Danny Ainge just took the whole NBA execs to school

[BK_2020]

I suppose Ainge might be banking on history repeating itself in terms of the Wolves and Cavs' poor track records as competent franchises over the years, but talent is talent and it's gonna be a challenge for Minny/Cleveland to somehow screw this up

Cavs have been one of the most successful franchises in the last decade.

[cgf]

Lauri and Sexton are just salary fillers, throw-ins.
They'll help the tank, don't forget the league and fans frown upon G-league level teams like the one Philly was running back in the process days, you have to pay someone there are salary floors, and it's best that they'd be NBA level players so you team might win 25 games but not embarass the franchise and league while winning 10 games a season. those two fit this bill perfectly

If what you "were told" was to expect 5 frps for Mitchell, that's about what happened lol
3 picks (entirely unprotected), 1 player who was just selected 14th (an additional 1st) and 2 swaps,
Four Frp's + 2 swaps sounds alot like 5 Frps, no?

Not really, swaps that are unlikely to be used are very different from extra FRPs. So it sounds a lot more like 3 FRPs + 2 swaps + a prospect, than it does 5 FRPs.

nah, it's not closer to 3 FRPs: Ochai was selected 14th and was in the 12-18 range in about any mock draft. he hasn't played a single game, if teams believed b4 the drafted he belonged in that range - they still believe that now. so actually, this is a mid FRP, better than what the other 3 are likely to be (meaning - late firsts) - so that's def 4 FRPS + 2 swaps

as for the swaps, Idk how likely or unlikely it is that they will convey, do you?
btw, if they don't convey don't they turn into 2nds or something eventually?

I wrote this in the Mitchell thread b4 the trade - Ainge was bluffing, this draft is expected to be a strong one and there was no way Mitchell was gonna be on that Utah roster come opening night,
winning them some games and hurting the tank. He was always gonna get shipped sooner rather than later. Ainge was brought in to clean the slate and he did.

He took a couple of weeks to see what's the best return he could get and he got it
it's not amazing but it's def the market price

I don't view Mitchell personally as a top 15-20ish guy like some folks here do, so I think that's a pretty decent haul. Btw, it was better for Ainge to make this trade with Utah - NYK is still in the east last I checked and might be competing with the Cavs for a playoff spot (unlikely cuz it's NY but still haha).

Sounds like 3 FRP + 2 swaps + 1 prospect

[BenoUdrihFTL]

I suppose Ainge might be banking on history repeating itself in terms of the Wolves and Cavs' poor track records as competent franchises over the years, but talent is talent and it's gonna be a challenge for Minny/Cleveland to somehow screw this up

Cavs have been one of the most successful franchises in the last decade.

Successful at winning the draft lottery, sure. They were gifted 11 healthy seasons of a consensus top 2 player in NBA history, along with a 4 year stretch of three other #1 overall picks and two #4s. Remove LeBron from the equation and there's not a whole lot Cleveland has done right until recently, many would even argue that their first 7 years of LeBron were so plagued by mismanagement that LeBron literally had to leave in order to ever have any hopes of winning a title

[NO-KG-AI]

The Ainge worship is getting a bit overzealous considering he clearly whiffed by not taking that superior Knicks package as reported, because he was so stubbornly set at his outlandish original asking price. He's been often referred to as "Gun-Shy Danny" for a reason. Honestly think that Sexton and Agbaji are the best assets he got here.

But a lot of people do seem to love these "trade a star for quantity over quality picks" deals that are always lauded as some 4D chess type moves. When in reality I'm pretty sure the teams that "get fleeced" (Bucks, Lakers, Clippers) are pretty fine with the outcome of those trades when they've banked a championship or two. As a Bucks fan, sign me up for getting "fleeced" again if I'm getting another All-Star caliber player to extend our title window....

People look at it as "getting fleeced" because they can't fathom how a trade can be great for both teams, somebody has to get jeered as a loser.

