Woj: Batum to Charlotte, Vonleh + Gerald to Portland

[Liver_Pooty]

and then Vonleh hits back to back 3s, his 3rd of the night. I am going to pull my hair out watching this dude for the next 5 years. ARGH, he is up to 18 now.

Eh, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'd much rather have Batum with an extended contract.

Too bad that contract is only 1 year. Would feel much, much better if it was

[yosemiteben]

He is pretty good one on one in the paint and at times initiating off the dribble. He is very good at grabbing boards and has pretty good touch around the rim. He is a threat to hit uncontested shots on the perimeter.

That's pretty much the extent of his game right now.

I would be excited about him if I were a Portland fan, he's still a nice young prospect with great physical tools and high potential. He's also no where close to ready to contribute as a reliable part of a rotation of even an average team IMO.

[fatlever]

Vonleh seems to play much better as a small ball center opposed to a pf.

[Mystical Apples]

and then Vonleh hits back to back 3s, his 3rd of the night. I am going to pull my hair out watching this dude for the next 5 years. ARGH, he is up to 18 now.

Eh, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'd much rather have Batum with an extended contract.

Too bad that contract is only 1 year. Would feel much, much better if it was

For sure. Still like the trade though for both teams. Charlotte has a good future core now with similar age range

[vorbis]

Vonleh needs minutes badly. if he gets that in Portland you might see his game evolve a lot more quickly than it has so far.

[therebirth]

I thought Charlotte learned their lessons with letting coaches dictate what players they keep or bring in. Clifford is worse than Larry brown. Just you watch. If you noticed, the players that he refuse to play last season are the ones gone now.

[BigSlam]

To gauge the value of the trade I'm not sure that Batum Vs Vonleh should be the comparison.

I'm more interested in Frank's career Vs Vonleh's career because the way I see it is that our FO chose Frank over Vonleh.

If Frank has a better career then I think we win.


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I strongly disagree there. You can't just take Batum out of the equation, he is literally only on our roster because we sent Vonleh and we would have had the 9 either way. I can see saying Vonleh + Winslow or someone else available at 9 vs. Frank + Batum, but Batum has to be involved in the analysis IMO.

I guess my angle is that if our FO strongly believed in Vonleh they wouldn't have drafted Frank.

How about comparing Batum Vs Henderson and Frank Vs Vonleh then?


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[BeesWax]

To gauge the value of the trade I'm not sure that Batum Vs Vonleh should be the comparison.

I'm more interested in Frank's career Vs Vonleh's career because the way I see it is that our FO chose Frank over Vonleh.

If Frank has a better career then I think we win.


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I strongly disagree there. You can't just take Batum out of the equation, he is literally only on our roster because we sent Vonleh and we would have had the 9 either way. I can see saying Vonleh + Winslow or someone else available at 9 vs. Frank + Batum, but Batum has to be involved in the analysis IMO.

I guess my angle is that if our FO strongly believed in Vonleh they wouldn't have drafted Frank.

How about comparing Batum Vs Henderson and Frank Vs Vonleh then?


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I think it is more.
Batum vs Winslow and Frank vs Vonleh

Also you can only compare what Batum does here in the scenario.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

I hated the trade. Still do. But this wasn’t a simplistic move just based on Cliff’s preferences or Frank’s potential.

First there is MJ. I think that it’s clear that MJ is putting the pressure on to win now. He was OK with the tank for a year, but he’s not the kind of guy who is going to be able to put up with a multi-year effort. I also think that he’s had his fill of front office divisions. He’s making Cho and Cliff sink or swim together this year. If the team does well they will probably be back. If not then they are probably both gone.

Cho has very obviously changed his style this year. He’s even made comments to the effects of taking what MJ said about not sticking with things that aren’t working to heart. There is also ‘the plan’ for next year which really hasn’t changed. ‘The plan’ was for the team to have monster cap space and use it to top off the rebuild as the final part of transforming the Hornets into a winning team. What has changed is that ALL teams will have cap space and free agents are showing a strong preference to going to winning teams. After a disappointing finish last year the Hornets couldn’t risk being seen as the Kings of the East. They have to win now if they want to be able to attract more free agents.

Cliff has talked openly about going back to things that worked for him (9 man rotations for instance) and has even talked about Al needing to work with the coaches on his summer training plan. I know that some folks here took that as him holding Al accountable, but I took the context of that to be ‘all of our players need to be doing this including our best guy.’ I hear what folks say about catering to Cliff, since he seems to be the most empowered by recent changes, but I don’t see it that way. He’s a guy who knows his job is on the line, and Cliff isn’t a guy who gets creative when something like that happens. He just tries to do more of what worked in the past for him. It may look like power or arrogance, but it’s really the opposite IMHO.

Anyway, putting all of this together leading up to the draft:

Hendo – Clearly all 3 guys wanted an upgrade to Hendo. Lance hadn’t worked out and the team didn’t have Lamb at the time.

