I feel this is a good compromise. Because there’s no way Harper should be coming off the bench next season.

Then you have to bench Vassell or Champagnie who are your best floor spacers. Most likely scenario is Harper plays starter level minutes off the bench in the Ginobli, Harden role and he finishes games. Finishing games is more important than starting. He likely wins 6th man of the year and he moves into starting lineup year 3.

If they don’t pick up a real 4 with size and shooting they’ll be in a bit of trouble. They’re losing out on a lot of shooting by doing that since it would mean benching Champagnie or Vassell and it would make their lineup even smaller

A combined 32% on 3s and 74% on FTs between those 3, Jesus Christ 

Wasn’t there a lot of buzz around Castle during that draft that he wanted to be a PG? Not sure if that’s still a thing, but if it is then I’m not sure that it would appease him that much

What is Castle going to be doing? He’s a terrible off ball player can’t, can’t shoot.

And there’s no reason it shouldn’t work. Castle is big enough to guard SFs. The other issue was his shooting causing spacing issues, but he shot 41% from deep in the second half of the season, and shot 35% in the playoffs. So as long as he’s around league average that’s fine. That would mean Vassell is coming off the bench though, and if we get a proper PF to play the four, that means Champagnie goes back to the bench too. So I hope both guys are okay with that and it doesn’t cause morale issues, but it is what it is. You start your best players.

How is this line of reasoning not a blatant sunk cost fallacy?

doing nothing and expecting to make the finals again would be a mistake.

imagine keeping a fox who makes over 50 mill when they don’t even have a PF

You’re a Wizard, De’Aaron.

Have the balls to have Fox come off the bench as a sixth man IMO

I never understood how contract numbers dictate a person starting or not. How long is his contract? Either way, he’s off the bench and Harper starts. Then when Fox’s contract is done he’s off the team. Or trade an expiring contract when a year remaining. Best player starts. At this point, Fox is a bench PG and there’s not problem with that.

Ideal situation for them is to play Fox as Starting PG while working with Dylan to continue to build his PG skills. If they have another hot regular season with Fox starting, that opens up the trade window to move Fox and elevate Harper.

Harper coming off the bench isn’t really for the betterment of the team though. It’s for the betterment of Fox’s ego and to validate his massive contract.

I think the issue is that, as great as Manu was, Harper is tracking as a legit superstar. You can’t have a guy like that be the 6th man.

Iguodala did it and it changed his entire career arc

I hope Harper doesn’t accept it either. He needs to start 

Manu wasn’t the 2nd overall pick in the draft. Harper would be a #1 pick in many drafts, they are going to need to fit him in but none of their guards seem like they can set ego to the side. Castle, Fox, Harper, even Vassell all see self as a starter.

A second year player needs to accept it though.

Dylan Harper was better for three games where he wasn’t personally scouted and the opposing team’s defense played right into his hands.

Amazing job as a rookie. And Fox was *awful*..and yes, just as any other Spurs fan, I want to get to the Dylan, Castle, Wemby trio too..

But you can’t demand you start over a 28 year old all star. That’s just not how this works..especially if the team wants to trade Fox..

I think we should stop holding players to the expectations of the past. Harper is not Manu and just because Manu made that sacrifice Harper is under no obligation to follow suit. He is an all star and should 100% be our priority over Fox longterm. My hope os Fox regains some value and he’s moved at the deadline.

Lol right, used car salesman tactics.

I suspect they’re hoping to trade him.

Also overlooking that without him they don’t beat OKC and definitely don’t have a 60+ win season. “Don’t judge me on my best day, don’t judge me on my worst day” exemplified 

If the Spurs had lost a close game 7 against the Thunder, the narrative would be how Fox was a warrior coming back so early. 

Also doing this thing where the loser in the finals really needs to make major changes.

I’ve been saying this in our sub since he came back against the thunder. Spurs fucked him and kornet over by keeping them off the injury report. After a couple of days everyone stopped talking about fox having a high ankle sprain or barely acknowledged it. With Kornet, I just remember seeing a reporter say that he was battling an ankle injury as well.

But again, spurs marked them healthy and kept them off the injury report so now they get no slack.

Don’t let it turn into a Hali situation. We literally passed up on Luka and traded Hali to keep Fox happy. Lmao fucking he’ll

I’d be shocked. He just finished his rookie year.

Harper should start but going scorched earth now would be astronomically stupid.

He’s just finished his rookie season. He has no power to demand a trade.

That’s my worry.

I hope that doesn’t happen. Winning seems to fix everything. But I can see things getting tense if the Spurs have a really bad streak next season, maybe losing 7 out of 9 games or something like that.

The contract is the main reason why. Harder to move your backup PG on a bad contract than your starter on one

I mean, we got to see Castle/Harper start against the Thunder. Harper will be a superstar, but running a team’s offense vs the role he had of coming off the bench and scoring are way different.

$55M per year for the next 4 years really is that bad. 

Hes going to 31 and 32 years old making \(58M and \)62M per year. 

They gave him the 4th highest amount of guaranteed money in the league. 

Wolves for Randle, Nets for Porter Jr

MPJ has one year @ \(40m and Randle has 2 years left at \)33-35M each. Neither one is a bad contract like Fox’s $220M

It’s really not people are letting a terrible finals series where he was playing on a sprained ankle cloud their judgement

He was an all star this season. He’s not gonna average 25 ppg next to Wemby like he did in Sacramento as the guy (But he did do that in 18 games without Wemby interestingly enough). I think the bigger issue is that Fox and Wemby just aren’t a good fit rather than Fox is bad

MPJ is expiring and makes 10M less than Fox next year. Not even comparable.

You’re biased. It can’t be swapped for those contracts.

Isn’t Mitch a Klutch guy like Fox?  Seems like Klutch has sunk their tentacles a bit into the Spurs. 

The camp is just Ron Harper calling people bitchasses online (excellent follow)

He’s going to want the ball in his hands. I don’t think he’s going to be happy spotting up in the corner for Fox.

I was proud that he was playing through a bum ankle but really frustrated that he continued trying to shoot despite being cold as ice and knowing he was injured. Similarly he was amazing chasing the ball down the court but dumb as hell going for the layup instead of running out the clock.

Seems like most of the criticism wasn’t against his physical play during the playoffs, but incredibly low bbIQ when he’s supposed to be the captain on the floor.

That’s the thing: you’re not gonna get equal value in return for Fox. 

In order to get off his salary, they’d need to take overpaid bums.

If they want good shit in return, they’d have to give up Fox + assets

What if they start 10-0?