I think it's fair for people to be frustrated. A division rival just took another step forward in terms of talent while we hold out for "fireworks".
This is kind of where I'm at.
Danny is a
great GM, no doubt about it. He's a top-5 GM in the league. But I do feel that he sometimes looks a little too hard for the "homerun" trade rather than the "single with an RBI" trade.
I think he's a little too focused on the star names of Butler, George, and possibly even Cousins rather than the high end role players that could really benefit us, like Ibaka. And that's honestly really surprising, because I think the biggest part of why our team is successful is because we've surrounded our one true star in IT with high quality role players in Horford, Crowder, AB, Smart, KO, etc.
An Ibaka trade would've given us a clearer focus and path, too. The way I see it, there are three paths we could take:
Win now - push the Brooklyn picks and some of the younger prospects to try and trade for another star now;
Stay the course - compete as faux contenders right now, but do not trade anything but the smallest of our assets;
Win now and in the future - keep our core assets (Brooklyn picks, Smart, Brown) and our main rotation players (IT, AB, Jae, Horford, KO, Amir, JJ) but be willing to trade everything else to upgrade the roster to improve now, while still having the future promise
The proposed Ibaka trade would've put us in the "win now and in the future" direction, and that seems like a no-brainer to me. Rozier is in no way a sticking point to a team needing an upgrade at the big position as much as the C's do. He would've been a small price to pay for a perfect fit at the 4 between Crowder and Horford.
My only guess is that Danny thinks that he can get one of Ibaka, Milsap, or even Griffin (or another big via trade) this summer, so he doesn't want to waste even minimal assets now. That's fine, but then what happens when that doesn't go through? Was Rozier really worth missing out on a piece that could be the difference between a Finals appearance or not, which an upgrade like Ibaka very well could be?