2021-2022 AROUND the NBA: GSW Champs [ARCHIVED]

[F Gump]

He’s easily a top 20 player in the league and the first negative thing anyone says is how much money he makes.  Well, to get him we have to salary match to within a certain percentage of what Gobert makes.  Those outgoing players combined won’t be nearly as efficient as Gobert, yet somehow more money for a great player is a worse idea than 75-cents on the dollar for much worse players.

I don't want to disagree with your point.

But the idea that Gobert is the most efficient way to spend 40M on players, does NOT really hold up. 40M payroll is more value imo if spent on Kleber-DFS-Bullock, and probably by a lot. Or if we want to just limit it to the center position, I think Turner-Kleber-Powell would give the Mavs more value than Gobert, even though I don't particularly want to keep Powell. Or Turner-Kleber-_____ [MLE guy]. And the latter ideas certainly offer more of a "guarantee" of continuing value if someone's game goes south or someone is injured.

OTOH there's probably a nice feasibility for Gobert at the RIGHT price, especially if the price is something like Powell, THJ, Brown, and 22 pick. In that case, you're basically keeping the team that went to war this year, except Powell is replaced by Gobert. For whatever we do or don't think of Gobert, that's certainly a much better version of similar type center.

But I don't think UT will be looking for anything less than huge value, to let go of Gobert (justified or not) because that's how Ainge operates -- and the first rule should have us looking for something different. I think that's probably at the root of the Mavs flip flop on interest in Gobert --- when hearing he might be available and thinking of what they think he's worth, the Mavs were eager, but when confronted with UT's actual desires and Ainge's involvement, the realization dawned that serious interest was more likely to get them royally screwed, and why bother. Still some interest but not all in, they are saying, so they are backing off to see if UT is serious about moving on from him, and has no other suitors where the price is low, but only then.

And FWIW, I think Mavs would be much better served by adding Turner, + a 2-way wing that's as good as DFS and RB, + MLE center, with the expectation total payroll and perhaps trade cost will be in the same range or lower than Gobert.