Cammo101 wrote:I've been through the range of emotions on this trade. Like most, when I first read it, the 4 unprotected picks made me knee-jerk hate the trade. But, the more I've thought about the context of those picks and how they fit into this team and it's current plans, and the more I've watched of Bane, the better I feel about this trade.
Selfishly, I wanted Trae Young, who is a bigger star and better fills our biggest need, but as someone who has been begging for a move like this for over a year, I'm not going to squabble over the exacts. The important thing here is the Magic are finally pushing their chips into the middle of the table.
For better or worse, the Magic very obviously did not want to cash in a bunch of chips on someone in who was going to dominate the basketball.
They likely could have traded for Trae Young or LaMelo Ball or Ja Morant and they likely could have gotten any one of those guys for less overall that they paid for Desmond Bane frankly.
But Bane checked all the boxes they were looking for.
1. He's a great shooter in every aspect of shooting.Bane is not just good, but legitimately great at shooting the basketball. He can shoot off the catch. He can shoot off movement. He can shoot off the dribble. Outside of Curry - who is obviously one of the best players to ever play the sport - there aren't many guys in the league right now who are as versatile when it comes to shooting than Desmond Bane. He's legit good at everything when it comes to shooting. For a team that was the worst perimeter shooting team in the NBA, adding one of the very best high volume, high accuracy and most versatile perimeter shooters in the league was critical.
2. He has more than enough playmaking to not be one dimensional.There are a lot of other great shooters in the NBA - guys like Luke Kennard, Grayson Allen, Duncan Robinson, Sam Merrill, Buddy Hield, Isaiah Joe and Klay Thompson among others - these are all guys who can shoot off movement or shoot off the catch at even higher accuracy than Bane does, but once you ask them to start putting the ball on the floor and attacking closeouts or handling the ball in semi transition as a secondary playmaker, or god forbid actually initiating a pick and roll as the primary ball handler, their effectiveness goes down drastically. And once they have dribbled, none of those guys are on the same planet as Bane in terms of being able to make reads and passes. Bane can attack the rim off the bounce. He can get to a floater. And best of all, he can make higher than basic passing reads when he has a live dribble. Most guys who are great shooters just can't do the extra stuff once they have to dribble. Bane can and does. He's NOT a point guard, don't get that twisted, but he's a very effective secondary playmaking shooting guard.
3. He is also a guy who has thrived next to an extremely high usage first option.This one wasn't quite as important to me as it was the Magic, but Bane has shown the ability to scale up when called upon (when Morant has been out), while also showing the ability to scale down into a more clear cut 23-25 USG% 2nd/3rd option offensively role next to a higher usage guy. I think that is something that really also appealed to the Magic. Paolo is going nowhere. Franz is going nowhere. I don't anticipate their usage rates declining significantly either. So having Bane, who is good enough to scale up when one of them is on the bench or *knock on wood* out injured, but also efficient enough to scale down when they're all on the floor together is something they probably wouldn't have gotten with a ball dominant point guard.
