Look, multiple posters over the past few months have said that the most valuable thing we got in the Springer trade was actually Springer's contract - as a tradable asset. These rumors shouldn't be a surprise.
Clearly, the priority at the 2024 trade deadline was a big - he got Tillman - good trade.
During the first 3 drafts with Brad as POBO, Boston made 0 1st round picks, and exactly 1 2nd round pick each draft. So his blueprint was only drafting 1 guy each year...but in 2024, he ended up drafting both Scheierman and Watson, bucking that trend. Obviously, he wasn't going to draft 3 guys in the same year.
The 41st pick is not a valuable asset. It's basically a "nothing asset". It's a mid 2nd round pick. I could see if it was a pick in like the 31-35 or even 36 range, that's pretty valuable. But 41st pick is not valuable at all..especially in the 2024 draft which was a weaker draft class. And that is the pick we traded for Springer.
Again, Brad was never gonna use that pick. It would be very out of character to draft 3 guys in the same class (especially a weaker draft class) after he only drafted 1 guy in each of the first 3 draft classes as POBO.
So then the question becomes, what is he gonna get by trading that 2nd rounder? Well again, the 41st pick is not very valuable. at all. So the fact that he was able to get a guy who was only 21 yrs old, very young but already had 2.5 years of NBA experience and had a considerable amount of upside (G league finals MVP, former 1st round pick, very good athleticism, NBA body, borderline elite perimeter defender who had already locked up guys like Brunson, Luka, SGA, Trae, Steph, etc.)
And while their were questions about his offense, Springer was a legit scoring weapon in college, in high school, in summer league and in g league. You look at what most sixers fans had to say about him, they loved Springer and thought that the team should have given him more playing time. Their fans hated the trade:
https://975thefanatic.com/2024/02/08/the-jaden-springer-trade-is-way-worse-than-the-pat-bev-one/You look around the league. at the time the trade went down, basically everyone said it was a good trade for Boston. Springer was a 1st round pick who was still perceived to be a 1st round talent - and we got him for a mid 2nd round pick. It was a low risk, high reward move.
Springer was a roll of the dice. But a calculated one. Brad figured that we could take a guy who was young with high upside and bring out the best in him. He figured that Springer could learn from Jrue and Derrick, he could continue to learn from Cassell (who coached him in Philly), plus learn from Mazzulla (a tough, gritty guard in college) plus we have a history of being able to develop/improve the shooting ability of our players so they figured perhaps we could work our magic again and turn Springer into a good shooter, especially since he was so young..
The plan was simple. Springer had about a 1/3 of the 23-24 season plus the entire 24-25 season left on his contract. So he had about 1 season and a third. He either hits and Brad looks like a genius and we have and awesome guard off our bench. Or he doesn't hit, and we trade him..and use that $4mil contract to get a decent player in return (the $4 mil contract can get us a better player in return than we could get if we just had a minimum $2 mil guy in that roster spot).
As for Jake Fischer's report today, all it says is that Brad put some feelers out there to a few teams. Gauge the interest in him across the league. Do some due diligence.
I mean, if Brad didn't do that, he wouldn't be doing his job. He was simply exploring options.. like all GM's do throughout the year.
