VDT wrote:nolang1 wrote:
A) Those 'middling' Brooklyn players were acquired with 1st round picks and/or cap space that they no longer have. Just because someone isn't a superstar doesn't mean they can automatically be replaced with minimum salary players or late 2nd/undrafted rookies.
My point is that it is not hard to find players like Allen, Levert etc either as second round picks or get them in the free agency. Getting a late lottery/late playoff seed is the easiest thing to do in this league, particularly when half of the teams in the East are terrible.
Lol you're talking about players who were drafted 2nd, 17th, and 20th and all commanded or will command 10+ million a year in free agency. So yes, it is pretty hard to find players like that when you're working with 2nd round picks or the vet minimum. Also you're moving the goalposts by talking about simply being a borderline playoff team later on; I said that 4 late 1sts is already decent enough for a worst-case scenario, so if you're just moving a couple of those picks up 15 spots and/or introducing more pick swaps later on it becomes a lot better.
Obviously the Rockets tried as long as they could to hold on to Harden until he just wasn't having it anymore, and at that point it's about whether the Nets' offer was better than what other teams offered rather than if you think it was 'enough' value for Harden.