 24 million. He took it completely in stride and made comments about how 122 million is still a lot of money, and didn't show any ill will.

But to take this from even another angle no one mentions, there is also a scenario where this goes sideways and it is the Pels that are opening the doors to move AD. A scenario where Jrue vastly under-performs his contract, Boogie/Davis ends up not working, and the team is in dire straights with no realistic paths forward being built around AD.

You are free to believe whatever you want, and I hope you are right. It would be huge if Jrue finally makes that leap.

I think there is certainly good reason to believe Jrue will have one of his better seasons barring injury. Full offseason with the team, a system with Finch that should better cater to his strengths and minimize his weaknesses, and a sense of urgency this regime feels that should push the culture.

I am not convinced he is about to turn into this elite guard some people want to convince themselves he is about to do. At the end of the day he is still a guy that is not a dead eye shooter, has a lot of high variance tendencies as a passer(hot and cold games), effort issues defensively, and doesn't use his physical tools in the ways you would expect like getting to the line or posting players up.

Davis seems like a level headed dude. Right now, he's probably thinking he's going to become a player that can carry a team. Having a running mate in Cousins is a good jump off point towards helping him.

I think more than anything, it will be if AD can transform himself into that transcendental player and stay healthy. If he can, he may very well choose the money if he has confidence in his ability to win and get paid.

2-3 years from now, Lebron could be declining and the Warriors could be in tax hell. If AD becomes that next superstar, his window may very well be open if we can stop making dumb shite decisions. 2017 has at least been a step in the right direction.

ETA: for all the shite Demps gets, Cousins and maybe even Holiday are better players than Lebron had at any point in his first Cleveland stint. The trick from here is IMPROVING every year. If we are consistently trending up, AD could see that as motivation to stay the course, eventually seeing himself reaching the promised land.

Because the league is all about wings that knock down 3s now. Big men don't have the same impact.