The Official Rudy Gobert thread

[shrink]

.. but I've literally seen Gobert's presence in the paint alter a guard's decision-making as he drives into the lane. That's not something that can be quantified.

Actually, I remember listening to David Locke in 2019 make the case a couple years ago that Rudy should be in the conversation for the MVP with James Harden. Rudy was #2 in the NBA in Win Shares. He also had Second Spectrum data that DID quantify what you are seeing. Not only do opponents shoot significantly worse at the rim, they take significantly less of those highly valuable shots.

Incidentally, for people that insult Rudy’s overall game, he is by far this team’s leader in Win Shares at #27 in the NBA. No other Wolf is in the Top 60.

[Note30]

.. but I've literally seen Gobert's presence in the paint alter a guard's decision-making as he drives into the lane. That's not something that can be quantified.

Actually, I remember listening to David Locke in 2019 make the case a couple years ago that Rudy should be in the conversation for the MVP with James Harden. Rudy was #2 in the NBA in Win Shares. He also had Second Spectrum data that DID quantify what you are seeing. Not only do opponents shoot significantly worse at the rim, they take significantly less of those highly valuable shots.

Incidentally, for people that insult Rudy’s overall game, he is by far this team’s leader in Win Shares at #27 in the NBA. No other Wolf is in the Top 60.

It doesn't mean anything. The reality is that's he's not contributing on offense or defense on his own. Stats like that are irrelevant when we are .500 record. If he was truly the impact maker every stat says he is then we wouldn't be a worse than last year's team.

Yes guards shoot different shots and it's harder, but what he makes harder in the paint, our opponents make us pay for in transition and at the arc. He's not a versatile player.

To be clear I have no issues with Rudy's play for us. I have an issue with his price tag. If we didn't have to treat him like an AllStar, I'd be happy to have him play spots for up to 28 min a game. Save his body and use.

[Note30]

I just hope he gets healthy. Like it or not, he is a very good defensive player

He's half of a good defensive player. He can't play POA or guard any position but the 5.

[shrink]

.. but I've literally seen Gobert's presence in the paint alter a guard's decision-making as he drives into the lane. That's not something that can be quantified.

Actually, I remember listening to David Locke in 2019 make the case a couple years ago that Rudy should be in the conversation for the MVP with James Harden. Rudy was #2 in the NBA in Win Shares. He also had Second Spectrum data that DID quantify what you are seeing. Not only do opponents shoot significantly worse at the rim, they take significantly less of those highly valuable shots.

Incidentally, for people that insult Rudy’s overall game, he is by far this team’s leader in Win Shares at #27 in the NBA. No other Wolf is in the Top 60.

It doesn't mean anything. The reality is that's he's not contributing on offense or defense on his own. Stats like that are irrelevant when we are .500 record. If he was truly the impact maker every stat says he is then we wouldn't be a worse than last year's team.

Are you willing to apply this same line of reasoning to Ant?

Or do you withdraw this line of thinking, that team record means every individual on the team isn’t helping?

[younggunsmn]

There is so much COPE in this thread.
They should just rename advanced stats the COPE INDEX.
Because they are deeply flawed.
There is no stat to measure what a drag on the other offensive players a guy who can't shoot, catch a pass, or dribble is.
Or who can't or won't guard anyone on the 3 point line.
I'd like to see the true measure of the turnovers committed by players trying to force the ball into Gobert plus the balls he fumbles away on his own. I bet its at least 5 a game.

Shrink, you posted that we would be much worse this year if we hadn't made that trade.
Again, we are 21-24 WITH Gobert and 7-3 WITHOUT him.
And that is not considering the 4 rotation players we would have if we had not made the trade.

This would be our depth chart with no Gobert trade:
Russell/Beverly/JMac
Ant/Beasley/Rivers/Nowell
McDaniels/Prince/Moore
Anderson/Vanderbilt
KAT/Kessler/Naz (Knight/Garza and Minott 2-ways)

Look at that depth. I'd much rather have that roster.
That roster would have 30+ wins even with the KAT injury.
Can you imagine putting this lineup out to defend a lead late:
Beverly/Ant/McDaniels/Anderson/Vanderbilt?

