In a recent Boston.com article DA mentioned how this off season has so many moving parts that he has to have contingency plans ranging from A to Z.
Let assume A. Is landing the 1st pick and being confident in Durant, B. Landing later pick and still being confident in Durant, and continuing down to include plans that net Butler/Okafor or any other higher profile player to be had. If all those big FA / trading for a high profile player possibilities fall thru, the Cs 1st pick is 4-6, and they have little to no hope of Durant coming to Boston do they role the dice with either of the following gamble of a trades?
(1) Cs trade the kings #16 + #31 + Young
Kings trade Rudy Gay
(2) Cs trade pick #4-6 + #23
Kings trade Pick #8 + Gay
For starters I really do not know nor do I think anyone really knows what the Kings plan on doing. I do know that Karl has said that the organization is mess and that Cousins and Gay are a bad on court pairing. I'm sure the owner will have grand plans for the roster but at the end of the day a trade for picks may be their best plan. They may be able to unload Gay's contract then turn around and offer big money to a player who is a better fit next to cousins like R Anderson or H Barnes.
(1) is a clear cut picks for Gay trade the logic being that Gay becomes the Cs starting PF. He will basically take Sullys minutes as a starter and Turners role off the bench as a scoring option. This could blow up in the celtics face but worst case he is a one year rental (he does have a team option but is likely to opt out). Gay has his issues. He has never been on a winning team, isnt a great 3pt shooter, at PF will struggle to defend the post and rebound. However at 30 if he buys into this team he could revive his career. He has all the size to play a small ball 4 (6'8 and extremely long) and while not a great 3pt shooter he will keep teams honest from the perimeter. His ability to score in isolation would effectively replace Turners role as the Cs secondary iso option but he would bring additional versatility with his size. He can very well average 15-18ppg and 6-7rb per as the Cs starting PF.
(2) this trade bring all of the positives and negatives as above. The added piece of trading down from #4-6 would take the Cs out of the likely guard portion of the lottery (Murray, Hield and Dunn) and into the secondary big man portion (Poeltl, Ellenson, Chriss). In this situation the Cs could end up drafting Chriss (sky high potential) then one of the Euro bigs at #16 (zubac or Zizic and bring in Gay to help right away. This type of trade may also force the Kings to add additional pieces to the deal (maybe Koufas?). The kings moving up would likely mean drafting Dunn and locking down their long term PG.