Doesn't want to play for Celtics....rather have Rondo
I'll simplify it for you since you didn't read.
Would you rather have:
Option A: Rondo + nothing
Option B: Deron Williams + Whatever Rondo fetches on the open market
Of course it's not exactly that simple since our cap situation isn't all that great. You'd actually likely have to give up Kevin Garnett in order to sign Deron... but for the sake of argument lets look at it in a simplistic little box. Option A or Option B?
Haha. Real choice:
Option A: Rondo + Whoever else you give that max contract money to
Option B: Deron Williams + Whatever Rondo fetches on the open market
Option A is fairly competitive, that's why you're trying to slant the choices in such an obvious fashion. BTW, Deron is *arguably* a top 3 point guard, and isn't a franchise player. He's capable of leading a team to the WCF or to a bottom 5 record in the league depending on how good his teammates are.
That's a fair point. But in option a, who are you giving the max money to that's better than Deron Williams? Seems all the names I'm seeing are restricted free agents. You can renounce everyone and offer Roy Hibbert a max deal, but if Indiana matches, you're outta luck. You can renounce everyone and offer Gordon a max deal, but if the Hornets match, you're out of luck. ANd then you are in a jam, because you only have 25 million left and you renounced all your bird rights to have a CHANCE to land those guys. Kinda like when Golden State dumped Jeremy Lin just to have a CHANCE at signing DeAndre Jordan.
Maybe they don't sign a free agent, maybe they trade for a player that's already under contract.
That's a fair point too. I almost included that footnote to hypothetical #1 in my original post, but I have a tendency to be long-winded as-is and I'm fairly certain half this board is already tuning me out. Here's what it WOULD have said.
Hypothetical Deron example 1: Sign Deron to a max deal. Trade Rondo straight up for Josh Smith (13 mil next season)... that leaves only aprox 6.6 mil left over. Offer that to Jeff Green. Team next year: PG - Deron, SG - Jeff Green, SF - Pierce, PF - Josh Smith, C - Rookie?
Comments: When Pierce comes off the books, you'd likely have cap space to put a 3rd young player around Smith and Deron. Losing KG isn't desirable.
*Footnote I cut out of OP: Now you might look at the above and say to yourself, "If that's the best we can do... why not renounce everyone, hang onto Rondo (who you believe is better than Deron) and use our cap space to trade for a Josh Smith"... And to that I say, "Sure. That's fair. If you really think Josh Smith can be had for pennies on the dollar, and really believe Rondo is better than Deron then so be it. But if you think Josh Smith can be had for cap relief and a draft pick, then you surely must believe that Rondo is "waaaaay too much to give up" for Smith and his actual value lies somewhere around the franchise superstar level (LeBron/Dwight/etc)... in which case... please proceed to Hypothetical #3 (also known as crazy-pipe dream) where I have us signing Deron and flipping Rondo for Dwight Howard. That's more your speed.