Posted by Cosmic:
To those that approve:
Is it because you like Zach and believe his "20/10" is part of a winning program?
or
Is it because you truly believe Walsh will get a better offer than the Clipper offer? Or anything more than the Memphis offer?
A little reminder here: The Toronto Raptors gave us a 1st round pick (Balkman) to take on an extra year of Jalen Rose's contract. This is somewhat customary in the NBA. The SA Spurs gave us 2 (Collins, Lee) to take on Malik Rose for Nazr in return. It's common.
To think we can dump Zach who is a known trouble maker for anything better than that Clipper offer of full cap space + 2nd rounder in return for the 2012 first rounder is on the utmost level of optimism.
To think Zach will get easier to dump as time moves forward I think is short sighted given he is still Zach, it's still a mega deal, there's room for him to implode further this year damaging his worth, and again it still stands that many team desire and get 1st rounders thrown in to take back longer contracts in return. Deal #1 was a steal, Deal #2 wasn't. Deal #3 won't outdo Deal #1 when it comes along. Especially seeing how everyone wants a 1st rounder in return (supposedly, of course, as we still don't know what is accurate and what is not)
There's also nothing that says that we can't deal Crawford for a 1st rounder and filler as well so the whole desire to cling to that 2012 pick is a little confusing to me given our situation.
These are good points and why I would have been inclined to get rid of him now. I understand Walsh's reasoning but I am sure the clippers would have taken a lottery protected 1st round pick. Now we are in the situation that we have to play him, or else he is going to act up, and we have to hope that he plays well. If he does, we probably can trade him in January. If not, then we will be stuck with him and his salary for another year. The Clippers deal was solid IMO if it was a lottery-protected pick. Hell, they could have kept their 2nd rounder and just let us protect the pick for like three years.