Friday, July 23, 2010
The Chris Paul Pitch the Grizzlies Should Make
Posted by Chris Herrington on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 11:55 AM
The biggest NBA news of the week is the report that New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul is seeking a trade.
- Chris Paul: Unlikely to ever be in a Griz uniform, but we can daydream about it.
However, with those admissions of reality in place, there are plenty of reasons why the Grizzlies could be a good destination for Paul and a good trade partner for the Hornets. And while the chances of something like this happening are probably close to zero, allow me the brief indulgence of laying out the pitch I'd like to see the Grizzlies make.
The General Pitch to Paul: We can pair you with two great young pieces — Rudy Gay (23) and Marc Gasol (25). Gay is an emerging star and one of your closest friends in the league. He'll be the most dynamic wing scorer you've ever played with and also a player who will become much better playing alongside a point guard of your caliber. Paul-to-Gay will become one of the most exciting and effective open-court pairings in the league. Gasol, who just finished second in the Most Improved Player race, is a proven winner and emerging all-star-caliber true center who will be the best two-way big man you've ever played with. We believe that, with the right mix of role players — shooters, rebounders, defenders — a team built around this trio can be a legitimate contender, and one that will allow you to still be the unquestioned team leader. We will commit to putting a winning team in place around you, Gay, and Gasol, including paying luxury tax if needed. And we will give you a three-year max extension under the current CBA, with a player option in the second year, giving you the flexibility of opting out if you don't like the direction the team is heading after three seasons.
The General Pitch to the Hornets: To trade a player the magnitude of Paul you need two things: A young player (or two) in return with all-star-level ability and massive future savings. We are uniquely positioned to give you this because we can build a deal around two key assets — the $17.3 million expiring contract of Zach Randolph and guard O.J. Mayo.
The Deal: The Grizzlies could easily do a simpler deal directly with the Hornets, but I like this three-way trade proposal best:
To Hornets: Zach Randolph, O.J. Mayo, Hasheem Thabeet, Darrell Arthur, Brandon Rush.
To Grizzlies: Chris Paul, Emeka Okafor, James Posey, Tyler Hansbrough, A.J. Price
To Pacers: Mike Conley, Hornets second-round pick
Obviously, other picks and cash considerations could be added to the mix if needed.
Why the Pacers: If the Grizzlies are trading for Paul, then Conley has to go, but the Hornets would presumably be turning their team over to Darren Collison. Thus, Conley needs to head somewhere else, and a three-way allows some of Conley's value to be shifted to the Hornets. The Pacers need a point guard badly and Conley is an Indianapolis native. They
The Hornets Rationale: This deal allows them to shed their two worst contracts in Posey and Okafor, totaling more than $65 million going forward. They add the #2 (Thabeet) and #3 (Mayo) picks from the past two drafts along with a couple of potentially useful young role players (Arthur, Rush). They retain David West, giving them another terrific trade chip to further remake their roster.
The Grizzlies Rationale: A team built around Paul, Gay, and Gasol has a chance to contend. With Paul and Gay on the perimeter, the team just needs role players at the two, and may already have them with a defender (Tony Allen), a shooter (Xavier Henry), and a slasher (Sam Young). Okafor isn't a great fit with Gasol, but Gasol is a good enough mid-range shooter and high-post passer for it to work and the pairing should be good defensively and very good on the boards. With Paul, Gay, and Okafor already on big contracts and Gasol due for an extension next summer, a massive payroll is inevitable, but if you won't do that for a chance to land Paul, then why are you in this business?
Comments (22)
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"With Paul, Gay, and Okafor already on big contracts and Gasol due for an extension next summer, a massive payroll is inevitable, but if you won't do that for a chance to land Paul, then why are you in this business?"
For some reason, I don't think Mike Heisley agrees with you....
But for me, where do I sign? I think it would be easier to convince Chris Paul to come here than to convince the Hornets to trade him here. But then again, what more can they get in a trade than this?
Plus we can resign ZBo next offseason if he wants to come back or if we're willing to bring him back I should say.
To semaj64:
Beggars can't be choosers. If you want a top 3 PG in the nba, a superstar at that, you have to be willing to let go of multiple allstars/borderline allstars.
What about partnering with the Blazers that sends Conley to the Blazers for Rudy Fernandez and Luke Babbit. Fernandez could be your starting 2 and Babbit is a more versital player then Hansboro who could play the 3 or the 4
I think it is a great idea......which means Heisley will hate it! Heisley is about winning if winning comes at the price he is willing to pay and no other way. If you want to make more money you have to increase the fan base. You do that by increasing the quality of the product on the floor not lowering it.
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?…
Replace Batum with Babbit once it get's past aug 6th
There is absolutely no way the Blazers would give up all that (even Babbitt instead of Batum) for Conley.
I'd hate to see Mayo go, but I do like the idea of having guys who can guard their positions effectively. Also, it'd be great to have Posey back as a veteran back-up at the three spot.
I like it. Where do we sign?
I'm not sure why the Pacers would give up 2 of their recent first round picks for Mike Conley. I don't think he holds that much value. Sadly.
