2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived

[SleepingHero]

And my response would be “so...”

They aren’t going to S/W him and his salary makes him untradeable for at least another year.  But, that doesn’t make him a “3rd string center”.  Also, if KP is playing big minutes, there isn’t a “serious contributor in extensive minutes” role to be had.  

Bottom line, we can complain about Powell’s salary, but it isn’t going to change anything.  Or, we can realize he’s become quite productive in the limited role he has and move on.  Unless someone has a magic wand I don’t know about, I don’t see the benefit of using the words “trade Powell” together in a sentence as the least bit helpful to off-season strategy discussions.  Very little of that was directed at you BTW.

If he's become quite productive, why does his salary make him untradeable? I agree with you that Powell has certainly improved order of magnitudes since the season has started, but I'm getting mixed messages here. 

Either Powell has improved to the point where he can play serious rotational minutes on a playoff team which means he's an asset where his salary isn't a ballast, or he's still underwhelming to the point where he shouldn't be given minutes ergo he's untradeable at his salary point. 

I only say that because untradeable is colloquially used for a type of player that's fallen so far that no team in the NBA would ever want them unless they had their own untradeable guy. Not trying to throw semantics everywhere but if we're talking about Powell as an asset we need to be clear on what we truly think he is.