RealGM

The trade:
OKC - Lou Dort
for
ORL - Wendell Carter Jr.

Why for OKC - appears they just traded for a very similar player in Caruso, which makes them even more guard heavy. WCJ gives them a true center that can bang down low and shoot some threes.

Why for ORL - they need a starting guard. Dort fits their timeline and their defensive identity. Imagine Dort and Suggs in the same backcourt?! Dort has improved his three point shooting, though not on super-high volume.

Works in trade checker and their stats appear similar. Not sure why but I feel like Dort is the more valuable player, even though they both have had similar availability (injury) issues, though Dort has improved that in the last two years. Maybe something else has to go from ORL to OKC?

Dort played the best defense on Luka in the west, got into his head and was the reason Luka frustration lost the Mavs game 4, Presti knows he's playing Luka every year, he's keeping Dort IMO unless something really good comes up, WCJ is far from it...

Great for OKC…that’s all

I don’t see why Caruso coming in means Dort has to go. There’s 96 minutes of basketball between the 2 and 3, it’s totally ok for teams to have more than 1 player that does something. The potential to pair Caruso and Dort in some lineups is probably attractive enough to hang on to LD for now.

I know it looks cool on paper but there's little chance a team that went from 10th to the first seed in the West decides to trade two starters in the offseason except for a star player. Giddey was an issue all season and during the POs but I don't see us moving any other starter and Dort was a key piece for us despite his past struggles.

Dort isn't the kind of guard that Orlando needs, this makes no sense for them