Travis Schlenk needs to catch more flack.

[Big J]

The Luka trade is looking worse by the hour. Trea is a nice piece, but he’s not Curry and he sure as hell isn’t the got damn Larry Bird / Magic hybrid that Luka looks like. What in the world was this bozo thinking with that trade? Reddish? lmao

[Imon]

They had the third pick.

This L goes most to Vlade IMO.

[dorkestra]

I disagree with this premise.

[Metallikid]

Travis Schlenk deserves a huge award for making sure Luka Doncic will never play in my conference.

[SNPA]

They had the third pick.

This L goes most to Vlade IMO.

Nah. Not how it works. Schlienk deserves every bit the criticism that Vlade does. There is no consolation prize for passing on Luka or escaping that the GM blew it big time.

Not only the Suns, Kings and Hawks but there are ten or more teams that could have put together a serious offer to trade up to get Luka and didn’t. All of those GM’s deserve blame too.

Luka being a stud was obvious.

[Jadoogar]

I mean atleast the Hawks got an allstar and another pick. Kings got a likely career bench player at #2.

They had the third pick.

This L goes most to Vlade IMO.

Nah. Not how it works. Schlienk deserves every bit the criticism that Vlade does. There is no consolation prize for passing on Luka or escaping that the GM blew it big time.

Not only the Suns, Kings and Hawks but there are ten or more teams that could have put together a serious offer to trade up to get Luka and didn’t. All of those GM’s deserve blame too.

Luka being a stud was obvious.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using RealGM mobile app

[SNPA]

I mean atleast the Hawks got an allstar and another pick. Kings got a likely career bench player at #2.

They had the third pick.

This L goes most to Vlade IMO.

Nah. Not how it works. Schlienk deserves every bit the criticism that Vlade does. There is no consolation prize for passing on Luka or escaping that the GM blew it big time.

Not only the Suns, Kings and Hawks but there are ten or more teams that could have put together a serious offer to trade up to get Luka and didn’t. All of those GM’s deserve blame too.

Luka being a stud was obvious.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using RealGM mobile app

That’s the point I’m making. It doesn’t matter they got Young and a pick. Means squat. You pass on Luka you .... up. End of story.

[kg01]

In how many different variations do yall want to have this same tired discussion?

[SNPA]

In how many different variations do yall want to have this same tired discussion?

He is 21. So at least another 15 years worth. Buckle up.

[Imon]

They had the third pick.

This L goes most to Vlade IMO.

Nah. Not how it works. Schlienk deserves every bit the criticism that Vlade does. There is no consolation prize for passing on Luka or escaping that the GM blew it big time.

Not only the Suns, Kings and Hawks but there are ten or more teams that could have put together a serious offer to trade up to get Luka and didn’t. All of those GM’s deserve blame too.

Luka being a stud was obvious.

There are reasons as to why things fell into the place as they did.

You could see why Ayton went to the Suns. A 7-footer with a big frame and a polished offensive game at his age? Plus he was a local college kid and throw in some US college scouting bias (and the Euro-bust fear among some GMs) and it's easy to see why Ayton went to the Suns.

As for the Hawks - Schlenk came from the Warriors organization. There is an idea that he is trying to recreate the Warriors in the East (good luck with that) and Trae is supposed to be the centerpiece of that rebuild. Plus he has said in an interview that he expected the Mav's future first to be a mid-lottery pick and that was the best offer he received from teams wanting to move up in the draft. He got who he wanted plus a future first. I think we still need to see Reddish play more but, yeah, he doesn't look good but Schlenk has no control over the strength of future drafts and I think he swung for Reddish as a boom-or-bust prospect.

The Kings are the ones that make the least sense to me. They had the 2nd pick and could have outright selected Luka without any haggling. I suppose the idea for the Kings was that they felt Luka would clash with Fox and that Bagley would be a better fit. I know hindsight is 20/20 but to not select Luka, who is better than Fox right now, because he might not fit with a worse player is pretty terrible managing IMO.
It should be said that Luka and Dennis Smith JR clashed in Luka's rookie season - it wasn't even a personality clash or anything it just became obvious as the season progressed that the team was better with the ball in Luka's hands and not DSJ. The Mavs didn't really have any problem getting rid of DSJ to build the team around Luka and I suspect if Luka and Fox had clashed then the Kings could have gotten a pretty damn good trade offer for Fox.

[Threezus]

Nah im good with Schlenk fam and i like Luca a ton as a player. But if Cam Reddish becomes the player that i think he can and will be then i'll take Trae + Cam for sure and not think twice about it. At their peak i see Trae as a better scoring with more range Steve Nash. At Cam's peak i see him as a Paul George quality of player. To me as great as Doncic can be i would take 2 guys at those level of players over 1 guy. Now rather we see it happen or not is yet to be determined.

[Kalela]

Luka has the most annoying fans in the league.

[SNPA]

They had the third pick.

This L goes most to Vlade IMO.

Nah. Not how it works. Schlienk deserves every bit the criticism that Vlade does. There is no consolation prize for passing on Luka or escaping that the GM blew it big time.

Not only the Suns, Kings and Hawks but there are ten or more teams that could have put together a serious offer to trade up to get Luka and didn’t. All of those GM’s deserve blame too.

Luka being a stud was obvious.

There are reasons as to why things fell into the place as they did.

