Odin

His performance also dropped last year basically across the board. That can kill a player's trade value.

Man that's an old classic that you pulled out there.

Definitely weird. Probably mostly a small sample size issue there, but maybe there is something underlying there that we are missing/ have been ignoring? Maybe we are too hard on his ball handling for example?

Maybe we should go back to the stone age and just run iso sets for Gordon next year. (This is a joke).

Yeah, he is a good comp I think. It is definitely strange- it is hard to come up with a good comp for Wiggins because basically the only thing he does statistically is score. He doesn't get rebounds. He doesn't pass. He doesn't play defense (or get steals or blocks). The advanced stats all seem to point to him as an average or replacement level player- and yet he scores 24 points a game as HeHateMe pointed out. At the same time he has the lowest TS% of any player in the top 20 (Wall is close, but I think we can all agree that Wall does a lot more.) So how valuable is a guy that can get you a lot of points on average efficiency, but doesn't do anything else and will hurt you on the other end?

It means something, but not as much as you seem to think it does. There have been high scorers before on bad teams that never became all star players, and petered out to being "just ok" type players.

And I would totally trade Gordon for Jokic and throw in a few picks as well. I think Jokic has the potential to be really special.

Hmm, I would put Jokic above Wiggins for sure. They have the same major issue (defense), but Jokic was able to bring an- on paper- worse team to a better final standing as the best player on that team. The only thing against him is he only really had half a year running the show.

A poll is not a debate. In a debate, both sides bring their own arguments to support their view. After the initial arguments, you break down the other sides argument while shoring up your own- giving different ways to perceive the evidence or adding more different evidence that either supports your argument or breaks theirs. And my point in all of this isn't that Gordon is a great player or anything- he is definitely flawed. I just think he is in the conversation at around the same level as Wiggins is. Perhaps you are overrating Wiggins rather instead of me overrating Gordon. And I think Wiggins will be paid more because he has the gaudy scoring numbers as you pointed out. I just don't think that makes him a better player.

I would say no. There you are. I think Wiggins is very overrated- and the stats back that up. The only thing you can seem to point to is that Wiggins scored 24 points a game. And please prove that Wiggins is not a terrible defender because every single stat backs up that position and everyone is basically in agreement with that point. At the very least it should be debatable.

Please tell me then- what specifically makes Wiggins the superior player?

I mean I went into my argument below, but ok glad to hear your irrevocable evidence that I am wrong.

Hmmm... As a back up, that actually would probably be good for all parties involved. It should allow them to play fairly similarly with Irving out minus the 3 point shooting.

Another one for the Wiggins V. Gordon debate (though it looks like it is just me in this corner). https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/andrew-wiggins/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/aaron-gordon/ 5 year value for Wiggins: 78.9 5 year value for Gordon: 135.7

Mediocre at best.

Karl Anthony Towns is better is what that means.

I mean first he has to just get to "not awful defense". It would be ok if he was like Harden who also scored super efficiently, distributed the ball, etc. but his scoring isn't that efficient and he really doesn't do anything but score. How many players have gone from being horrible defensively to good defensively? Should it not be worrisome that he has all of the tools but that he doesn't use them? Are we really betting against a guy that has shown that he is willing to put in the work, even if we have not seen the dividends of it yet, for a guy that came into the league with "all of the tools" yet only seems to use some of them? So far they have been fairly equivalent, with Wiggins having the edge in counting stats (read points) and "tools", and Gordon having the edge just about everywhere else. So why is it absurd for me to think Gordon is the better player? Yes, some of it is homerism, but I think I have an argument here.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-nba-haters-ball/?ex_cid=538twitter https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1_hint=Andrew+Wiggins&player_id1_select=Andrew+Wiggins&player_id1=wiggian01&y1=2017&player_id2_hint=Aaron+Gordon&player_id2_select=Aaron+Gordon&y2=2017&player_id2=gordoaa01&idx=players http://www.82games.com/1617/16ORL14.HTM http://www.82games.com/1617/16MIN9.HTM But ok, lets keep on ****ting on Gordon while we praise Wiggins. The #s speak for themselves. In a season where Gordon played out of position- moving him away from areas he is most effective, he had a lower PER (14.5 to 16.5) basically equivalent TS% (53% to 53.4%), higher ws/48 (.77 to .66), a better box plus and minus (-.7 to -2.7), higher VORP (.8 to -.6). He was not the worst defender in the league. At the very least I think it should be arguable.

Gordon is a better player than Wiggins- Wiggins defense is so bad that he actively hurts the wolves while he is on the court, and while he scores more points he does it an mediocre efficiency. He will get a higher salary because he scored over 20 points a game last year, but that doesn't mean he is a better player.

Yep. If we can get a lower $ amount for Gordon who- in my opinion- is a better player (Though he doesn't put up the pretty point totals), that should be a good deal.

I think we should look at him as a percentage of the cap. What percentage of the cap is he worth? 15%? 20%? 25% Rudy Gay, who seems to be one of his closer comps, basically ended up being valued at 26.7% of the cap after his rookie contract- but that seems very high. If we could get him at around 20% of the cap, if not lower, that might be a decent deal for us.

He'd get fat and lazy again.

Aren't they all from the last two seasons? Maybe that is why.

Way too much.

I think Fournier has value. He just isn't as valuable as his contract suggests he should be.