2020-2021 AROUND the NBA: Archived

[HanspardsShowerVoice]

You're catching heat for this take, but I want you to know that you're not the only one who sees the situation clearly. Maybe KP wows us all in the playoffs, but barring that, he has left an extremely "not worth his contract" taste in the mouths of most people, I'd bet.

IMHO, this last bout of chronic knee pain will probably send huge red flags across the league to the point where he's a negative asset.  I don't even think a great playoff performance changes anything fundamentally, because no one doubts his talent when he's healthy.  He already proved in the bubble that he can play great in the playoffs when he's healthy.  People are focusing on things like Luka chemistry and his lack of a sunny disposition whatnot ...that's ancillary stuff ....  its the freaking knees !!!    The thing is when he's still having chronic knee pain from just regular day to day use that keeps him out of critical games for weeks at a time, not from some acute injury but just the day to day load of being a basketball player, that's probably an indicator of a degenerative bone on bone condition that is going to ultimately require microfracture.  People think all these little miniscus clean out procedures are no big deal, but often it's just kicking the can down the road on a underlying problem.  You can only put the fix-a-flat in a bad tire and drive on it so many times.    This isn't like when he got traded out of New York and you just tell yourself that once he rehabs from this one specific injury then the bad stuff is behind him and he's good to go.  This is a chronic problem that leaves him on the end of the bench in street clothes at any moment with no timetable to return.   Who knowingly wants to build their franchise around that? 

GMs are mostly in the business of keeping their GM job.  There's just a finite number of them, and they're precious.    And any GM who gives up significant franchise  assets for someone with chronic knee injuries on a max salary is putting his job on the chopping block.  Any GM that trades for KP this offseason using significant franchise capital only to see KP sits out 3 weeks in December and then ultimately announces he needs microfracture surgery is getting fired.  Who is taking that career risk?   So they only way we're getting out of KP's contract is if we're swapping out an age/injury problem on a max contract with another franchise  and/or bribing a team to eat the salary with future draft capital.   That's why the most likely scenarios for a KP are swapping out for someone like Kemba/Horford and/or bribing a rebulding team with cap space to take him with 1st round picks.   Ultimately I think the Mavs will put on a brave public face and try to white knuckle another season out of KP rather than swallow either scenario.