Woj: Deni to Portland for 14th pick and Brogdon

[doclinkin]

My deal is this. 20/20 hindsight can talk about Deni’s current value. But no matter the indicators this success has been fostered by the situation he plays in. Not a foregone conclusion at the time he was traded [edit. Thx pif] .

The Blazers version of Deni was given the keys to the franchise. Forced minutes even when had to play him at 2 guard. At the tail end of their rebuild, stocked with young talent. Playing to win not to tank. Featured as the thrust of their offense leading the break in transition.

Here we were unable to sell Kuzma, so would have had to play him to pitch him. Had Bilal coming up. Heard from Sarr’s agent he saw himself as a forward. Had Kispert. Hell even PBJr.

And the only guard on the roster was Poole.

Never mind that we also clearly had our eye on another talented forward in Kyshawn, to the extent we traded up 2spots to take him.

How are we going to play all the forwards and get good value for them. Ignoring even the fact we surely wouldn’t have developed Champagnie either. No room on the roster for all of that.

Deni had shown in the past a tendency to shrink and sulk when not given minutes he truly had earned. To the extent we sold off Rui to make room for Deni on the floor.

If our mission was to tank and play heavy minutes for raw Bilal and rookie Sarr, (and possibly Kyshawn) and to try to ship Kuz for anything, then the value of Deni in split minutes is likely no where near what it is now with the rosy binoculars of hindsight.

Teams understand when they have you over a barrel. When you are under pressure to make room. A sulking Deni with shaved minutes on a losing team both tanks his own value and that of Kuz.

Or else potentially we play him heavy minutes and he boosts us in the win column while siphoning developmental minutes from the kids.

You can say there’s zero chance that boost affects our win totals and lotto balls. The day before the draft: You can’t know that. You don’t know how many teams tank. Which star gets injured etc. Which rookie on your team blows up. If Sarr played last year as well as he is this year then he + Deni wouldn’t make a difference? With fewer Kuzma minutes? Or if Bilal never took an injury last year and this one, if he had a breakout like Sarr is having.

What we do know is that bad luck does happen. In fact based on the last play of the season we fell to the worst possible spot in the lotto. If we had a string of good play early, we could have lost our 10th pick. Stronger likelihood we lose this years lotto pick.

Or. The night before the draft, not in retrospect, we could get 5 assets for a young player who had a recent run of good play but being fair, had been emotionally fragile in the past. Even Deni admits he would get in his own way and mentally take himself out of games for slumps. Were we likely to get the same deal later that year for the Deni of a losing team now playing behind rookies and the terrible Kuzma?

OR public relations wise, would the public have been kinder on the trade if he were breaking out and helping us win and THEN we shipped him?

They sent out a talented forward — the only decent trade asset we had— for what the pundits all said was a good deal. We got a late lotto pick in a draft that was not top end heavy but potentially deep in guards. We got a charismatic local kid at a position of need. Young, with upside and leadership attributes. Plus a fistful of other assets.

Yes after the fact: we couldn’t flip Brogdon. We did ship Kuzma. The guard is in a tough sophomore slump. The other assets are in the future. We still lost the lotto. And the Blazers version of Deni is on the rise. So the fan base weeps and tears their shirt at all the wouldacoulda scenarios they imagine to be real if we had kept him. Equally possible though we kept him and got a worse deal under pressure to free up time for rookies, tarnished by Kuzma, with his numbers dragged down in box scores and losses.

Until we are out from under the threat of a lost draft pick, there’s no evaluating the team fairly. We are required to lose. No player is going to look great under these conditions. Not even the messiah Deni, if we kept him. However the folks who look worst in retrospect to my mind are not the front office, who took a risk and are still trying to make it pay off, but the unbelievably whiny single player Stans who wail about it all these months later.

