I know some people don't like new threads, but I hope this post is interesting enough to deserve slightly more discussion than being buried in the other threads. First I would like to clarify that I would still like to have Josh Smith as the first option. If we can trade Asik for Smith straight up and sign him for $12M/year, I think we should do it. However, with Atlanta signing Millsap, Smith seemingly looking for a higher pay, that ship may have sailed. Ryan Anderson may be the next target, but salary-wise there's no way to land Anderson without losing Asik or Lin (practically likely Asik). Therefore I would like to suggest a good plan B -- bring back Patrick Patterson! It may not sound sexy, but let me elaborate: 1. We have a big hole at the PF spot to be filled, and PPat is a solid NBA starter, a good fit with Omer Asik and an even better fit with Dwight Howard. As far as a stretch four goes, you can't find many better than him. He has an elite mid-range jumper and is a respectable 3-point threat. He has decent post defense, but rebounding is his weakness. We can think of him as a poor-man version of Ryan Anderson: slightly worse shooting but sufficient to kill you if left open, equal or slightly better in defense and athleticism, but notably worse in rebounding. However we will have a top 5 rebounder on the floor with him at all time. 2. The critical reason -- We can trade for Ppat while keeping both Lin and Asik. T.Jone+T.Ohlbretcht should get the deal done, both salary-wise and value-wise. T.Jone may have better chance to be a star, but it takes time. Honestly I wouldn't say he has more than 50% chance to be better than Ppat. We are in WIN-NOW mode, plus we already have another project in D-Mo for upside. Retaining Asik is huge. It both adds tremendous bench depth to win now and allows for future trades if another star becomes available. 3. Wait, if Ppat is good, why did we trade him away in the first place? We didn't have Dwight, and we were still taking risks to find the second star in young talents such as TRob. We were not going to pay Ppat after his rookie contract since we would need cap flexibility for landing a second star via FA. Now everything has changed. Cap room is out of picture for the foreseeable future, and bird right for a MLE level of player becomes extremely valuable. We would love to have a MLE player adding to our payroll but we don't have MLE to use. The only way to land a MLE+ level of player without giving away similar salary (which means trading Lin or Asik) is to trade for one who is still at rookie scale salary, who is Ppat. 4. Ppat is not only a decent player but only 24. He may not have star potential anymore, but will still likely improve. We will keep him long term. We will pay him if Les keeps his promise. Next summer when he is due for a pay raise, we would likely be able to retain him for the low side of his market value (I guess $5M/year) due to his RFA status and our contender status. We could even do a contract extension right away this summer. 5. Trading for Ppat would be an emotional moment for everyone. He was pissed being traded to Sactown. After a big apology from Morey, he should understand the business and be thrilled to be able to come back to the franchise that drafted and developed him, and enjoy and contribute to the championship run and success of the team. It also allows us to keep most of the important players already on this team that our fans already have an emotional tie to. It helps a lot to Morey's intangibles. People will see him not only as a trading powerhouse that runs numbers, but also a nice human being. What do you guys think?
Dwight will clean up the glass and take care of the paint. Last season was not the real Dwight. Patterson is an ideal fit interms of being able to feed of Dwight and stretching the defense.
If they were that good, they would get consistent minutes from Ppat last season. But they couldn't even get consistent minutes after the Ppat trade. Look, I was a proponent of the Ppat trade. I did like to see DMo and TJones getting playing time. But everything has changed now. DMo and TJones may get better, but may also not. It most likely takes time, but we want to compete now! It's not the time to gamble. You take immediate production over unrealized talent at this point. Some 8-ish years ago, when we had Yao and TMac, they wasted a valuable MLE on the talent of Swift instead of veteran help. Eventually the star-duo's help came too little, too late. In the same spirit, don't do that again.
Some nice ideas there. Its always nice to have all views in a situation. I hope this board remains open to all ideas and doesn't immediately hate on new ideas. Obviously, PPat isn't the best for a 4! But with the current market, you raise some interesting points. Regardless....DMorey we trust.
I would welcome back PPat under 2 conditions: 1.) He learns to rebound consistently for his position 2.) He provides more of a presence on both ends of the court, being more aggressive overall. These two points in my eyes were his main weaknesses. He has a pretty decent mid range jumpshot (we don't 100% need a 4man with 3 point range although it would be nice) and he's athletic enough to be effective. If he was more confident/assertive on offense I'm sure he would have a bigger impact. On the defensive end, rebound and play big. I know he's not a big 4, but with his strength and athleticism he should play bigger than he does. I liked PPat, he was down to earth and seemed a good fit for us going forward, I was a bigger fan of him than T-Rob.
Sorry, no. I visit this site frequently enough to know this Carl ID, and now can recall that that he is a Ppat supporter. But I don't know much about him. This was entirely my thoughts.
yeah let dwight rebound for 2 positions, great idea why not get a pf who completely sucks so he can be the starting c and pf? imagine those fantasy stats. he's an athletic freak at the end of his good legs, so why not give him an increased workload then he'd have anywhere else?