We are at the 2/3 mark of the season. This is no small sample size. Kessler is legit.
Gobert is a good player, but nowhere near as good as you are making him out to be.
If he was such a difference maker we wouldn't have so many losses against detroit, houston, san antonio, orlando, and utah.
Which wasn't a problem last year by the way.
Defense only big men don't affect the game anywhere near what they did just 10 years ago.

I have watched every game this year and I'm sorely disappointed.
I've watched players make layups around Gobert,
I've watched him not even challenge floaters and sag back to his man, get caught between in no man's land half the time.
I've rarely seen him use his humongous frame and take a good angle to put up an actual wall between the player and the basket while cutting down the passing angle, which Kessler put on a clinic against us 3 times now and even a much less gifted Luka Garza or Nate Knight can do.

I watched him give up about 8 wide open uncontested 3-pointers to Mo Bamba and Mo Wagner last night.
He lost us the Kings game by not being able to guard a scrub stretch 5 on the perimeter which led to a bunch of ridiculous panic switches. There are serious weaknesses that teams will exploit, we should know better because its what we did to teams with KAT playing their rim protector off the floor.

You blame the guards. When Rudy is on the floor, funneling their player to him is what they are SCHEMED TO DO.
If he lets the player get too deep and gets blown by, that's on him.
If we were playing in the 90's it would be different. The rules are all for the offense now.
There is not a point of attack defender in the league who is going to make him look any better than he does right now.

He is not the difference maker he was made out to be.
We have had to change our entire offense and the way our star guards play to suit him, and wasted half a season throwing bad lobs to him and watching him fumble the ball away.

We traded away superstar draft capital for a one dimensional player who is on the wrong side of 30, whose strengths are going the way of the dinosaur in this league. Teams are now averaging 115-120 pts per game, the rules are all for the offense now.
This isn't 1995 and we didn't just add prime Dikembe Mutombo.

The Gobert trade would have been terrible at half of the acquisition cost.
So have fun spending your time on the Trade Board Shrink defending one of the 5 worst trades of all time.

If we want to take the next step we need to accept that reality so we can move on.
He's a very, very, very expensive aging roleplayer.
Not the missing piece and not the player we should be running our offense around.
He can make the team better if he plays well, but he needs to fit what we do and not the other way around.

There's a reason Utah blew that team up.
Because the game is rapidly changing and Gobert's weaknesses put a serious cap on how far they could go with him.
Why is that going to work out so much better for us?

Is he substantially worse than he was with Utah and declining or was he always this flawed?
Because you have to hope at this point nagging injuries or something is keeping him from his best.

[Note30]

There is so much COPE in this thread.
They should just rename advanced stats the COPE INDEX.
Because they are deeply flawed.
There is no stat to measure what a drag on the other offensive players a guy who can't shoot, catch a pass, or dribble is.
Or who can't or won't guard anyone on the 3 point line.
I'd like to see the true measure of the turnovers committed by players trying to force the ball into Gobert plus the balls he fumbles away on his own. I bet its at least 5 a game.

Shrink, you posted that we would be much worse this year if we hadn't made that trade.
Again, we are 21-24 WITH Gobert and 7-3 WITHOUT him.
And that is not considering the 4 rotation players we would have if we had not made the trade.

This would be our depth chart with no Gobert trade:
Russell/Beverly/JMac
Ant/Beasley/Rivers/Nowell
McDaniels/Prince/Moore
Anderson/Vanderbilt
KAT/Kessler/Naz (Knight/Garza and Minott 2-ways)

Look at that depth. I'd much rather have that roster.
That roster would have 30+ wins even with the KAT injury.
Can you imagine putting this lineup out to defend a lead late:
Beverly/Ant/McDaniels/Anderson/Vanderbilt?