I find I’ve been posting less. And maybe the board is better for it, surely fewer 12 paragraph rants shorter. But at this point while I still watch I’m just waiting til we get our lotto pick to see how it all turns out. Because the constant complaining about the loss of a single player is I dunno. Unseemly somehow. We didn’t even cry this much for losing Webber. Or Sheed. Or Ben Wallace. Hall of famers and champions. I like Deni, good kid and a defender and a homegrown breakout star. Would have loved to have kept him. But we chose to bet on a full teardown and rebuild instead. Strategically that seems sensible. Bold. Even if there will be sidesteps and struggles along the way.

[payitforward]

My deal is this. 20/20 hindsight can talk about Deni’s current value. But no matter the indicators this success has been fostered by the situation he plays in. Not a foregone conclusion at the time he was drafted. ...

i.e. "traded." 100% correct!

...the fan base weeps and tears their shirt at all the wouldacoulda scenarios they imagine to be real if we had kept him. Equally possible though we kept him and got a worse deal under pressure to free up time for rookies, tarnished by Kuzma, with his numbers dragged down in box scores and losses....

Quite possible to be sure.

... the folks who look worst ...are not the front office, who took a risk and are still trying to make it pay off, but the unbelievably whiny single player Stans who wail about it all these months later. ...

Make that *years* later.

... ... I like Deni.... But we chose to bet on a full teardown and rebuild instead. Strategically that seems sensible. Bold. Even if there will be sidesteps and struggles along the way.

My POV as well.


Now imagine if the ping pong balls had given us the #1 or #2 pick last June.... Would the trade look different? Yeah, the trade would look different.

I like Deni. He was my pick in '20, & he's become a wonderful player. Good for him. Enough.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

No it wouldn't. For whatever reason people are going to perpetually turn what was an underpay (and almost all of us said it at the time), into the worst trade in the history of life, ignoring, as always, what the trade was about.
It wasn't for Bub.
1. It was for 2 first round picks.
2.Other goodies.

And just as important as #1, #3: To ensure we didn't win 28-40 games, and became what Portland seems likely to become, a 34-38 win, nothing burger going forward.

They wanted to acquire some draft capital, and to hit absolutely rock bottom for the '25 and '26 classes, both of which looked good based upon scouting reports.

You guys can fantasize and dream all you want about the alternate world where we kept Deni, but after 45 years of watching this perpetual train wreck, the end result of that direction should have been obvious: a sub .500 perpetual non-contender that would need monstrously good luck, in a mega stud class to escape the hamster wheel of mediocrity, something that has literally never happened for the Wizards ever, even as it constantly happens for franchises like the Spurs.

That's the Deni route.

None of this justifies the selling low stupidity that was the Deni trade. Some tried to argue at the time that a late lottery pick in a horrific draft class ('24), and another random future first, and some players we might be able to Boyd trade, and a couple of 2nds wasn't the 3 nickels, a dime and a quarter for a dollar that it clearly was. I'm not defending the assets acquired. As I had said months earlier, I thought they would trade Deni (something most of you found ridiculous to imagine when I said it), I just assumed they would acquire a top 5-10 pick in a good class, and a speculative first in a future year plus more. What I didn't want was a teens pick in a ---- class that was at best, 9 times out of 10, gonna deliver nothing better than a 6th man, or some replacement level starter at best. That, was totally asinine.

So yeah, I'm not a fan, it was obviously a lost trade, but the reasoning behind it, the process, was sound, the execution was ----, at least to me anyway.

People are fixating on losing Deni, but that was always likely, the problem is that they should have demanded more, or held out on trading him until winter deadline '25 or summer '25. We sucked far too much to avoid a decent lottery slot in '25 with Deni, and we absolutely would have gained more by holding. I'm pretty shocked at what they settled for, however it's worth mentioning that on the Zach Lowe show the other day, he and guest were shaking their head at how little they got for Deni and yet Lowe or the other guy mentioned NBA GM's they queried on the topic, thought it was tilted heavily towards us, which suggests that Deni was still severely undervalued league wide summer '24. So perhaps we were just living in a world where we were never getting fair value for Deni, or at least fair value in '24.

