Taking advantage of the Warriors Misfortune - Speculation

All right, the Warriors planned PG of the future, Monta Ellis is injured and expected out until Jan or maybe even Feb.
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakam...hes-something/
The warriors are of course looking for a PG at this point, given that their only current roster options are Marcus Williams
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...willima03.html
and CJ Watson.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...watsocj01.html
As the article indicates, they don't really have a lot of good options that are obvious for trade targets or remaining FA's...The author speculates that Shaun Livingston
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...livinsh01.html
might be a good target. However, that would leave the Warriors with nothing resembling a veteran at PG... There offense is going to be a lot of give the ball to Mags or SJax and get out of the way. Still, they might just like to have a veteran...

There is an opportunity for a deal involving Vaughn (We currently have 5 players who have played PG on the projected roster for next season - Parker, Vaughn, Manu, Hill, Mason). There are players whom we might be interested in acquiring from the Warriors Roster, that they might be willing to give up - Bellinelli, Azabuike, Hendrix. Remember that we also have the Beno TE (1.8 million IIRC). This is an opportunity the FO should investigate, IMO. Some sort of deal to get Azabuike would be very nice (although I don't think he can be traded until Dec. 15th).

Nobody wants Vaughn. The only way he'll ever be traded is if he's needed as salary filler in a deal for someone else.

A possible Azabuike deal would be
Vaughn, Stoudamire resigned for Vet Min (using the Non-bird exception with only say the 1st 100K guaranteed), 100K Cash (to pay of Stoudamire), 2 2009 2nd round picks (we have 3 currently, ours, Houston's [scola trade], and Sun's [Dragic Trade])
for
Azabuike

GS gets 2 veteran PG's and can make a choice between them (assuming they pick Vaughn, they can cut Stoudamire and the 100k guaranteed is payed by the Cash SA sent along). They also get 2 2nd round picks.

SA gets a decent SF/SG, hoepfully moving Finley off the depth chart.

Stoudamire resigns to get either a) a years NBA contract, if GS keeps him or b) $100K for signing a piece of paper if GS cuts him.

Have to go with baseline bum on this one. Vaughn has very little trade value, especially to a team that is all about offense.

So if the FO fails to spin gold from straw on this one and a team that actually has tradeable pieces beats us, is it RC Bufords fault?

Forget Vaughn having no trade value....Damon Stoudamire? Really?

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Originally Posted by Dramon

So if the FO fails to spin gold from straw on this one and a team that actually has tradeable pieces beats us, is it RC Bufords fault?

Forget Vaughn having no trade value....Damon Stoudamire? Really?

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You sir, are a retard with limited reading comprehension:

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should investigate,

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See those words. They mean something. They do not mean "this is a can't miss opportunity for SA and we should fire Buford if it falls through".

As for Baseline and Bartelby, the warriors are trading for a veteran stopgap to keep them afloat till Ellis comes back. Their current guards are worse than vaughn (believe it). Livingston might be better, but he might also be completely F'ed...
While they might not want to trade Azabuike, Hendrix is a 2nd round pick who hasn't proved anything beyond summer league, and Bellinelli was bust last year, who has enough attitude to refuse to go to the D-league. Azabuike might be the primary target, but we are slightly overstocked IMO at PG, and we should look into using this productively...

Why trade for Vaughn when they could just go grab someone better via the free agent route? Someone like Juan Dixon, Sam Cassell or Fred Jones.

If Warriors wants a stopgap PG, they will need for the start of the season and not after December 15th when Ellis should be on his way back.
Azubuike for a stopgap PG makes no sense for Warriors because they can't make the trade when they will need the most this stopgap PG.

And Spurs will take advantage of Warriors misfortune by having their second round pick. It will be up to them to turn it into a good pick. ;)

Just a note on Shaun Livingston. The reason why more teams aren't looking at him right now is because he's nowhere close to being ready to play. I believe he hasn't even been cleared for real 1 on 1 yet, 5 on 5 is still a ways off.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

Why trade for Vaughn when they could just go grab someone better via the free agent route? Someone like Juan Dixon, Sam Cassell or Fred Jones.

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I'll note that SA could afford the cap impact this season (ie still not pay Lux tax) for cutting Vaughn outright and signing any of those guys... Think they might? No? That suggests that those guys aren't that much better than Vaughn.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

If Warriors wants a stopgap PG, they will need for the start of the season and not after December 15th when Ellis should be on his way back.
Azubuike for a stopgap PG makes no sense for Warriors because they can't make the trade when they will need the most this stopgap PG.

