re: Pelicans 109 VS Kobe Bryant 102 / Final / Official Game Thread

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If we're not as far ahead as we should be because we made mistakes keeping/acquiring Gordon/Holiday/Evans, we shouldn't compound those mistakes by paying a premium to undo the mistakes now. Why does this season matter? LeBron made the Finals and still left Cleveland. KD has made the Finals and may leave OKC. The AD era being any more meaningful than the CP3 era means keeping your eye on the long term prize and being a contending team in 5 years. I'm actually a little concerned that Monty/Demps may make a rash move if they feel pressure to keep their jobs.

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I'm not even thinking about this in terms of keeping AD happy. To me, it's all about what puts the best product on the court, long term, which just so happens to be keeping AD here as long as possible. I see the roster that is being built around him and, to me, it's just so flawed.

The three biggest moves in terms of cap affect with Demps are matching PHX to keep Gordon, trading for Jrue and trading for Reke. Not only has brought in 3 ball-dominant guards into the starting 5, but it also handicapped the team with the long term deals and lost draft picks, which has led to a shitty bench and no real room to improve until Gordon comes off the books after next season and/or Asik doesn't ink a long term deal following this season.

From a purely basketball perspective, AD doesn't get nearly enough touches that he should because he's mostly running with Jrue, Evans and, to a lesser extent, Gordon who need the ball in their hands to make an impact. Yeah AD is putting up ridiculous lines night in and night out, but tonight he only put the ball up 16 times. He should, at minimum, be taking 22 shots every game, but with the way this roster has been put together, that won't always be the case, which is not good at all.

In my opinion, the Asik trade was the first move that Demps made that really seemed like he was building around Davis. A true center that bangs down low and grabs every board on either side of the floor allows Davis to roam around and play his more natural role. The only real downside of it is that it cost us a third straight 1st round pick and he could easily bail after 1 season. Hopefully, more moves that compliment Davis will be coming along, but with our cap and draft situation, there will have to be strings pulled.