That doesn't make them worth paying more for, though. If you aren't confident that you can retain the player past next summer, it's a rental.
Westbrook in particular scares me that he would not be willing to re-sign in Boston because:
a) He's clearly going to leave OKC -- so that means that Bird Rights' contractual advantage is not going to be enough to convince him to stay. So trading for him now would give Boston no particular advantage due to Bird Rights. He is perfectly willing to sign a non-Bird FA max contract with a different team in order to exercise his finally-won ability to decide where he wants to play.
b) He's from Long Beach, CA.
c) He's got pretty well known business and personal interests in the fashion industry and celebrity pop culture.
d) He just bought a 4.65M mansion in Beverly Hills (from some dude who is on one of the reality shows (Kardashians?).
e) The Lakers will have enough cap space to sign him to a max contract plus an attractive, "Come back to your home town and rebuild the next great Laker dynasty with all our young talent, Russ!", sales pitch.
d) The Clippers almost certainly could move one of their big assets (CP3) to clear cap space to sign him.
What about any of that would give you confidence that he would stay in Boston?
All signs to me indicate he will most likely end up going to one of the LA teams.
Sure, any star we might trade for is likely to only have 1 or 2 years remaining on their deal. But I don't think all one-year-rentals are created equally.
For example, if we traded for Gordon Hayward, I'd expect that the probability that he would sign long term with the Celtics to be extremely high. That said, that doesn't mean I'd want to trade very much for Hayward, either. Because if we think we have a very high probability of signing a player to sign here long term, why not just wait and sign him next year in free agency, and not give up significant assets?
Ultimately it comes down to price. I'd be willing to give up a little for Hayward to get him here early, but definitely not a lot because he's not going to win us Banner 18 this year.
And I'd be willing to give up even less for Westbrook to get him here early because I don't have faith that he will resign and, again, he's not going to win us Banner 18 this year.
If the Lakers' pitch to Westbrook is to rebuild a dynasty rather than jump into a ready-made contender and create one, their proposal is dead in the water already. More than anything, the dude hates losing. I don't see any way he goes to the Lakers unless they're a competitive team this year or make the requisite moves next offseason to become one beforehand. He might seem like an L.A. guy, but he's even more of a "I'm obsessive about winning" guy.
The Lakers are poised to be impressive in the very near future. They have Room to bring in 2 max guys, they have 2 top 2 picks and one top 10 pick already in the line up. Each with at least 2 years under the belt before Russell gets there in 2017.. Ingram is going to be a player whether we like it or not.. when they Add Russ they will have 1 room for 1 more max player.. That pitch is exactly what we are pitching. They have what Cleveland had when they brought their Cleveland guy back for the 2nd time.
They couldn't even get a meeting with Durant, so people might be overestimating where the Lakers are right now.
Again, Russ as a sure lock to LA seems to be the narrative but there's nothing to substantiate any of that. People said the same thing about Kevin Love, but he opted out and resigned in Cleveland. So what if Russ just bought a house there? You know who also bought a house in Beverly Hills this offseason? Lebron James. Do we think he's going to the Lakers? Chandler Parsons is also another athlete who has interests in fashion and celebrity, and allegedly had interest from the Lakers, and he ended up in Memphis.
My point is, you can't assume any of these guys have a predetermined destination and working on that assumption will cost us opportunities. I think Russ is really competitive and he wants to be in a situation where he has a good chance to win. Maybe that's in Boston, maybe it's not.
But there is a big difference between guys who have passing ties to LA but are committed elsewhere and someone who has very strong, life-long ties to LA is going to be able to relocate to a team of his choice next year at the very time when not only will LA have cap space, but LA will also no longer have any incentives to continue to tank.
The fact that they couldn't get a meeting with Durant means nothing. Where LA will be at in their process next year is going to be completely different than where they are right now. LA still has a very strong incentive to tank one more year because the pick they traded to Philly is still top-3 protected one more year. After 2017, it will be unprotected. So starting next year, they can start to restructure towards actual winning. They will have various young high-lottery players (Randle, Russel, Ingram plus whomever they pick next year) that will have either matured into decent players by then or that they could potentially trade. They have locked in a couple of useful veterans on mid-level contracts that shouldn't weight them down (and that can be moved if needed). That's a different team with a nearer horizon for winning than the team that was trying to get Durant to go waste time with them this year.
Whether they will look competitive enough soon enough to actually lure Westbrook, I don't know. Maybe not. But the potential is there if things fall into place for them. And as I indicated, the Clippers are also a possible landing spot for him.
You are correct that LA isn't a "lock". None of this is certain. I'm not claiming to know for absolute certainty what Westbrook will decide to do. But I don't like the odds. They are not leaning in our favor when it comes to Westbrook.
And it isn't like other teams besides the LA ones won't also be potentially competing to sign him. As I indicated above, the very fact that he has made it clear he's going to jump ship from OKC means that the extra handful of dollars that Bird Rights raises could get him isn't going to factor into his decisions.
Topic: Westbrook Trade Rumors (Beck) (Read 40959 times)