I will give my answers to your questions, Incoherent, as somebody who is a bit 50/50 on the trade (like it, but have my reservations):
Would you rather sign 29 year old IT to max or a 27 year old Kyrie to max?
Kyrie, undoubtedly. This is one of my biggest points (probably THE strongest) in favour of the trade.
Is it OK if we use 1 of the 4 Nets picks in a trade for an all-star talent?
Absolutely - in fact I was hoping we would do exactly that. Rather than using all three picks on prospects I was hoping we'd draft two nice players for the future, and sacrifice one pick (2018 was my preference) for a proven star. That's exactly what Danny did, so can't complain about that.
My only really question mark here is the choice of player he decided to use that pick to acquire... frankly, he gave up a lot in this trade, and I'm 50/50 on whether Kyrie is the type of cornerstone player worthy of such a haul. I would have felt more comfortable if we had made that type of offering for Jimmy Butler or Demarcus Cousins, as both are multi-dimensional players who impact he game with their passing, defence and rebounding while also being similar calibre scorers, similar ages, and on similar contracts.
Kyrie's tendency to play the game one dimensionally (scoring, and not much else) makes me feel that investing this much in to him is a major risk. That risk does have a good chance of paying off though (as per my other thread I created here:
http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=93447.new#new).
Do you wish we still had Crowder on this roster? Do you think Tatum would have been able to develop with both Hayward (allstar) and Crowder (starter quality player) ahead of him in the depth chart?
I am split on this question, in all honesty.
On one hand, this team has been broken down into pieces, with almost all of our players from last season traded or waived or lost in free agency. Crowder was one of the last remaining pieces that gave a sense of surety because he's solid, he's dependable, he's fairly versatile, and you know what he's going to give you. He's also a legit two way player who (if combined with Gordon, Morris, Horford and Thomas) would have made for a very strong starting lineup. Losing him means we need to put faith in either Marcus Smart questionable shooting, or Jaylen Brown's inexperience, to hold down a spot in the starting 5 - and that's a gamble.
On the other hand, Brown and Tatum have both got tremendous upside, and if we had Crowder and Morris on the roster, there's no way we could get BOTH of those guys the playing time opportunity they need and deserve. And you don't want to stunt the growth of two of your most valuable future assets so that a role player (even a really good role player) can get his minutes.
So after much back and forth in my head, I concluded that for the future good of this team, Crowder really had to go at some point.
I wish it wasn't to Cleveland, and I wish we could have moved him in a separate deal and gotten another player back (preferably a big or perimeter defender), but can't complain too much really.
Does having the LA pick make the Nets pick any easier to part with? Under normal circumstances trading your number 1 pick is tough because you generally don't have another one.
A little bit.
The Nets pick is clearly superior, and I won't lie - losing it hurts. It wouldn't hurt so much if Danny managed to pull a move and get us a quality starting big to help Big Al, but he didn't - and that leaves me wishing we still had a shot at a young talented big man in next year's draft. Brooklyn pick would almost certainly fall top 3, and we'd have to have somebody available to fill that role.
Lakers pick helps a little because there is a CHANCE that it will fall to us, and if it does we are back in that argument. But the risk of it not conveying is very high - even if Lakers finished with the 4th or 5th worst record, the Lottery may well push them back into 6th or 7th and then we don't get the pick. But no doubt, trading the Nets pick would be far more painful if the Lakers pick wasn't there.
Does IT being more injured and not being ready for the start of the season going into his brinks trucks year make the trade any better for you?
Definitely.
Long before this trade was announced, I kinda knew in the back of my mind that Thomas needed to be traded for us to have a hope at truly contending.
Seeing the way teams exploited his size in the playoffs last season made it clear to me that as great as IT is (and he really is amazing), his physical dimensions put the team in a very difficult spot and makes it very hard to build a contender around him when you are constantly having to "pick your poison" when choosing who you are going to match Thomas on defensively. You get left praying you have to face a team who only has one strong offensive guard, so we'd then put Thomas on to the guard who isn't a threat...but then teams like Washington (Beal/Wall, who we were lucky to barely beat), and Warriors (Curry / Thompson) put you into an impossible situation that you have no answer for, and they can exploit that time after time, play after play, and there is
absolutely nothing you can do about it.
So I knew we were not going to challenge GS with Thomas as out starting PG. Cleveland maybe, with the addition of Hayward, but the Warriors? No chance.
So because I knew all this, I also knew that giving a max contract to Thomas (when we already had Max deals for Hayward and Horford) would extend us to the point where we would have zero future cap flexibility, and so we would be doomed to fall short for the next 3-4 years until Thomas and Horford expired and we could make some moves again.
So the final answer - yes, Thomas' situation made the trade not just easier, but necessary, in my eyes. Painful all the same, but a necessary evil that had to be done if we wanted any hope of contending in the next 4-5 years.
Topic: So Basically: IT4, Crowder, Zizic, 2020 2nd and Cousins For Kyrie (Read 7250 times)