02-02-2025, 05:17 PM
(02-02-2025, 03:12 PM)WillE Wrote: Same here.After watching the press conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5bcLSKcsZU&t=1) I'd like to adjust my thinking above:
I do understand that he tries to sell it like that. Any longyear manager at a global company has learned to sell failure as success.
Yet, why I don't get is that anybody that was involved agreed this and nobody stopped him. It was 3 weeks in the making and he couldn't decide it all by himself. Would be good to know, if Kidd and/or Finley and who ever okay'd this too.
And yet even if the he would have decided this all by himself, the biggest question is why (only) AD? I understand that he felt forced to deal Luka and that if he would make his intentions public, he had to fear to get even less so he therefore had basically only one or two shots, he needed to act very fast and pull the trigger very quick.
I and it feels like the entire basketball world just thinks different at this point. I just can't buy it, that sheer fear triggered this strategy. Given his previous deals, I have s really hard time believing this.
So rationally, based on the publically known facts, the only conclusion left to me is his asset valuation is...just otherworldly. But even this makes no sense, again, given his previous deals.
Which leads me to believe: the truth is yet to be told.
What could make sense is that he knows Lukas health is a problem and sold my above thinking to the Lakers only to get them to not insisting on thy physicals.
The other motivations would be non-basketball related like what was already thrown around that this was a favour to the league to bring Luka to LA to help sell the product NBA better. Or to facilitate to the franchise to Vegas. Or the help Nike. So basically anybody that had interests in moving Luka to LA. But I somehow still hope that this was all basketball-related.
Sadly, even if I nailed it somewhere above, we'll probably never find out.
As the physicals still seem to be due, my above theory doesn't work. But listening to his explanations, I believe he is "simply" undervaluing Luka and overvaluing AD.
I noted that for Luka, he simply said the usual phrases used to describe superstars, but for Maxi he brought up a small anecdote, which made me think he had a way harder time letting him and even Morris go. Therefore, I'd say the relation between Luka and Harrison and Kidd was simply not stable enough.
The next observation is his horizon. He truly seems to think short-sightned, not greatly caring about the state of this franchise 5 years from now.
Which may have lead him to live a bit too much in the past and go for aging stars like Kyrie and now AD.
But even if one agrees with all this thinking, the one thing I still can't wrap my head around is how nobody stops him right before he pulls the trigger to enight him with the notion, that he could get more in return. Why leaving money on the table? This just doesn't add up.
If very simply calculated in FRPs and we're friendly, then AD is 3 and Christie 1 makes 5 altogether. If Maxi and Morris is -1, minus the SRP then Luka is valued as 5,5 FRPs.
What...?! Mikal Bridges went for 5 FRPs, Gobert for 4. What does he see that everyone esle is missing making him believe this is a good trade??