Then let's make sure the choice doesn't come to that. Offer CJ, Turner, Collins, and two or three 1st round picks. That is likely the best offer that New Orleans is going to receive from anyone.
well that's wrong. A better offer would be the same minus Turner because adding negative value like Turner in a trade when you're trying to maximize outgoing value is dumb. Besides that, you're sending out over 47M in salary when AD is at 25.4M. There would have to be a lot added to the deal on the Pels side to even meet CBA rules. Needlessly complicated
If you want to go that route and avoid the pain of losing Nurkic, then make it something like
CJ + Aminu + Zach + Simons + two 1sts (38.2M) for AD + E'Twaun Moore + Frazier/Clark (36M)
that way, Portland is sending out all positive assets with one being an expiring contract, plus 2 young prospects on rookie deals and two first round picks. The pelicans might actually be intrigued by an offer like that instead of insulted by Olshey offering Turner
for Portland, they lose their 2 PF's, but with Nurk around, AD will be playing a lot of PF and the Blazers can still run Harkless, Layman, and Swanigan at PF, with the first 2 maybe being a good fit with twin towers big men
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I think the fly in all this AD-to-Portland ointment might be CJ. Are we even sure the Pels would be interested in him as the centerpiece of an AD trade? The Pels beat the Blazers in the playoffs by selling out to stop Dame and leaving CJ single covered with even his defender hedging toward Dame. They've done essentially the same thing in the two games this season. CJ had a good series against the Pels, but it didn't matter. It kind of looks like New Orleans has decided that CJ can't have a big impact on games, otherwise they'd defend him different
I'm not sure a player they view that way would be seen by them as a coveted return in an AD trade, especially considering CJ's big contract
Throwing Nurk into a deal where there is a good possibility that Davis leaves would be suicide, IMO. We'd be a 30 win team at best after Davis left.
would that really be so bad?
I'm looking at Portland now and thinking they are close to the ceiling for this roster. Their tax situation this summer and ownership limbo makes it possible they are going to lose a couple of players like Aminu and Curry. Even Layman might be hard to hold onto. Where is the upside of this roster? Yeah, Nurkic should get better, or at least more consistent. Zach and Layman might improve, but they might not. It looks like a treadmill...sure, it might be a higher level treadmill but it's still plodding along on pretty much the same trajectory it's had for 3 years
swinging for the fences and ultimately missing when AD leaves, isn't really a worse situation in my view.
