Kawhi Leonard Discussion: “I’m A Snake Clipper Guy.”

Kawhi to the Lakers would haunt the Spurs for most of a decade. The notion that "all we have to do is come up with the best package of assets" is bull. You have to factor in their unwillingness to resurrect the Lakers as a Western powerhouse. I see it being taken into consideration a bit, but not nearly to the degree that the Pop and RC will take it into consideration.

The Spurs have leverage too, not just Kawhi. They can get burned value for value sure. But all they have to do is get Boston to throw a bunch of picks at them and maybe a few serviceable players. No stars or important core pieces. Just to get Kawhi to the East and out of our reach. And if Kawhi books at the end of next season, C-bags are fine and the Lakers probably don't have the cap space anymore. I don't buy the "don't spend all the cap, sign 1 FA and wait for Kawhi" deal. That assumes PG or Lebron would come over all by themselves with no guarantee of other all-star help. It also assumes Kawhi would then leave the C-Bags after a finals vs GSW. That's a C-Bag team with Kawhi, Kyrie, Hayward, Horford, Tatum, Smart etc. Who knows how a finals series vs GSW would go against that team. They youngins on the C-Bags got invaluable playoff experience this year.

And as far as getting rid of Deng next summer to clear space remember he was signed in summer of '16 when all the tv money was going around and there were a lot of bad contracts. That means there will be a lot of contracts that expire in '20, a year after next summer meaning expirings will not be in demand in '19. it will still require assets beyond picks and some scrub's contract to move him.

 

Still too much. He wants to be here. Wait a year and keep all the guys you mentioned and sign him. If he goes somewhere else and resigns, than did we really want a guy who didn't want to be here?

 

Yes we did want an MVP candidate, you get him any which way and live with the outcome. You can’t win rings without having these kinds of players. Most players get to a destination and then decide to stay there - look at the PG situation.

We can’t just wait forever. Our young guys are going to turn us into a middle of the pack low playoff seed so our draft picks will be pretty much useless to us and then our current young guys will finish their rookie contracts and want to be paid. We’ll be in danger of becoming a treadmill team.

 

We don’t have any guys who can have Kawhi-esque impact in a few years. Kawhi has the ability to average 30 points a night on 50/40/90 splits with DPOY impact from the perimeter and win an MVP or 2. He can also pull you down 7-8 rebounds, plays off the ball well and is a moderate usage player.

 

I know Kawhi wants out, but why would he burn a bridge with the spurs on the way out? They made him into an MVP caliber player worth 200m+, won some rings and had a FMVP with them - you don’t just burn them like that and kill any potential trade return for them.

 

Yeah. We need him to make it perfectly clear he's only willing to come here.

Also, the Spurs hands aren't clean here as @Weezy points out.

 

i've been saying this for a while. i think some folks (maybe our FO) have higher opinions of ingram, ball, kuzma, and randle than we do. my suspicion is that three years from now, no matter what transpires this month, the four of them for any two of lebron/george/kawhi will look like a steal in retrospect.

 

All 4 of them for 2. IMO barring injuries, especially if one of the two was George .... we would regret it. Purple colored glasses I know. All 4 may in 3 years have a chance to be better than George by their ages of 27. Let alone in aggregate. Would you throw Tatum into the career capping like that as well?

 

i mean, i have a chance at a lot of things...

 

Your eyes, my eyes ... I get it but don't mock. You're better than that. Paul George.

 

i wasn't mocking.

not sure about the paul george sentence at the end.

are we saying he's not that good? because this is a multi-time all nba player, including the past season. and he's still under 30. how many all-nba teams are we projecting for ingram and ball and kuzma by then?

or are we saying we need to learn from previous failures to use assets to trade for talent?

 

I hate career capping 5 years from primes . Added Tatum in because similar young talent. Watched some of historically hot and cold PG this year and guys getting by him at times on the perimeter in playoffs. Let's see all 5 of these guys in their primes at 27-28 and their impacts on the game. Which of course is subjective at this point. Mocking was insinuating none have a chance to be in his league 5 years from now.

 

Steph was always great, everyone just thought his ankles would do him in. Klay was always going to be a great shooter in the league and a decent 3&D Guy, but he really exceeded expectations. But draymond, my gosh, to this day I don’t know what to make of him, amazing defender, good rebounder, great playmaker and an unbelievable glue guy... Lonzo is basically like Green in guard form except with a lot less tenacity and so far more injuries.

GSW are the exception to the rule on trading assets for players. But for every Steph, Klay and Draymond there are far far more Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli and Kevin Looneys

 

Hope you are not looking at the players Ingram, Ball, Kuzma and Randle are already and going statistical and broad brushing them into Barnes, Ezeli and Looney?

 

How many times in a decade do you have a chance to create a team with the 3 top players in the league at a time where you can accommodate all 3 in a perfect window of opportunity?

How many people would want to sit on the sidelines for that and wait until next season?

How many people would want to wait after Paul George went from 100% lock to 50/50 over the course of the year?

LeBron James / Paul George / Kawhi Leonard....

All day sign me up, do what it takes to get it done. I love the young guys but I love championships and contending for them more.