Management Approval Rating: End of the year 2023

[OakleyDokely]

Trading for established players instead of picks is fine in the short term, but in the long term it's expensive and it's very unlikely to get us a second young star to pair with Scottie, which should be the focus of the front office right now in my opinion. At some level we need draft picks, we need to build through the draft, this isn't going to be something we can solve with trades and free agency signings, the teams that have good young players are rarely willing to part with them once they get them, and when they are it usually means sending back a youngish star level player in return (see the Haliburton trade).

In short, the best path back to contention is rebuilding the asset base and we need draft picks to do that, it should probably start with us doing everything we can to keep our pick in this draft, but it seems like the front office is still set on improving just enough in the short term to save their jobs.

Not sure how future late 1sts or 2nd rounders are more likely to help Scottie than Quickley.

If we were talking about acquiring lotto picks, it would be a different story but that's not what the Knicks were offering.

I said nothing about not getting IQ, I said we could have taken Fournier + picks instead of RJ. Even if the picks aren't lottery picks there's always the chance you land a really good player with a later pick and the real benefit would have been trying to keep our pick this year by bottoming out in a lost season.

Instead by adding RJ we are going all in on established players that are making a lot of money or about to make a lot of money. Maybe it works, but only if one of RJ or IQ turn into a star or near-star, which I doubt will happen. And it sounds like they won't be moving Pascal for picks either if rumours are to be believed, so they aren't going for a real rebuild that is probably what we need to get to where teams like Minnesota and OKC are right now (tops in the West).

I don't get it. It's either 3 late 1sts or Quickley as the main asset(s) back. RJ and Fournier are just the filler to make the deal work.

The picks you'd be getting back from the Knicks are very low upside picks, and some of them you'd need to wait years to use because of the protections.

I'm not against a pick deal in general, I'm against the picks the Knicks were offering.

[OakleyDokely]

I agree with you that FRP picks is what we should be targeting for maximize ceiling / rewards (see OKC), but Masai obviously want to retool instead of rebuild. That's a choice to minimize the risk of FRP going bust (like Gradey) but also reduced rewards / team ceiling as our team salary is bloated with RJ and IQ next season with little other venues to improve (if Siakam is retained at max).

Masai has gone full BC. We will have a ceiling-limited team in reality, while Masai keeps pumping it up as "grow into another champion level team" for next several years.

This is just a really really basic way of looking at the situation.

Any picks we could have traded for likely were never going to ever be as good as Quickley (or RJ for that matter). There is nothing saying that IQ or RJ do not develop into all-star level players any differently than the mystery box draft picks would have. That is so far away from "full BC" it just makes me wonder if you watched that era of bball at all.

BC traded for:

30 year old Rasho
23 year old TJ Ford (gave up 21 year old Charlie V)
25 year old Delfino (for 2 seconds)
Georgios Printeziz (for a 2nd, for 0 games played)
30 year old O'Neal (for a 1st who was Hibbert, TJ Ford, Rasho)
30 year old Marion (for a 1st, O'Neal, and Moon)
sign + trade 30 year old Hedo (and gave up a 2nd in the S+T as well as 23 year old Humphries, and Marion)
23 year old Amir (for Delfino)
22 year old Alabi (gave up a 2nd)
Only got our 1st back because Bosh went to Miami
23 year old James Johnson (traded a 1st rounder for him)
28 year old Barbosa (gave up Hedo)
23 year old Wright (for Belinelli, and Wright played 52 more career NBA games)
22 year old Bayless (gave up Jack)
infamous Rudy Gay trade.

Like this is a list of trades that were just bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

There is no version of the Knicks deal we do where we don't get Quickley. This is about RJ vs. Fournier and picks. RJ is paid a lot of money and he has yet to show he's really worth it, maybe he gets there over the next few seasons, he's still relatively young, but it's a bit of a gamble for a player who tops out at nearly $30M/year in the last year of his contract and is a career 51.9% true shooting.

no reputable source has reported that the Knciks were offering IQ and 3 1sts together.

It was always either the 3 1sts with filler or the deal the Raps got.

[OakleyDokely]

The OG-to-Knicks deal isn't as one-sided as some on this board seem to think, even just being a good trade for us is completely dependant on RJ improving and IQ making a leap as a starter. We all hope that will happen, but it's not guaranteed, and if it doesn't we can be left holding the bag on two guys making a lot of money after we sign IQ to his new contract, he wants $25M/year for a player who hasn't proved he can be more than a backup yet.

This deal certainly has a strong risk element and it's questionable whether it was the right move given rumours that we could have taken Fournier's expiring and draft picks instead of RJ Barrett, it might have actually made more sense to take the picks, tank this year to retain the pick owed to the Spurs, and rebuild through the draft as quickly as possible.

My sense is that the front office know they only have a few years to turn this thing around before getting fired and they understand that going the picks route is something that probably won't pay off for a long time, or ever if they keep drafting guys like Malachi Flynn and Gradey Dick. It's usually a bad thing when a front office is making decisions with an eye to keeping their job instead of doing what is the best thing for the long term of the franchise, I hope that's not what's happening here, but I fear it is at least to some degree.

I agree with you that FRP picks is what we should be targeting for maximize ceiling / rewards (see OKC), but Masai obviously want to retool instead of rebuild. That's a choice to minimize the risk of FRP going bust (like Gradey) but also reduced rewards / team ceiling as our team salary is bloated with RJ and IQ next season with little other venues to improve (if Siakam is retained at max).

Masai has gone full BC. We will have a ceiling-limited team in reality, while Masai keeps pumping it up as "grow into another champion level team" for next several years.

Ya trading for 2 controllable 23 year olds and pick #31 is definitely a BC move.

By the way, OKCs best player and MVP candidate was acquired by trade and was drafted outside the top 10 by another organization. Presti should've taken more future picks instead of SGA in order to do a proper rebuild

[nikster]

I said nothing about not getting IQ, I said we could have taken Fournier + picks instead of RJ. Even if the picks aren't lottery picks there's always the chance you land a really good player with a later pick and the real benefit would have been trying to keep our pick this year by bottoming out in a lost season.

Instead by adding RJ we are going all in on established players that are making a lot of money or about to make a lot of money. Maybe it works, but only if one of RJ or IQ turn into a star or near-star, which I doubt will happen. And it sounds like they won't be moving Pascal for picks either if rumours are to be believed, so they aren't going for a real rebuild that is probably what we need to get to where teams like Minnesota and OKC are right now (tops in the West).

Instead of betting RJ and Quickley on taking step you want to bet on mid to late firsts. Those are always a shot in the dark and future picks are unlikely to be helpful.

Main reason OKC is good now is because they got a good young player in a trade that blew up to MVP. Minnesota got where they are by bring terrible for 7 years and getting 3 1st overall picks in that time.

You didn't read my post. In the alternate version of the trade we still get IQ, we don't get RJ. We get Fournier instead and at least one first round pick. It's a choice between trying to be a play-in team now vs. going all in on the future by collecting picks, it all depends on how good RJ is over the next 4 seasons as to whether it was the right decision or not.

also depends if that fournier trade was even an option.