I'm sorry, you're just not a wartime consigliere.

Your bottoming out argument is just fundamentally flawed, we could still have done that. Even that said, how the draft odds are, you don't need to completely bottom out given how much they've flattened the odds. Nate has belabored this point, others have as well. It's just an oversimplification of things. Just because the franchise has been in mediocrity (in it's best years) for the last 50 years has absolutely nothing to do with how the franchise should have evaluated Deni. Again just an oversimplification of things. You also say but "the reasoning behind it, the process, was sound, the execution was ----", I disagree with this train of thought. Executing is the whole damn point despite hopes and wishes, that is at the crux of this whole debate. Who gives a **** what Dawkins thought if he completely whiffed on execution?

Finally I'm tired of people acting like a Deni type player just grow on trees, that he's a player that would have been assured us mediocrity. Another zombie line that Deni just isn't a piece you truly want to rebuild around. This is always a tacit attitude for some reason, something about Deni, you couldn't possibly see him as a franchise cornerstone because who the hell knows?

Regard to the Lowe's of the world, I'm sure plenty of guys in the NBA insider realms are trying to cover their asses on their initial assessments of the trade. Again as I said to nate, seems like the talking heads by-and-large thought it was a great trade, herding together like bad political pollsters, because they are afraid of getting it wrong, but still get it wrong.

You're mistaken my process/execution point, for supporting the trade. Go back through the thread to when the trade was made, and you will find the people who felt we got fair value (something that was more than agreed with, league wide, based on reporting), I was not, and am not one of them. I hated the trade because while I liked two picks, I thought getting a mid first in an absolute horse ---- class was largely worthless, and when you add that the second first would be four years later, it was equally ----. I liked the body to flip (which we didn't), and the 2nd's well enough, but I felt the team absolutely needed to get a pick highly likely to be a top 10 pick in the loaded '25 class, and if they couldn't that summer, then hold, and make the trade later when they could.

I did agree that the trade needed to be made for tanking purposes and I still believe that. We needed franchise transforming super talents. Even at the apex he's hit, and he appears to have hit the highest of projectable ceilings from January '24-November of '25, he's not the sort of player that can transform a team the way a Wemby, a LeBron, an Ant, Flagg, Harper, next year's Peterson, and Dybantsa (maybe Boozer, Ament, and Brown)....he's a guy that could be the 2nd or 3rd best player on a good team, but he's not the piece that gets it done.

You can keep arguing that we would have been fine if we had kept him, but the evidence available just says you're wrong. Portland won 45% of their games last year, this year they are so far, above .500 in a ridiculously difficult conference. Deni hitting his ceiling in a crap conference like the East? What does that do, after we get hosed by the '25 lottery as we always have in great classes?

You can feel whatever you feel about Deni, but I'm sure you've watched enough NBA to know that yes, he's damn good, and that was the freaking problem. The value of his mega cheap extension would be completely wasted for at least 3 out of 4 seasons, and he would also, more than likely, pull us out of the superstar blue chip zone of the '25 and '26 classes.

I am more than willing to cosign that the trade itself was a 60 cents to 75 cents on the dollar trade based on what we knew, and clearly league people didn't realize (that he'd leveled up in '23-'24 and was likely to at worst, get somewhat better than an already good player at that point, cost controlled for four more years on a mega cheap, highly valuable contract). That, for the record, even more than Deni's talent, was why I was so irate. Lowe and the other dude can say, and apparently know, that the league clearly undervalued Deni's talent at the time, but how in ---- did the league fail to understand just how immensely valuable that cheap as hell extension would be going forward, especially with 2 of the next 4 draft classes being ---- ('24 and '27)? The dude is literally playing on basically a "Business is closing, all items 65-75% off caliber contract," and yet the value of that is a mid first in a generationally bad draft class, and a speculative random first 4 years later and a couple of rubber bands and paper clips? That's what pisses me off. Yeah, it sucks that Bub is bottoming out, and Deni has found another 2 levels since he leveled up in winter '23-'24, but not on our roster, but trading him did make sense, just trading him for such a ---- return absolutely did not make sense, and personally, I think they should have waited to the winter deadline in '25 to move him if that was all that they could get, I wasn't surprised he was dealt (the only one on the board not surprised, seemingly), but yeah, I'm totally with you that they got taken to the cleaners in compensation.

