BenoUdrihFTL wrote:I'm honestly not getting the hype here. For one thing, it's not exactly difficult to go full-tank and simply fire sell prime allstars for picks and filler with zero concern for team building. Secondly, I have to question the value of these picks he's assembled. Said picks:
2023 Wolves
2025 Wolves
2025 Cavs
2027 Wolves
2027 Cavs
2029 Wolves
2029 Cavs
How many of these can we expect to become actual lottery picks? '27 and '29 Wolves seem to be the best ones here as Gobert will be 34/36 by then and KAT will be 33 in '29. Assuming Utah/Cleveland are both reasonably healthy and retain their core allstar-caliber players, the other 5 picks are looking like late first rounders. The Cavs picks are especially unpromising; years 2025-29 aligns with what figures to be peak and/or prime ages for their "Big 4" core: Mitchell will be 28-32, Allen 26-30, Garland 25-29, Mobley 23-27. All 4 players will be within the ages of 23-32 and within 5 years of eachother at any given point along this 5 year timeline. When you look at the ages of the EC's current top teams Boston/Milwaukee/Philly/Miami/Brooklyn, only Boston has a core (minus Horford and Brogdon) that won't be aging out by 2025. You might include Toronto here with Scottie Barnes and Masai's stewardship although both Siakam and Fred (ages 30-34) will be in the latter stages of their primes while Barnes (23-27) will just be entering his. We could very realistically be looking at Cleveland as a top 2-3 team in the East for the duration of these pick conveyances while Minnesota projects to be competing for 50 wins throughout Gobert's remaining prime (don't forget that for all the questions about Gobert's playoff utility, he's still among the most reliable and consistent high-impact regular season players in the NBA)
So is one or two high-potential lottery picks really all that great of a return for two allstars in their primes?
I suppose Ainge might be banking on history repeating itself in terms of the Wolves and Cavs' poor track records as competent franchises over the years, but talent is talent and it's gonna be a challenge for Minny/Cleveland to somehow screw this up
Any semi competent GM could have the Wolves and Cavs in the playoffs for the next decade. The Wolves have KAT locked for the next 7 years when the last pick is owed. Antman is heading into his 3rd season and will be extended for 5 years. Gobert is locked in until 2025 and the 2029 pick is top 5 protected so the GM could just pull an Ainge heading into that season and trade all of their good players to guarantee a bottom 4 finish.
The Cavs have Garland locked in until 2028, Mobley is just going into his second year and will extend. Mitchell will try things out for 2 years and will probably extend as well. Plus Allen and other pieces to make more trades.
So Ainge here is basically banking on injuries in the year that he has the picks and swaps or two teams with top 10 potential players on rookie contracts deciding to start rebuilding despite knowing that they owe other teams picks? The strategy falls apart if you understand human behavior. Even a worst case scenario like the Clippers where they lost their best player for a year and their second best player for almost 3/4 of the year netted the 12th pick. Lakers with chemistry issues, health and just giving up netted the 8th pick. And these teams have older players missing massive amount of the season, not a team of players under 30 with tons of depth. Like Russell Westbrook once said “Ainge is fooling y’all”
