OxAndFox wrote:And I will say, look at Chicago who started 1-6 after the Lavine trade (quoting another source here, just getting to know each other) and the 1 win came without the players incoming against Miami, but they are 10-11 since the trade. So let's say after a rough go around getting to know each other, they're 9-5 when complete. They are vastly better and the Bulls fans know why. Lavine is a wonderful shooter and scorer, but at the end of the day, when has that ever contributed to winning? DDR is the same. Yet Sacramento creamed their pants over an over the hill, outdated "star" that will only make your team regress, signing in the 916.
Doesn't it seem obvious?
And they beat us. Watching them is very entertaining a bunch of young guys running the court and being exciting to watch. No surprise the whole team got better when they shipped these two off.
Kings headed down the worst possible path. They chased bad decision after bad decision. They traded young Hali to compete right away, thinking that was enough, then spent two years not improving the team. Then the big improvement was too add another offense only over the hill scorer to take away from Fox/Monk/Sabonis and especially Keegan. Refusing to elevate Keegan/Keon and give them more responsibility, refusing to add size or defense, refusing to address the issues that were glaring.
Then Fox gets frustrated and instead of trying to fix the situation with him, they panic trade him for a never winning, non impact, overpaid, top 10 worst contract in the league in LaVine. Knowing damn well he and Demar just spent 3 years with a Euro center winning 30 games a season in the weak east. Or hell maybe they are so clueless they didn't realize it at the time.
The team should have traded Sabonis in a surprise deadline deal that they had lined up the second they traded Fox. Then trade DeRozan at the end of this year. We would have bottomed out for 2 years, had tons of extra assets, had Carter, Keon, Keegan, Laravia, + tons of picks to deal with and no bad contracts on the books. Now we are stuck watching this no defense hero ball BS the next 2 years.
And just wait for Sabonis to ask out this summer further hurting his value. You thought the Fox return was low? Wait till our nearly 30 year old, no defense, 40+ million a year center asks out. Lucky to get Ayton and a pick.
Oh and next year, Portland, Spurs, Mavericks, Pelicans should all easily improve. The only team in the top 10 who might regress is Phx. Enjoy the 10th seed this year (maybe 11th honestly if Mavs get healthy), because next year we are back to 12th-13th.