I'll call it a wash if we land a top pick in '26 or close to it, because part of the comp was clearly bottoming out for the loaded two classes of '25 and '26, but having absolutely gotten ----ed by NBA's lottery rigging for the winners system (they call it flattening, I call it rigging) in '25, so far, that part of the play doesn't look great either.

However, I also think caterwauling over it for 2 years is a bit much. There isn't a soul on this board that doesn't understand that we got curb stomped in this deal, or if there is, there's no point wasting breath on them, everyone knows it, the only disagreement is whether it made sense to continue forward with him as a key building block. For me, it absolutely did not, but again, if that crappy trade from June '24 was all we could have gotten at the time, then he absolutely should have been a "hold" until later. But man, the pages and pages of rage posting 18 months later to a crowd just nodding in the thread seems a bit pointless right?

I'm doing that about Daniels over Drake Maye in the Commanders boards, so I understand, its gonna take me a while too to get over that catastrophic error, but franchise QB's are infinitely more rare than Deni Advija's, so there is that.

I'm not confused, I said I think you are flat out, deadass wrong that you needed to trade Avdija to bottom out. I also said I don't care about "the process" (is that a play on "trust the process") if the execution is a complete disaster, you can't separate the two. And if we do want to call it a process, I think it's a dumb and flawed process from the get go, so there's that.

In regards to Deni tanking the tank, the Wizards are giving up nearly 130 points a game, they are horrible despite all the love everyone wants to give Dawkins for his draft picks. And again the draft odds are much more flat these days, you seemingly keep ignoring this points. You don't need to be the worst piece of **** team to get some lottery luck. There's maybe 3-4 players in the league you could put on this team to make them a potential play-in team as currently constructed, and that's probably being generous.

I disagree you couldn't have moved forward with him as a building block. Why? Please tell me why? He's 24 years old, he could have easily been the "older head" on a young team, a leader, someone who sets the example, and oh yeah, is also a great player.

Finally, I will rage post whenever the **** I want to (Teddy KGB style), nobody is requesting you engage. People talked on this board for 2 years about trading for Ben Simmons, and I'm the weird one because I'm pissed (and oh by the way I'm right too) because this front office has gotten a free pass on a debacle of a trade? And if you do feel my rage is so pointless, isn't it even that much more pointless that you even spend the time to respond? Regardless, we should all feel outraged that the leadership in the front office completely **** the bed with trading away such a bright young talent. To boot, they did it for crumbs.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

My deal is this. 20/20 hindsight can talk about Deni’s current value. But no matter the indicators this success has been fostered by the situation he plays in. Not a foregone conclusion at the time he was drafted. ...

i.e. "traded." 100% correct!

...the fan base weeps and tears their shirt at all the wouldacoulda scenarios they imagine to be real if we had kept him. Equally possible though we kept him and got a worse deal under pressure to free up time for rookies, tarnished by Kuzma, with his numbers dragged down in box scores and losses....

Quite possible to be sure.

... the folks who look worst ...are not the front office, who took a risk and are still trying to make it pay off, but the unbelievably whiny single player Stans who wail about it all these months later. ...

Make that *years* later.

... ... I like Deni.... But we chose to bet on a full teardown and rebuild instead. Strategically that seems sensible. Bold. Even if there will be sidesteps and struggles along the way.

