12-24-2022, 11:23 AM
(12-24-2022, 10:43 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: This kind of reminds me of Cousins and Sacramento a few years ago. The Kings clearly didn’t want to hitch their wagon to Cousins making that kind of money and traded him before it got to that point. Toronto is the only team that can give Siakam that contract, but it is difficult to argue with player and agent that he doesn’t deserve it given the fact he would have made three of the last four all-NBA teams if he qualifies. Better to trade him now and avoid that nastiness than to trade a clearly disgruntled player who is pissed because he wasn’t valued.
Spot on, imo. Siakim is just good enough to qualify for and feel deserving of a huge deal, while not quite being good enough to be THE cornerstone building block of a contending team.
I think he's closer than Cousins was, and so a team like the Kings (especially at that time) might have actually given him the deal, even though they were smart enough not to go down that road with Cousins. But, I have a hunch that Ujiri, Nurse and the Raptors will not choose to do so with Siakim. They're smart enough to get that type of evaluation right.