We are at the 2/3 mark of the season. This is no small sample size. Kessler is legit.
Gobert is a good player, but nowhere near as good as you are making him out to be.
If he was such a difference maker we wouldn't have so many losses against detroit, houston, san antonio, orlando, and utah.
Which wasn't a problem last year by the way.
Defense only big men don't affect the game anywhere near what they did just 10 years ago.

I have watched every game this year and I'm sorely disappointed.
I've watched players make layups around Gobert,
I've watched him not even challenge floaters and sag back to his man, get caught between in no man's land half the time.
I've rarely seen him use his humongous frame and take a good angle to put up an actual wall between the player and the basket while cutting down the passing angle, which Kessler put on a clinic against us 3 times now and even a much less gifted Luka Garza or Nate Knight can do.

I watched him give up about 8 wide open uncontested 3-pointers to Mo Bamba and Mo Wagner last night.
He lost us the Kings game by not being able to guard a scrub stretch 5 on the perimeter which led to a bunch of ridiculous panic switches. There are serious weaknesses that teams will exploit, we should know better because its what we did to teams with KAT playing their rim protector off the floor.

You blame the guards. When Rudy is on the floor, funneling their player to him is what they are SCHEMED TO DO.
If he lets the player get too deep and gets blown by, that's on him.
If we were playing in the 90's it would be different. The rules are all for the offense now.
There is not a point of attack defender in the league who is going to make him look any better than he does right now.

He is not the difference maker he was made out to be.
We have had to change our entire offense and the way our star guards play to suit him, and wasted half a season throwing bad lobs to him and watching him fumble the ball away.

We traded away superstar draft capital for a one dimensional player who is on the wrong side of 30, whose strengths are going the way of the dinosaur in this league. Teams are now averaging 115-120 pts per game, the rules are all for the offense now.
This isn't 1995 and we didn't just add prime Dikembe Mutombo.

The Gobert trade would have been terrible at half of the acquisition cost.
So have fun spending your time on the Trade Board Shrink defending one of the 5 worst trades of all time.

If we want to take the next step we need to accept that reality so we can move on.
He's a very, very, very expensive aging roleplayer.
Not the missing piece and not the player we should be running our offense around.
He can make the team better if he plays well, but he needs to fit what we do and not the other way around.

There's a reason Utah blew that team up.
Because the game is rapidly changing and Gobert's weaknesses put a serious cap on how far they could go with him.
Why is that going to work out so much better for us?

Is he substantially worse than he was with Utah and declining or was he always this flawed?
Because you have to hope at this point nagging injuries or something is keeping him from his best.

Thank you for writing all this out

[Note30]

Actually, I remember listening to David Locke in 2019 make the case a couple years ago that Rudy should be in the conversation for the MVP with James Harden. Rudy was #2 in the NBA in Win Shares. He also had Second Spectrum data that DID quantify what you are seeing. Not only do opponents shoot significantly worse at the rim, they take significantly less of those highly valuable shots.

Incidentally, for people that insult Rudy’s overall game, he is by far this team’s leader in Win Shares at #27 in the NBA. No other Wolf is in the Top 60.

It doesn't mean anything. The reality is that's he's not contributing on offense or defense on his own. Stats like that are irrelevant when we are .500 record. If he was truly the impact maker every stat says he is then we wouldn't be a worse than last year's team.

Are you willing to apply this same line of reasoning to Ant?

Or do you withdraw this line of thinking, that team record means every individual on the team isn’t helping?

Ant doesn't need to be fed and can reliably switch onto 3 positions. He creates and can play off ball. He drives the offense you can see his strengths and failures on offense without looking at stat sheet. Gobert setting screens, and screen and roll, catching lobs or put backs, and occasional post move is about the extent of his capabilities. All of those which require him being fed the ball or are not items which directly contribute to the basic statline.

