HouseOfLight wrote:I was talking about this with someone the other day; the Zhaire Smith for Bridges draft day trade has to be one of the worst, most head-scratchingly incompetent draft decisions in history, right? It gets overshadowed by the colossal Fultz debacle, but it really was one of the most asinine, befuddling trades I can think of. Bridges was basically the photo perfect fit for Philly & obviously had the deep connection & love for the the city/franchise. The whole deal made *zero* sense
For philly fans, besides the obvious lack of a competent front office, what on earth was Brand or whoever thinking when they made that trade? Im not necessarily a fan of one particular NBA team, but I was very excited about Philly drafting Bridges. You could not have asked for a more perfect fit for that roster, for an obvious plethora of reasons, and he was right there for the taking
So, yeah:
A) what was the franchise thinking/how the heck did they justify that?
B) what even happened to Smith? I know he was waived by DET & that he had the near-fatal health issues, but don’t really know any details...
Well first of all that wasn’t Brand. That draft was right after burnergate and run by this weird collaboration of brown, the front office and ownership. Which may explain why they didn’t handle that pick properly (though to be fair to them they also took Shamet and Shake in that draft).
The big thing was they got an unprotected heat pick in the trade. I think basically what happened was that they wanted to acquire a star player before Simmons got his extension, and they wanted an unprotected pick from another team to offer in a potential trade. I think even part of the appeal of Zhaire to them was because of how young and athletic he was if he popped at all he would have more trade value than a seemingly more “safe” prospect in Bridges.
It’s actually kind of the opposite of the fultz trade. Like if Fultz didn’t bust and Tatum did people would ask why Ainge traded back just to get a draft pick.
I don’t think there was any issue from like a logic standpoint with either trade. Like in a vacuum it seemed like a fair price to go up from 3 to 1 and down from 10 to 16. Ultimately though it comes down to picking the right player and they obviously didn’t.
As far as Zhaire goes, he broke his foot then almost died from eating sesame seeds and lost like 70 pounds, and then when he came back he just never really clicked. No idea what he’s up to now.
