Americans trade PF Ethan Budd, C Chris Heins, Americans 2037 1st to the Snipers
Snipers trade PF Jose Lui, SG Rex Brower to the Americans
Sexy Rexy is kind of done from the looks of it so "meh" but Lui still has some life left.
Mark clears some immediate salary but not enough to really go crazy shopping. The prize is that 2037 prospect when the Americans have nobody on the books and current stars like Kendall and Sibley will be in their dotage.
Though I think Lui has much more basketball to play, I think, for what it does for the rebuild process (clear cap + solid prospected pick), it goes in the Sniper's direction to me.
I almost started a thread yesterday to ask if Rex Brower is the worst All Star ever selected. There is probably someone (or more than one) who was worse but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. It just struck me after looking at his season so far that he made it because he's playing 44 minutes a night with extremely high volume usage and very low efficiency. A classic example of just looking at "counting stats" rather than the overall picture.
Anyway.... that really has nothing to do with this trade. The Americans just need Brower to be depth, not a true All Star. Lui is an interesting player and I'm curious to see how Steve uses him.
I like the trade for both teams more or less.
I almost started a thread yesterday to ask if Rex Brower is the worst All Star ever selected.
Nah, back when it was "selection by popular opinion" there were worse.
Honestly, I think it's in indictment of the SG in the American more than anything else.
... or maybe just SG as a whole at this time? Would that I had my PC upgrade done so I could crunch some stats and see.
I believe Sanz would have been the starter but the game still recognized him as a SF at the time.
We had to add depth. I think a big weakness of our is having to play Allen Brynes at SF off the bench averaging just 3 points and 2 rebounds a game. I knee how much Darwin Sabin meant to success last year so to see him walk in FA I always knew we would have to fix that part of our DC.
We did target Jose Lui in FA but chose to go to Sacramento so to add him now is a good thing for us. If we can get close to his current production from him I'll be very happy and love that PRD rating and the fact he isn't foul prone. I've always seen him as a small forward its just a matter of whether we play him off the bench or let him take the reigns from Ambrose Johnson.
Rex Brower at the very least is an upgrade to David Crowther, possibly even Emery Patterson but that's not clear yet. Obviously those minutes will be scaled right back which will hopefully improve his efficiency.
I wasn't too keen on trading that future pick. We could keep our cap open and decline Malenson's contract which free up $31M to spend that year but it is a risk I was willing to take while we're as competitive as we are right now.
I wasn't too keen on trading that future pick. We could keep our cap open and decline Malenson's contract which free up $31M to spend that year but it is a risk I was willing to take while we're as competitive as we are right now.
Without substantial roster reorganization, declining Melanson's team option would still leave you with 58 mil on the books, right? That's still enough to throw a 17 mil offer at somebody but you'd be trying to attract somebody to the Melanson-less Americans which I dare say will probably not be winning (at the time of this post) 65.7% of their games. Remember the ole "I would rather go play for a winning team" rejection?
IDK, to me, it seems like riding out Melanson's entire contract is the way to go and then rolling the dice with free agency when you have only 7 mil (as of now but add on some picks' salary, sure) on the books. Then you can bring back the frozen corpse of whatever Melanson is alongside whatever new hotness you can land.
