Monday, June 15th, 2009...8:18 pm
Late Night Bullets
I’ll update this in the coming hours, but here’s a late night round up of information from the last week or so. Some of this may be old hat to you, but judging by our comments these tidbits haven’t worked their way into all four corners just yet.
- Yiannis Bouroussis’ contract negotiations with Olympiacos have hit a stall. This could be good news for the Spurs. Time will tell. (HT: Bruno)
- Jonathan Givony passes on a report from an observer at the New Jersey workouts (HT: Jordan):
Austin Daye vs. Omri Casspi turned into a real wrestling match. Casspi just manhandled Daye, really threw him around. It was a bit disappointing to see how little Daye was able to compete from a strength perspective—Casspi is a kind of a skinny guy himself. At one point Casspi cut Daye’s lip open-he had to go to hospital for stitches. The Nets should have done a better job of getting someone to call fouls. Casspi was fouling the hell out of Daye. Some of the guys were looking at each other like ‘what are we watching here?
Casspi was impressive, just like he’s been everywhere he’s gone. He plays hard, competes. He hit tough shots. Step-backs, runners. Then he missed some wide open J’s—go figure. He hits the toughest shots, but can’t always make the easiest ones. He looked like he could be a great complementary player in a 5 on 5. Definitely an atypical player for a European.
- Kyle, author of an excellent Wizards blog called Truth About It, responds to the Manu to D.C. talk with a three-way trade suggestion. He sees a deal that would bring Gerald Wallace, Andray Blatche and the 5th pick to San Antonio. I appreciate his effort, but I see a trade that would bring a player three times as injury prone-and owed more money-back to San Antonio. No thanks. In terms of trade suggestions, Kyle has done a good job here. But I’m increasingly of the position that trading Ginobili doesn’t make sense.
- A 48MoH reader, Mr. O, emailed us new video of Viktor Sanikidze:
- Sanikidze would be an interesting summer league participant. But he hasn’t played against very tough competition. It would be nice to see him against NBA players.
- Vladimir Dasic has withdrawn his name from the draft.
- Omri Casspi has elected to stay in the draft.
- Connecting the dots to Sergey Gladyr. Keep it on the hush.
- Several weeks back, I promised to profile Victor Claver and Nando De Colo as two players that should be on the Spurs’ radar. Those profiles are forthcoming. For now, I want to note that both players will remain in the draft. That’s a pretty good set up for San Antonio.
- I’m sitting on recently completed interviews with James Gist and Austin Nichols. Look for those late tomorrow or Wednesday morning.
13 Comments
June 15th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Kyle from Truth About It makes a very interesting and feasible trade suggestion. However, that 5th pick would have so much pressure put on him to replace Manu, plus, what if he’s a bust? Wallace is a good player, not sure about the other guys. I think this trade would have too much risk. This did get me thinking, there has to be some 3 way blockbuster out there that could work.
I’m so glad I’m not making these decisions…
June 15th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
First of all, from one Tim to another, I have to tell you that you and Graydon are absolutely my favorite Spurs bloggers. With that said, I hope you don’t mind that I linked this over at PtR - most of us are regular readers of this blog anyway, but I always like giving credit where credit is due.
On to business then:
I have to agree that the Manu trade from Truth About It, while obviously not put together in haste, would be a terrible idea from the Spurs’ perspective - but I would definitely enjoy seeing if any of the trade machine gurus around here could make it more interesting. I think most of us look through homer glasses when making up trade ideas, and that trade would be fantastic for the Wiz, but not that great for the other teams involved. Wallace is one of those guys that never quite made it to his potential - and shows no sign of taking the extra leap - and the other two are completely unproven, with one of those being a complete wildcard.
I’m also curious to know what you guys think, having been closer to the proceedings than the rest of us, about whether the Spurs will try to trade up in the draft. It seems like some of the better prospects on the front office’s radar - like Casspi and even Jerebko - are projected to be late first-rounders. I’m curious to know if you guys have any kind of indication of how badly the Spurs want any of these guys.
Looking forward to those Gist and Nichols interviews, probably great stuff like almost everything else here. Thanks for keeping us up to date, and keep up the good work!
June 16th, 2009 at 6:14 am
No problem on the linkage. Spread the love, I say.
