CoolBreeze44 wrote:I just don't see this crazy free agency as a good way to build a club. We just need to develop our stars, do our best to keep the good role players we have (Gorgui, Bazz), and make the smart trade when the opportunity presents itself. Kind of like the Green Bay Packer method for building a contender. If you draft well, and don't overpay for aging, past their prime vets (Deng, Noah), you will always have someone to take the place of a player you lose.
It might not be a good way to build a club, but it could be a volatile environment in which the right decision could pay off very well and the wrong could really hurt you. It's a risky time.
Possible Pitfalls of signing a FA:
If we sign a guy to a longer, bigger deal, we know it will start to make it impossible to extend all our current guys unless we are able to trade that guy. So if we sign a guy to what turns out to be a bad deal, and we can't trade him away later, then we could have to lose one of our core guys if they all develop and we'd be stuck with a bad contract. It's the same danger as always, but it just seems scarier now because it seems like teams are throwing around more money than they should be, even if you consider the rising cap. So the risk
Possible Benefits of signing a FA:
We've got a ton of cap space so we can acquire somebody without having to give up talent right now. We were just debating how much we'd be willing to trade away for Butler, but with all this cap space we can go out and get another really good guy without giving up any other players. And if we sign a guy to what turns out to be a decent deal, then that could help us in two ways.
First, if our core guys all pan out and we need to extend them, we could trade the guy we acquire this offseason for a future asset when we need the cap space to extend our core guys. For example, if we got Mahinmi this offseason and he plays well, but Dieng plays well next year too, we could trade Mahinmi next summer for a future asset or young player on a rookie contract and we'd be in a better place than if we stood pat because we'll have turned that temporary cap space into a future asset.
Alternately, if the guy we sign turns out to be very good for us, more than an existing player, then we can trade the existing player for a guy on a rookie contract or a future pick because we've already got somebody better. For example, if we get Horford, Dieng immediately becomes expendable. I see this as less likely now that many of the better players are off the table, but it's still possible.
Possible Pitfall of doing Nothing:
Miss out on a chance to turn current cap space into a future asset and still be able to extend guys in the future (assuming the free agent we sign would pan out enough to have a tradeable contract or make another player expendable). If Wiggins or LaVine flatline, we will have missed out on one big chance to add a free agent at max money, an opportunity which doesn't come around very often.
Possible Benefit of doing Nothing:
Could get a better FA next year, though they're going to be super expensive. Avoid the danger of locking ourselves into a bad contract if the guy doesn't work out.