Have you not seen Jan Vesely, he screams spurs potential. Forget the numbers we can develop him.
What point are you trying to make? Green is way way underpaid. You've selected a season after signing his contract extension, the year prior would be a more accurate depiction of what he was paid. I just don't get what you're trying to prove? You trying to say Afflalo is a bad player? Because, he's quite good. As good as Green? Who really cares. Theres not much between them. My trade idea had us keeping Green and adding Afflalo, it's not one or the other. Read the posts.
Afflalo is just a more complete player than Green. Period. End of debate
Afflalo earned his contract being a top defender in the league...Green earned his contract choking in the WCF..just stop trying to compare the two...y'all are looking like idiots
My point is that Afflalo will be redundant as we already have a Afflalo-or-slightly-better-than-Afflalo at the SG position.
We need a backup SF who will exclusively guard SFs and possibly even play as a small ball PF in a pinch (as a bonus).
Afflalo doesn't fit that criteria at all.
And I made the Green-Afflalo comparison because you made the argument that there was no one in the league who matched Afflalo's contributions and was paid a non-rookie salary. That argument is wrong for the Spurs already have one in Green.
Maybe. Maybe not. There's only so many 6'-7" to 6'-9" backup power forwards a team needs on it's roster, and if the Wizards add Blair while keeping Seraphin and Booker they'd have 3 of them backing up Nene.
In fact Washington's existing glut of mediocre backup bigs is another reason why they're not going to want to give up Ariza just to take on two more of them in Blair & Bonner.
While Blair is certainly an upgrade for them, it doesn't make much sense from their standpoint to take him on in a deal that doesn't ship one of their existing bigs out. Booker and a 2nd round pick or two is probably the type of deal the Spurs are being offered.
1) He's not early prime. For a player who, to date, has relied heavily on athleticism, he's near the end of it.
2) The one thing Spurs fans have never gotten with Bonner - it's not always about him getting & making open looks. His mere presence on the floor forces the opponent to stretch out their D outside of the paint. Since Nene can't hit jumpers anymore, they don't have a big on their roster than defenses have to respect outside of the lane. Driving lanes for Wall have been tough to come by.
3) "The Spurs have attempted to trade Bonner before but to no avail." Not often, and they've never shown a willingness to just give him away. Just because the pieces didn't work doesn't mean that's not a movable deal.
4) For all the talk of Blair being a ticking time bomb, he's 24 and hasn't suffered a major injury in over 7 years. He's got a career PER of 17 & has adapted aspects of his game (i.e. floater) to play against bigger opponents. And his game may play better in East with the plethora of small ball teams in that conference. I don't agree with the Wizards, but there are reasons for them to like him as a bench guy in a low risk/bigger reward type move.
5) How movable is Ariza? He's paid beyond his production. His best value is as a role guy to a contender, but how many contenders have a need, the roster space, and the cap room to nab him? His expiring contract only has value to teams that are looking to shed longer term salary, which I'm guessing the Wizards don't want to take on.
That's not to say Washington would do it, but they might. Move a big salary that they have no use for, gain a stretch 4 with no long term commitment + sign an energy 4 to a low risk deal.
They've only got 3 legit bigs under contract for next year. You could say 5 if you count Vesely & Singleton as bigs. But you would be just as, if not more, apt to say they've got a glut of wings with 6 if you look at those guys as SFs.
And among all 4 & 5s, they're only committed to Nene beyond next season.
I got my info from hoopsworld they said they had an MLE. I didnt realize they used it. Ariza isn't that great of an asset. Okafor is better asset. He has a massive expiring deal and in a bad season still managed almost 10pts and 9 rpgs in just 26 mpg. Ariza happens to be closer to our price range.
Great posting
He vaildated his contract 10 fold in this past postseason. Afflalo is one of the best defenders in the league. Anyone have him inside there top 15?
Right? I've been saying that. I like the guy he can be a perfect fit off the bench.
Sure, Nene's the only guy they're committed to, but they've got team options on Vessley & Singleton and Booker & Seraphine will be RFA's. It's entirely within their ability to retain as many of those guys as they choose. There's no reason there for them to waste Ariza just to add Blair & Bonner to that mix.
It's within their ability to retain them, but also let them go if they prefer Blair/Bonner.
Personally, outside of Seraphin, if I had to actually play 2 of those guys in my rotation*, I'd rather have Blair/Bonner. Luckily, the Spurs have the luxury of TD, Tiago, & Diaw entrenched in the frontcourt rotation, Pendergraph as a very intriguing 4th option, and and have their own developmental bruiser. They can afford to part with those guys if it upgrades roster elsewhere.