And Spurs will take advantage of Warriors misfortune by having their second round pick. It will be up to them to turn it into a good pick. ;)

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Maybe we can't get Azabuike... but there are other players potentially of interest on the Warriors roster.
Question, how do we have the Warriors 2nd round pick? I though we only had ours, Houston's (from the Scola trade), and the Suns (from the Dragic trade).

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Originally Posted by pad300

Question, how do we have the Warriors 2nd round pick? I though we only had ours, Houston's (from the Scola trade), and the Suns (from the Dragic trade).

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We got Warriors pick in the Dragic trade, not Suns pick.

Spurs have 3 second round picks next year, Warriors' one, Rockets' one and the best one between Spurs' and Hornet's picks.

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Originally Posted by pad300

I'll note that SA could afford the cap impact this season (ie still not pay Lux tax) for cutting Vaughn outright and signing any of those guys... Think they might? No? That suggests that those guys aren't that much better than Vaughn.

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This offseason, who the hell knows what the Spurs are thinking. They made an offer to Pargo, but were the Spurs after him because they really felt they needed another PG, or did they just think he was the best available who they had a chance at getting with the limited money they had left to offer? If they think they need another PG, then they very well could go after one of those guys and eat Vaughn's contract.

Not having signed Hill yet also remains a pretty big question mark with regards to what's going on with the PG spot.

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Originally Posted by pad300

I'll note that SA could afford the cap impact this season (ie still not pay Lux tax) for cutting Vaughn outright and signing any of those guys... Think they might? No? That suggests that those guys aren't that much better than Vaughn.

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Your statement also suggests that those guys aren't that much worse than Vaughn -- and all of them can go to GST without the Warriors having to give up anyone.

I'd agree generally with the notion that front offices should explore opportunities to make their teams better. I'll also note that it's not as if we have hard and fast proof that the Spurs front office has been doing anything other than exploring those opportunities. Furthermore, if the general proposition holds, there's little about dealing Azubuike for a journeyman point guard that will make the Warriors better. So, either you're suggesting that the Warriors should be, singularly, unconcerned with the betterment of their club and concerned only with filling specific positions with whatever bit parts they can or you'd have to admit that it makes no sense for the Warriors to deal out a player they just took some effort to re-sign in an effort to acquire a stopgap player who has virutally the same replacement value as several available alternatives and who will provide little to that club beyond filling that stopgap role for a short while.

Frankly, if the best the Spurs can offer is Vaughn plus junk, the Warriors would be best served to take the hit this season, end up in the lottery again and hope to improve themselves that way. That solution has far more upside for the Warriors than trading Azubuike for Vaughn.

Doubt they would want Vaughn. I don't mind Vaughn as a 3rd PG on this team. Don't get me wrong, if someone wanted him for a player that would help us, I'd be down with letting him go.

Vaughn isn't a fit for Nellie-ball anyways. The Warriors don't care about defense and often jack up shots before any kind of half court offense gets set up. A guy like Vaughn who's contributions are pretty much limited to defense and running the HC offense isn't going to be of much use to them.

It also makes no sense to me that the Warriors would make a deal involving Stoudamire. I can't see the Spurs offering a contract to Damon outside of an agreement to include him in a deal. But if the Warriors think that Stoudamire could be a potential solution for their PG problems, I'd think they'd take advantage of the fact that he's a FA and sign him outright instead of having the Spurs sign and trade him.

The PG's we have to offer the Warriors run and gun system consist of two old guys who can hardly run, and a rookie that probably can't gun at the pro level yet. And with a Don Nelson team he'd probably ship out a big before he lost a wing player. They'll start the year with a new look starting line up of six shooting guards.

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Originally Posted by pad300

A possible Azabuike deal would be
Vaughn, Stoudamire resigned for Vet Min (using the Non-bird exception with only say the 1st 100K guaranteed), 100K Cash (to pay of Stoudamire), 2 2009 2nd round picks (we have 3 currently, ours, Houston's [scola trade], and Sun's [Dragic Trade])
for
Azabuike

GS gets 2 veteran PG's and can make a choice between them (assuming they pick Vaughn, they can cut Stoudamire and the 100k guaranteed is payed by the Cash SA sent along). They also get 2 2nd round picks.

