Batronuj wrote:erudite23 wrote:All I know is that in the NBA, the team that trades down rarely ever wins. The two most recent examples are 1)the Trail Blazers getting cute and trading from #3 down to #6 because they supposedly were set at PG, ending up with a middling prospect on the wing out of the pick, along with two future selections that ended up being Joel Freeland and (iirc) Petteri Koponen, while missing out on possibly the two best PGs of this generation. Now, here they are 4 years later and the only real weakness on their roster is PG. And 2) the Clippers trading from 2 to 4 with the Bobcats in 04. Essentially giving Charlotte the chance to take the leftover big guy after Orlando picked and in turn being able to get Shaun Livingston, who was--whether you credit injuries or whatever--a collosal bust in the NBA. While Okafor might not be DWill or CP, he is an excellent defender and shotblocker who is a good team player and character guy, worthy of 10m+ a year, while Livingston couldn't even crack the starting lineup before his gruesome knee injury.
The team trading down almost never wins. You can't really get value by manuevering in the draft. Its not like the NFL where you can get multiple picks and recoup the value that way. In the NBA, 5 guys get 85% of your team's playing time. That puts the emphasis on quality and magnitude of a small group of players, rather than on having a large group of "good" ones.
There are obviously a lot of moving parts, but with the way this draft is initially shaping up, it looks like there is an excellent chance--if we end up with a top 3-5 pick--of us ending up on the clock with an elite PG prospect being far and away the best player available. If that happens, you just have to take him, imo, and then let the chips fall where they may.
Well. first of all let me say that was a very good post, and obviously you bring up a lot of good points.
But I still want to have some fun and play devil's advocate a little bit.
First of all, lets get things straight in that the Jazz gave the Blazers the #6 pick and the # 27 pick which ended up being Linas Klieza who they immediately traded for Jarret Jack. Just for logistical purposes.
Second, everybody knows, as was the Jazz plan that when taking an SF that year Danny Granger was the obvious pick (somehow he fell to #17 which is beyond me) but anyways, had Portland made the right call they could have ended up with a pretty good deal in getting Jack and Granger, both pretty good players. But that is neither here nor there.
My real point is, the two teams you brought up were the Blazers and the Clippers. It just so happens that both of these teams were essentially run by the two worst GM's in the NBA at the time in that idiot Elgin Baylor and the man who brought us the JailBlazers John Nash. Both incompitent losers who shouldn't have been making decisions with franchises at stake.
As long as the Jazz have KOC running the show, I feel confident that if we were to trade down it would be for better purpose.
Also there is the whole Sebastian Telfair incident that Portland thought they had something that they obviously didn't and that's why they didn't keep the pick but whatever, again, neither here nor there.
All I am saying is, you can't let the incompitence of Nash and Baylor throw dirt on the idea of making a trade with the pick.
But like it has been said, we are putting the cart before the horse, the chances of this pick being high enough to have to worry about Rubio or Wall is extremely slim, and honestly I'd be happy with whoever we pick up.
So....two dumb GMs did it, so that's what its a bad move? I get your points, and they are worthy of taking into account certainly, but we can't just throw that blanket over everything. Way more teams than just Portland ended up passing on Granger, so its not like they made a huge gaffe that is completely impossible to understand. And are we also to excuse Baylor's move by saying "well, if they had just taken Devin Harris than they would be much better off"....no, I don't think so.
Both Nash and Baylor have made very good moves at times. Obviously getting Elton Brand in return for the pick that netted Tyson Chandler was a huge coup. Is that a bad move just because Baylor made it?
The point is, in the NBA draft the cream generally rises to the top. Its extremely rare for great players to be selected outside of the top 3, 4 or 5 range. Not to say it doesn't happen, because the Jazz franchise is proof of that. Malone, Stockton, AK, Boozer, and Memo were all selected outside of the top 10. But it gets to be a crap shoot pretty damn quick once you are outside of the consensus elite prospects.
The Dirk for Tractor Traylor deal is an excellent example. It was before the wave of Europeans hit, and Dirk was an unkown, blazing a trail that no one had seen successfully blazed before. But there are some exceptions here. First of all, it wasn't moving down from the top 3 or 4 pick that I'm talking about. The consensus best players (with the exception of Paul Pierce, who had inexplicably fallen down the board) were already taken. Traylor was just a big guy with nice tools (or so the conventional wisdom says, its hard to credit in hindsight) that was a boom or bust type of guy. They didn't trade the opportunity to get Mike Bibby (who was considered an amazing PG prospect, even though his career didn't quite turn out that way) Vince Carter or Raef Lafrentz (who was actually a really good player before injuries and salary cap considerations got in the way). Also, if Dirk were to enter the draft today, with the success of other Europeans up to this point, he would easily be a top 5 pick, maybe even #1 overall in a lot of drafts.
The Rockets trade with Griffin is a better substantiation of the "trade down and get value" perspective, but it hinges on Rod Thorn's acumen as a GM as well as a bit of luck. Griffin was a very good prospect, but he was also certifiably and tragically mental. That entire 2001 draft was a really weird year. I think Thorn knew that whoever he was looking at with the # 7 pick would be a bit of a crapshoot, so he traded down and hoped to hit big on one of the 3 picks. Even so, would you argue that getting Richard Jefferson with the 7th pick overall is a good return? Barely. RJ has since been shown to be a bit of a selfish player who is not well rounded enough to be a legit star. He might have benefitted more from playing alongside J-Kidd than any other player in the history of the game. Even so, though, the other two players acquired with the extra picks were Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong. So they could simply have taken RJ at #7 and gotten equal value.
Finally, if anyone thinks this is the cart before the horse, feel free to ignore it. The bottom line is that what happens with this pick is going to play a HUGE role--for better or worse--in the future of the Jazz franchise. This could be our Magic Johnson, Dominique Wilkins or Tim Duncan. Or it could just be another throw away late lottery pick that doesn't make a dent. But with the way its shaping up, it would be stupid of us not to give it its proper place and discuss it exhaustively. If you feel differently, no need to pooh pooh. You can always go elsewhere.