I wonder, in the world of hindsight, how many fans would reverse the trade. Instead of Holiday, we'd have:
Brogdon
Timelord
GS #1 (currently lottery)
2029 #1
I assume we'd trade Timelord in that situation. Attaching his contract to those two #1s, is our return of Brogdon + Player X more impactful than Jrue? Or, what if we didn't attach the first rounders, and kept them? Dealt Timelord and a #2 for a guy like Olynyk? Or maybe gave up a #1 along with Timelord and other filler for Jonas Valanciunas?
Anybody sold that that would have been the better route?
I wouldn’t, surprised you think any fans would. Couple of things.
1) warriors probably won’t stay a lottery pick. I don’t think they are trading curry under any circumstance and he is at point of career where shutting down for a wasted season is not an option. If they keep struggling they will make moves to
Improve, not to tank.
2) if we don’t get holiday someone else does, other rumored teams were Philly and Miami. That would not help us at all.
3) who is to say we could have traded Rob before he got injured for year. We got really lucky to offload him before that happened.
I think this is interesting speculation. In terms of just the Celtics, putting aside who else may have gotten Holiday, with the way that White has played, I am not sure the team is all that much different if we have Brogdon over Holiday. Then you have to speculate as to who we could have gotten for RWill and the picks. If the return for that was a starting level, defensive and rebounding minded PF, we conceivably could be better off. Our starters could be:
White
Brown
Tatum
Obtained Starting PF
Porzingis
And our bench is Brogdon, Horford, Hauser, and so on. This is premised on getting a real starting level PF, not someone like Olynyk or Grant Williams. Not sure who that would be; good, starting level PFs, who are available for trade, are not easy to find. But I think from a value standpoint, RW plus those picks would have been some pretty decent value to put on the market.
I am very sure this team is better with Jrue instead of Brogdon. So far this year, Jrue is shooting better across the board, playing much better defense, and is more able to fit into what the Celtics do.
Even before the unfortunate Rob Williams news and with a pessimistic view of the Warriors' season, Jrue was as good of a return as one could hope for for that package. With Rob out for the year, it feels like a steal.
You left off the other part of my point. Of course Holiday is better than Brogdon, but how much better? Would the team have 20 wins instead of 23? Because White is playing so well, I don't think there is a big difference. But the second part of the hypothetical that was presented was that then we trade RWill and the picks for something. So it is Holiday vs. Brogdon + something, maybe that 3rd big we need.
I am happy with the Holiday trade. Love the player, but it did create a need. It is a need that would have been a need anyway since RWill got hurt. A healthy RWill may have started. We still may address the need with a TPE trade or maybe a buyout or something.