Maybe other people hear this talked about more, but I had completely forgotten what the Magic gave up for Sergie Ibaka, both Sabonis and Oladipo. Given that Sabonis is now an all-star alongside Oladipo, where does this rank on the trades of the last 10 years for awfulness. Ibaka played 56 games for Magic and averaged 15 points and 8 rebounds before being flipped for Terrance Ross and a late first. Is this arguably worse than the Harden Trade? It is hard to track the full results of this but the Thunder got Lamb and two first round picks as part of their harden deal. Not sure if those turned into anything substantial.
One of the first round picks for the Harden deal turned into Steven Adams. Also K-Mart was included in that OKC deal, which is one of the reasons why Presti was content. He believed K-Mart could replicated Harden's numbers, despite the over-creasing fact that K-Mart wasn't substantially that great enough of a scorer to justify his weak defensive capabilities.
The totality of the trade included Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, 2 1st, (Mitch McGary + Adams) and 2nd late rounder.
I would wager that the Harden trade was subsequently worse than Ibaka, given the fact Harden has been MVP, 8x Allstar, and All-NBA when he left.
But you can also argue the fact ORL tanked relatively for the past few years, with almost virtually nothing to show for it other than Isaac, Fultz, AG, and Vuvecic. (Their infatuation with making Aaron Gordon the small forward befuddles me.)
Both trades were colossally horrendous, they were also both criticized heavily when they first emerged from reports. A lot of people predicted Ibaka wouldn't be able to lead any team as the 3rd/2nd option, let alone make up for the trade haul sent over to bring him in. The Magic literally tanked for Oladipo + Sabonis, (they didn't purposely, but they blew enough to end up in those draft slots,) essentially and just gave up on those two players so quickly for Ibaka...
Serge freakin' Ibaka.
This is a player who many questioned the validity of his official birth date. He had fallen from averaging 2.7-3.7 BPG to literally 1.6 within the next 3-4 years. His numbers clearly told a story his game wasn't going to age well.
Honestly, Magic, Kings, Hawks, Suns, and the Hornets remind me time and time again how blessed we are to have Danny Ainge. Every time someone complains or criticizes Ainge, I always remind them there are far worse franchises + middling teams in awful positions than us.
I mean, the Kings tried defending their excuses for why they didn't draft Doncic over Bagley. Claiming that having two dominant ball handlers wouldn't work... Could you imagine if Ainge refused to draft Doncic, because we had Isaiah Thomas?
I would say OKC is also impressive given the fact they managed to not only lose not one, not two, but three MVP's all within the same decade. That's actually more impressive to me than anything..