My POV as well.


Now imagine if the ping pong balls had given us the #1 or #2 pick last June.... Would the trade look different? Yeah, the trade would look different.

I like Deni. He was my pick in '20, & he's become a wonderful player. Good for him. Enough.

From the guy that didn't shut up about trading for Ben Simmons for years, it's rich hearing you say "make that *years* later." Always enjoy you teeing yourself up for another L.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

My deal is this. 20/20 hindsight can talk about Deni’s current value. But no matter the indicators this success has been fostered by the situation he plays in. Not a foregone conclusion at the time he was drafted.

The Blazers version of Deni was given the keys to the franchise. Forced minutes even when had to play him at 2 guard. At the tail end of their rebuild, stocked with young talent. Playing to win not to tank. Featured as the thrust of their offense leading the break in transition.

Here we were unable to sell Kuzma, so would have had to play him to pitch him. Had Bilal coming up. Heard from Sarr’s agent he saw himself as a forward. Had Kispert. Hell even PBJr.

And the only guard on the roster was Poole.

Never mind that we also clearly had our eye on another talented forward in Kyshawn, to the extent we traded up 2spots to take him.

How are we going to play all the forwards and get good value for them. Ignoring even the fact we surely wouldn’t have developed Champagnie either. No room on the roster for all of that.

Deni had shown in the past a tendency to shrink and sulk when not given minutes he truly had earned. To the extent we sold off Rui to make room for Deni on the floor.

If our mission was to tank and play heavy minutes for raw Bilal and rookie Sarr, (and possibly Kyshawn) and to try to ship Kuz for anything, then the value of Deni in split minutes is likely no where near what it is now with the rosy binoculars of hindsight.

Teams understand when they have you over a barrel. When you are under pressure to make room. A sulking Deni with shaved minutes on a losing team both tanks his own value and that of Kuz.

Or else potentially we play him heavy minutes and he boosts us in the win column while siphoning developmental minutes from the kids.

You can say there’s zero chance that boost affects our win totals and lotto balls. The day before the draft: You can’t know that. You don’t know how many teams tank. Which star gets injured etc. Which rookie on your team blows up. If Sarr played last year as well as he is this year then he + Deni wouldn’t make a difference? With fewer Kuzma minutes? Or if Bilal never took an injury last year ace this one, if he had a breakout like Sarr is having.

What we do know is that bad luck does happen. In fact based on the last play of the season we fell to the worst possible spot in the lotto. If we had a string of good play early, we could have lost our 10th pick. Stronger likelihood we lose this years lotto pick.

Or. The night before the draft, not in retrospect, we could get 5 assets for a young player who had a recent run of good play but being fair, had been emotionally fragile in the past. Even Deni admits he would get in his own way and mentally take himself out of games for slumps. Were we likely to get the same deal later that year for the Deni of a losing team now playing behind rookies and the terrible Kuzma?

OR public relations wise, would the public have been kinder on the trade if he were breaking out and helping us win and THEN we shipped him?

They sent out a talented forward — the only decent trade asset we had— for what the pundits all said was a good deal. We got a late lotto pick in a draft that was not top end heavy but potentially deep in guards. We got a charismatic local kid at a position of need. Young, with upside and leadership attributes. Plus a fistful of other assets.

Yes after the fact: we couldn’t flip Brogdon. We did ship Kuzma. The guard is in a tough sophomore slump. The other assets are in the future. We still lost the lotto. And the Blazers version of Deni is on the rise. So the fan base weeps and tears their shirt at all the wouldacoulda scenarios they imagine to be real if we had kept him. Equally possible though we kept him and got a worse deal under pressure to free up time for rookies, tarnished by Kuzma, with his numbers dragged down in box scores and losses.

