Minnesota Sports Forum

repplile wrote:In return for KG we got:

Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, a late 2009 first round draft pick and a return of Minnesota's conditional first round draft pick. This was considered to be a big haul in exchange for one of the best players in the game.

A lot of that was salary filler because KG had a huge contract. But the real assets were Jefferson (a quality starter with potential), Ratliff (a large expiring), Green (a promising young player) and two late draft picks.

Westbrook is no KG. Pekovic is a better player than Jefferson had proven to be at that stage, though his potential is more limited. Martin is another quality player who clearly has value to a playoff team, even if as a 6th man. A pick swap would net them the 13th pick in a loaded draft. And if they wanted Barea instead of one of the wings they'd get an expiring contract that has the potential to actually contribute off the bench for them. I don't see them getting much more than that given Westbrook's injury history and the questions surrounding his bball IQ.

There's no way I add many more assets, particularly Rubio or Dieng because Houston is showing how having two superstars, even ones that are complementary on paper will not necessarily get you far in the playoffs. If we traded away either of those two assets we'd have little room for improvement in the future beyond the MLE and I'm not sure even with two superstars MN would be as attractive as a lot of other established contenders.

alexftbl8181 wrote:why did we need to trade KG?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

A Friendly Flatulence wrote:Would Love and Westbrook clash over who gets the last shot? Westbrook is a legit superstar but, I'm not sure if we can give OKC enough in return without gutting our roster to Love, Westbrook, & spare parts. Its interesting to dream about though..

The idea that a unit can't work because two people might fight over the last shot seems somewhat trivial given the fact we only won 40 games last season. I think Love would be perfectly happy playing pick and roll with Westbrook in end-of-game situations and whoever gets the best look takes the shot.

As for Rubio and Westbrook, they could potentially be a nightmare (in a good way) defensively against opposing backcourts. Offensively, they wouldn't overlap a ton because you would never have them both sit at the same time; one or the other would always be on the floor quarterbacking the offense.

Isn't the Rubio/Westbrook situation largely moot?

Would OKC consider any trade without Rubio attached?

repplile wrote:In return for KG we got:

Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, a late 2009 first round draft pick and a return of Minnesota's conditional first round draft pick. This was considered to be a big haul in exchange for one of the best players in the game.

A lot of that was salary filler because KG had a huge contract. But the real assets were Jefferson (a quality starter with potential), Ratliff (a large expiring), Green (a promising young player) and two late draft picks.

Westbrook is no KG. Pekovic is a better player than Jefferson had proven to be at that stage, though his potential is more limited. Martin is another quality player who clearly has value to a playoff team, even if as a 6th man. A pick swap would net them the 13th pick in a loaded draft. And if they wanted Barea instead of one of the wings they'd get an expiring contract that has the potential to actually contribute off the bench for them. I don't see them getting much more than that given Westbrook's injury history and the questions surrounding his bball IQ.

There's no way I add many more assets, particularly Rubio or Dieng because Houston is showing how having two superstars, even ones that are complementary on paper will not necessarily get you far in the playoffs. If we traded away either of those two assets we'd have little room for improvement in the future beyond the MLE and I'm not sure even with two superstars MN would be as attractive as a lot of other established contenders.

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

A Friendly Flatulence wrote:Would Love and Westbrook clash over who gets the last shot? Westbrook is a legit superstar but, I'm not sure if we can give OKC enough in return without gutting our roster to Love, Westbrook, & spare parts. Its interesting to dream about though..

The idea that a unit can't work because two people might fight over the last shot seems somewhat trivial given the fact we only won 40 games last season. I think Love would be perfectly happy playing pick and roll with Westbrook in end-of-game situations and whoever gets the best look takes the shot.

As for Rubio and Westbrook, they could potentially be a nightmare (in a good way) defensively against opposing backcourts. Offensively, they wouldn't overlap a ton because you would never have them both sit at the same time; one or the other would always be on the floor quarterbacking the offense.

Isn't the Rubio/Westbrook situation largely moot?

Would OKC consider any trade without Rubio attached?

Don't know. We're dealing with the hypothetical. I actually think OKC could just go sign a guy like Chalmers and have him and Reggie Jackson split the PG duties. Chalmers knows how to work with an alpha dog scorer and can space the floor in a way that Westbrook never could.

repplile wrote:KMS:

1. I don't think it's fair to say we needed to trade KG anymore than the Thunder need to trade Westbrook. Both would be a function of a decision by the management of the respective teams that there is a better way to go. Further if you do a news search for Westbrook on google or bing the stories you get are asking whether he is to blame and wondering what he would be traded for. It's not like there's not pressure there to trade him, especially if the Thunder flame out in the playoffs for the umpteenth time.

2. The trade seems unbalanced in retrospect but at the time it was considered pretty good value. Admittedly Jefferson was thought to have a lot higher ceiling that he did as were Telfair and Green. The point is you're not getting superstar players back in exchange for a superstar.

3. I agree that the Thunder don't want the same type of assets which is why our proposal is not based around cap space and picks. They get a borderline allstar starter and a guy who was a proven quality 6th man on their own team a year ago. It's not the draft pick/prospect platter we got by any stretch.

repplile wrote:Abe:

1. I can see the argument on Kevin Martin but his contract is not as awful as its made out to be and for a contending team getting a proven efficient scorer to lead the bench is not the worst thing in the world. It's a three year deal at this point which means if things don't work with the new Thunder lineup it's going to be an expiring contract by the time they determined that.

2. Jefferson was still on a rookie deal when traded but he signed a hefty extension before he even played a regular season game for us. Admittedly Pek plays about 60 games every year and is on a large contract but what he gives you is better than what Jefferson did at the time, especially on team that is already contending and needs off ball low-post scoring. Pek also has a history of minor nagging injuries but has not had a catastrophic one. He's good for about 60 games per year pretty much every year and could likely play more than that if he was ever playing for anything meaningful like the post-season.

3. Westbrook has had three knee surgeries in the past year. That's a big red flag. I understand he's been resilient and has come back relatively quickly each time but in a PG whose game is predicated on quickness and athleticism knees are a big deal. If I'm a team trading for him I can't bank on him being healthy given all his recent problems imo.