Yoda said:
3) He said he picked up these contracts to be able to be more flexable. He has not used a single one of these contracts to upgrade talent
This is something that is starting to annoy me.
When we traded Webber Petrie said that the deal gives us some depth and flexibility and the players we got for him are moveable pieces. Now some fans, took the "moveable pieces" bit and ran with it. You took it as if he was going to shop those players around and not keep them for the following year. That was your perception and it appears to be the wrong one.
Just about everyone was convinced that some of those players would be moved on and now that it appears its unlikely that they will be moved for the time being, the sky is falling in.
Webber trade
HAS given us flexibility. Webber still has another 3 years left on his huge contract. Corliss has 2 years left and Skinner has 2 years (plus a team option for 3rd year). Quite simply next off-season both of those contracts are very valuable because they are expiring and totaling somewhere around $12 million. As far as salary cap goes we are a LOT more flexible than if Webber was here.
We quite simply wouldn't be any better with Webber. As much as I love C-Webb and what he has done for this franchise, he still isn't half the player he was prior to injury. And while he battled manfully last year for us, it was very clear that he is a shadow of his former self and he wasn't as effective as he has been. His game has changed and we were not going anywhere. We were no more contenders with Webber (post injury) at PF than we are with Abdur-Rahim. We are a much deeper team now. More versatile and more flexible as far as salary cap is concerned. Are we contenders? No. Would we be contenders with post-injury Webber? No.
Everyone wants a superstar PF/C on the team to lead us to glory. Reality check, those players don't fall off trees and are just about impossible to get via trade.
Petrie has done as good a job as he could have cosidering what he had to deal with. No one realistic expected him to turn this team into a contender in one off-season. Just because he is done for the time being, doesn't mean that this is finished product.