The Spurs are trying to move up in the draft, and Jerebko and Casspi are two names they would want to move up for, I’d guess. But because they are the Spurs we know very little. And I’m happy about that. If they need to go into stealth mode to pursue the next Manu, then I’m all for their veiled existence. I can wait.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:55 am
If our SF lineup next season is Bowen, Nichols, and say either Jerebko or Casspi, who starts? Are there any rookies, first or second round and with emphasis on SF’s, that Pop could give the Parker method of trial by fire to next season?
I think Finley is more likely to be on the roster than Bowen and that he would start over Nichols or a rookie. Finley would see role reduced but Pop would keep him starting for consistency.
One thing I like about Nichols (27 years old) is that he was playing 37.5 mpg in France. That is very attractive for a lineup that may include Finley or Bowen, D-League call-ups and/or rookies.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:37 am
What about this scenario: The Spurs need to pick up some talent soon to compete during Duncan/Ginobili’s window of opportunity. So they pull a Scola (ouch! But wait…) and trade away the rights to Splitter, who they can’t afford to bring in right now. The trade goes to a team with a high draft pick and cash (cash to the Spurs for Splitter and cash to bring in Splitter for themselves). The Spurs use the pick to draft Casspi (or some other guy we don’t know about yet) and the cash to bring in other talent (maybe Bouroussis?). And they still get to keep their other draft picks, allowing them to bring on guys like Gladyr. And they still keep the many expiring contracts they have for a mid-season trade, if need be.
From the Spur’s trade partner’s perspective (whoever they may be), this is a big win, too. The draft is reputed to be weak, Splitter is a great and proven big man, and the team can go from zero to hero in one trade that only gives up a pick and cash (yeesh-that does sound good! Maybe we should just keep Splitter…).
From the Spurs perspective, maybe this gives up too much for too little, and maybe it sacrifices the future for the present, and maybe it just doesn’t work. But maybe it would allow the Spurs to capitalize on their championship window with the resources they already have without giving away anything but the future hope of having Splitter. Thoughts?
June 16th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Trading the rights to Splitter is not an unthinkable option, although he’s a quality bigman. The Spurs would have to get back mid first round to lottery level talent. I think they’re better served to wait until next summer. Besides, a frontcourt of Duncan, Bouroussis, Splitter and Mahinmi makes a lot of sense, especially if Duncan calls it a day in 2012.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:03 am
As far as, “Wait for Splitter in 2010″ goes, it seems to be pretty well assumed that he would come to the NBA and not sign with TAU again. But has he actually come out and said that, or are we just operating on hope in the absence of anything solid?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Hope in the absence of anything solid…
His decision to stay with Baskonia was two-fold. The first was financial-Saski was able to offer more money because of the rookie salary scale. That isn’t an issue next summer. Second, Michelle Splitter, his sister, was battling illness at the time and it made more sense on a personal level to stay close to her. Sadly, Michelle passed away in February.
If the Spurs want him, they should be able to make Tiago Splitter an attractive offer next summer. If they sign Bouroussis this summer, I do wonder if they’ll want to invest more money in their frontline. Also, assuming Bouroussis and Mahinmi both perform reasonably well, will Splitter like sharing minutes his first couple years in San Antonio?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Nice to see Sanikidze doing something. I tried to follow his career on google for a while. He seemed to put up big numbers where ever he was, including a few games with the Spurs summer league, but still never seemed to move up in the basketball world. Then he seemed to disappear, and it looked like he was out of basketball which would cause the Spurs to lose his rights (I think). I would be nice to get him into summer league or at least a higher level of international play. He appears to be disruptive, long, and athletic.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Gerald Wallace and the #5 for Ginobili sounds like a great deal to me, even if that blows the 2010 plan.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I’d really hate to see a recurrence of anything even remotely resembling The Scola Affair, but if all we have in Splitter’s rights is a possibility of seeing him in 2010, then (since he’s already jilted us once) I’m much more willing to see us include his rights in a package that brings us some help immediately.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:34 am
“Connecting the dots to Sergey Gladyr. Keep it on the hush.”
Keep it on the hush? You mean, like posting it on a blog that is part of Bspn Network? LOL.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Exactly.
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