TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[mvossman]

You mean like win three NBA championhips, exaggerate injuries to key players to miss the play-offs for two years, get multiple lottery picks, acquire another young star and then come back to win another championship. I don´t think that has happened ever. Certainly not in recent history.



Luka is as good as we think he is, though his tendency to James Harden every off-season is worrisome. The rest of the team is not nearly as good, especially the hype around Dinwiddie´s hot streak. To rely on that to continue is a bubble (pun intended) like Burke.

It´s all about that 2nd guy and 3rd guy. A top 10 pick in the deepest draft in ages, gives you either a great pick or a great trade asset, so is the potential Lakers pick and you get cap space. That´s your way to build a potential dynasty in 12 months.

You guys might not like this, but right now we have nothing to do a SGA trade. We have no young players like Markkanen or Sexton or Agbaji (not even one of them) and we have no five first round picks. So I don´t know how people here believe we can acquire a player like him. And that asset-less state ultimately leads back to capspace, which we don´t have either. So basically right now we have nothing.

The best we can hope for is to trade something like Kleber/Bullock+1st for John Collins, but is that pushing us toward a title by itself?

A nine months Westbrook tank could lead to young assets (Bamba, White, Lakers 1st round pick, our own top 10 pick, accelerated development of Hardy/Green) and if you seek to do it up to 60M in capspace. It´s a flexible strategy.

But the good or bad news is that won´t happen anyway, and we´ll get to see your way, of gradually improving.

Right.  Curry faked two hand surgeries and Klay faked an ACL injury.  Curry was scheduled to come back in March when the season was stopped for Covid.  He could have played in the bubble but they were not invited.  If it was a normal season, they might have shut him down instead of bringing him out for the last month, but you do realize how different that is than telling a 23 year old Luka to not play for an entire season when healthy, right?

Next offseason we will be able to trade 4 first and 3 swaps.  That was enough to land Jrue without any young players and more than enough to land Murray.  I don't know if it will be enough to get SGA, but I think it will be in the ballpark.

That Mitchell trade was basically 4 firsts, two swaps and Sexton and Laurie.  Those two are getting paid and I doubt anyone is giving up a first for either.  They both were unwanted by their original team and had very little interest in the restricted market (until the Cavs bailed out Chicago with Lauri).  I don't see either as particularly valuable to a team that is going to tank for a year or two and my guess is Ainge will get what he can for them by next offseason.

I have no idea why we would wish for a Maxi + Bullock + first for Collins trade?  We just traded a much smaller package for Wood.  I'm not sure there is a significant difference between the two.  We are about to find out.