* As opposed to keeping them on the roster for future developmental purposes
I think its pretty easy: Wiz want to give us Vesely or Singleton (but not Seraphin) for Blair but Spurs don't like them. Maybe they talked about Ariza for Blair+Bonner/Neal but Wiz don't want Bonner/Neal. End of story.
I'd do blair and bonner for singleton and price.
Price gives us someone to push cojo. And we are just looking for a backup for leonard.
Disagree about Okafor being the better trade asset. Ariza's got a high enough salary where you can package him with a couple of younger players and take on a huge salary while letting the other team reduce their payroll in the process. Not as easy to do with Okafor. Also, Ariza would be a lot more affordable if the acquiring team wanted to try to get something more out of the player than just being an expiring contract.
But who is looking to salary dump a longer team deal for a QUALITY player that the WIZARDS WOULD WANT?
Rondo's about all I could think of now, and that's at a spot Washington is already set. They can probably get more at trade deadline when 10-12 are clearly out of it, but that means they have to roll with what they have until then - and the Wizards have playoff aspirations for 13-14.
I'm not arguing that Washington couldn't use Blair and even Bonner. From Washington's point of view it's just not worth giving up Ariza for. Like I said a couple of pages back, Washington's got bigger trade ideas in mind to use Ariza in than a Blair/Bonner combo. There's some pretty big name players who might get moved this year, and Ariza is the perfect piece to use in trying to go after them.
If the Wizards have playoff aspirations for this year then that's all the more reason not to waste Ariza on Blair & Bonner.
As for who's looking to salary dump a quality player, Eric Gordon is a good place to start. Tyreke Evans has made is reluctance to play SF well known.
Chicago is in a tough spot about what to do with Luol Deng, they're over the tax, have a boatload of money tied up in Rose, Noah, Boozer & Gibson, plus they've already got a Deng replacement in Butler who they're going to have to give an extension to next year.
How long until the knicks decide they've had enough of Amare?
Maybe Andre Miller would make a good mentor for John Wall?
There's plenty of opportunities out there for Washington to potentially make Ariza a part of.
So it would take a pick plus Blair/ bonner.
All of those proposals involve investing significant money into Spots where the Wizards already have young talent and/or just taking on TERRIBLE long term deals.
Now, that said, if you assume Washington's strategy is to get THE BEST POSSIBLE PLAYER for Ariza, then you're right - we're done here.
However, if you set their strategy to upgrading their roster while giving their young talent PT to develop all while maintaining salary flexibility going forward - then we might have a match. This latter strategy may not be the most probably scenario - but it's certainly quite plausible.
If we can land Ariza I say the offseason has been complete and we would be the deepest team in the NBA.
He's not a 15ppg scorer in a system where he's not allowed to chuck. He certainly wouldn't get that many points as Leonard's back up (who'd only play 20 minutes if Kawhi spends a lot of time at power-forward). He literally has the same career per-minute scoring numbers as Green. He has worse rebounding numbers and slightly better assist numbers. All of his defensive numbers are worse. His PER and WS/48 have been abysmal. Best player on his team or not, his stats do not indicate that he's a good as you think he is.
Afflalo is too old to talk about his potential now. This is his seventh season in the league and his fifth seeing consistently big minutes. He's not going to get much better. He could get back to his old days of shooting but that wouldn't be worth his contract. The fact that you think it's fine to pay him almost $8 Million a year for the next three years to get 20 minutes behind Leonard is mind-boggling. By the way, Leonard is 6-6 without shoes, while Afflalo is 6-5 with shoes. So their true height difference is at least two inches and in their standing reach is five inches (6-9 wingspan for Afflalo compared to a 7-3 Leonard). Even Green is taller and longer than Afflalo. He has had a bad defensive rating every year but his rookie season. I guess he may be decent at on-ball defense, he's not good at team defense, and he certainly doesn't make a lot of impact defensive plays.
I don't mean to say that Afflalo is a terrible player. He's not that bad, and he probably would be an asset on the team. But he makes no sense for the Spurs, as he'd be the fourth wing at best and makes way too much money to play there. I was going to say that I wouldn't mind taking him on as part of some big trade where the Spurs got rid of Green and added Afflalo and some other pieces, I actually don't think so. Afflalo is too old to grow with Leonard. I would not feel good about him being one of the three contracts (four when Parker gets extended next off-season) that are on the books for the post-Big Three era. You could sell me on some young players to try to make a trade for, but not for him. He's not a good fit for the present or future.
It's not wasting Ariza for Bonner & Blair. Bonner is also expiring. They're losing 7 million expiring but getting 4 million expiring. That 3 million can be filler by another guy in a trade.
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