Revisiting the Jakob Poeltl trade as it stands now.

[sidsid]

It's the arrogance and desperation that this FO gives off that really settles it for me. You simply can't give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Refusing to fix mistakes, whether it's pride or embarrassment regarding Jak. Complete inflexibility around returns since the deadline. No plan to speak of and putting the car on autopilot during the season. Obviously hoping to be at least mediocre every year and having to switch gears mid-season when it ends in failure.

It's just a reckless gambler on tilt throwing good money after bad at the helm.

[LoveMyRaps]

The trade that keeps on taking.

[DelAbbot]

It's the arrogance and desperation that this FO gives off that really settles it for me. You simply can't give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Refusing to fix mistakes, whether it's pride or embarrassment regarding Jak. Complete inflexibility around returns since the deadline. No plan to speak of and putting the car on autopilot during the season. Obviously hoping to be at least mediocre every year and having to switch gears mid-season when it ends in failure.

It's just a reckless gambler on tilt throwing good money after bad at the helm.

I think I have followed the past 4 seasons close enough to conclude that Masai has a couple of fundamental philosophies he operates by:
- always start a season aiming to compete, make an assessment of the roster for several months and pivot only around the ASG / trade deadline (to a tank).
- on trades always be reactive, never proactive. And if the market doesn't give him the trade he wants, he will wait, even if his assets decline to 0. He only relented on this for the Siakam deal after FVV walked for nothing.

These are causing him to be overly patient / indecisive, and reactive, resulting in half-committed attempts to rebuild, that inevitably fails and restart

[YogurtProducer]

Some of you need to just log off

You’re spiraling into pure delusions now.

[NinjaBro]

Some of you need to just log off

You’re spiraling into pure delusions now.

Why would they? Spreading their misery gives them life.

[DelAbbot]

Some of you need to just log off

You’re spiraling into pure delusions now.

Why would they? Spreading their misery gives them life.

Being miserable is temporary
Being ignorant is forever

[ontnut]

There's no sugar coating it. Any draft can have some guys that turn out great at different spots, but the odds remain best to get them at the top of the draft.

Just off the top of my head the best player on champ teams since the 80s.

Magic
Bird
Jordan
Thomas
Hakeem
Shaq
Duncan
KG
Rasheed
Wade
Dirk
LeBron
Curry
KD
AD (he played better than LeBron)
Kawhi
Giannis
Jokic
Tatum

That's a lot of number 1s. Even more if you expand it to top 3. Make it top 5 and there's not much left. Make it 7 and you're down to less than a handful of banners in the last 40+ years, and that's only because I started in the 80s.

The question is what are you giving up those odds for? An extra second in a Boucher trade? Getting a bench prospect in a Jak trade? There's a reason why you have multiple billion dollar valued franchises going out of their way to do this every year.

To be fair, you also have to show the number of #1-5 picks that absolutely did not pan out.
Nobody is questioning the fact that a higher pick is more likely to hit an all-NBA caliber player. But at the same time, blantant tanking - trading everything you have for picks, is a route that has rarely, if ever, resulted in a championship. Philly did it for half a decade, and where has that got them?

An MVP? As much as every raps fan like to rag on the sixers, I don't think I'm willing to blame them for Fultz or Simmons. Simmons was absolutely the consensus pick, and what is evidently a back injury can't be put on the sixers. Fultz was the same, overwhelming #1 pick, derailed by weird injuries. If either one of them remained healthy and played even 80% to what they were projected to be, Philly is easily a contender for years. It's not like they screwed up the picks, sometimes stuff just doesn't pan out.

No one is saying tanking is going to lead to championship time, but I think a top 5 pick is achievable without trading any major parts of the team. The only reason we even have the wins most recently is due to vets that shouldn't even be here, ship out BB/CB/KO, and then limit Jak for the rest of the season and things are back where they were. We don't need some tear it down to the studs type move right now, but sweet lord we need some blue chip prospects besides Scottie, and when a bottom 3 finish is right in front of you on a silver platter, you don't throw it in the trash.

Honestly, if you're going to tank, do it for a season or two and get a foundational piece in a good draft. That's all well and good. We did that with Barnes, and we're probably going to get a pretty decent 2nd piece this year. But longterm, I think the way to do it is not to try and build a dynasty through the top of the draft, but rather, trade some of those picks and let someone else go after the mystery box, while you return a known quantity all-star level player. Like what we did with both Lowry and Ibaka.

I obviously get the allure of completely nailing a young core through the draft like OKC did twice, but that's just not something our ownership seems to allow (perennial bottom-feeder tanking). Also, the odds you draft duds like PHI did is just too high to ignore. Don't forget it wasn't just Fultz and Simmons. They took MCW 11th, Payton 10th, Okafor 3rd. Then the one time they draft the right guy at 10 in Mikal Bridges, they trade him to PHX for Zhaire Smith and 2021 1st. That's 4 huge misses, plus the 2 in Fultz/Simmons. Embiid has been an MVP but has his own set of injury issues. That's 3x1 overall picks, a 3rd, 2 10ths and an 11th, and they haven't made a ECF.

I do agree we should look to trade BB/CB/KO. They're not on our timeline nor positions of need - but the people that want Poeltl traded for expirings and some sort of late pick or 2nds, just so we can MAYBE get a 5% boost in lottery odds...that I just can't get behind. I'm not convinced that the difference between drafting 5th and 7th is that big that you just toss away good players.

HOU got Green 2nd, Thompson 4th, Sengun 16th, Eason 17th, then built the rest of their roster via FA with FVV and Brooks. But funnily enough, the highest pick of the bunch is probably their least important. They could trade him for any number of 20pt volume scorers in the league and not lose a step. Then they went and drafted Reed anyway, now they're in 2nd place in the W, giving Reed 11 mins a game essentially wasting the pick. What would teams have given up to get the 3rd overall pick? We'd have given OG or Siakam easily - and with either guy on that team now, they're a true contender.

Since we don't have a path to real capspace, unless we're really blowing up the team for the next 3 years and considering trading IQ/RJ/Barnes etc in order to fully tank, I don't see why we'd trade away Poeltl now. Realistically, we were only ever going to be the 3rd worst team after WAS and UTAH if we FULLY tanked the season like they did. We're just better than the Hornets and Pelicans too and there's no way to change that unless we shut Barnes down and get fined by the NBA/sour Barnes on the organization. BKN really pivoted hard, so it's hard to imagine us beating them in the tank. At "best" we're 6th. At worst, we somehow pass the 76ers and Blazers and end up 8th. Just gotta see what the Blazers do (yet another example of an organization whose tank you may not want to follow).

Is the difference between 6 and 8 really that big that we want to just lose the rest of the season? I don't think it is.

[Merit]

Some of you need to just log off

You’re spiraling into pure delusions now.

Why would they? Spreading their misery gives them life.

Being miserable is temporary
Being ignorant is forever

Being miserable is temporary
Being ignorant is forever
Being stupid and selfish from birth
Some people are (unaware that they are) all of the above.

[Duffman100]

Alright. We have a bunch of personal attacks and baiting and it's getting too much. This thread is getting locked.

The overwhelming negativity and vitriol is hitting a weird point. People need to touch grass.