TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[mvossman]

They were great, I had no friggen clue Green had any of that isolation dribble drive scoring in his bag. Where the hell did that come from and why haven't I seen it before? That being said, Kidd clearly has no interest in giving Hardy any kind of non garbage time role, he couldn't even get minutes with Luka out, it took Dinwiddie and DFS to be gone too. I don't think this performance changes that even unfortunately, even if we didn't trade for Kyrie, Hardy had a breakout 20+ point game a while back too and it made no difference to his game time afterwards.

Green however was always going to get a bigger role as the season went on, but he was hitting some shots off the dribble this game that I have never seen from him, nor did I know he was even capable of. Before this game I projected him purely as a potentially high level 3&D wing who could slash and had some limited ball handling and passing ability. I wanna see whether that was a one off kinda fluke or the offensive creation off the dribble is actually in his bag, though I dunno whether he would have the confidence to try it when Luka and Kyrie are back. But if that is legit in his bag it completely changes his ceiling as a player I think. I just have no idea if it's real.

The more I think about the deal, the more I'm ok with the likelihood of it not working out. I will reserve full judgement until the trade deadline passes any other trades they do or don't make will affect my judgement of the deal to bring in Kyrie. I will say I don't think Green or Hardy's performances change anything that much. Despite how impressive they were, they are such one offs, you cannot have any confidence whatsoever that they can bring that type of performance on any kind of consistent basis which is what we need.

Kidd has always been slow and methodical with roster changes.  He has gradually increased Green's minutes (slower than most folks would like) and he is going slow with Hardy.  If I recall, that last Hardy 20 point outburst was in like 5 minutes of garbage time.  That had the ring of an outlier.  He has not looked ready in his limited time most of the time.  Last night was different.  He played heavy rotational minutes in a competitive game and looked very comfortable.  We already know he completely flipped the switch in G League.  He went from overwhelmed to dominating in one season.  Last night was a sign that he can and maybe is already starting to flip that switch in the NBA.  I think you will see an increase in his meaningful minutes going forward (it doesn't hurt that we just sent out two high minute rotational players for one).