LOS ANGELES – David West landed wrong with 22.5 seconds left in regulation March 24 in Salt Lake City, and uncertainty emerged from every direction. The long-term health of the left knee after the torn ligament, the Hornets roster, the playoff hopes, his future in New Orleans.
Even as the Hornets defy expectations against the Lakers, as they have most all season against everyone, it’s difficult to not at least wonder how the first round would have been different with the leading scorer and former All-Star at power forward. Players and coaches dismiss the hypothetical, choosing to deal only in the actual, but they’re 2-2 against an opponent that came in heavily favored while missing the second-most important part of the roster after Chris Paul. With West, who knows.
Similarly, it is also impossible to measure the injury’s impact on what, at least in appearance, would have been unique contract talks. West can opt out and negotiate as a free agent in the summer with the new owners needing to sign off on any deal with the Hornets. The new owners being the NBA.
West must now decide if the smart move is to leave $7.5 million on the table for 2011-12 in exchange for long-term security or if he should wait another season in hopes of getting a better deal after showing the knee is fine. The NBA must then decide how much it is willing to pay if other teams make lucrative offers, which, in the strange scenario, would lead to one of the 30 individual businesses bidding against the corporate office.
“We’ll talk to our internal staff and come with recommendations and then take it to the NBA,” general manager Dell Demps said. “It’s not that complicated. It’s really pretty simple.”
If he says so.
In one meaningful development, Demps said “we’ve already kind of given them a blueprint or a map of where we want to go, and everyone’s on the same page. When it’s time to execute the plan, it’s really more of just a signing off.” In another, that blueprint includes the intention of locking up West if he does become a free agent, although it could go beyond “just signing off” if West is listening to other offers and the dollar figures are rising.
“I’ve made no secret about it,” Demps said. “We want to have David in the program for a long time. We’re hoping that he retires here and we’re hoping for a speedy recovery. He’s a great guy. Not only is he a good basketball player, but he’s a better person. We just want to keep him in the program.”
The Lakers are pretty banged up. Their three key players, Gasol,(knee). Bynum, (knee), Kobe, (ankle and foot), are all fighting through these injuries and much less than 100%. So have you thought of mentioning that fact? A completely healthy Laker team would have swept the Hornets. With or without David West! And anyone knows that,( except the Laker haters would never admit it of course!)Maybe this sounds like I’m making excuses, but this article is making excuses for New Orleans without David West! The healthy Laker team swept the Hornets in the regular season. Pretty sure West was with them at least 2 of the 4!
I will say this like I say everytime Season and Playoffs are far different, and even though stats say Lakers went 4-0 against Hornets in the Regular Season, but Playoffs could be different, so no can say what will happen for sure, no one thought Celtics would sweep Knicks, but guess what they did, and everyone thought Bulls would sweep Pacers, but that didn’t happen, everyone thought OKC-DEN series would be competitive series, but as of now OKC is up 3-1, and it isn’t a close series, so instead of saying what “would have happened” why not just face what actually is happening.
Agreed with that really. The what ifs are kind of irrelevant. especially in the playoffs.
I think if David was healthy, they still will not win against the Lakers. Too well coached and all of us didn’t expect Pau playing terrible and Chris Paul playing great all series. It would have been great to see him healthy, but will not cause any damage when the lakers bigs start to guard him.
Yeah right. This series would be very unpredictable if West was there to contribute with scoring. Heck it’s been pretty unpredictable so far. Anyway like someone else said. It’s just a “what if” that doesn’t really matter at this point.
@ 3:16 you didn’t expect chris paul to come out and play great? Are you kidding me? Think about who’s guarding him. Not to bash on D Fish, an awesome guy, but he’s a liability issue to the lakers in terms of guarding point guards. And steve blake isn’t that much better. So i’m not surprised that chris paul is tearing it up out there.