Ron Swanson wrote:Go back to November. The deal for CP3 would've/should've been Bledsoe, Ersan, DJ, the 24th pick, and a future 1st (literally any one of the 4 that we sent out for Holiday). Even if you still give Pat the contract, you keep Hill and retain depth while not handing out the garbage contract to Augustin and still having the flexibility to sign Portis and Forbes. Hell maybe even not botching the BB trade convinces Matthews to re-sign on a 1-year knowing he'd have a bigger role instead of having his butt planted on the bench in LA. You have all your future picks outside of 2022 as trade-able assets to upgrade the roster in future deals. You're in the luxury tax but who cares? You still buy the 2nd for Nwora and the cheap contract slot.
Paul/Hill/*insert vet minimum guard*
Donte/Wes(maybe)/Forbes/Pat
Middleton/Craig/Nwora
Giannis/Portis/Diakite
Brook/*insert veteran buyout big*
+ your picks intact
Who doesn't like both the immediate returns of this roster as well as the better long term outlook given the flexibility it gives you ($60+ million coming off the books after the 2022 season)? This (was) the way.
How do we have all our future firsts when we give up a future 1st in your proposal?
Also we didn't give up 4- 1sts in the Jrue trade.
The right move would have been to expand the Jrue trade, absorbing contracts into it, like Delon Wright.
Then we could have skipped signing DJA and avoided being hard capped.
However, I think Lasry wanted to be hardcapped, to limit how much luxury tax we'd pay. We've operated as a cheapskate organization with him in charge.