When you use stats to justify a players impact and can't use an eye test to judge it by the same measure, that's where I draw that line of thinking.

[shrink]

It doesn't mean anything. The reality is that's he's not contributing on offense or defense on his own. Stats like that are irrelevant when we are .500 record. If he was truly the impact maker every stat says he is then we wouldn't be a worse than last year's team.

Are you willing to apply this same line of reasoning to Ant?

Or do you withdraw this line of thinking, that team record means every individual on the team isn’t helping?

Ant doesn't need to be fed and can reliably switch onto 3 positions. He creates and can play off ball. He drives the offense you can see his strengths and failures on offense without looking at stat sheet. Gobert setting screens, and screen and roll, catching lobs or put backs, and occasional post move is about the extent of his capabilities. All of those which require him being fed the ball or are not items which directly contribute to the basic statline.

When you use stats to justify a players impact and can't use an eye test to judge it by the same measure, that's where I draw that line of thinking.

And ignoring statistics in favor of the their “eye test” is the easiest way for a person to justify their own biases.

If your argument is that Gobert isnt great because the team is at .500, that means Ant isn’t great also.

[Note30]

Are you willing to apply this same line of reasoning to Ant?

Or do you withdraw this line of thinking, that team record means every individual on the team isn’t helping?

Ant doesn't need to be fed and can reliably switch onto 3 positions. He creates and can play off ball. He drives the offense you can see his strengths and failures on offense without looking at stat sheet. Gobert setting screens, and screen and roll, catching lobs or put backs, and occasional post move is about the extent of his capabilities. All of those which require him being fed the ball or are not items which directly contribute to the basic statline.

When you use stats to justify a players impact and can't use an eye test to judge it by the same measure, that's where I draw that line of thinking.

And ignoring statistics in favor of the their “eye test” is the easiest way for a person to justify their own biases.

If your argument is that Gobert isnt great because the team is at .500, that means Ant isn’t great also.

Hardly. Gobert isnt contributing ****, look at youngs post above.

I'm not ignoring stats. Gobert just doesn't pass the eye test at all. You need both.

Also we didn't trade massive draft capital for Ant.

[shrink]

Ant doesn't need to be fed and can reliably switch onto 3 positions. He creates and can play off ball. He drives the offense you can see his strengths and failures on offense without looking at stat sheet. Gobert setting screens, and screen and roll, catching lobs or put backs, and occasional post move is about the extent of his capabilities. All of those which require him being fed the ball or are not items which directly contribute to the basic statline.

When you use stats to justify a players impact and can't use an eye test to judge it by the same measure, that's where I draw that line of thinking.

And ignoring statistics in favor of the their “eye test” is the easiest way for a person to justify their own biases.

If your argument is that Gobert isnt great because the team is at .500, that means Ant isn’t great also.

Hardly. Gobert isnt contributing ****, look at youngs post above.

I'm not ignoring stats. Gobert just doesn't pass the eye test at all. You need both.

Also we didn't trade massive draft capital for Ant.

You used the Wolves .500 record as an indictment that Gobert isn’t an impact player.

I don’t agree with that line of reasoning, but fine, if you choose to use team results to indict individuals, then you need to apply your reasoning to everyone, not pick and choose.

[life_saver]

I have watched every game this year and I'm sorely disappointed.
I've watched players make layups around Gobert,
I've watched him not even challenge floaters and sag back to his man, get caught between in no man's land half the time.
I've rarely seen him use his humongous frame and take a good angle to put up an actual wall between the player and the basket while cutting down the passing angle, which Kessler put on a clinic against us 3 times now and even a much less gifted Luka Garza or Nate Knight can do.