SA gets a decent SF/SG, hoepfully moving Finley off the depth chart.

Stoudamire resigns to get either a) a years NBA contract, if GS keeps him or b) $100K for signing a piece of paper if GS cuts him.

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sorry, but this is really a huge piece of nonsense.
first off, Azubuike has a trade restriction and can't be traded before December 15th, that's about the date when Ellis is expected to be back. so forget about the Azubuike scenario. (which even after that day doesn't work as you decribe it anyhow, base year compensation!)
as others mentioned, why should the Wrriors solve their problem with the absolute anti Nelson PG?
Stoudamire would fit better if you could turn back time for at least 3 years. but if they really look at him, they can just sign him as a FA without a trade that costs them a very usefull player.
an third: there are plenty of somehow clueless GMs out there, but they are not as clueless as some fans. Azubuike is a quite usefull player on a reasonable contract. if the want to turn him into a PG, they can do better than JV.

btw. the idea could have had an interesting point, if looking at the possibility of trading Hill's rights plus some other teasers for Bellinelli. still very unlikely, but maybe not that far off.

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Originally Posted by pad300

You sir, are a retard with limited reading comprehension:



See those words. They mean something. They do not mean "this is a can't miss opportunity for SA and we should fire Buford if it falls through".

As for Baseline and Bartelby, the warriors are trading for a veteran stopgap to keep them afloat till Ellis comes back. Their current guards are worse than vaughn (believe it). Livingston might be better, but he might also be completely F'ed...
While they might not want to trade Azabuike, Hendrix is a 2nd round pick who hasn't proved anything beyond summer league, and Bellinelli was bust last year, who has enough attitude to refuse to go to the D-league. Azabuike might be the primary target, but we are slightly overstocked IMO at PG, and we should look into using this productively...

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A comment on limited reading comprehension is probably the most ironic statement you could have made as it was partial sarcasm poking fun at the bazillion fire so and so threads and ridiculous trade threads. And the fact that everyone on ST has been criticizing the Spurs FO for not doing enough this summer when they consistently fail to produce any sort of feasible alternatives. This thread *cough* this thread.

And perhaps a trade with Golden State should be investigated, but not with Vaughn, Stoudamire, or a good majority of the Spurs roster. Like several people have already mentioned Golden State is the complete opposite of the Spurs as far as playing style and any potential trading pieces either wouldn't fit in Don Nelson's offense or is too old now.

I read your post perfectly clear and it was ridiculous enough with Vaughn as a centerpiece that throwing in Stoudamire in a sign and trade to make numbers work would just be a complete slap to the face to any reasonable fan, let alone GM. Forget the obvious lack of upside for the Warriors, how does this make the Spurs any better?

The Spurs lose their backup PG who at least knows the offense and has been playing with the core and under Pop for two full seasons. And in return they gain Azubuike who scored roughly the same amount of points as Finley did when you account for the fact that Finley played more minutes while shooting similar percentages. This isn't even taking into consideration that Azubuike was playing in one of the leagues highest scoring offenses while Finley was not. Sure Azubuike may be on his way to his prime while Finley is clearly leaving it but you're trading our backup PG for a position that we already have filled. Even with Ginobili out, we just signed Roger Mason Jr. which would make Azubuike even more pointless.

The Azubuike trade apparently wouldn't work out anyways because of the clause apparently, but seriously do you really think we'd be better team with Hill as our backup PG? We don't have Barry, who could slide over as point if needed, anymore and Ginobili is going to be out for the beginning of the season leaving us with TP and Vaughn as our only two ball handlers, possibly Mason.

Seriously, between Udoka, Mason, and Finley, is Azubuike really that much better aside from being younger to make it worth trading our backup PG?

I would say that Azub is better than Finley but it doesn't matter now because we just signed Finley so we're stuck with him. Also, I would get rid of Vaughn if we could get a much better player in return, yeah, why not? I don't see Vaughn as having that much real value to us. I would give Hill a chance before Vaughn. Hill is a solid rebounder and looks to be just as good if not better defender. On offense, they both have difficulties, at least at this point. Also, if Hill can't get through some hurdles in the beginning of the season, then we're going to be stuck with Vaughn for the whole season and I don't see that ending well. I think everyone agrees that for us to have a good year Hill (or one of the other rookies) needs to play well at some point. If he doesn't get a chance early, then he isn't going to get one late.

