my biggest complaint about ronny is actually his rebounding. he’s a subpar rebounder for a center and that’s probably one of the two things that really keeps him from starting (foul rate being the other). fortunately, both al and love would compensate for that pretty well, so they wouldn’t be killed on the glass when ronny’s on the floor. i don’t see a good deal that could be reached for both teams, but i think that someone like him would be really useful for you guys.

- by “win now” do you mean try to reach .500 and make the playoffs again? ok, ya – but GSW was not, is not, nor will likely be in “win now” mode in terms of WCF much less a ring unless and until a KG or Amare type player leads them there. … Turiaf was not brought in with any fantasy at contending for a title – he was snatched from the Lakers as an RFA to be exactly what he is – a potent defender with limited offensive contributions to come off the bench at C/PF. If you knew how bereft GSW front line was at that time, you’d understand. He filled in admirably when Biedrins was out this year, but is foul prone and is a modest rebounder for his position. His contract is pretty much on par with back up centers and the only reason LAL didn’t match was because they were unable to in the narrow window of time due to their own cap constraints.

Both Turiaf & Maggette were signed after Baron left. As for Maggette, GSW was stuck in situation where between the time Baron left and the time the warriors had to resign their own RFAs Ellis and Biedrins, there were only a paltry number of impact FA available (GSW tried desperately to throw money at both Arenas & Brand). Hindsight is 20-20, maybe the dubs would be better off w/o Maggette’s contract. But we’d rather have what he gave us last year than what Arenas or Brand brought their teams. Maggette played both injured and out of position for significant portions of the season, while playing tremendously as a 6th man later in the season … Keep in mind, at that time he was the best option available and once GS signed their own RFAs they wouldn’t have been able to land any FA. Guys with Maggette’s scoring ability who are fortunate enough to be a FA during a down summer for FA get good contracts. Additionally GSW was competing with the Spurs and others, so they had to outbid the competition.

This still isn’t a great trade for Minn, nor really for GS because even though they could get a chance to sign a big time 2010 FA without losing Ellis, Randolph or Biedrins, they probably will not be able to regardless – unless again, they overpay for second tier talent because FA want to play where they have a chance to contend.

What with this response coming days later and sandwiched in the middle of an epic Mplax/hardcore exchange, but I don’t like being misrepresented/misunderstood, so here goes.

I said “Look at Gortat, Diop Pryzbilla, etc.” to provide examples in support of the statement directly preceding it “(and sometimes more).” Those names are examples of backup centers who make even more than the $4mil/year being paid to Turiaf. I was not using them as examples of backups worth the money, rather as an example of guys of comparable talent/situations to Turiaf who cost their teams even more than he does.

This is all in support of my greater point that Turiaf is not overpaid any more so than every center in the league (save Howard and Biedrins) is. Certainly not to the point of having negative value.

If you want to have the larger, roster-building argument that paying market value for competent centers is a bad roster-assembling philosophy, we’d probably agree for the most part. However, my contention was merely that Turiaf is an above-average backup center who is fairly priced relative to most other backup centers in this league. He wouldn’t be a perfect fit here, but he’d be good enough that I won’t mind having him.