This for me has been the most disappointing aspect. He is meant to be the best rim protector in the league but I really don't even think he has been close to best in that aspect this season. I don't understand why he doesn't contest sometimes on drives..just gives a free layup

[Folklore]

There is so much COPE in this thread.
They should just rename advanced stats the COPE INDEX.
Because they are deeply flawed.
There is no stat to measure what a drag on the other offensive players a guy who can't shoot, catch a pass, or dribble is.
Or who can't or won't guard anyone on the 3 point line.
I'd like to see the true measure of the turnovers committed by players trying to force the ball into Gobert plus the balls he fumbles away on his own. I bet its at least 5 a game.

Shrink, you posted that we would be much worse this year if we hadn't made that trade.
Again, we are 21-24 WITH Gobert and 7-3 WITHOUT him.
And that is not considering the 4 rotation players we would have if we had not made the trade.

This would be our depth chart with no Gobert trade:
Russell/Beverly/JMac
Ant/Beasley/Rivers/Nowell
McDaniels/Prince/Moore
Anderson/Vanderbilt
KAT/Kessler/Naz (Knight/Garza and Minott 2-ways)

Look at that depth. I'd much rather have that roster.
That roster would have 30+ wins even with the KAT injury.
Can you imagine putting this lineup out to defend a lead late:
Beverly/Ant/McDaniels/Anderson/Vanderbilt?

We are at the 2/3 mark of the season. This is no small sample size. Kessler is legit.
Gobert is a good player, but nowhere near as good as you are making him out to be.
If he was such a difference maker we wouldn't have so many losses against detroit, houston, san antonio, orlando, and utah.
Which wasn't a problem last year by the way.
Defense only big men don't affect the game anywhere near what they did just 10 years ago.

I have watched every game this year and I'm sorely disappointed.
I've watched players make layups around Gobert,
I've watched him not even challenge floaters and sag back to his man, get caught between in no man's land half the time.
I've rarely seen him use his humongous frame and take a good angle to put up an actual wall between the player and the basket while cutting down the passing angle, which Kessler put on a clinic against us 3 times now and even a much less gifted Luka Garza or Nate Knight can do.

I watched him give up about 8 wide open uncontested 3-pointers to Mo Bamba and Mo Wagner last night.
He lost us the Kings game by not being able to guard a scrub stretch 5 on the perimeter which led to a bunch of ridiculous panic switches. There are serious weaknesses that teams will exploit, we should know better because its what we did to teams with KAT playing their rim protector off the floor.

You blame the guards. When Rudy is on the floor, funneling their player to him is what they are SCHEMED TO DO.
If he lets the player get too deep and gets blown by, that's on him.
If we were playing in the 90's it would be different. The rules are all for the offense now.
There is not a point of attack defender in the league who is going to make him look any better than he does right now.

He is not the difference maker he was made out to be.
We have had to change our entire offense and the way our star guards play to suit him, and wasted half a season throwing bad lobs to him and watching him fumble the ball away.

We traded away superstar draft capital for a one dimensional player who is on the wrong side of 30, whose strengths are going the way of the dinosaur in this league. Teams are now averaging 115-120 pts per game, the rules are all for the offense now.
This isn't 1995 and we didn't just add prime Dikembe Mutombo.

The Gobert trade would have been terrible at half of the acquisition cost.
So have fun spending your time on the Trade Board Shrink defending one of the 5 worst trades of all time.

If we want to take the next step we need to accept that reality so we can move on.
He's a very, very, very expensive aging roleplayer.
Not the missing piece and not the player we should be running our offense around.
He can make the team better if he plays well, but he needs to fit what we do and not the other way around.

There's a reason Utah blew that team up.
Because the game is rapidly changing and Gobert's weaknesses put a serious cap on how far they could go with him.
Why is that going to work out so much better for us?

Is he substantially worse than he was with Utah and declining or was he always this flawed?
Because you have to hope at this point nagging injuries or something is keeping him from his best.

You must be a Virgo. Great post, nothing you said can really be disputed. All the new GM would have had to do was have a little common sense, some forethought and some street smarts. if someone had any of those, they would have known that the package that was demanded for Rudy would have only been asked for a top tier player in their prime or for Zion and Rudy doesn't come close to any of them.
Danny is a known hustler and they let the new guy who just had to install his own vision get talked into a NBA2K deal.

