Great topic. TP.
I agree with the general premise of trading high on a player. Ainge has talked about it in the past that he learned that from Red.
You can add to this definition of trading high to players who are at the end of their really good playing days like the KG Pierce Nets trade Horford may fall into this category if not now soon). Players you think are on the verge of plateauing without much more inprovement (Smart), or career year players like Morris who aren’t really young players anymore.
The thing is with Morris is what are you getting back for him? Because he doesn’t make a whole lot for salary matching purposes, and he is in the last year of his contract you might not get much back. He could possible be worth more if we re-signed him in the offseason to a deal he is worth and, and a team would have more years of control.
You can argue Smart will never be worth more than now if at some point he goes back to the bench. Even Rozier with last year’s playoffs still fresh in teams minds and the hope of the future his stock is still decent right now despite his up and down play.
Ainge may want to save these assets for now to if he thinks he has a shot at Davis.
The thing about Ainge is he is pretty creative when it comes to trades with most of them none of us had thought of. I just tried this trade in the the NBA trade machine and it worked Morris, Rozier, Smart, and Bird for Beal. Maybe put in the Kings pick if we need to or make it a 3 team deal, and that would be a fun team to watch Irving, Beal, Hayward, Tatum, Horford as a starting 5. I’m going off on a tangent so I’ll stop there. Ha