Until we are out from under the threat of a lost draft pick, there’s no evaluating the team fairly. We are required to lose. No player is going to look great under these conditions. Not even the messiah Deni, if we kept him. However the folks who look worst in retrospect to my mind are not the front office, who took a risk and are still trying to make it pay off, but the unbelievably whiny single player Stans who wail about it all these months later.

I find I’ve been posting less. And maybe the board is better for it, surely fewer 12 paragraph rants shorter. But at this point while I still watch I’m just waiting til we get our lotto pick to see how it all turns out. Because the constant complaining about the loss of a single player is I dunno. Unseemly somehow. We didn’t even cry this much for losing Webber. Or Sheed. Or Ben Wallace. Hall of famers and champions. I like Deni, good kid and a defender and a homegrown breakout star. Would have loved to have kept him. But we chose to bet on a full teardown and rebuild instead. Strategically that seems sensible. Bold. Even if there will be sidesteps and struggles along the way.

You stan for this front office like PIF does. Excuses, excuses, and yes, more excuses. Reading through you post, there's just so many giggles to be had:

-"The Blazers version of Deni was given the keys to the franchise."
-"Here we were unable to sell Kuzma, so would have had to play him to pitch him. Had Bilal coming up. Heard from Sarr’s agent he saw himself as a forward. Had Kispert. Hell even PBJr."
-"OR public relations wise, would the public have been kinder on the trade if he were breaking out and helping us win and THEN we shipped him? "
-"Ignoring even the fact we surely wouldn’t have developed Champagnie either."
-"Deni had shown in the past a tendency to shrink and sulk when not given minutes he truly had earned. To the extent we sold off Rui to make room for Deni on the floor. "
-"Teams understand when they have you over a barrel. When you are under pressure to make room. A sulking Deni with shaved minutes on a losing team both tanks his own value and that of Kuz. "
-"We got a charismatic local kid at a position of need. Young, with upside and leadership attributes. Plus a fistful of other assets."
-"Yes after the fact: we couldn’t flip Brogdon. We did ship Kuzma. The guard is in a tough sophomore slump. The other assets are in the future. We still lost the lotto. And the Blazers version of Deni is on the rise. So the fan base weeps and tears their shirt at all the wouldacoulda scenarios they imagine to be real if we had kept him. Equally possible though we kept him and got a worse deal under pressure to free up time for rookies, tarnished by Kuzma, with his numbers dragged down in box scores and losses."
-"But at this point while I still watch I’m just waiting til we get our lotto pick to see how it all turns out. Because the constant complaining about the loss of a single player is I dunno. Unseemly somehow."

What in the actual hell? Puff, puff, pass my friend.

[doclinkin]

Brilliant insight as always crazyc^nt. Exactly as expected.

I think I get it. A losing franchise attracts fans who love to have something to hate on. A shouting hole to vent frustrations. Therapy like. A proxy for whatever else is pi55ing them off or failing maybe. Something they aren’t responsible for but can still get mad about.

Because there’s the option, if a fan felt like cheering instead of bxtching, of taking that fandom west and cheering for the Blazers. Otherwise what the hell do you get from the exercise. Sounds pretty unpleasant to be this frustrated and unhappy after all this time.

Dunno. I take the long view. We’ve had it worse in the past when you knew there was zero chance of improvement. Here it looks like there’s a clear plan. You may doubt it or hate it but the team has been pretty open about it and has held to it even despite pressure to try and rush to collect wins. I’ll take the short term struggles as long as there’s a better chance of being better.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I think these two need to don sackclothe and ashes.

https://youtu.be/yKc_tJ72BBw?si=QkibKJUCFeiq-r9i

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Brilliant insight as always crazyc^nt. Exactly as expected.

I think I get it. A losing franchise attracts fans who love to have something to hate on. A shouting hole to vent frustrations. Therapy like. A proxy for whatever else is pi55ing them off or failing maybe. Something they aren’t responsible for but can still get mad about.

