I don't have a ton of time now, and I might have more to flesh this out later, but here's my thinking:
-- Wally does one thing well: shooting. Jones is a pretty good shooter, but he's not in Wally's league. Assuming the team needs a serious perimeter threat to get space for Zach and Miles to slash and post up, Wally's a better fit.
-- Wally's 27 years old... just entering his prime. Jones is 33... just exiting his prime. I don't think that either player is so good that it will make us a contender--we need for Zach and Miles to keep developing and for Telfair to turn into a stud. I think these things COULD happen, but not for another year or two, and that means that Jones would be on the outside looking in as the rest of the team hit its stride.
-- Wally's got 5 years remaining, while Jones only has 3. But, as outlined above by Trader Bob, Jones is making a mere $11m less over those three years than Wally will over his five. One way of looking at that is that we'd essentially get Wally for two years at $5.5m per... which is the MLE and a bargain for Wally (when he'll be 31 and 32 if my quick math is right). In actuality, this saves the Blazers even MORE money because it has fewer luxury tax hits now and more of the money is paid down the road.
One angle to the finances is whether those 2 more years would hurt us. I would say they would not. I don't expect the team to be under the cap 3 years from now nor 5 years from now, and while it's great to be able to clear big expiring contracts off the books, as outlined above the value of Wally is probably better than Jones over the life of their deals.
Ed O.
Why doesnt nash just pull the trigger for Wally and get rid of SAR?
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