I dunno, would we have been significantly worse had we kept Prince instead of Jerebko?
If we had cut Bass (or gave him away for nothing), it would just have been some combination of Zeller/KO/Crowder/Jerebko (or Prince) getting more playing time, which wouldn't have moved the needle that much.
What we needed to do in order to miss the playoffs was either trade away Bradley or miss out on a fantastic value trade for Thomas. I don't think I would have been willing to do either to move up 4 slots.
It's not that we would have been significantly worse based on talent, but I'm trying to look at things from two dimensions - the 'now' and the 'future'. I think Danny has that same viewpoint too.
In the 'now' (i.e. last season) Prince may have had just as much impact for us as Jerebko did. But he's old now. It's inevitable that he's going to decline soon in a big way, there's a good chance he'll retire after this year, and he has zero upside.
Jerebko offers essentially everything that Prince does in the 'now', but offers us a lot more in the 'future' because:
1) He's likely to keep giving us that production for years to come
2) He's likely to only get better with time
If we had Prince, I can almost assure you we would not have re-signed him this year. That basically means it would have been about the same as us having Jerebko, but letting him walk.
I'd rather be in the Jerebko situation (same type of impact, but he's still with us for the next few years) than the Prince situation (same impact, but lose that impact this year).
Hence why i'm in the "anti Hinkie" category haha