(08-09-2021, 02:43 PM)cow Wrote: Hindsight is easy and all but I think a smarter front office would have passed on the KP trade. The problems:
-You didn't have a lot to show from the abysmal seasons leading up drafting Luka/Brunson with the exception of DSJ and a couple of quality undrafted free agents in DFS and Maxi.
-To get Luka, you had to give up an additional first. This was the right call but also contributed to being asset poor.
-KP was hurt and cost you a fortune (DSJ, 2x FRPs and eating the bad contracts of Lee/THJ). This all but emptied your cupboard of assets.
-To make that kind of trade, you need to be damned sure or as close as humanly possible that the pairing would work which is hard as you really didn't even know what you had in Luka at the time. You also shouldn't gamble on someone with those types of injury concerns, especially when they are that tall.
The injury concerns have come to fruition and the fit is worse than any of us could have imagined. The approach should have been more patient and organic. The issue there is that you would have had to rely on the MBT drafting and that is anything but a sure thing but that shouldn't excuse the impatience.
We are just stuck now needing KP to be good because we have no other way of making the team better because we are so asset poor.
Those are all good observations in hindsight. But I don't know, I think most teams would have done that trade in the circumstances.
As I understand it, the guy the Mavs were originally interested in was THJ, and the Knicks surprised them by also offering KP, who was an All-Star player. Finally! A chance to reel in a big fish! DSJ wasn't really working out here anyway, Courtney Lee was a good player who didn't end up being exchanged for something useful but could have been, and THJ ended up fulfilling (exceeding?) their expectations. I can't hold that decision against them. They were aware of the injury concerns, as you mention, but evidently the medical team signed off.
Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out nearly as well as they hoped, but it looks like they're going to give it another shot. I think I get why they're doing it, but I hope it doesn't end in their just delaying a major overhaul another season. That might well involve taking a step back in order to reset.
(08-09-2021, 02:42 PM)fifteenth Wrote: This is easy to agree with...
maybe even astute!
haha. Man, the board is really raising their banter game today!