BloopOracle wrote:monsterpile wrote:TeamRicky wrote:BloopOracle wrote:It seems like we're struggling to find a feasible trade target or upcoming free agent in terms of age, fit, and impact that satisfies everyone on this board
Good. I don't really want to trade the pick. It seems trading top ten picks usually benefits the team getting the pick.
Chicago trading Elton Brand is one occurrence I can think of but I thought that was moronic at the time.
As for FAs its hard to find guys that really fit and or would even come here compared to other options they would have. You never know what opportunities may present themselves once FA starts ramping up and teams go all in (or out) on building their roster.
There's been a fair amount of success,Ray Allen and Kevin Love worked out as well as Elton, and didn't we trade for the Wizard's top 10 pick in order to draft Rubio? TeamRicky should love top 10 ten pick trades!
Swapping one high lottery pick for a slightly lower one and additional assets can often work well. That's what we did in the Love deal. We traded Mayo (the #3 pick) for Love (#5 pick). I'm not sure what else we got in return, but it didn't matter because we definitely got the best of that swap on a 1 for 1 basis. I remember loving the deal at the time. I also remember talking to Fred Hoiberg during a draft workout that year. He was NOT high on Mayo and neither was McHale. Fred talked about his and McHale's view that Mayo lacked the ability to be effective on dribble penetration in the NBA, which means at best he'd just be a jump shooter. Fred said that one-dimensional offensive game wasn't worth a #3 pick. Not surprisingly, I found out after the draft that they took Mayo with the intent of trading him for Love. McHale deserves a lot of credit for that one. By the way, the Thunder took Westbrook at #4 that year while Gallinari went #6.
In Kahn's first year at the helm, we traded Miller and Foye for Washington's #6 pick to go with our own #5 pick and used the extra pick to take Jonny Flynn. Rubio was going to be Kahn's pick no matter what. So the extra pick was clearly intended for Flynn or James Harden. I was told at the time that they thought Harden might slip down and that Flynn would go to the Kings. If that had happened, we would have ended up with Ricky and Harden. Oh, the fickle finger of fate! But Kahn was in love with Flynn so, with Harden off the board and Flynn available, Flynn was the guy. Meanwhile, Curry and DeRozan went elsewhere with great individual and team success while Washington went nowhere along with Foye and Miller. Do we really want to trade our pick?
The lesson of course isn't that it's bad to trade for picks. To the contrary, high lottery picks tend to be better than any combination of aging role players obtained in return for such a pick. But that assumes a competent front office deciding who to draft.
So my sense to continues to be that we should keep our pick, regardless of whether it's #1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 or 9, unless someone makes an obviously stellar offer that includes an elite vet who fits a needs, has at least a couple years left on his contract, and is still young enough to be in his prime when our young course are hitting their stride (i.e, 29 or younger). The odds of such an offer are slim unless it's a top 2 pick. I could see teams offering very sweet deals for the chance to get Fultz or Ball and we'd have to carefully consider any such offers. But if we have the #3 or 6 pick, I wouldn't expect any offers that would tempt me unless we're swapping #3 in exchange for #4, 5 or 6 AND a solid vet in return.
