Quote:
Originally Posted by spreedom
To me, his role here is basically the same as it was in Portland and Utah... the difference is, he's just been really bad. I suspect he is going to be at least modestly better next season as he continues to recover from the Achilles, since the turnaround time on that type of injury is generally about eighteen months. If we're at this point next year and he isn't at least 80% of the player that he was in Portland, then yeah I think we can probably say the signing was a mistake. But I will continue to argue that it was the right type of move to make to hopefully build another winner here.
That said, if we can salary dump him this summer en route to adding a top-flight free agent in addition to keeping Parsons, we absolutely have to.
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Yeah I think you have to look at the whole picture with the Wes signing. We thought we had DJ locked up and I'm sure there was some type of gentlemen's agreement worked out with Wes and Barea and the reason we paid them more. My guess is the strategy at the time was to sign 2 very good FAs (DJ and Wes)this past off-season to go along with Parsons and Dirk with the hopes of luring and signing a great one this next off-season (Conley?) to make us a top tier team. At the time Wes probably looked like a 3rd or 4th option anyway (more like his role in Portland).
Now I think too much is expected of him....especially offensively.
And like you said, if we can move him this summer in order to make room for a top FA then we absolutely have to do it because he and Parsons alone are not going to attract any decent FAs with the exception of maybe Howard. But signing Howard would only put us back in the situation we were in last off-season when we thought we had DJ and we'll still be a year away from being a true contender. And Dirk simply isn't much of a factor anymore when it comes to signing FAs.
To put it in equation form....Dirk + Parsons - Matthews + Howard + very good FA + Anderson could possibly bring us back into contention. I don't see a path at all with Matthews on the team unless he elevates to a level higher than what he was in Portland.