Posted by oohah:
@Papabear You are right. If the "Pump and Dump" strategy could work with Randolph and Crawford, it could have worked with Marbury. He would have flourished in the system like every other scoring-oriented player, helped with a few more wins (at least) and we probably could have gotten something decent for him because an expiring contract is a valued commodity.
Just as I predicted earlier in the season there were a couple of teams that could really have used a PG because of injury, most notably Orlando. Marbury would have been a prime target for a trade if his value was not destroyed. In case anyone did not notice Orlando traded for an established head-case, Rafer Alston, who is about half as good as Marbury about 1.5 weeks ago.
Marbury had every reason to keep his mouth shut and play ball this season -- his own personal gain being the prime one, the Knicks should have taken advantage of it. Instead, the team is now breaking down and the good stuff we have been witnessing has been mostly smoke and mirrors anyway.
don't agree with you here. maybe marbury would have flourished here... but do you think lee and nate, for example, two of your favorites, would have flourished to the same degree this season? the duhon-lee combo was amazing early on, the easy buckets off the P&R really helped lee get to where he is, in terms of stats, game, rep and confidence. and nate would not be the dynamic scorer he is if he were splitting time and shots with steph. IMO.
as for trading steph, alston may by half the player steph is but he's also half the headcase and a quarter the dollar amount. orlando's entire payroll is $68 mil - steph's contract would be like a third of that. looking at their salaries now, i can only come up with $15 mil of non-key players with contracts that don't go past 2010 (battie, alston (or whoever they traded for him), lue and anthony johnson. would orlando gut their bench for steph in a 4-for-1? and like i said, that package doesn't even get it done. i'm skeptical there's a workable package out there for a $21 mil contract, even if it is expiring.
im not sure what to make of the value of expirings in this market. more manageable expirings - lafrentz and szczerbiak - didn't get moved either this trade deadline. deals may have been shot down by portland and cleveland since they didn't want to take on extra money, or maybe just not for the players that were available. would you want vince carter? i wouldn't be excited. who else was being mentioned? richard jefferson? don't remember all the rumors at this point, for what they're worth.
marbury had every reason to keep his mouth shut and ball. but you have to seriously question his rationality at this point. i'm not a judgmental type, but with the things he says and his recent history of controversy, i really don't think what he does conforms to any logic. we'll see what happens in boston - even in a relatively successful honeymoon here in NYC he got a coach fired and teammates traded. and even if it works in boston, it doesn't mean it would have worked out like you want here this season - we could debate the counterfactuals forever.
oohah definitely not trying to call you out here. these arguments have been on my mind, your post seemed like a good chance to get a few of them out there at once.
