re: ADs Future in Nola

Do you not see that our "stars" were the problem in this game, and Moore almost carried us to the win??

AD shoots 40% and Jrue hits 1-2 more of his shots and we win this game.. You cant win when you're stars are shooting in the 30's in FGP

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I know nobody want to hear it( including myself) but it’s probably a better than 50% chance he’s leaving. If the Pels have any inkling that he’s leaving they need to get the most in return

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When someone turns down a 240mil contract come back and holla at me.

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Do you not see that our "stars" were the problem in this game,

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Did you not see where I said that this post was not a reaction to the game last night? Until jackasses actually read instead of just downvoting because the rest of the board does, then we are fighting a losing battle when it comes to actual discussions in this country.

Pelicans just need to get healthy and add one more either sg or sf that can hit 3's.

Love Davis. Hope he’s a Pel for life. Increasingly feel like he’s got other plans. Not sure exactly when I started to feel that way. When we got Cousins I thought Davis was still all in on staying. He still talked longterm, still cited Tim Duncan and the Spurs as the kind of career he’d like to have. But in the last 6 months or so, he’s stopped talking that way. Maybe it was the end of the Cousins experiment. Maybe it was losing again to the Warriors. Maybe it was hanging with the USA Basketball crowd over the summer. Or maybe he just changed his mind about staying in the minors. Ditching his agent, buying the pad in Los Angeles, some of his comments and how he sometimes seems checked out on the court. It just feels like something has changed. Now you’ve even got Jarrett Jack saying AD and Durant are planning to unite with LeBron on the Lakers. Wouldn’t surprise me if Cousins wound up there too. The Super Max deal is a powerful incentive to stay but something tells me the powers that be are working to lure Davis away despite that. Hope I’m dead wrong.

All this AD trade talk from the so called insiders and experts is all speculation. AD, just like any other superstar wants to be in the best position for success. If the front office can't provide the right pieces to surround him with, I don't blame him for wanting to leave. The insiders and experts all speculate that the Pels can't win with what they have now or in the foreseeable near future. I like Bazemore, Oubre and Dinwiddie, but they won't put the Pels over the top. If the front office wants to convince AD that they're all in with him, then they need to make a huge signing like Kemba Walker or Kyrie Irving. If not, it would be smart to think that AD will walk. The only thing good about AD walking is that Demps will be right behind him. Right now, AD is all in on this year. I won't speculate along with the media. It's bad enough that I can't hear good things about the Pels on TV without AD trade talk going on 24/7.

KD signs with the Lakers

AD forces a trade to the Lakers for Ingram, Kuzma, Hart, and a pair of first rounders.

Dell tried. Coming out of the 2012 draft he put together a team he thought could grow into a contender with young vets like Holiday, Evans, Gordon and Anderson. Everyone got hurt, so you never really saw if that vision could work. I think all the parts were pretty good, if healthy. Whether they ever would have worked together is more of a question.

Of course it's tempting to look back and say you should have built more patiently through the draft. You could have paired Davis with players like Antetokounmpo, Gobert, Middleton, Mitchell or Murray. But that's just draft magical thinking. Most times you miss, even in the lottery. Hard to believe we'd have hit time after time like the Warriors did even if we'd kept the picks and built slow.

Where it is totally fair to fault Dell is on many of his judgement calls on contracts. I think he repeatedly ignored the basic concept of sunk costs and used past bad decisions to justify ongoing bad decisions. You don't make Eric Gordon a max player to justify the bad deal that made you take him in the Chris Paul trade, You don't sign Asik to a big deal (especially after hiring Gentry!) to justify your previous lousy decision to give up a first round pick to get him. You don't over pay for a non-shooting wing like Hill based on a small sample size when you're planning to run an up tempo offense that needs spacers surrounding Davis. Often doing nothing is better than trying to force things. That's a hard lesson to learn.

I think Dell got better. I didn't want Cousins, but it was a good deal objectively. He was right on Holiday, which I thought was an over pay. He made a good deal for Mirotic and was smart not to try and force the Cousin's resigning just to justify the price he paid to get him in the first place. At this point I don't know if any GM could keep Davis in the fold if he's made up his mind to go. But if he has--and it's a big if--don't make the mistake of trying to hang on to him too long or think you're going to change his mind. If he doesn't sign the extension this summer, you've got to do a deal and try to maximize what you can get. It sucks, but that's just the way it is.