Trading Perk cost us a legitimate shot at a championship in 2011.
Interesting why it is trading a one-legged Perk that cost us the championship, and not Shaq's injury. I guess the second interpretation makes it harder to pile on the management.
Not really. Shaq has said that he told Danny that he might not be able to make it back, even before the Perk trade. I think there's plenty of criticism for a GM who knowingly trades his starting-caliber center when his other starting-caliber center is possibly out for the season.
I think we all tend to ascribe more certainty to things after the fact.
Trading Perkins was a gamble, in which Danny was weighing not only the probability that Shaq would return, but a number of other things. JO could've gotten healthier or played better. Krstic could've played better. Green could've played better. Perk could've come back for three games, then tweaked his knee and been out for the season.
Alternatively, with no Perk trade we would've been looking for a backup SF. Uncertainty there too.
Danny also could not have know how the trade would affect chemistry. Even if players talk about chemistry with their buddies, they often react quite well to the new guys too.
And we don't know what other trades Danny was weighing, some of which might've helped or hurt the team more.
Most important of all, I think, was that Danny probably believed we wouldn't be playing a classic 5 more than 20 minutes per game in the playoffs against our biggest threat, Miami.
In my opinion, there's no way even now to definitively assess whether the trade was good
at the time it was made in terms of either our short-run chances at a ring, or our longer-run success as a team.
We all know how things worked out, but there was just so much uncertainty involved, so I don't think the outcome really tells us much about the quality of Danny's decision.