[younggunsmn]

You must be a Virgo. Great post, nothing you said can really be disputed. All the new GM would have had to do was have a little common sense, some forethought and some street smarts. if someone had any of those, they would have known that the package that was demanded for Rudy would have only been asked for a top tier player in their prime or for Zion and Rudy doesn't come close to any of them.
Danny is a known hustler and they let the new guy who just had to install his own vision get talked into a NBA2K deal.

NBA2K deal is a great way to put it.
What disturbs me more is that we have like 8 assistant GMs and no one was able to talk him down from it, not even Finch or Gupta who is supposed to be cap/trade value savvy.

So we either have:
A) a bunch of yes men, and an echo chamber
B) a bunch of absolute morons
C) Connelly doesn't listen to anyone and/or it was an emperor has no clothes situation and no one wanted to piss off the guy we just spent 40 million to hire away from Denver.

Arod/Lore, get this sorted.

[bluethunder0005]

I'm still fine with the trade. The Wolves are a top 10 offensive and defensive team in the half court, and the reason why we suck in transition is because we have guards coughing it up all the time on offense, of course the 7'0 C isn't going to be able to sprint back in transition to stop the play. That could be prime Draymond Green and he's not helping our transition defense any.

We were a better team last year? At this exact spot in the season last year the Wolves were 28-25, this year they are 29-27. So a whopping .011% better winning percentage last year compared to this year while last year's team had a lot less injuries. Beverly is shooting even worse this year than last and that's even with playing with LeBron. Vanderbilt is being shopped around all the time and is a complete liability on offense, which is exactly why we moved him. Beasley to Nowell is a clear drop off so that one does hurt.

Kessler looks good for a rookie, but for every impressive game he has, he's played off the court in the next one. The tons of draft capital was always the tough part about the trade. If those picks are in the 20-30 range then it's not an issue, as those picks are likely going to be role players at best.

Right now I see a team that is 2 games back from the 3 seed and that's with having more injury issues than every team in front of them. I'm not saying they'll win it all, or even advance past the first round, but people are acting like that since we're not the #1 seed it was a failed trade and that's just stupid.

[Note30]

I'm still fine with the trade. The Wolves are a top 10 offensive and defensive team in the half court, and the reason why we suck in transition is because we have guards coughing it up all the time on offense, of course the 7'0 C isn't going to be able to sprint back in transition to stop the play. That could be prime Draymond Green and he's not helping our transition defense any.

We were a better team last year? At this exact spot in the season last year the Wolves were 28-25, this year they are 29-27. So a whopping .011% better winning percentage last year compared to this year while last year's team had a lot less injuries. Beverly is shooting even worse this year than last and that's even with playing with LeBron. Vanderbilt is being shopped around all the time and is a complete liability on offense, which is exactly why we moved him. Beasley to Nowell is a clear drop off so that one does hurt.

Kessler looks good for a rookie, but for every impressive game he has, he's played off the court in the next one. The tons of draft capital was always the tough part about the trade. If those picks are in the 20-30 range then it's not an issue, as those picks are likely going to be role players at best.

Right now I see a team that is 2 games back from the 3 seed and that's with having more injury issues than every team in front of them. I'm not saying they'll win it all, or even advance past the first round, but people are acting like that since we're not the #1 seed it was a failed trade and that's just stupid.

0.11% better last year after we trade a trove of picks. Yeah it was a ducking failure. Stop trying to justify it. Murray for 3 less picks would have been a better trade.

If you're accounting for a trade you're not just comparing what we had last year, which would have been continuance, but also that we didn't trade for other opportunities out there. We could have had Mitchell or Murray. You can't tell me you'd rather have Gobert over those two players. We could have focused on making our guard situation better so DLo and Nowell aren't our supporting guards for Edwards.

Now all that **** is locked up for years.