Vonleh – for all of the hopes folks here have about him, Vonleh was going to be a project that would take time to develop. MJ was probably OK with Vonleh, but would rather have had someone on the team to help win now. I seriously doubt that Cho wanted to trade Vonleh, but viewed trading him as an acceptable price in order to have a winning team. Folks should remember Cliff’s fist pump last year when Vonleh was drafted. Whatever happened after that Cliff was excited for him to be here at one point. I do think that Cliff has a low tolerance for mistakes on a team that’s trying to win. Vonleh can put up numbers, but he was forever in the wrong places on defense and Cliff wasn’t going to give him playing time until he fixed that. So trading him was a realistic move by all three guys and I doubt that any of them popped a bottle of bubbly when he left.

Frank – I think that we can’t safely view the trade as being Vonleh for Frank. The Vonleh trade happened before the draft, and the team couldn’t be certain that Frank would be there at their draft spot. I do believe the stories about MJ liking Frank. Phil Jackson like Frank and my sense is that both guys felt like Frank has “it.” If we view Vonleh as being traded for Frank then we have to view the trade is being Vonleh for a SHOT at Frank. The team had Hawes at that point so maybe it could be viewed as an acceptable risk, but still it looks pretty bad if so. I much rather think of getting Frank as “we were able to replace Vonleh in this draft” as opposed to “we traded Vonleh so that we could draft Frank” but honestly IDK.

Winslow – In post draft retrospect I think that we have to include him in scenarios where Vonleh doesn’t get traded. Vonleh + Winslow sounds GREAT … if you are thinking long term development. That’s obviously not where this team is now. However Batum + Frank is a roster combination that seems more likely to meet the team’s short and mid-term goals.

Anyway, I don’t think that the team HAS to resign Batum for this trade to be a success mid-term. They have to win big this year and have a good offseason overall next year. I’m not going to complain if Batum leaves but the Hornets end up with other, better free agent signing or guys from other trades … or even if someone like Lamb really pans out.

However to win Long Term Vonleh has to be only OK at best, Winslow has to not be a star, and Frank does have to perform very well. It’s why I hate the trade and was angry at the follow up draft. The odds seem to really not be in the Hornet’s favor there. And this is one reason the West has been better for so long. They trade OK guys like Batum for potential like Vonleh and have a higher talent level overall in the long term as a result.

[Mystical Apples]

God you guys really let Ainge troll you hard. Let it go. 10 teams passed on his crummy deals and 9 teams passed on Winslow 5 of which couldve used a sf. Detroit had winslow 4th on their board when picking after johnson, booker, and Kaminsky.

Charlotte was pathetic in shooting and passing so they made moves. It's not complicated.

[LofJ]

We want to be a consistent player in free agency and to do that we have to win. The goal isn't to develop young players, it's to sign already great players in free agency. That's what our plan is, and quite frankly we've proven that we're a destination in free agency over the last few years. We make the playoffs this year, re-sign our guys, add to the roster next offseason, and return to the playoffs next year then you better believe we WILL be a player in Curry's free agency. None of that is possible if we're forever bringing in 19 and 20 year old kids to have big roles on the team.

The Batum trade signaled to me that we were planning on targeting him in free agency if we couldn't trade for him. Now that he's actually here in Charlotte the odds of him re-signing here long term are much higher. So I really like the trade thinking about it in that context. I think letting Biyombo walk was a horrible decision however, but I have no problem with what we gave up to trade for Batum. We made the trade to make us a more attractive destination in free agency, and given our recent track record there I don't think it's a bad strategy.

[Dame Lizard]

Anyway, I don’t think that the team HAS to resign Batum for this trade to be a success mid-term. They have to win big this year and have a good offseason overall next year. I’m not going to complain if Batum leaves but the Hornets end up with other, better free agent signing or guys from other trades … or even if someone like Lamb really pans out.

However to win Long Term Vonleh has to be only OK at best, Winslow has to not be a star, and Frank does have to perform very well. It’s why I hate the trade and was angry at the follow up draft. The odds seem to really not be in the Hornet’s favor there. And this is one reason the West has been better for so long. They trade OK guys like Batum for potential like Vonleh and have a higher talent level overall in the long term as a result.

Well said, I agree with basically all of this (I'm a Portland fan).

Charlotte realised that winning games now and attracting free agents has to be a part of the rebuild, rather than just drafting and hoping, which is admirable.

I loved the trade for us as I was high on Vonleh going into the draft and knew Batum wasn't going to resign with us during a rebuilding period (unless we offered a stupid contract) and even if LMA resigned we could replace him and use cap savings to upgrade elsewhere, so I'm glad we could get such a nice prospect in return.

Whilst I thought the trade was only OK for Charlotte (I thought Vonleh deserved a bit more of a chance), I do like the ballsy nature of it. Sometimes small market teams have to make future prospect sacrifices to turn around their attractiveness for upcoming free agents. I loved Vonleh as a prospect, but there are a lot of high potential prospects which fizzle out. I.e. Orlando thought they had an elite future wing in Harkless after his awesome rookie season, and then after 2 more seasons where he arguably played worse than his rookie year, all of a sudden he was just traded to Portland for a 2nd round pick for the year 2020.

