Has our future position gotten better, worse, or stayed the same since trading Rudy/Donovan?

[jom2003]

We missed our window, which is crazy to think about cuz we literally had Josh Hart, Derrick White, Jalen Brunson, Jaden McDaniels falling to our lap. Yet we missed all of them.

Now we can only watch them competing for a title on national TV.

So just draft better will help solve a lot of our problems. We gotta make this one count.

 

[framer]

How many top picks have the Pacers and Knicks had? Just look at what teams have picked up from the bargin bin at the trade deadline. Hell, Pacers had Myles Turner on the block for years because he "didn't fit their timeline."

I was OK breaking Gobert and Mitchell into assets, that ride was over. But there is no excuse for Washington Wizarding it for a decade when we have the assets we do. The worst possible thing to happen is to wait around and make all those picks.

 

[jom2003]

How many top picks have the Pacers and Knicks had? Just look at what teams have picked up from the bargin bin at the trade deadline. Hell, Pacers had Myles Turner on the block for years because he "didn't fit their timeline."

I was OK breaking Gobert and Mitchell into assets, that ride was over. But there is no excuse for Washington Wizarding it for a decade when we have the assets we do. The worst possible thing to happen is to wait around and make all those picks.

Yep. We are falling into the dangerous trap where Hornets/Kings/Twolves been stuck for decades. Just tank in the most passive way possible and pray for lottery luck. Stacking players of the same position with no real plan of building a competitive roster.

I like what Portland's been doing acuiring all the assets from trade especially Avdija and Camara. Now they are one last piece away from becoming a real force again.

 

[GunterD]

Kinda tough to say, but I'll say worse (I am viewing this exercise as comparing our potential immediately after that trade was made, and today). Its just the nature of the stockpiling pick game, the assets depreciate. Its speculative gambling on the quality the picks turn out to be, and most of the time, they don't end up that good, just by virtue of the fact there are 30 first round picks every year, and an exponential growth in value the closer you get to the top. The closer in time you get to the pick, the less variance there is on the quality of the pick, the less, on average, the pick is worth. Gets even worse when the picks start conveying into actual players, since then you also have to actually pay them.

I say its tough though mostly because we didn't have that Suns pick when the initial trade was made, and that's probably the single most valuable asset we have right now. Also our own picks are worth a lot more than they were at that point. And Lauri panned out, and has some significant trade value, (though it is usually the case that looked at in a vacuum, when you trade a player for picks, the picks usually don't return a player as good as the one you sent out).

 

[infection]

I say its tough though mostly because we didn't have that Suns pick when the initial trade was made, and that's probably the single most valuable asset we have right now.

I have a bone to pick with this pick that I’ll detail at some point later, but it’s another speculative value one like all the Cleveland, Minnesota and Lakers picks whose value we watched go up in smoke. That is to say that we never seem to fully appreciate how quickly the landscape changes (which can work both ways). Nobody anticipated Cleveland becoming the regular season champions or Donovan to re-sign. Yet here we are. Everyone anticipated Minnesota sucking and here we are drafting in the 20s. Everyone liked the idea of “controlling someone’s draft for x years” when you include swaps, but now we’re seeing that the swaps aren’t even redeemable. Then the Lakers pick (“bro nobody could have predicted the Lakers being gifted Luka”). And the Lakers still being a dumpster fire doesn’t negate that pick from being in the 20s.

Everyone looks at the Suns future prospects now and assumes the pick will have a lot of value. Maybe it will. But there’s a high chance of volatility and them making the playoffs could also happen. If that happens, congratulations…. we’ve traded three late first rounders for one late first rounder. If that’s the case (and we’re kidding ourselves if we’re not acknowledging the real probabilities on this outcome), then the only thing keeping a deal like that from being the worst trade in history is just scale.

Everyone thought Phoenix and Chris Paul were irrelevant and one trade later they’re in the finals. Obviously it’s not exactly the same organization and not bound by some type of historical precedent magic, but it’s just one example of things changing fast. This trade sounds great but there’s a pretty good non-zero chance that it’s a complete doozy.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

10 and 3 was the most fun I had as a fan for the past 4 years. I would kill for that over what we did yesterday.

10-3 was fleeting. What happened after that first 15% of the season. The culmination of this past season wasn’t to get the first pick but to be within the top 5 picks where there is a potential star that will hopefully help us. 10-3 was forever ago. Let it go.

 

[bigmike]

Worse at the moment, of course.

But in fairness if I’m DA I’d do it all over again.

The Rudy + Don + other vets core was never going to win a title. He did a hell of a job blowing it up at a time when trade-market returns were sky-high.

I think we’re collectively frustrated (at least I am) that we’ve sucked for a while, look like we’ll suck next year, etc. But there’s some luck involved with rebuild “timing” that has not gone our way thus far.

It sucks we’re picking #5. And it sucks that we’ll probably suck again next season. But I still believe in the general direction of 1) blowing up a core that didn’t work, 2) getting as much value back as you possibly can, and 3) cashing in on that value via draft / trade when the right opportunities present themselves.

Danny Ainge hasn’t forgotten how to do this. I just think we’re stuck in the long, meandering purgatory of #3 right now.