Harvey: Think They Could Use Him? Scola Trade Becomes A Facial

[Marcus Bryant]

Of course, the cost to the Spurs for sitting on Scola's rights when they couldn't find a taker save for a team in their own division would have been something like Butler's salary X 2 (~$7 mil total) plus the foregone luxury tax distributions.

It was painfully amusing how quickly Scola signed with a NBA team after the Spurs had emphatically made it out to be so difficult.

[Marcus Bryant]

Even so, the question then seems to be was Scola worth $20 mil over 3 years instead of $10 mil over 3? We were assured by the usual front office polesmokers in here that the FO knew what they were doing and that we should worship their financial statements.

Not to mention that the Spurs gave up a 1st round pick for a big (after Elson proved to be worthless and Oberto started to run in mud) and signed him to a 2 year, $10 mil contract in the 2008 offseason.

If RC couldn't figure out that Scola could play in this league maybe SI or whoever should write a retraction.

[whottt]

1) I could under-rate Scola and he would still bring fluidity back to the Spurs' offense. Why you ask? Because he knows how to find the seams, he creates loose balls, he hustles in smart fashion, and he has great basketball instincts. Who wouldn't want that in a draft choice they already owned the rights to?

Doesn't seem to do Oberto much good...probably because of his lack of speed, and since Scola makes Bonner look fast...

2) Yes, I do think he was signable. The fact that he signed at an affordable price lends one to think in that direction.

He didn't sign with the Spurs at an affordable price.

4) I don't think the Spurs would use Luis the same as Houston does. Scola is excellent off the bench and late in games.

He's not that great off the bench. He's also not that excellent late in games. In fact that's probably the biggest flaw with him. Yeah he had a good game late against us...but that's just one game.

[whottt]

#1 - whottt underrates all non-caucasians, except for David Robinson and Romain Sato.

Marcus Bryant is either:

A. Bringing up an irrelevant point.
B. Unaware of what a caucasian is.
Or
C. Aware of what a caucasian is yet unaware that Luis Scola is one...making this entire point moot, not to mention a bit ironic.

#2 - I think the question was when was he signable prior to 2007? The Spurs put out a ton of misinformation about his availability. Which was compounded by the amount of bluster coming from Scola's side, including the fact that at one point he had two separate representatives. As it stood, the true cost to the Spurs for signing Scola to the kind of deal the Rockets did was not $2.7 mil in the 2007-08 season, but would have been something like $13 mil when you factor in the cost of Butler's salary plus the luxury tax that would have been due, as well as the luxury tax distributions foregone. Obviously it was a horrible basketball trade, but there's no doubt why Holt Cat pulled the trigger.

That, and they already had a better defending version of Scola in Oberto.

[whottt]

#3. Next.

#3 - rofl.

Uh...no ya'll don't. Scola had 3 average to poor games against us with Bonner starting and being his primary defender. Not to mention Bonner putting him in his personal highlight film with a steal and dunk. He's(Bonner) also lead he league in 3 shooting mos of this season, his primary reason for being on the court. This most recent game that sutuation was changed, Bonner didn't start, and Scola went off...

Don't put that on Bonner, put that on Kurt Thomas, and Pop for starting him, the one player in the NBA slower than Scola is.

[ShoogarBear]

Barry turning into a Scola Homer might be the funniest twist in the World of Whottt.

[Obstructed_View]

Yeah, it's sad that Scola's not here now, but who thought that Splitter wasn't going to be a Spur this year before the trade? If he hadn't stayed in Europe, would we care how good Scola was other than to say his weaknesses weren't really as glaring as we'd thought?

[GSH]

...but then, just three weeks after the Spurs signed him, Scola came down awkwardly and suffered an ACL tear, and has never really gotten back to the level of play he showed in Europe. Unable to play Scola, or to unload Jackie Butler's contract, the Spurs have suffered through their worst personnel drought in the last decade, leaving fans to think about "what might have been".

You don't know what would have happened. The Spurs have done pretty damned well, I'd say. They went to the WCF last season, and have the second best record in the West this season. Give it a ing rest.