I thought the Mitchell trade was roughly fair value and the deal terms didn't really surprise me at all. I think people were a lot more surprised at the Gobert deal, given Gobert's age and position. In retrospect perhaps it's not too surprising, because after Gobert was traded the writing was on the wall and teams were trying to get best terms possible for Mitchell.

If you have 2 star/superstar level players in their primes (especially Mitchell who is very young) and trade them both, yeah you're going to get a haul, and Utah came out well in the end. Not sure where any schooling took place though.

A proper schooling would have been if they somehow landed a superstar in the offseason while keeping Mitchell and Gobert.

OKC was ultimately the winner of the best superstar trade, because they leveraged the fact that Clippers needed PG to sign Kawhi. All the picks will end up probably so-so (a combo of Miami and Clipper picks), but they also got SGA in the deal.

I really like what we got for Anthony Davis, considering he was basically nuking deals with every other team. Ingram, Lonzo, Hart, #4 pick, #9 pick this season, a pick swap next draft (where their team has a ton of turmoil and question marks with age and injuries..) and the choice of their 2024 or 2025 pick. Not bad for how much they were strong arming us, I think we only got as much value as we did because LeBron was not going to sit around and wait another summer for Davis to get there and possibly change his mind. The LAkers got a superstar that was a great fit and a great friend to LeBron, hard to call it a loss for them, and it is in question now, but the idea was that Davis transitions into the megastar beyond the LeBron years and they attract him another partner later.

I think we got a lot of value out of Jrue, who was a non all NBA player entering his 30's, and who we also wanted to do a solid and get him somewhere he wanted to be. Worked out for both parties, it won't pay us any dividends now, but for a team who was obviously hinging on building around Zion, Ingram, and a bunch of lotto picks we already had, having future picks creates flexibility and the ability to bring on cheap labor later when all of our guys are on bigger deals and we have less flexibility with the roster. If even 1 of those ends up a lot better of a pick than anticipated, it's a massive win and the reason we kicked the can downthe road is that it coincides with the last of the Lakers picks coming the same year we start getting the Bucks picks.

Giannis will be coming up on 30 when we receive our first pick from them and near 33 when we get the last of them, with a lot of hard mileage due to his physicality and play style. Jrue will be 34-37 when we are receiving the picks, and Middleton 33-36, neither guy has particularly great health either. If Giannis misses any significant time, we might end up with a top 5-10 pick from them, even Giannis is there for the rest of his career.

The Bucks got a great deal because they can keep their present picks and help build around these guys in their primes, and might hit some late gems that keep the train rolling along into the time when they start giving picks away.

[Mr Loggins]

I suppose Ainge might be banking on history repeating itself in terms of the Wolves and Cavs' poor track records as competent franchises over the years, but talent is talent and it's gonna be a challenge for Minny/Cleveland to somehow screw this up

Cavs have been one of the most successful franchises in the last decade.

Successful at winning the draft lottery, sure. They were gifted 11 healthy seasons of a consensus top 2 player in NBA history, along with a 4 year stretch of three other #1 overall picks and two #4s. Remove LeBron from the equation and there's not a whole lot Cleveland has done right until recently, many would even argue that their first 7 years of LeBron were so plagued by mismanagement that LeBron literally had to leave in order to ever have any hopes of winning a title

on the flip side. tough to find many bad moves since Altman took over.

Pretty impressive what he’s done in the 4 years since LeBron left.

[tbhawksfan1]

The amount of respect I have for that franchise, to take a team that was guaranteed to make the playoffs but also guaranteed to never contend, and blow it up is sky high. They could’ve just stayed as a 1st round contender and kept their fan base happy but they aren’t settling.

Let's see how many years they spend in the lottery and what those years produce before celebrating their non competitive moves

[WestbrookGOATed]

Yawn. Sam Presti makes better deals in his sleep.

[Johnny Bball]

Cavs have been one of the most successful franchises in the last decade.

