nate33 wrote:payitforward wrote:I think that's a well-considered rendition of their record, tho I do differ with you in a few places:
1. I thought the Beal trade was outstanding! I couldn't believe the haul of draft capital we got for him!
The Beal trade certainly turned out to be fantastic for us. My lack of effusive praise was mostly because I think anyone would have made that trade. Perhaps there was some brilliant brinkmanship in the transaction that allowed us to come away with that SRP haul, but I suspect the negotiation was: "Give us all you have left of your remaining assets and we'll give you Beal", and their dumb owner took the deal.
I think management's real impact on the Beal deal is the part where they turned Chris Paul into Jordan Poole. I don't hate the move, but I don't really love it either. Could we have gotten more for Paul if we kept him for a while? Maybe. It does appear that Jordan Poole has a positive effect in the locker room with his work ethic, so that's something.
I think the foresight to leverage the pick swaps from PHX is the potential hidden gem of the deal and I said so at the time. It was predictable that they were vulnerable for the wheels to come off quickly, based on injury history and lack of depth.
In addition we sold them a poison pill in the Beal contract which would make it nearly impossible for them to build a team around them. They made the fanboard mistake of expecting that a players numbers instantly translate without regard to chemistry or role. Three high usage on-ball scorers do not equal a championship.
At the time
doubters suggested that we wouldn't be better than the Suns therefore the pick swap wouldn't matter. To the contrary, that was the moment I realized this office is crazy like a fox. That given the flattened lotto odds, a pick swap is like being given half the roll of tickets at a raffle. Somebody has to win, but you have more chances to win than anyone else. The revelation of that trade showed they are gaming the math of the draft. Yes you have to get lucky, but they are tilting the luck in their favor at every step of the process.
All the charts show that your best odds of a HOF player are at the top of the draft. The higher you go, the better your hit rate. Its not foolproof, just more likely. In consolidating 2nds into firsts, in selling 2nds to move higher in the 1st round, in bargaining for pick swaps, they are climbing the probability ladder. And they are ruthless with it, will not sacrifice even the smallest slip in %'s as though it doesn't matter, since over time all those %'s add up.
This was a point we differed on the Deni trade. You agreed in another thread that Deni was worth a 15 game swing for the Blazers. But elsewhere argued that he would not have affected the Wiz draft position. That we could have gotten more for him if we kept him and he played well. But could have hidden those extra wins from affecting our lotto odds. This year at least. And oh well on next year. Even if that means we lose a lottery pick to New York.
To this front office, there is no oh well when it comes to the long game. They want every possible % to grab the franchise changing talent at the top of the draft boards. At least for as long as their pick is encumbered.
The argument on Deni is, okay they could have gotten another first round pick for him. Or pick a prize. But nobody would be giving up an unprotected lottery pick for him. SO the question is whether whatever return we might have gotten for Deni going to be better than whatever we get from this year's draft AND next year's draft. Deni is good early. We needed to be bad early to be good later. We needed the empty stats of players like Kuzma and Poole to ensure it. Not the demonstrated +/- champion that Deni has been. Because more Deni means less Kuzma. That was becoming more and more clear. So instead we traded for the perpetually injured Brogdon, and swapped out Deni in favor of making Kuzma our
tank captain team captain. Likewise this is an underestimated aspect of the Jordan Poole trade. CP3 makes every team better. Poole is a young inefficient gunner who will put up spectacular numbers in a loss. He can make losing look fun. That was clear even next to Stef Curry, he will put up numbers on offense when he has the ball and give them back everywhere else. Helps us lose and look like we are trying not to.
Remains to be seen if it works. This year. And next year it could work spectacularly well, since we could both stink enough to get a top 8 pick AND get all of the Suns lotto combinations in a year when they will probably be forced to ship Durant, or possibly Durant + Booker both and start over. With Beal's no trade clause still acting as a house arrest bracelet on their ability to make moves.
I say lets see how we make out after the 2026 season before we really can judge their vision. But the Beal deal was the part where it became clear to me exactly what they are playing for. Yes we had to ship him. Nice that we were loading up on 2nd round picks to follow the PIF thought experiment of drafting every player in both rounds to have a 100% chance of landing the best player in any draft
But better still to invest heavily in the long term failure of a team that is showing a lack of foresight. In before the Ishbia Rule.