You could see why Ayton went to the Suns. A 7-footer with a big frame and a polished offensive game at his age? Plus he was a local college kid and throw in some US college scouting bias (and the Euro-bust fear among some GMs) and it's easy to see why Ayton went to the Suns.

As for the Hawks - Schlenk came from the Warriors organization. There is an idea that he is trying to recreate the Warriors in the East (good luck with that) and Trae is supposed to be the centerpiece of that rebuild. Plus he has said in an interview that he expected the Mav's future first to be a mid-lottery pick and that was the best offer he received from teams wanting to move up in the draft. He got who he wanted plus a future first. I think we still need to see Reddish play more but, yeah, he doesn't look good but Schlenk has no control over the strength of future drafts and I think he swung for Reddish as a boom-or-bust prospect.

The Kings are the ones that make the least sense to me. They had the 2nd pick and could have outright selected Luka without any haggling. I suppose the idea for the Kings was that they felt Luka would clash with Fox and that Bagley would be a better fit. I know hindsight is 20/20 but to not select Luka, who is better than Fox right now, because he might not fit with a worse player is pretty terrible managing IMO.
It should be said that Luka and Dennis Smith JR clashed in Luka's rookie season - it wasn't even a personality clash or anything it just became obvious as the season progressed that the team was better with the ball in Luka's hands and not DSJ. The Mavs didn't really have any problem getting rid of DSJ to build the team around Luka and I suspect if Luka and Fox had clashed then the Kings could have gotten a pretty damn good trade offer for Fox.

None of this makes sense to me. The Suns passed on Luka for a worse player. Their reasons were crap. The Kings passed on Luka for a worse player and their reasons were crap. The Hawks passed on Luka fo a worse player and their reasons were crap too. The other GM’s that didn’t try with everything they had to trade up had crap reasons too.

Luka was the best player in the second best mans league in the world as an 18 year old. None of what we are seeing should be a shock.

[Statlanta]

Would Doncic even be himself in the Eastern Conference?

Ben Simmons went from a credible PG to an average PF due to the amount of bad teams there.

[raptor jesus]

The incompetence of certain front offices seems habitual, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around 3 teams passing on Doncic. He was a sure thing. At least the Hawks came away with an All-Star calibre player, but the Suns and Kings opting for bigs who essentially amount to role players in today's game over a high usage elite creator was remarkably stupid.

[Imon]

Would Doncic even be himself in the Eastern Conference?

Ben Simmons went from a credible PG to an average PF due to the amount of bad teams there.

What does this even mean?
Yeah, Luka would be himself. His game works best when the ball is in his hands. He's a PG - it was obvious his rookie season which is why DSJ got the boot and why Carlisle announced before this season that Luka would be the PG of the team.

And while Luka might be a chucker right now at least he chucks. It's possible that Simmons 3-pt percentage might actually be around that of Luka's if he actually attempted them (since Luka is not a particularly good 3-pt shooter). Problem is, Simmons does not frequently shoot beyond 15-feet - which makes Simmons reassignment to PF more sensible.

[SNPA]

The incompetence of certain front offices seems habitual, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around 3 teams passing on Doncic. He was a sure thing. At least the Hawks came away with an All-Star calibre player, but the Suns and Kings opting for bigs who essentially amount to role players in today's game over a high usage elite creator was remarkably stupid.

Trae isn’t even close to Luka’s level. Hell, Bagley or Ayton could end up around Trae...it doesn’t matter though. None of them are Luka. Schlenk blew his chance at Luka just the same as the others. There are no consolation prizes here.

Either you drafted Luka or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you screwed up. There aren’t really degrees to this. There is only one guy skyrocketing his way to ATG status.

[raptor jesus]

The incompetence of certain front offices seems habitual, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around 3 teams passing on Doncic. He was a sure thing. At least the Hawks came away with an All-Star calibre player, but the Suns and Kings opting for bigs who essentially amount to role players in today's game over a high usage elite creator was remarkably stupid.

Trae isn’t even close to Luka’s level. Hell, Bagley or Ayton could end up around Trae...it doesn’t matter though. None of them are Luka. Schlenk blew his chance at Luka just the same as the others. There are no consolation prizes here.

Either you drafted Luka or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you screwed up. There aren’t really degrees to this. There is only one guy skyrocketing his way to ATG status.

Not sure how you even remotely managed to interpret me inferring as much.

[Duke4life831]

This is most likely going to be one of the most annoying and most brought up topics for the next decade. With that said, ya cant really argue the OP's point. I think all 3 of the GMs that passed on Luka are going to be taking a big fat L on this one. Ayton looks like he can be a solid #1 pick, Trae looks like he is going to be a perennial all star and Bagley has shown flashes but looking rough at the moment.

While Luka just oozes all time great kind of talent. Luka is most likely going to be the kind of player that the majority of his career he doesn't get compared to his current peers, the vast majority of his comparisons will be with the all time greats.

[LukaV]

Can we wait a bit more before starting this topic again? Both Ayton and Trae have shown tremendous potential in their first two seasons and Reddish was on the upswing in the later stage of the season, so we could & should wait at least a couple of more seasons to see just how far they've all come. And we should hope Bagley's random injuries stop bugging him so he can start developing. We should wait because for one or more of the 3 teams this might turn into a Hakeem/MJ draft situation where though they didn't draft the best player, they still don't or shouldn't get any real criticism for it.