Stock had the best line “don’t embarrass me”. End of negotiation
A supermax for Rudy means we peak like the Deron/Booz days then coming crashing back down. Maybe, maybe we get to the West finals. After that our age catches up to us, Conley might just bolt, and the combined $80 million on Don and Rudy eats too many resources.
BINGO. If we lose him the narrative will be that we were cheap. If we sign him, the narrative will be that we are clueless, we overpay, we bid against ourselves, etc.
There are high-impact perimeter players still sitting out there who might cost nothing more than what Niang is being paid. The whole premise of the quoted post is flawed in a few different ways.
Our perimeter defense is no where near as big of an issue as our rim protection when Rudy went out - in my humble opinion. And while I am not a Niang fan at all, it is clear that the Jazz want to keep shooters on the perimeter. So if we are passing on cheap people who have the whole package that is a problem.
I think if we were serious about rim protection, we could have gotten better and cheaper rim protectors. Favors is infinitely better than what we saw last year, but Favors is a good rim guy. Someone like Ekpe is a great rim guy.
My guy Shaq who was amongst the league leaders in steals and deflections per 36 is sitting there by the phone saying WTF.
Both were a major issue. Our perimeter defenders were consistently below average, shifted into disadvantaged matchups because of small stature, bad at getting deflections and steals, etc. etc. This is with Rudy on or off the floor. The fact that we’ve done nothing to address this except promote Oni is a tremendous problem. It’s currently the major thing that’ll lower our ceiling.
A very simple solution is out there that’d help a whole lot.
Did Udoh develop any sort of screen-roll game at some point? If not, he's a one-way player, and Favors is a two-way player (and better in the post than Udoh).
You really think that there’s something out there that could make us better than DL hasn’t or wouldn’t do?
No, but the argument is that we need to go all-in on rim protection to solve our perimeter problems, meaning that the rim protection is bleeding over in to many other facets. Yes, Favors is more well-rounded, but he’s an improvement largely because of how poor anyone not named Gobert was last year. Adding him is adding a very expensive better-than-average defensive piece. If all our perimeter problems are remedied with rim protection, then the argument is really that you need someone elite, not just above average, otherwise our problem with perimeter D still exists.
You are right they’d prolly pick a minimum in some glamour market like Sacramento or Orlando rather than our minimum.
