is Haliburton the next superstar point guard?

[evilution]

SAC kept the wrong guard.

Haliburton is a high iq guy that will thrive with an expanded role.

You do realize how absurd that sounds, right?
Imagine if Blazers trade Lillard for 5 firsts in the offseason, and then the realgm is constantly flooded with threads and comments saying that they should have kept Lillard and traded Nurkic for the same return instead.

[Lalouie]

i don't believe in superstars starting out slow.

superstars are superstars the second they step foot on court

unless we're talking about the watered down definition

Not saying he is ever going to reach the level of any of these players but the following, just off the top of my head, were not stars as soon as they set foot on the court: Curry, Harden, Nowitzki, Nash, McGrady, Giannis, Leonard, George

curry was injured early on

harden played 6th man @okc until he was traded

what would giannis's arc have been if he grew up in the states

what was nash before they got rid of hand-checking, and specifically before he was traded from dallas to dantoni's phx

george is no "superstar" on my list

[AussieCeltic]

This trade is gonna get more threads for years to come than the Harden OKC to Houston trade.

Not even close.

Harden ended up as an MVP and Steven Adams is the only person of note that OKC received.

Haliburton will be good but I doubt he’s going to be an MVP and the Kings still got back a 25 year old all star in Sabonis who is currently playing really well for the Kings.

What’s funny is that Jeremy Lamb was in both these trades.

[sisibilio]

I’ll admit I didn’t watch him in Sacramento so when he got traded for Domantas I thought the Kings had done well. Now I wanna know why the Kings didn’t trade Fox instead? I watched the last few Pacers game and it’s clear Haliburton is a superior player to Fox. Like how did this guy get traded?

not only that, how did the Suns blow the chance to pair this guy with Ayton and Booker long term WHILE learning from CP3? Who is drafting for them?

I’m just curious why Haliburton was so under the radar when he’s actually this good?

He wasn't THAT under the radar, most people were shocked he was attainable.
Kings tried to move Fox first, but you couldn't get nearlly the same return for him.

[1st banana]

I’ll admit I didn’t watch him in Sacramento so when he got traded for Domantas I thought the Kings had done well. Now I wanna know why the Kings didn’t trade Fox instead? I watched the last few Pacers game and it’s clear Haliburton is a superior player to Fox. Like how did this guy get traded?

not only that, how did the Suns blow the chance to pair this guy with Ayton and Booker long term WHILE learning from CP3? Who is drafting for them?

I’m just curious why Haliburton was so under the radar when he’s actually this good?

1) They didn't move Fox instead because Fox's value was far lower: he's older, paid far more, has less years of team control, and has trouble playing off ball because he's a poor outside shooter. Trading Fox meant taking pennies on the dollar for him--which makes little sense for a team that was so starved for talent.

2) As for Haliburton being the next superstar PG, I doubt it. The one thing that separates him from other primary ball handling superstars is his lack of scoring prowess--particularly in one on one. Not only is he nothing like, say, Harden or Luka, but they may as well be playing a different sport when we're talking about the ability to score whenever they want. Even comparing him to prime CP3 and you'll see this shortcoming in spades. Haliburton's a great off ball scorer and distributor, but he's never going to be able to take over a game like a superstar can.

The best bet for Haliburton (which is what I proposed when he was on the Kings) is that you have a guy who has a similar skillset to Nash: elite shooter and distributor. In theory you could leverage these skills by building a similar, SSoL-Suns-like team around Haliburton: 3&D wing players, an elite PnR target at the 5, and a jack of all trades (this undersells Marion but you get the point) at the 4.

The dude is 21 and you're so sure of this?

Yea I know we were on a back to back and blah blah blah but he gave it to us dry today and I think if his shot wasn’t so weird looking he’d have gone earlier in the draft. Dude is already a beast and fox was holding him back most likely.

