League Circles wrote:I disagree. Lonzo's real injury has had zero warning signs this year, but more importantly, a #26 pick projects as a replacement caliber player, especially during the 4 seasons of their guaranteed contract. Lonzo is likely to make more of an impact in his 10 best games alone for the rest of his career than a #26 will ever make in their career. Obviously a team can get lucky and get a decent player there, it's just not projected.
Lonzo doing anything in 10 games doesn't mean anything to you in a season that ultimately doesn't mean anything to you, like next season as an example, like Lonzo actually probably hurts your ability to get a good draft pick next year.
A #26 pick is likely to be worthless, I totally agree, but you need to stop thinking about only the likely case, like if the value is 50% worthless, 40% role player, 10% high upside, high value player, when you are really bad, that 10% chance is worth more than Lonzo for a short period of time in a year you would rather chase a draft pick anyway.
Also, while Lonzo has shown no reason to be scared about his future, the same was true prior to him missing 2.5 years with an injury out of no where. What we know is that Lonzo, even prior to the big injury, has had a long history of massive injury problems. Who knows how he projects going forward.
Either way, I agree with you, I'd rather have Lonzo than #26, just think your definitive view of that is a bit off, because not all value is created equally, we need long term value, and with Lonzo's history, quantifying him as long term value (in 2+ years) to me is very dicey.
But I do think he'll be worth more than #26 next deadline.