I hope Batum starts the season fresh for you after playing for France, because the overhang from his national commitments did become a problem for Portland recently. Best of luck, Charlotte fans have had a rough trot recently (none more so missing out on Davis), so hoping the tides can turn for you guys

[Mystical Apples]

LOFJ that's on point. Everyone is going to have cap room next year. If we learned anything recently it's that smart FA will go to good situations even if it's slightly less money. No FA is going to pick a team rolling with 5 non shooters and their ackups are "developing"

[Mystical Apples]

And portland hasnt had a good history in FA. It's perplexing to me because it's a great city but it seems players don't pick it. That was another reason to trade for an asset.

[yosemiteben]

Excellent stuff Vanderbilt and LofJ, nice work.

[Fred Williamson]

this will go down as one of our worst trades ever

[Hornet Mania]

I seriously doubt Batum will re-sign here, to be honest. Why would he, unless we really have an awesome year? It's his first shot at free agency (last time he was restricted) and he's heading into the last half of his career, if he wants to be a key piece on a contending team it's now or never for him. Perhaps he won't mind being a key cog on the 7-10th best team in a bad conference but that's quite a ballsy gamble for us to bet on. I guess we could offer the new super-max at $25m+ per season, but there's no effing way he's honestly worth superstar money. Cho and Cliff are fighting for their jobs, MJ is fighting to make his team relevant around ASG 2017, it just seems incredibly short-sighted to lock ourselves into an older roster at a higher cost unless it guarantees a 5 seed or better. So what the Wizards did, essentially, not title contender but at least snugly set as 2nd round playoff threats. It seems like we're trying what they did a couple years ago with a less heralded group of players.

Would definitely rather have Vonleh/Winslow/Hendo moving forward than Batum/Kaminsky, but what's done is done. In a few years if Vonleh or Winslow really blow up and Batum is gone, or Kaminsky never becomes much, or we top out as a perennial 7th seed (or worse) with this win-now roster we will have ample time to point out how those two days set our team back several years.

[Diop]

To gauge the value of the trade I'm not sure that Batum Vs Vonleh should be the comparison.

I'm more interested in Frank's career Vs Vonleh's career because the way I see it is that our FO chose Frank over Vonleh.

If Frank has a better career then I think we win.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

I strongly disagree there. You can't just take Batum out of the equation, he is literally only on our roster because we sent Vonleh and we would have had the 9 either way. I can see saying Vonleh + Winslow or someone else available at 9 vs. Frank + Batum, but Batum has to be involved in the analysis IMO.

I guess my angle is that if our FO strongly believed in Vonleh they wouldn't have drafted Frank.

How about comparing Batum Vs Henderson and Frank Vs Vonleh then?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Just to make it more confusing, the trade also ended up in us getting Lamb. So should we add him to the equation ?

[LofJ]

I seriously doubt Batum will re-sign here, to be honest. Why would he, unless we really have an awesome year? It's his first shot at free agency (last time he was restricted) and he's heading into the last half of his career, if he wants to be a key piece on a contending team it's now or never for him. Perhaps he won't mind being a key cog on the 7-10th best team in a bad conference but that's quite a ballsy gamble for us to bet on. I guess we could offer the new super-max at $25m+ per season, but there's no effing way he's honestly worth superstar money. Cho and Cliff are fighting for their jobs, MJ is fighting to make his team relevant around ASG 2017, it just seems incredibly short-sighted to lock ourselves into an older roster at a higher cost unless it essentially guarantees a 5 seed or better. So what the Wizards did, essentially, not title contender but at least snugly set as 2nd round playoff threats. It seems like we're trying what they did a couple years ago with a less heralded group of players.

Would definitely rather have Vonleh/Winslow/Hendo moving forward than Batum/Kaminsky, but what's done is done. In a few years if Vonleh or Winslow really blow up and Batum is gone, or Kaminsky never becomes much, or we top out as a perennial 7th seed (or worse) with this win-now roster we will have ample time to point out how those two days set our team back several years.

I agree, now that's it done there is no point in repeating that you disagree with the trades we made ad nauseum. It makes discussion on this forum boring. We need to move on to discussing what Batum, Lamb, Kaminsky, Hawes, and Lin will do for this team.

[BeesWax]

I strongly disagree there. You can't just take Batum out of the equation, he is literally only on our roster because we sent Vonleh and we would have had the 9 either way. I can see saying Vonleh + Winslow or someone else available at 9 vs. Frank + Batum, but Batum has to be involved in the analysis IMO.

I guess my angle is that if our FO strongly believed in Vonleh they wouldn't have drafted Frank.

How about comparing Batum Vs Henderson and Frank Vs Vonleh then?


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Just to make it more confusing, the trade also ended up in us getting Lamb. So should we add him to the equation ?

The Lance trade got us Lamb. We got Hawes and Barnes for Lance and then a couple moves later changed Barnes to Lamb.