[gumbercules]

i don't believe in superstars starting out slow.

superstars are superstars the second they step foot on court

unless we're talking about the watered down definition

Not saying he is ever going to reach the level of any of these players but the following, just off the top of my head, were not stars as soon as they set foot on the court: Curry, Harden, Nowitzki, Nash, McGrady, Giannis, Leonard, George

curry was injured early on

harden played 6th man @okc until he was traded

what would giannis's arc have been if he grew up in the states

what was nash before they got rid of hand-checking, and specifically before he was traded from dallas to dantoni's phx

george is no "superstar" on my list

Sounds like you need a lot of disclaimers for your beliefs, imagine if I put effort into making a list of players that “started slow”

[Dominator83]

This trade is gonna get more threads for years to come than the Harden OKC to Houston trade.

Not even close.

Harden ended up as an MVP and Steven Adams is the only person of note that OKC received.

Haliburton will be good but I doubt he’s going to be an MVP and the Kings still got back a 25 year old all star in Sabonis who is currently playing really well for the Kings.

What’s funny is that Jeremy Lamb was in both these trades.

Yea but already people are acting like Hali is James Harden and Sabonis is some bum. Sabonis is an All-star in his own right. And he's still young! This can easily be a trade where both win. The probably for the Kings is the rest of the roster is bad. And fox is overrated. Sabonis on a team like the warriors would be incredible. Nobody is good on the Kings even Hali was so-so there. It's where players go to die or never be born in the 1st place.

Funny how in the previous Sabonis trade of him and Oladipo for PG13 everybody thought Indy got fleeced. Turned out to be a very good haul, would have been a great haul of Oladipo's prime wasn't robbed by injury. He broke out in a big way that 1st year in Indy.

On a side note Indy seems to have had luck with that. Oladipo premature injury decline, same with Danny Granger. And it wasn't physical but mentally Roy Hibbert went from very good young impact player to trash very suddenly.

[AussieCeltic]

This trade is gonna get more threads for years to come than the Harden OKC to Houston trade.

Not even close.

Harden ended up as an MVP and Steven Adams is the only person of note that OKC received.

Haliburton will be good but I doubt he’s going to be an MVP and the Kings still got back a 25 year old all star in Sabonis who is currently playing really well for the Kings.

What’s funny is that Jeremy Lamb was in both these trades.

Yea but already people are acting like Hali is James Harden and Sabonis is some bum. Sabonis is an All-star in his own right. And he's still young! This can easily be a trade where both win. The probably for the Kings is the rest of the roster is bad. And fox is overrated. Sabonis on a team like the warriors would be incredible. Nobody is good on the Kings even Hali was so-so there. It's where players go to die or never be born in the 1st place.

Sorry I did misread your initial post! I thought you said it was worse than the Harden trade. My bad

[Dominator83]

Not even close.

Harden ended up as an MVP and Steven Adams is the only person of note that OKC received.

Haliburton will be good but I doubt he’s going to be an MVP and the Kings still got back a 25 year old all star in Sabonis who is currently playing really well for the Kings.

What’s funny is that Jeremy Lamb was in both these trades.

Yea but already people are acting like Hali is James Harden and Sabonis is some bum. Sabonis is an All-star in his own right. And he's still young! This can easily be a trade where both win. The probably for the Kings is the rest of the roster is bad. And fox is overrated. Sabonis on a team like the warriors would be incredible. Nobody is good on the Kings even Hali was so-so there. It's where players go to die or never be born in the 1st place.

Sorry I did misread your initial post! I thought you said it was worse than the Harden trade. My bad

No problem! But yea it's gonna be the same thing in terms of threads being made about it years later. We don't know what would have happened in OKC. We've already seen the egos clash. Harden and Westbrook were reunited and ended up not standing each other. Then Harden and and Durant were reunited and Harden ran from that like it was on fire too. Durant went to GS because he didn't like how Westbrook plays.

We've seen plenty of evidence that these 3 would have clashed and probably had to be broken up anyway. But OKC got a terrible haul for Harden regardless. Way worse than Sabonis.

[8305]

Both teams improved the fit of their rosters. Can either of them build around the stronger core of players. Would be cool to see both teams score top four picks in the lottery.

[MotownMadness]

so what?

Well you might not be saying "so what" if you just traded away a guy you could of had for another 7 years for a possible year and half rental.

Maybe he likes it there and you max him and all is fine but theres still a risk.

