NoBan wrote:
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1. Age. Players like Nowitzki, Parker and even someone like Bosh are all no's for me. There are a lot of players in this age category which are better, and maybe even more talented, than Valanciunas. But our team won't be an instant contender with any of those players and they are all at the top of or over their prime. I want this to be a longterm strategy.
2. Scarcity of position. You hear all the time that the league is going small. In my opinion this is because of the scarcity of big man who can keep up with the smaller guys (and Lebron who can muscle up with most big guys). I don't think it's a good idea to do the same as the rest of the league and go small as well, I'd rather do the opposite and this might be possible with Valanciunas. There is a flood of good point guards right now and I wouldn't trade Valanciunas for a point guard who is only marginally better (hard to compare across positions, but nevertheless) because point guards are much easier to obtain. There are much more people who are 6 foot and a bit than people who are 7 foot; the talent pool is much bigger.
3. Injury-history. I would hesitate to trade Valanciunas for guys like Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Rose, etc. All very good players, but all have a recent (or current) history of injuries.
4. Familiarity. This is probably the one you disagree with the most. But the fans have invested themselves in Valanciunas, or at least I have, and I'd like to see how he develops. So I won't even trade him for Anthony Davis; I don't think the difference in ceiling is big enough (this not everyone might agree with as well).
If you look at the top 30 or 50 players on espn's list, most of those players are either subject to nr. 1 or 3, often in combination with 2: Howard, Paul, Rose, Bryant, Love, Wade, Westbrook, Deron Williams, Nowitzki, Rondo, Bynum, Pau Gasol, etc. Only a few aren't at least either old (this includes players who are now at the peak of their prime, e.g. Carmelo) or with a history of injuries.
5 players:
1. Lebron
2. Durant
That's it. Those are my five players.
On the fence: Howard, Love, Griffin, Marc Gasol
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