MAVS NEWS:

[mvossman]

I disagree with most of your response because it ignores the context around the situations. 

Brunson was drafted by Donnie, in the same draft as Luka, who gave him the contract that included no bird rights at the end (why??). Even mid-season 21/22 there was disagreement on trading or extending him. By the time NYKs had hired his dad and meddled pre-FA (for which they lost a SRP this year), it became obvious he'd never get out of Luka's shadow in DAL, there wasn't much left to save.

Nobody was complaining about draft picks, a lot of which were swaps, once it became apparent that PJW and Gaff were the answer to a lot of team issues. I think he could have gotten more for Luka, but you can argue that AD himself represents 2-3 FRPs in value. 

I do think that trading Grimes + PHL's high SRP was a bone headed, knee jerk decision, then failing to take the out when Martin's true injury status was revealed made it even more head scratching.

Dammit. I said I didn't want to be a Nico defender. I am still sore about the Luka thing and I will always hold the clandestine nature of the deal against him. It would have been so much better to find a way to help motivate him to get better, but I get not wanting to commit to another $350MM while waiting on him to come around.

Flame me or not. I'm not saying anything more on Nico.

I never liked the contract argument for Brunson.  The bird rights decision would have come a year earlier (the offseason they decided not to extend Brunson).  Its very possible they end up losing him a year earlier.  And I went back and checked a while ago.  Most folks on this board thought we should extend Brunson in the offseason, and just about everyone did a month into the season.

Nobody was worried about those picks because we had a young superstar with a young supporting cast (and Kyrie).  We had a long window and felt that all of those future draft picks would likely be low value.  What does not make sense is to give up all of your future draft picks to build around Luka, and then trade him away and shorten your window down to 2 or 3 years.

This doesn't cover his many other mistakes.  When having over 30 million in cap space he chooses to instead re-sign Hardaway to a huge contract.  The ridiculous McGee signing and the Wood trade.  The removal of the best medical staff in the NBA as a FU to Luka only to hire idiots who are at least partially responsible for the massive injury issues of last season (at least Nico seems to think so as he fired them).

I feel like the euphoria of Flagg has made some folks forget that Nico managed to destroy a finals team with a long future ahead of it.