Successful at winning the draft lottery, sure. They were gifted 11 healthy seasons of a consensus top 2 player in NBA history, along with a 4 year stretch of three other #1 overall picks and two #4s. Remove LeBron from the equation and there's not a whole lot Cleveland has done right until recently, many would even argue that their first 7 years of LeBron were so plagued by mismanagement that LeBron literally had to leave in order to ever have any hopes of winning a title

on the flip side. tough to find many bad moves since Altman took over.

Pretty impressive what he’s done in the 4 years since LeBron left.

It is incredible once they removed LeBron's demands how much better they have done.

[BenoUdrihFTL]

Cavs have been one of the most successful franchises in the last decade.

Successful at winning the draft lottery, sure. They were gifted 11 healthy seasons of a consensus top 2 player in NBA history, along with a 4 year stretch of three other #1 overall picks and two #4s. Remove LeBron from the equation and there's not a whole lot Cleveland has done right until recently, many would even argue that their first 7 years of LeBron were so plagued by mismanagement that LeBron literally had to leave in order to ever have any hopes of winning a title

on the flip side. tough to find many bad moves since Altman took over.

Pretty impressive what he’s done in the 4 years since LeBron left.

Agreed which is why, aside from the sheer abundance of young high-end talent on this Cavs roster, I really question the degree of pick value Ainge acquired from Cleveland. I don't expect this treasure trove (actual treasure, as in players, not the enhanced possibility of future treasure that a "warchest" of picks provides) to be mismanaged by the same FO that so deftly assembled it in such relatively short order. What I do expect is that all 3 of these picks will fall somewhere in the 20s, possibly even mid-late 20s if you believe (as I do) that the Cavs are capable of becoming a perennial 50-win team by 2025

[sp6r=underrated]

It isn't hard to trade good players for picks years into the future. The main reason it doesn't happen often is one, getting good players like Gobert and Mitchell is hard. Two, ownership is unwilling to have a terrible team for years while you wait for the picks. Three, fans get pissed and stop buying tickets which makes even pro-tank owners reluctant. Forth it pisses off the NBA to have an unmarketable team, ala Hinkie Sixers.

The hardest part, getting good players, was done by a previous GM. Points 2-4 have little to do with Ainge. He did some nice trades but people are losing their mind.

[madmaxmedia]

People look at it as "getting fleeced" because they can't fathom how a trade can be great for both teams, somebody has to get jeered as a loser.

I thought the Mitchell trade was roughly fair value and the deal terms didn't really surprise me at all. I think people were a lot more surprised at the Gobert deal, given Gobert's age and position. In retrospect perhaps it's not too surprising, because after Gobert was traded the writing was on the wall and teams were trying to get best terms possible for Mitchell.

If you have 2 star/superstar level players in their primes (especially Mitchell who is very young) and trade them both, yeah you're going to get a haul, and Utah came out well in the end. Not sure where any schooling took place though.

A proper schooling would have been if they somehow landed a superstar in the offseason while keeping Mitchell and Gobert.

OKC was ultimately the winner of the best superstar trade, because they leveraged the fact that Clippers needed PG to sign Kawhi. All the picks will end up probably so-so (a combo of Miami and Clipper picks), but they also got SGA in the deal.

I really like what we got for Anthony Davis, considering he was basically nuking deals with every other team. Ingram, Lonzo, Hart, #4 pick, #9 pick this season, a pick swap next draft (where their team has a ton of turmoil and question marks with age and injuries..) and the choice of their 2024 or 2025 pick. Not bad for how much they were strong arming us, I think we only got as much value as we did because LeBron was not going to sit around and wait another summer for Davis to get there and possibly change his mind. The LAkers got a superstar that was a great fit and a great friend to LeBron, hard to call it a loss for them, and it is in question now, but the idea was that Davis transitions into the megastar beyond the LeBron years and they attract him another partner later.