Because there’s the option, if a fan felt like cheering instead of bxtching, of taking that fandom west and cheering for the Blazers. Otherwise what the hell do you get from the exercise. Sounds pretty unpleasant to be this frustrated and unhappy after all this time.

Woah boys, we got a "c" word drop.

Calls someone a **** over ball than tries to psychologize someone else's behavior. I myself am not even upset, the irony is simply too good to pass on.

I got called a **** on a basketball forum, I'm dead.

[doclinkin]

Oh no you’re right. There’s no hierarchy of nerddom on an obscure message board of a losing team. I just wrote 20 paragraphs in response to trolling. Not like you can call me reasonable. Troll away. Whatever keeps you from blowing up post offices or whatever.

[The Consiglieri]

Finally, I will rage post whenever the **** I want to (Teddy KGB style), nobody is requesting you engage. People talked on this board for 2 years about trading for Ben Simmons, and I'm the weird one because I'm pissed (and oh by the way I'm right too) because this front office has gotten a free pass on a debacle of a trade? And if you do feel my rage is so pointless, isn't it even that much more pointless that you even spend the time to respond? Regardless, we should all feel outraged that the leadership in the front office completely **** the bed with trading away such a bright young talent. To boot, they did it for crumbs.

Did you not notice I said I do the exact same thing with regards to Drake Maye and us stupidly drafting Daniels instead. I try to stay away from threads and b---- about it and yet I fail to at times, especially when literally everything's going right for Maye and literally nothing for Daniels this year, so I get it. It's basically the same thing as Deni and Bub in terms of '25.

But ffs, there isn't a soul around here worth talking to that doesn't get it. Not 1. So what's the point?

Definitely gonna walk slowly away from this thread and not open the door again for quite a while, I don't understand why I stopped doing this the past few days, but I've definitely learned my lesson.

Rant away, I don't give much of a ---- except acknowledging it's like yelling at a subway train passing by, but you do you.

[lastemp3ror]

Here it looks like there’s a clear plan.

What is the plan? I think the plan would include getting a player like Deni on our team. Now we are hoping to draft for one or trade for one. What I don't understand is that we/management said Deni was too old, and we wanted to start all over with younger players. Then, a year later, we give Kispert a contract. Kispert's trajectory was clearly worse than Deni's, and yet here we are.

[closg00]

Friendly prediction game, Deni becomes eligible for an early extension next-season, predict his next contract.

I’m gonna go with:

4-year $140M

[TGW]

Here it looks like there’s a clear plan.

What is the plan? I think the plan would include getting a player like Deni on our team. Now we are hoping to draft for one or trade for one. What I don't understand is that we/management said Deni was too old, and we wanted to start all over with younger players. Then, a year later, we give Kispert a contract. Kispert's trajectory was clearly worse than Deni's, and yet here we are.

Yea I'm reading all the excuses, and again, it puts this "plan" in the greatest light possible, while dismissing any legitimate criticism of said plan.

Kispert is still on the team and Deni is not. I don't care how you slice that; that is just plain ol' dumb and deserves every bit of criticism it's getting.

[Dark Faze]

Friendly prediction game, Deni becomes eligible for an early extension next-season, predict his next contract.

I’m gonna go with:

4-year $140M

His agent goofed accepting the Wiz deal. Fireable offense.

Deni's in an uncomfortable position in terms of an extension. Unless something close to max is offered, it's hard to accept it. He'll be in his prime when the deal ends. So to take 35 million a season for those years...it's protection against a decline, but also could see him underpaid yet again.

As a very healthy player to this point, I think you have to bet on yourself and be prepared to test free agency.

[doclinkin]

Here it looks like there’s a clear plan.

What is the plan? I think the plan would include getting a player like Deni on our team. Now we are hoping to draft for one or trade for one.

Draft a better one. Grow our own.

The aim is to draft top talent to an organization prepared to develop them. Kyshawn and Sarr show promise in this regard. Bilal hasn’t yet taken a jump though the talent is there.

