I love Boogie, but what's the sense of a deal that turns us into Sactown East?
If you think that Cousins is a transcendent franchise player being held back by ownership, front office, and coaching being horrible, and if you believe that you need that sort of player to build a championship team around, and if you believe that draft picks are just additional rolls of the dice in a draft that is a crap shoot, then it makes sense to trade everything for Cousins.
I don't believe any of those, so I think this is a stupid trade idea.
But is it not obvious that the draft is a crap shoot? Otherwise, how do you explain the busts versus the booms in the lottery year after year? How do you explain the fact we've only drafted two good players (Bradley and Smart) since the formation of the Big Three?
The draft is a crap shoot and superstar centers who stay healthy only come around about once per decade and usually right at or near the top of the draft (Shaq, 1st in 1992; Howard, 1st in 2004; Cousins, 5th in 2010).
I am almost willing to bet everything I own that none of our draft picks in the next three years will produce a center better than Cousins.
Yes, the draft IS a crapshoot but GMs and the rest of the front office staff are well paid to figure out how to dramatically cut the odds of drafting a bust -- particularly at the top of the draft. Danny, Brad and the rest are pretty smart guys -- I have faith they'll do fine if they make their picks. As for 'good' players, Sully and KO are good -- particularly where they were drafted and the players that were selected after them not being as good as they are and/or being much riskier picks that may or may not have panned out. It's not just AB and Smart that are 'good'.
Superstar centers don't come around often -- no argument there -- but there are a number of decent centers out there that can operate in the current playing style of the NBA. Cousins may indeed be the best center in the game but that's not good enough to carry a Sac team with other NBA-level talent to within hailing distance of a playoff spot. The fact Cousins stays healthy is just swell but that's not getting them a lot of wins.
As for any of our draft picks becoming as good as Cousins, who knows. The Nets picks figure to be lottery picks in 2017 and 2018. It's not like Cousins was the top pick of his draft so it's plain to see that you can find top talent further down in the draft besides the top tier of prospects. next year's projected to have some highly rated big man prospects available. They may be as good as Cousins without the headaches. No one knows but to give up the farm for a player that has not shown they can carry their current teams even close to a playoff spot is just shooting yourself in the foot.
While Cousins would be an improvement over the players we have, he alone will not make us contenders and that's without giving up some of our current starters and all decent draft picks that would be needed to support our efforts to improve to contender status.
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Topic: Idea: Blockbuster Trade for Cousins (Read 6633 times)