However, I completely agree that the notion of this trade scenario is ludicrous, and not even Mullins would fall for it. Maybe if Bonner was invovled Mullins could get his Troy Murphy fix, but even that is stretching it at this point.

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Originally Posted by Bartleby

Have to go with baseline bum on this one. Vaughn has very little trade value, especially to a team that is all about offense.

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I would go as far as to say he has negative trade value.

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Originally Posted by pad300

I'll note that SA could afford the cap impact this season (ie still not pay Lux tax) for cutting Vaughn outright and signing any of those guys... Think they might? No? That suggests that those guys aren't that much better than Vaughn.



Maybe we can't get Azabuike... but there are other players potentially of interest on the Warriors roster.
Question, how do we have the Warriors 2nd round pick? I though we only had ours, Houston's (from the Scola trade), and the Suns (from the Dragic trade).

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We also have N.O pick for next year. We got the GS pick from PHX in the Dragic trade.

Very doubtful Nellie would take him. Not his type of pg, but you never know. Dont know who they would be willing to give up for him, more likely they will use Jax to help bing up the ball at times, since he does it anyway.

Would be nice if we could get whats his name Bellineli?? I think their FO is still real high on him but his play last year could have soured them a bit.

I'm not saying Vaughn is great but I just don't see the logic in betting everything on a late 1st round pick for the backup PG spot, especially when the season hasn't started yet. If he does work out then great, I hope he gets a good chance to prove himself and doesn't get screwed but at the same time if he doesn't work out and we traded Vaughn then what? Our team wasn't so bad last year that we need to take huge risks like that. We went to the WCF last year and won the Championship the year before with Vaughn, its not like the Spurs are in complete rebuild mode. Finally, just because you can technically trade up, if its a position you don't need then theres not as much point. Azubuike probably wouldn't get a ton of PT once Ginobili gets healthy and would probably affect Mason in the rotation hurting the team long term. Either way you look at it, its one step forward and one step back.

I agree that we need to get better at the backup PG position but I really don't think that betting everything on a rookie PG and overloading with SG's is a good solution. Especially when that SG is still for the most part unproven as a solid contributor. Finley might be old but you at least know what you're getting with him. Azubuike is still too much of an unknown. He put up some good numbers for the Warriors last year but that was playing Nellie ball and is still really untested. You can't really compare him to Finley that well because the systems they played in were so different. The potential for possible roster improvement really just doesn't outweigh the risk.

The biggest thing is that the season IS STILL MONTHS AWAY and theres no point in tying up our hands when we still have plenty of time until the playoffs.

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Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown

Your statement also suggests that those guys aren't that much worse than Vaughn -- and all of them can go to GST without the Warriors having to give up anyone.

I'd agree generally with the notion that front offices should explore opportunities to make their teams better. I'll also note that it's not as if we have hard and fast proof that the Spurs front office has been doing anything other than exploring those opportunities. Furthermore, if the general proposition holds, there's little about dealing Azubuike for a journeyman point guard that will make the Warriors better. So, either you're suggesting that the Warriors should be, singularly, unconcerned with the betterment of their club and concerned only with filling specific positions with whatever bit parts they can or you'd have to admit that it makes no sense for the Warriors to deal out a player they just took some effort to re-sign in an effort to acquire a stopgap player who has virutally the same replacement value as several available alternatives and who will provide little to that club beyond filling that stopgap role for a short while.

Frankly, if the best the Spurs can offer is Vaughn plus junk, the Warriors would be best served to take the hit this season, end up in the lottery again and hope to improve themselves that way. That solution has far more upside for the Warriors than trading Azubuike for Vaughn.

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Well said... you sound like a lawyer.

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Originally Posted by pad300

You sir, are a retard with limited reading comprehension:

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:lol

Imagine if we got Ellis. We'd be bitching about him and Manu being injured. Meltdowns galore.

would love to but i dont think we have the power to take advantage of them.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

Why trade for Vaughn when they could just go grab someone better via the free agent route? Someone like Juan Dixon, Sam Cassell or Fred Jones.

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100% agreed. Not only that, if we're gonna trade a point, we best get a point or big in return. We dont need another 2 or 3 imo. We could really use a 1,4 or 5. Just incase Ian and Hill flop like I think they will. :wow