Cavis:
Well, I don't think Rush and Hansbrough have that much value. Rush looks like a career reserve and is totally expendable there with Granger, Dunleavy, and Dahntay Jones under contract and the team having just drafted Paul George and Lance Stephenson. And Hansbrough had a pretty sketchy rookie season and was clearly over-drafted. He also looks like a career back-up too. They would be trading two projected reserves for one projected starter, essentially.
Like it except for Hansbrough. But getting rid of thabust and arthur would make this all worthwhile.
Chris,
Do you have any sense that this is on the Griz radar at all? Are they making any effort to inquire about Paul or reach out to him?
If not, is it because the view the move as too impossible to contemplate (the lack of vision theory), because they don't want to take on payroll (the cheap theory), or because they believe that building around Gasol, Gay, and Paul would not be an improvement over the current roster (the stupid theory).
Playing with my kids at Chuck E. Cheese this weekend, I found a use for Hasheem. I'd love to get him to play the game where you try to score as many buckets as possible. Not that his aim is great (and not that he likes to dunk, for that matter), but with his length he could dunk every time. The special 400-ticket reward shelf would be open for business in no time.
I think we need to come up with some other uses for Hasheem.
Craig:
Well, the Grizzlies have talked to the Hornets about Paul. Heisley admitted that publicly a while back, but I don't know i they've gone back to them recently. Heisley said O.J. Mayo was not part of the discussion. If that's true — and I'm not sure I believe that — then it wasn't much of a conversation.
I think the main reason something like this wouldn't happen is that it's hard to trade for a player of Paul's caliber if he's resistant to the deal, especially with his free agency only two years away.
But, yes, I also question whether Heisley has the vision the pursue a move that bold.
I agree that it is very difficult to make a player like Paul want to come to Memphis, and I would not fault Heisley or Wallace for failing to land him.
However, I would like to see the Griz at least try to aggressively pursue him. If the ownership and management begin to accept the fact that high caliber players don't want to come here, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The first step to changing the team's image around the league is to start acting like a team that wants to contend for a championship and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
Chris, I usually agree with your logic, but on this one, I need to provide the opposing opinion.
Without question, Chris Paul would be an upgrade in talent. And in earlier years, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger on the proposal you made.
But perhaps the greatest enemy of this franchise has been a lack of continuity at every level of the organization, particularly on the court. I still think it's a little too early to blow up this team and head in a different direction, which is what we'd have to do to build around Paul.
Given the promise that this group showed last year, and the fact that all our guys have significant room for growth as players and as a team . . . eh, I think that sooner or later, everyone would regret giving up OJ and Zach . . . especially, if we're competing for a playoff spot with the Hornets, and Zach goes bonkers in the post, while OJ lights it up from outside.
And as great as Chris Paul is, I would HATE HATE HATE to give up Zach for him.
The Grizzlies right now have something they haven't had since at least the Hubie era, maybe longer: stability and a roster where guys don't need nametags coming into camp. All the more successful franchises in the league have had a core group of guys together for 4-5 years: San Antonio, Lakers, Detroit, Dallas.
Let's call off blowing up the team until at least next summer.
L3E -- If you could get a player like Paul (Top 10 player in the league, 25 years old) and still put good pieces around him (in this scenario: Gay, Gasol, Okafor, Allen, Henry, etc), you have to do that. Those kinds of players are really, really hard to come by, as the Grizzlies history suggests.
This won't happen, of course, but my point was only to show that the Grizzlies, more than almost any other team, have the assets to get a deal like this done.
Currently, the Griz are still not a playoff caliber team with the very limited moves they made this Summer. In order to get into that territory Heisley will have to make a bold move between now and October. I don't see it. I think he blew his load with Gay (sorry for the terminology) and won't make any other moves until after next season.
Getting Paul would definitely put them into a playoff contender but I don't think Paul would ever envision making a lateral move. Maybe Heisley is thinking of trading Henry now. Seems like he is intentionally trying to piss him and his agent off for some unknown reason.
Pliny:
Not so sure about that. Had we not started the season with the Iverson distraction and went .500 in those first 8 losses, this squad would have had 44 wins. Another couple of lucky bounces against Boston, Lakers and a couple of others, we'd be at 48 wins. And of course, Marc was hurt to close out the season, which certainly cost us a few wins.
Point is, with the pieces that we have, we were in playoff contention well into the homestretch of the season. That's with Conley (who can and MUST get better); Rudy (ditto) and virtually NO bench (also ditto). Most of the improvement on this team will come from players returning in better shape, with lots of offseason work, and dialed in. Oh, and get this: The same coach who finished the season will be back for another year!
Then there should be some fall off above -- teams like Denver (George Karl eventually burns out his teams), Portland has kind of stalled, and Utah and Phoenix have new pieces that may cost them some victories getting used to each other.
In fact, I won't be surprised if the Grizz crack the top 4 in the west and stay there. Individual improvement + improved bench = playoffs.
"By the way, Dad, can we PALEEEEZ go get Louis Amundson? PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE? Energy/Dirty Work guy? Can probably get him for 2 years $5 Mil. Please Dad, please?"
Lee -
I felt the same way about Lou but wouldn't it be a tad awkward after this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTLvZndlssw
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