Two years and a half.
They were also going nowhere with Fox/Hali core. Now the team looks much better, Sabonis is making players around the team better. Kings have all their picks going forward, an offseason to improve the roster, and a potential huge improvement of hiring an actual coach instead of Gentry.
Sabonis is not a guy chasing huge markets or anything, if the team is doing well, he's very likely to re-sign with Kings.

I hope he does stay

[UcanUwill]

Kings - misses playoffs for 15 years - trades the first and only blue chipper they got through the draft. Nick rocks, I mean... Domantas rocks.

[Lalouie]

Not saying he is ever going to reach the level of any of these players but the following, just off the top of my head, were not stars as soon as they set foot on the court: Curry, Harden, Nowitzki, Nash, McGrady, Giannis, Leonard, George

curry was injured early on

harden played 6th man @okc until he was traded

what would giannis's arc have been if he grew up in the states

what was nash before they got rid of hand-checking, and specifically before he was traded from dallas to dantoni's phx

george is no "superstar" on my list

Sounds like you need a lot of disclaimers for your beliefs, imagine if I put effort into making a list of players that “started slow”

reacher - "details matter"

[UcanUwill]

i don't believe in superstars starting out slow.

superstars are superstars the second they step foot on court

unless we're talking about the watered down definition

He didnt really start slow, look at his Indie numbers, its his second year in a league. Kobe and Dirk starter slower, and they are 2 of the greatest scorers of all time.

[BernteB]

can you be a superstar with THAT shooting form?

[DroseReturnChi]

i don't believe in superstars starting out slow.

superstars are superstars the second they step foot on court

unless we're talking about the watered down definition

He didnt really start slow, look at his Indie numbers, its his second year in a league. Kobe and Dirk starter slower, and they are 2 of the greatest scorers of all time.

90% of the superstars start great and are all nba level by their rookie contracts.
im seeing all star at best and his small sample size he is padding stats in a garbage tanking team thats much worse than kings in terms of talent. like the other guy said, this guy is dejounte tier not some mvp.

you never use the term superstar that lightly im not even going to hand off to even ja yet.

[Khaled1987]

Honestly, I think he himself is the biggest winner in the trade.
He got his own team (for now) and Rick Carlisle is a perfect coach for him IMO, a coach who was pushing for the Mavs to trade for Haliburton even when he had Luka, that was how high he was on the kid.
I don't know if he will be "superstar" but he will be at least a very good PG for years to come who will be All-Star consideration most of the time

[Lalouie]

i don't believe in superstars starting out slow.

superstars are superstars the second they step foot on court

unless we're talking about the watered down definition

He didnt really start slow, look at his Indie numbers, its his second year in a league. Kobe and Dirk starter slower, and they are 2 of the greatest scorers of all time.

back then, in a different era certain things were so much more different than they are today

there was no influx of european players, so one can surmise their training was much more elementary as well
the game was different, not do wide open and just not ready to accept high schoolers.
this is what dirk and kobe came from in their nascent years in the nba

dirk was ONLY being noticed as a player with potential an was even ruminating about playing at cal berkley,,unlike luka
and kobe was an 18yr old high schooler who came off the bench

[JonFromVA]

I’ll admit I didn’t watch him in Sacramento so when he got traded for Domantas I thought the Kings had done well. Now I wanna know why the Kings didn’t trade Fox instead? I watched the last few Pacers game and it’s clear Haliburton is a superior player to Fox. Like how did this guy get traded?

not only that, how did the Suns blow the chance to pair this guy with Ayton and Booker long term WHILE learning from CP3? Who is drafting for them?

I’m just curious why Haliburton was so under the radar when he’s actually this good?

Who says he was under the radar? Lots of people were high on Haliburton, and numerous teams likely would have made offers for him given the chance, but apparently the Kings only talked to team's with player(s) they wanted.

[rzzzzz]

No lie, I was hoping the Sixers would trade Ben for Halliburton and Barnes. Not some aging, overweight shell of his former MVP self. Halliburton says his agent first told him he thought he was moving to Philly, before calling back and confirming it was Indiana. I think Indiana did great with the deal. I also think Sabonis makes a lot of sense for the King’s current roster. But man, I was wrong about Harden being washed up. (And how the hell did he lose those lbs so fast?)