Heroic Shrimp
Active member
Patrick said:
I'd give him full comedic marks if he parodied the Laine interview.
Matthews or BUST
- Thread starter ZBBM
- Start date
I'd give him full comedic marks if he parodied the Laine interview.
Kin
New member
Frank E said:
Except they're not. There's not a single deal that's been suggested that is incredibly lop sided or includes any piece that's meaningfully "top shelf" except OEL at a push. Absent that it's a lot of "well, maybe these four quarters will equal a dollar" kind of trades.
The problem with a trade like that, or whenever you hear someone try to put together a trade for a superstar, is that unless the person selling is exceptionally motivated the better option for them is almost always to hang onto the superstar and see if you can work out another way to add lesser pieces.
The thing that nobody accounts for when they try to balance the scales in a trade like this is risk. Making a trade like this would be incredibly risky for the Leafs. For decades Leafs fans have been clamoring for a legit, top of the league kind of superstar. For over a decade the team has been desperate for a real #1 C. If the Leafs trade the pick away and Matthews becomes one of those, as most people seem to think he will, then nothing short of a Cup will prevent the people in charge from looking like idiots. They'll have done two things that have essentially never happened before, trading the #1 pick in a year with a consensus #1(or#2 if you want to be kind to Laine) and traded a #1 and traded out of the top 5. There's a reason nobody has ever done something like that.
That reason, incidentally, is chiefly because of the exact same impasse we're at here. There's so much risk involved on the part of the team with the #1 pick that in order to make it worth their while the team trading up has to make it so egregiously lopsided in terms of on-ice value that they're dooming themselves to being a lousy team at which point it makes no sense for them.
And the only thing acting as a counter-weight to all of that history and logic is the idea that there's this huge host of Arizona-based people who don't like hockey but who would really, really, really care about where Auston Matthews was born. Something that there's entirely no precedent for. I mean, I don't like watching Soccer for instance and I can say pretty firmly that it wouldn't change at all if TFC's best player was my brother, let alone just some guy who was from the general vicinity of the Team's stadium.
The idea that it would fill the stadium to any significant degree I think speaks to a kind of unfortunate degree of Canadian hockey snobbishness where we think less of their interest of winning than we do of our own. If you gave me a choice of Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews only Matthews was the local kid and McDavid from Arizona I'd still choose the better hockey player. My excitement over Mitch Marner as a prospect has essentially 0% to do with the fact that he grew up 30 minutes outside of where I grew up. I mean, maybe we've both had a hamburger at Golden Star or something but who cares? As a sports fan, I want to see my team win and win with generally decent human beings on the team. Outside of that, most sports fans don't give a crap where a guy is from.
bustaheims
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
Agreed. The fact that Marner and I grew up in the same area is a nice little factoid - more of a marginal Thornhill pride type thing (we don't get many reasons to be proud, sportswise - it's basically Marner, Moore and Raonic) - but it doesn't really influence me wanting him on the team. Maybe, if I already had some marginal interest, a local star would get me to pay a little more attention to the team, but, if I don't care about the sport, I still wouldn't care about the sport.
Redleaf
Active member
I guess the only possibility of a lopsided trade happening is the fact that every once and a while a scout and/or manager believe they know more about certain players, good or bad, than everyone else. Some hockey guys just think they are much smarter than central scouting and other teams scouts and managers.,(you see teams going off the board for draft picks for example) It doesn't happened often and is doesn't happen with a first overall pick, but all the same, it's a possibility I suppose.
Kin
New member
RedLeaf said:
I don't see how that applies here. Everyone is already saying that Matthews is a pretty good bet to be a top flight #1 C. So the only way that Phoenix could move to offering way more than Matthews is worth is if they offer equivalent value to a Crosby/McDavid level superstar which, again, they don't have the assets to actually do.
Or, of course, Shanahan and co. could disagree with the majority and think that Matthews isn't actually as good as other people do but again that doesn't apply as Laine is there as well.
Any good business person will explore all options available to better ones position.Even the business of hockey,we cannot get fixated on just one option on keeping Matthews.All signs right now points to him being no.1 overall and the Leafs choose him.
However examples in the past sometimes has paid off to trade the no.1 like Lindros to Philly for a boatload of prospects and it worked.
I don't think any one is proposing to make a trade for the sake of making one,but if you can get a lopsided deal in your favour you have got to look at it.
However examples in the past sometimes has paid off to trade the no.1 like Lindros to Philly for a boatload of prospects and it worked.
I don't think any one is proposing to make a trade for the sake of making one,but if you can get a lopsided deal in your favour you have got to look at it.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
jdh1 said:
But they only traded Lindros because he refused to play for them. If that wasn't the case he never would have been made available. They had to look at trade options in that scenario.
Kin
New member
jdh1 said:
Except that's not true for a number of reasons. For starters, the Nordiques didn't trade the #1 pick. They traded Lindros after they'd already drafted him and he refused to play there. Likewise, the measurement by which it "worked" has to do with all sorts of random things like Lindros getting injured, Forsberg being roughly as good as Lindros turned out to be(although chiefly because of Lindros' injuries) and maybe most importantly the fact that after the trade the Nordiques franchise effectively collapsed and had to be moved to Colorado. It's pretty hard to say a move really worked out for a team if they had to move a few years afterwards. It's not unconnected to the Franchise's eventual success either. There's no chance in hades the Canadiens would have traded Roy to the team if they were still in Quebec City.
The Nordiques essentially had a gun to their head and it majorly screwed up their franchise. The fact that Lindros' injuries and some lucky circumstances that were entirely dependent on their move meant that things sort of evened up talent level doesn't mean the move "worked" or that it should serve as inspiration to anyone.
bustaheims
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
So he is. That makes 4! Neat!
Also forgot Gillian Ferrari (from the national women's team - which, since I went to school with her, is my bad) and Josh Ho-Sang (who, apparently, is also an MoT).
groundskeeper willie
New member
And there's your perfect example. I have never cared about basketball or the Raptors. They are winning and doing well and I'm starting to pay a little bit of attention now.Nik the Trik said:
If they're a bad team with a highly hyped Toronto boy playing for them? Then I still don't care.
The Nordiques new before they drafted Lindros that he didn't want to play for them,but they took him anyways because of his trade value.Nik the Trik said:
To say that Lindros got hurt in his carreer,knowbody new that in advance,just like Philly didn't know that Forsberg was going to be a star.
And we don't know everything now about Matthews,how good is he going to be?
Will he be spared of major injuries?
Will he be fully committed to playing in Toronto?
Kin
New member
jdh1 said:
They knew he didn't want to, they didn't know he would outright refuse and hold out for a season. Otherwise they'd have traded him immediately or just traded the pick. Taking him and letting him sit around for a year makes no sense. It certainly didn't increase his value or their leverage.
jdh1 said:
That's what I'm saying. It only "worked out" by circumstance, not because it was a smart decision. Buying lottery tickets isn't a sound financial decision but you can still get lucky. That's why you make the high percentage decision unless you're forced to do otherwise.
jdh1 said:
You never know those things about any draft pick. That doesn't mean you pass on them.