Ricky is simply not good enough to not take Mudiay. Ricky's not a top 10 PG. He can still be a top 10 PG, but taking Mudiay would give us 2 chances at getting a top 10 PG instead of 1. Ricky can't keep playing 40 minutes because he doesn't have a backup. Drop him down to 30, give Mudiay 18 and let them play together for a 5 minute stretch a game to get Mudiay up to at least 23. Mudiay isn't taking his spot next year. He may not take it the year after, but Flip can't afford to pass on Mudiay because of Ricky and have him become a star for someone else and we be left with Ricky. The minutes are there for Mudiay and then he will either get too good where you have to trade him or Ricky or he won't pan out in which case you'll still have Ricky.
Drafting Mudiay is not giving up on Ricky. It's giving him some competition to get better or get replaced. If he's good enough he won't have anything to worry about. Flip doesn't have to pick his guys and then never draft anyone who could be better than them at their position. You always try to get better and that adds competition to the team where if you don't get better you get beat out. You set us back even further if you pass on a star because of Ricky. These guys don't become stars in year 1 and most even in year 2. That gives Ricky 2 years to get better or get replaced by Mudiay. There's no reason drafting Mudiay means trading Ricky now because that makes us worse in the short term by again leaving us no backup PG and worse long term if Mudiay doesn't pan out which some of these guys don't. That's why you can't pick one from day one and trade the other. You have to let the natural competition play out for a year or two and then decide.
If we won the lottery next year and a SF is the clear top guy, you take him and move either him or Wiggins over to SG pending which one can play it better. You can only draft for fit when when the guys on the board are in the same tier. Otherwise if you have a shot at a top tier guy you take him and figure the rest out later. He'll either clearly need more minutes because he is so good or you don't take as big of a hit if he fails because you have other competent options already on the roster. I'm thankful we still had Love when D Will couldn't hack it. Imagine if we would have cleared the way for D Will just because he was a high pick who had an incumbent at his spot. That would have been a disaster and that's why you don't trade Ricky immediately just because you draft Mudiay. You let it play out and it will naturally tell you the right move to make in 2-3 years.
Lip- you ARE giving up on Ricky if you draft Mudiay. If you have to put your CORNERSTONE on notice, you don't have a cornerstone, If you're drafting a guy in the top 5 to merely be a backup, that's a waste of a pick and it goes along with this team's tendency to overpay for marginal pieces. Show me where these good teams have top 5 picks as backup PG's. If I'm trying to put pressure on my cornerstone then I don't have enough faith in being able to live and die with my decision. All you're saying in a roundabout way Lip is that you don't have enough faith in Ricky, and that's fine, but then move him if you don't have that faith and remove all doubt and but the team on Mudiay's back. If he needs a backup PG, he has 2 high 2nd rounders. Draft one there. Why is that so hard for Flip to figure out?
While we'll be too busy questioning our cornerstones every year, we'll be trotting out crap at nearly every other position. If that's Flip's goal, he's doing a great job of making sure we never see another playoff game.