Folks gloss over Deni’s iffy early returns, though fans pine for him because he did grow and break out. Took him 4 years to do so, after he signed a contract extension. We haven’t had even their first draft pick that long.

We are in talent accumulation phase. The mission has been to draft multiple talents as good or better than Deni. Last years top draft had 2-3. This year has 2-3. The aim is championship contention. We need a franchise player. Is Deni that guy? Is he your #1 option on a winning team. A superstar. If not then we can’t afford to pass up every chance at landing that guy.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Oh no you’re right. There’s no hierarchy of nerddom on an obscure message board of a losing team. I just wrote 20 paragraphs in response to trolling. Not like you can call me reasonable. Troll away. Whatever keeps you from blowing up post offices or whatever.

Trolling? You troll yourself with these "20 paragraph" screes littered with cockamamie. Then you call someone a crazyc^nt (as you put it), and talk about people blowing up post offices, and other weird stuff. Please, get a grip.

That said, I'll go back to continuing the conversation about how bad this trade was.

[lastemp3ror]

Grow our own.

The aim is to draft top talent to an organization prepared to develop them.

Deni was our own, and if the aim is to draft and develop prospects, then that is more of an accusation against our front office, because it implies that they couldn't develop him. No? I think you even said it in another post above, that Deni needed to move on, because we cannot develop him. If that is true, then why defend this front office?

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Grow our own.

The aim is to draft top talent to an organization prepared to develop them.

Deni was our own, and if the aim is to draft and develop prospects, then that is more of an accusation against our front office, because it implies that they couldn't develop him. No? I think you even said it in another post above, that Deni needed to move on, because we cannot develop him. If that is true, then why defend this front office?

Part of me believes they didn't want a guy from the old regime to outshine their guys, hence why they made a trade that was hasty. That's why I've said it kind of felt petty. Instead of looking at it as "well hey, they at least left me this" it felt more like a insecure, knee jerk thing that they thought they could brush under the rug because they were making change, even if it was in this cases change for change sake without properly evaluating the bird in hand.

If this is the case, it looks bad from two points of view. First, that they jettisoned such a promising young player after he finally got to show what he could do and was playing great because they just wanted a clean slate which is neglect of actual duty of the position at best. Secondly, they got shafted on the trade in terms of value. Now we are hearing oh, but, you know it was a risk and we are just happy took a swing. Isn't everything any GM and front office does a risk to some degree, that you never truly know exactly what will play out, and that is your job to mitigate those risks as much as possible? They failed at mitigating those risks, it has blown up in their face.

Again, at the end of the day I don't know if they were actually being petty or just doing their jobs poorly, maybe both. I do know they've basically never truly been asked to explain it. Hell did they even say anything to Deni publicly on his way out? I thought it was kind see yah later type vibe. I could be wrong about that, but that's what I vaguely remember.

[payitforward]

Hey, guys... the rhetorical level is getting a little too intense, don't you think?
Name-calling doesn't lead to rational discussion; it just leads to more name-calling.

It seems silly to imagine that we took the first offer we got for Deni. Had there been better offers we'd have taken one of them. Hence, it seems fair to say that what we got for him was what the league thought he was worth in a trade.

It's also a fact that Deni improved enormously in Portland. I don't see any way to deny that.
That said, he was already on an upward pattern. No way to deny that either.

OTOH, suppose for a moment we'd used the #14 pick we got in the trade to take Kyshawn George instead of Bub. Then, at 26, suppose we'd taken Kyle Filipowski. We'd still have had our #50 pick, so let's say we'd used it on Quentin Post, who is playing very well for GS, looks like he'll have a long career ins the league, & might have an Isaiah Hartenstein level upside.

Would the trade look better if we'd proceeded in that way?
If so, then you're not complaining about our trading Deni, you're complaining about our draft picks.

[AFM]

Deni….. AVDIJA!!!!!