I think we got a lot of value out of Jrue, who was a non all NBA player entering his 30's, and who we also wanted to do a solid and get him somewhere he wanted to be. Worked out for both parties, it won't pay us any dividends now, but for a team who was obviously hinging on building around Zion, Ingram, and a bunch of lotto picks we already had, having future picks creates flexibility and the ability to bring on cheap labor later when all of our guys are on bigger deals and we have less flexibility with the roster. If even 1 of those ends up a lot better of a pick than anticipated, it's a massive win and the reason we kicked the can downthe road is that it coincides with the last of the Lakers picks coming the same year we start getting the Bucks picks.

Giannis will be coming up on 30 when we receive our first pick from them and near 33 when we get the last of them, with a lot of hard mileage due to his physicality and play style. Jrue will be 34-37 when we are receiving the picks, and Middleton 33-36, neither guy has particularly great health either. If Giannis misses any significant time, we might end up with a top 5-10 pick from them, even Giannis is there for the rest of his career.

The Bucks got a great deal because they can keep their present picks and help build around these guys in their primes, and might hit some late gems that keep the train rolling along into the time when they start giving picks away.

Oh yeah, considering the situation I think you guys did really well with the AD trade. It's actually pretty fascinating that both those trades helped push other teams over the top to titles.

The best trades are always win-win or at least win-breakeven, that is when one or both teams have a much better chance of maximizing potential return based on their goals.

[KazuoOda]

Its not just the picks itself that have massive value because they could be lotto picks, its the ability to trade them. Which every single team in the league will have interest in them. As opposed to just a select few teams that can trade for or even want Gobert/Mitchel.

Cavs and Wolves look like huge losers. They aren't contenders yet mortgaged their future. If their roster doesn't work moving forward, they are in a bad position.

lol, "Cavs mortgaged their future"?

those 3 Cavs picks are probably gonna be in the 15-20 range
The Cavs nailed some high picks lately (Mobley, Garland) but also wasted some high picks (Sexton, Okoro, Bennet, Wiggins etc).
what are the odds of 1 or more players the Cavs would have picked with those 3 picks (plus Ochai) let's say 18th-20th being equal or better to Mitchell?

let's not forget, even if they draft such a player in the 15-20th (very unlikely) - that prospect still needs time to develop - Mitchell is just entering his prime

odds are out of those 3 picks, 2 never stick in the league and the 3rd is a decent starter

Sexton is awful, they weren't gonna pay him and were looking to unload him even before he got injured, in order to get rid of him and give Garland the keys. His injury derailed that...
he was useless to them.
Lauri is ok, serviceable player nothing more nothing less, certainly not a future crippling move haha

those swaps might not convey at all (quite likely)

so..how exactly have they "mortgaged their future"?
are they more or less likely in your opinion after the trade to reach the playoffs sometime in the 3-5 next seasons? how about the 2nd rd? ECF? Finals?

they did a great move for the future even tho personally i'm not a big fan of Domo - he's still a major upgrade for them

A lot of words for a team that Ainge just took another soul from. Mitchell isn’t staying in Cleveland so all those picks will be gold. Mitchell will be winning games somewhere else why the Cavs are losing

A lot of wishful thinking and praying on downfalls.
Sorry but the Cavs will still have Mobley and Garland in their primes by then.
But let the hate continue.

[dockingsched]

The amount of respect I have for that franchise, to take a team that was guaranteed to make the playoffs but also guaranteed to never contend, and blow it up is sky high. They could’ve just stayed as a 1st round contender and kept their fan base happy but they aren’t settling.

Let's see how many years they spend in the lottery and what those years produce before celebrating their non competitive moves

Well that’s the risk that comes with actually trying to build a contender instead of playing it safe with a roster that will put you in the playoffs but never contend. You don’t need to wait to celebrate a team being willing to take that risk. May be it works may be it doesn’t, but they’re giving it a shot.

[seren]

The amount of respect I have for that franchise, to take a team that was guaranteed to make the playoffs but also guaranteed to never contend, and blow it up is sky high. They could’ve just stayed as a 1st round contender and kept their fan base happy but they aren’t settling.