Also if we were truly going to suffer injuries this year than it would have been even better to have stood ground because we would probably be on pace to get an amazing pick. Trade Dlos ass for more assets and extend whoever we needed to.

Instead we're all trying to justify this giant trade and our **** record for having made this trade.

Opportunity cost is a big deal.

[shrink]

I (and some podcasters I listen to) get frustrated by the national media labeling our season “disappointing.”

Last year we were ridiculously healthy, and often faced opponents who were lacking their best player. This year, it’s the opposite - our best player has missed most of the season, and we’ve had several other important rotation players miss big chunks of time. I imagine when the front office sees us hanging in there through all this, tied for the sixth seed and knowing they get to add their All-NBA player to an already good team, they aren’t disappointed at all.

[Note30]

I (and some podcasters I listen to) get frustrated by the national media labeling our season “disappointing.”

Last year we were ridiculously healthy, and often faced opponents who were lacking their best player. This year, it’s the opposite - our best player has missed most of the season, and we’ve had several other important rotation players miss big chunks of time. I imagine when the front office sees us hanging in there through all this, tied for the sixth seed and knowing they get to add their All-NBA player to an already good team, they aren’t disappointed at all.

Who cares about the FO they got us in this **** situation to begin with.

[shrink]

This is RealGM right?

[minimus]

Read on Twitter

[bluethunder0005]

I'm still fine with the trade. The Wolves are a top 10 offensive and defensive team in the half court, and the reason why we suck in transition is because we have guards coughing it up all the time on offense, of course the 7'0 C isn't going to be able to sprint back in transition to stop the play. That could be prime Draymond Green and he's not helping our transition defense any.

We were a better team last year? At this exact spot in the season last year the Wolves were 28-25, this year they are 29-27. So a whopping .011% better winning percentage last year compared to this year while last year's team had a lot less injuries. Beverly is shooting even worse this year than last and that's even with playing with LeBron. Vanderbilt is being shopped around all the time and is a complete liability on offense, which is exactly why we moved him. Beasley to Nowell is a clear drop off so that one does hurt.

Kessler looks good for a rookie, but for every impressive game he has, he's played off the court in the next one. The tons of draft capital was always the tough part about the trade. If those picks are in the 20-30 range then it's not an issue, as those picks are likely going to be role players at best.

Right now I see a team that is 2 games back from the 3 seed and that's with having more injury issues than every team in front of them. I'm not saying they'll win it all, or even advance past the first round, but people are acting like that since we're not the #1 seed it was a failed trade and that's just stupid.

0.11% better last year after we trade a trove of picks. Yeah it was a ducking failure. Stop trying to justify it. Murray for 3 less picks would have been a better trade.

If you're accounting for a trade you're not just comparing what we had last year, which would have been continuance, but also that we didn't trade for other opportunities out there. We could have had Mitchell or Murray. You can't tell me you'd rather have Gobert over those two players. We could have focused on making our guard situation better so DLo and Nowell aren't our supporting guards for Edwards.

Now all that **** is locked up for years.

Also if we were truly going to suffer injuries this year than it would have been even better to have stood ground because we would probably be on pace to get an amazing pick. Trade Dlos ass for more assets and extend whoever we needed to.

Instead we're all trying to justify this giant trade and our **** record for having made this trade.

Opportunity cost is a big deal.

I absolutely would have rather had Gobert than Mitchell at the time of the deal. Gobert is still the reason those Jazz teams were as good as they were. Him not being insane here so far isn't any reason to take away from the fact he was way more valuable than Mitchell was to that team. 3 less picks for Murray? The Hawks sent 3 1sts and a RTS which is only 1 less than we gave up for Gobert who is also still better than Murray. The Hawks have a worse record than us and they've not had our injuries.

Draft picks are overrated in value because everyone hopes they get the next big thing. If you're picking outside of the lottery you're as likely going to get a dud as you are a fringe rotation player. They just don't have that much value.