shrink wrote:Klomp wrote:For picks to be powerful as trade assets, someone has to want to go to that market to play for that franchise. This is the problem with what teams like Utah and Oklahoma City are trying to do....they are collecting all of these picks, but for what? What is the end goal? I can understand a bigger market like Houston pursuing this market or even when Boston did it, because the draft picks can be used as trade chips to bring in someone who wants to play there. But they're going to have to capitalize on all of this value for it to end up a net win for them in the trade results.
I think another problem is that good NBA teams have superstars, and boatloads of picks, particularly picks outside the top five, don’t guarantee you a superstar.
When Sam Presti started trying to corner the market on picks, I thought it would be a good strategy. My belief was that picks can be more appealing trade asset because they represent players that are young, that are cheap, that are locked up several years, and that aren’t locked in a position (If you already have too many guards, draft a forward). However, collecting picks hasn’t worked for Presti, at least not yet. I imagine they would prefer to find a compliment to SGA and were offering these picks in trades, but since they hadn’t hit in the lottery until this season, all they could offer was a lot of picks, most of them protected. These picks are unlikely to net superstars.
To your point, large markets like LA, NY, and MIA are going to attract stars that want to play there, win or lose. But smaller markets can do that too - if they are contenders. Jrue was happy to get traded to MIL since Giannis gives him a shot at a ring. I hope that as MIN starts to truly contend, we will find players and free agents that start considering coming to Minnesota.
I know most see all those OKC picks as "capital", but they're also perhaps the best chance to alter the long-term trajectory of your franchise.
Remember that Giannis was the 15th pick and Gobert was the 27th pick, and both became franchise-altering hall of fame players.
Sure, the draft can be a crapshoot and there are no guarantees, even at the top of the draft.
But if you have ZERO picks you have ZERO chance of finding that one player in the draft who will alter the fortune of your franchise.Without hitting on Towns and Ant, and to a lesser extent Jaden, taking a big swing on something like the Gobert trade isn't even in the conversation.
Presti's hallmark is as a drafter, so all those picks give him many many more chances to add talent, and also give him the opportunity to move up in the draft for a player he really likes.
He turned 3 of those not-great 1sts into a good lottery pick in Jalen Williams this year.
I'd take OKC's long term outlook over at least half the teams in the league, if not 2/3.
So we gave up 4 future picks and 2 recent picks for Gobert.
Sure some will turn into Okogies and Bolmaros, but some could be McDaniels too, and should we miss the playoffs could be even better players.
Hopefully it is worth it and Gobert is every bit as good as advertised, and it's going to be really important to draft well in those off years. I remember how awful it was to have no picks all those years during KG's prime and how hard it was to add talent.
At least this time we got a great player instead of one year of Joe Smith.
The one caveat in our favor is that it is much harder to turn a bunch of small assets into one big asset, and the bigger the fish you are chasing the harder that gets.
Our overpay blew up the trade market the same way Kevin Garnett's first big contract blew up the salary structure.
Depending on the makeup of your team, adding Rudy Gobert could have as big of an impact as adding a 34 year old Kevin Durant.
He's certainly much more valuable than a guy like Donovan Mitchell from a value-over-replacement perspective.