Let's see how many years they spend in the lottery and what those years produce before celebrating their non competitive moves

Well that’s the risk that comes with actually trying to build a contender instead of playing it safe with a roster that will put you in the playoffs but never contend. You don’t need to wait to celebrate a team being willing to take that risk. May be it works may be it doesn’t, but they’re giving it a shot.

What risk are you talking about? Ainge got himself a lifetime job with this move. He can claim rebuild forever and not have to show actual results

[ocelot17]

Read on Twitter

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[sam_I_am]

I think Ainge made a poor trade here. Not one of these picks is ever likely to be a lottery pick and none of swaps are likely to ever be made. So Ainge got 3 late first round picks and Sexton for Mitchell. Ochai and Markennen aren’t good prospects. I think he should have. I doubt you could trade all 3 picks to get a pick higher than 15 in a draft to be honest. The Cavs hit a grand slam home run. This opinion could change if Sexton outplays his contract which I guess is possible.

[Effigy]

Successful at winning the draft lottery, sure. They were gifted 11 healthy seasons of a consensus top 2 player in NBA history, along with a 4 year stretch of three other #1 overall picks and two #4s. Remove LeBron from the equation and there's not a whole lot Cleveland has done right until recently, many would even argue that their first 7 years of LeBron were so plagued by mismanagement that LeBron literally had to leave in order to ever have any hopes of winning a title

on the flip side. tough to find many bad moves since Altman took over.

Pretty impressive what he’s done in the 4 years since LeBron left.

It is incredible once they removed LeBron's demands how much better they have done.

Oh absolutely. All that playoff success since Lebron left, it's incredible.

They were bad and got high lottery picks. How is that incredible? The last time they made the playoffs without Lebron was like 1998.

[LakersLegacy]

An absolute Master class!! He has already won GM of the year!!!!

All those draft picks
All those pick swaps
All those great young talented players

Traded for:

Getting off the treadmill

[cupcakesnake]

Successful at winning the draft lottery, sure. They were gifted 11 healthy seasons of a consensus top 2 player in NBA history, along with a 4 year stretch of three other #1 overall picks and two #4s. Remove LeBron from the equation and there's not a whole lot Cleveland has done right until recently, many would even argue that their first 7 years of LeBron were so plagued by mismanagement that LeBron literally had to leave in order to ever have any hopes of winning a title

on the flip side. tough to find many bad moves since Altman took over.

Pretty impressive what he’s done in the 4 years since LeBron left.

Agreed which is why, aside from the sheer abundance of young high-end talent on this Cavs roster, I really question the degree of pick value Ainge acquired from Cleveland. I don't expect this treasure trove (actual treasure, as in players, not the enhanced possibility of future treasure that a "warchest" of picks provides) to be mismanaged by the same FO that so deftly assembled it in such relatively short order. What I do expect is that all 3 of these picks will fall somewhere in the 20s, possibly even mid-late 20s if you believe (as I do) that the Cavs are capable of becoming a perennial 50-win team by 2025

There's a strong possibility that all the draft picks obtained this off-season (from the Cavs and T-Wolves) end up being late first rounders and that most/all of the swaps aren't favorable enough to merit doing. The Cavs and Wolves deep and stocked with talent. Even a disaster year probably has these teams on the playoff cusp and mid-first round range.

But with so many of the picks being unprotected, and controlling the draft capital of multiple teams... disastrous season do happen, and even beyond 1 season, things happen that cause teams to fall apart. Right now Minny/Cleveland look poised to fight for homecourt advantage over the next 5 years. But things change fast in the NBA so grabbing as much draft capital as you can is always a good move during a rebuild.

On top of that, sometimes late first-round picks hit. There's plenty of years where a top 5 player (or even the best player in the draft) pops up in the late first or beyond, and you end up with a surprise Jimmy Butler or Nikola Jokic.

[Ducklett]

He should win GM of the year the year, if ever, the Jazz actually do something.