Should the Spurs Buy a Ticket to the Stephen Jackson Sweepstakes?
As many of you may already know, Stephen Jackson has stated publicly that he would like to be traded by the Golden State Warriors. He mentioned the Texas Three-Step, Cleveland, and New York as potential landing spots. This all begs the question: should the Spurs attempt to trade for Stephen Jackson?
For the purposes of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I would love for Stephen Jackson to return to the Spurs. He was one of the my favorite players during our ’03 title run. Turmoil has followed him since his days in San Antonio, but my opinion of him has consistently echoed that of his former teammates: Tim Duncan et al. speak often of their affection for him, and so do I.
But there are plenty of players I would love to have on the Spurs. That doesn’t make their acquisition realistic. So is my yearning to see S-Jax back in the silver and black empty hope, or could this truly happen?
At this point, there are only two trade scenarios I would consider (both of which were mentioned in a comment thread on Friday): Jackson for Bonner and Mason; or Jackson for Bonner, Finley and Williams. In terms of the championship run the Spurs are about to make this upcoming season, I think either of those are an immediate upgrade.
And immediate upgrades have been the name of the game this offseason. The notion that Tim Duncan is the window has gained some traction in the front office, and subsequently, from a financial and personnel perspective, the team has gone all in.
If you’ve already bet the house, why not toss in the car and the kids’ college fund while your at it? Then again, it’s not as if the Spurs are doomed to irrelevancy in 2 or 3 years: This is a team with some solid young pieces, a rejuvenated core, and arguably the savviest front office in the league. Maybe a little consideration for the post-Tim Duncan era is in order.
As someone who plans on being a fan far past the year 2012, I’m fine with making some long-term considerations as long as we have already ensured that we will genuinely be a contender this upcoming season. And as we’ve discussed around here recently, there are reasons to be skeptical.
Just to be clear, I believe the Spurs are a contender. In fact, I believe the Spurs might even be slightly underrated. But if we had Stephen Jackson coming off the bench behind Richard Jefferson, we would be a large step towards silencing the doubters and (more importantly) shoring ourselves up against potential injury.
It’s worth noting that, if the Spurs had both Jefferson and Jackson on the team, the starting position at small forward could be up for grabs. For all this talk of Jackson being a “chucker,” his player efficiency rating of 16.20 last season was better than Jefferson’s rating of 15.45. And although I am very susceptible to the argument that Jefferson’s PER was a bit deflated due to the injury woes the Bucks faced, you could make the same argument about Jackson and the Warriors, who were without Monta Ellis for a significant portion of the season.
Again, just to be clear, I think Jefferson deserves the starting job, Jackson or no Jackson. But were this trade to go down, there is an argument to be made.
That being said, we all know PER is disproportionately reactive to a player’s offensive ability and, let’s be honest, Jackson’s abilities on the defensive end are probably a larger concern. Except, when you are talking about trading some combination of Michael Finley, Matt Bonner, or Roger Mason, do you honestly see Jackson as a step down defensively? I don’t.
But Jackson’s potential contributions this upcoming season are not what concerns my colleague Tim Varner, who is opposed to the trade. Tim’s worried about the fact that Jackson is owed $7.6 million next season; $8.5 mil the next; $9.2. mil the season after that; and to top it all off, $10 million during the 2012/13 season. Those are numbers that make even someone as shamelessly adoring of Jackson as myself take a step back.
This all leaves us with a question we have asked numerous times this summer: Would you rather compete for championships during the next 2 to 3 seasons or be better prepared to undergo a legitimate rebuilding effort in 3 or 4? Call me imprudent, but I side with the former.
The Dallas Factor
I’d like to mention that, if Jackson does not end up in a Spurs uniform next season, there is a decent chance that he could end up playing for Dallas. Of all the places aside from San Antonio Jackson expressed interest in (Dallas, Houston, Cleveland, and New York), Dallas worries me the most.
As things currently stand, Dallas is a very underrated ball club. In my opinion, with the Marion acquisition, the moved firmly into the West’s top 5, if not into its top 3. If they had Jason Terry and Stephen Jackson coming off the bench behind Dirk, Howard, Kidd, Marion and Dampier, they would be no pushover come the postseason.
I don’t love the idea of Cleveland strengthening their team any further either, but for the sake of my own mental health, I try not to worry about Eastern Conference contenders too much. We have 82 games and 3 rounds of the playoffs before we have to worry about meeting an Eastern Conference team in an elimination game. Let’s stay focused on our rivals in the West.
Which is also exactly why I am not worried about the Rockets: Even if they did trade for Jackson, he alone doesn’t push them into the ranks of the West’s elite.
By no means am I advocating trading for a player just so a division rival doesn’t get him. But I did want to say that seeing Jackson in that awful blue and green isn’t exactly the way I had hoped this story would end either.
