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Pros and Cons (also come here for the next Love v. Al fight)

Al Jefferson to Utah for cap space and two heavily protected future first rounders. No idea what the protection is on the Utah pick yet, but we really have to hope Memphis can duplicate their past season's success or I don't see them going too far after they have to pay Gasol and Mayo with Gay on the books for a huge deal. Anywho, neither here nor there as I have no idea how Memphis plans to move forward.

The Pros:

  • We get out of Jefferson's contract ($42M in GT's pocket, yes that matters)
  • About $14M/yr back on the cap
  • Room to absorb a contract at the deadline
  • Jefferson's value realistically could have gone down as teams remembered why they didn't want him during the season. Also could have gotten reinjured... but this is silly to worry about as it could happen to anyone (Well.. not our cap space!).
  • More PT for Love, the battle is finally settled
  • Less plodding bigs in our front court/less redundancy
  • More time all around for the new guys we brought in
  • We don't have the "star" of our team setting a bad example by playing no defense
  • The Ewing Theory? Who is going to take over and lead by example. A HUGE spot just opened up on our team and we have a lot of candidates who will hopefully be fighting to fill it. This, IMO, is one of the biggest, nonfinancial, advantages of this trade.
  • Future First rounders are never a bad thing. We got 2 (maybe).

 

 

The Cons:

  • TPE or not, the value will not be as high as it would in most years because too many teams will have this TPE/cap space moving forward. This can not be stressed enough. The value of the TPE is LOW right now (relatively speaking)
  • Jefferson's value might have gone back up when surrounded by shooters and if we could have put together a string of wins before the deadline
  • We probably should have held out for a second rounder because of all the heavy protection (and so we have more to trade for Beasley type deals and to get the edge over other teams with the TPE)
  • Our team just got younger
  • We're about to get another shitstorm from the national media (even though they had all reported in the past week how Dallas offered us a worse deal than absolutely nothing)
  • Jefferson's deal looked A LOT more reasonable after the past couple of weeks
  • We definitely should have started a bidding war between the Western Conference playoff teams (SA, Utah, Mavs, Portland, Denver, and yes even LA and Phoenix... and I suppose Orlando too). Most of those teams realize that Jefferson is going at a discount, no matter how much they may not like him, they have to realize that getting him for less than Fair Market Value is still going to help one of their competitors. The Jazz just became relevant again in the playoff race and another team these guys have to worry about. Definitely, definitely, definitely should have help the Western Conference hostage. Sessions would also look good on quite a few of these teams (and some have expressed direct interest in him). Why oh why didn't we hear more about this?
  • Lots of protection on the picks. The Memphis pick can turn into cash if they don't get out of the bottom 9 in the next 5(?) years.

 

 

Ultimately I'm a little negative on the deal because of the timing. Any other year a TPE would have been better. Any other year and his salary would not be looking better rather than worse after FA. Any other year and he would not be coming off a 15 win team (hopefully). He also might not be (hopefully) coming off of an injury. At the deadline even, most of the playoff teams would know where they were sitting and how important it was for them to win the auction. Even if nothing else changed (no injuries and his production was the same as last year), I can almost guarantee that his value would have been higher. Someone would have "overpaid" (meaning they almost would have paid fair value) to win now and also make sure that no one else got him for cheap. The Western Conference has been such a close race for the past 3 years now and the teams are finally starting to let their weaknesses show. The competitiveness would have taken over and we should have let it.

Anyways, again, I'm mostly annoyed about the timing of the trade and I have been a long time advocate of moving Jefferson. So it's not like I am biased and just don't want to see Jefferson moved. A little disappointed by the trade. But that could change when we do take advantage of the TPE (we do have the assets to win any bidding war, I just don't know if we will or if it will present itself and be advantageous enough).

 

That's all for now. Just wanted to get my thoughts out and they were too many to put into a response.

 

UPDATE****

I asked my magic eight ball if Kevin Love is better than Al Jefferson and it said, "Signs points to yes." Must be true!