Heh. I like reading Shea’s irreverent posts, and this is no exception.
I’ll side with Bad Cop on this one. The trade doesn’t happen, the Spurs are not going to be interested in giving up the assets needed to make the trade for an admittedly great iso player who often disappears on defense — the exact opposite of Coach Pop’s system, who pushes team ball and creating for your teammates. Pop’s the guy who mentored Steve Kerr, right? Twenty years as a legit contender is not something to turn your back on.
And is Kyrie actually coachable? He’s a science denier/flat earther. You can talk at him, but he isn’t listening. He knows better than you, and you can’t persuade him otherwise.
It’s true the Spurs are disappointed in LaMarcus. He doesn’t seem to know what to do in the Spurs system, and his offensive moves are as predictable as a pendulum, which makes it dangerous for him to put the ball on the floor. Or even to put the ball into his hands. He’s probably overpaid; so who wants to absorb his contract? The sweeteners the Spurs would have to toss in are a show-stopper. Anyway centers are deprecated in today’s NBA. You just need a guy to set picks and screens, block out rebounders and grab a few boards himself. LaMarcus does those things, so even if he’s overpaid, it’s not a big deal if the Spurs use him until his contract expires. It’s not like he’s an actual liability. He’s probably no worse than Zaza, and Zaza didn’t slow the Warriors down one bit.
Meanwhile, the Cavs correctly see Kyrie as an underpaid, overperforming asset, and you don’t give those away lightly. They’ll want a king’s ransom for Kyrie, even if he does often disappear on defense and isn’t all that much into team ball. The dude can *score.* The Cavs need points from someone not named LeBron. There’s no mystery there at all.
He’s not a point guard, though. Call him something else. He rarely creates shots for his teammates.
I think the Clippers should be feeling pretty smug about the assets they got for Chris Paul. They should be interested mostly in working out how to employ those assets, and maybe how to shed overpaid talent on their own roster (starting with the coach’s son and the coach himself).
So, Bad Cop isn’t too far off the mark here.
Good Cop is a hopeless optimist. If daydreams were championship rings, there’d be a lot more rings in circulation than there are.