Scase wrote:I actually forgot about JKW, thanks for reminding me. He is someone I think will likely be part of our bench moving forward, but I'm not willing to make any definitive statements off such a small number of games/minutes played. I'm neutral on that pick overall.
And the reason my view is overall more negative, is because I think they have made more bad moves than good in the last 5 years. I think that's a pretty reasonable stance. The good moves are largely outweighed by the bad moves to me, so yeah, I'll be more negative, if something either happens more often, or is more impacting, it'll reserve more headspace.
The Scottie pick is the best thing this FO has done in the last 5 years, and it was a direct result of their strongest skill, drafting. The reason I'm so negative is because I tire of seeing this FO constantly move away from their strengths and aim for mediocre moves. We obviously have differing opinions so the outlooks will also differ. Personally, I think the Jak trade was massive, and really could be seen as the catalyst for where we are now.
This bit is obviously speculation, so grain of salt. But getting jak effectively shot any chance of a rebuild dead, for a couple years. Had we not traded for him and given the mediocre core another shot, we could have started rebuilding then, with a key point being, Masai would have had multiple years left on his contract to plan a proper rebuild.
Now, does he actually ever plan a proper rebuild? Hard to say, but it's easy to see why now with like 1 year left in his contract, that instead of starting fresh, we traded for players on, or going into their second contracts, picked up options on vets we didn't really need to extract as much value out of an already bad trade, and making a short-sighted trade for a player like BI. It's like the butterfly effect, one smaller thing turning into a much bigger one.
I suspect we're aiming for the moves we are, because Masai doesn't want to go into contract negotiations with MLSE with back to back ~20 win seasons, and nothing to show for it except the hope of a single pick. So instead, he picks up a player like BI and sells the brass on the team competing for the play in the next season.
Had he started a proper rebuild a couple years ago, when he would be coming up to those contract negotiations, we would probably have a young promising team. But when his hailmary of building a contender out of a heavily flawed core backfired, he had to scramble.
Overall, I dont think Masai is the guy for the job of a real rebuild, but I was more than willing to give him the chance to prove me wrong, and for about 3 months, I actually believed it and was in support of what we were doing. But then the treadmill stuff started. I have tons of faith in Masai when it comes to drafting, I was extremely skeptical that we would actually go into a rebuild with him, but a bunch of people **** on me for saying that, and kept claiming "Look at what we're doing, listen to him he said rebuild!".
And then a couple months later we're playing vets that have little to no value, who end up being traded as nothing more than salary filler, resulting in pointless wins that will negatively affect our draft standing, and then we go and trade another FRP to get a constantly injured 2nd option player, who will be 28 next year, and to top it all off, give him a PO on his extension.
So if you want to know why I'm so negative towards them, it's because every time I think they are going to do something stupid, they prove me right. This is not, and never was a rebuild, it was a retool, and nothing can convince me otherwise.
Spot on. I think it is very clear at this point that the FO prioritizes getting to 40-45 wins as fast as possible.
I'm sure I could also be accused of being too negative, but the fact is that I do give the FO credit for doing certain things right post-championship. I thought the gamble for Giannis was absolutely justified, even though they came up completely empty-handed and lost Ibaka. Barnes was a great pick. I generally don't criticize draft picks at all because I assume they're always trying for the best player. So while I wish they drafted Bane instead of Flynn like everyone else, I don't dwell on those things. You can't predict the future, but you must be able to see the present. On that front, they have failed.
Sure, they've had their victories here and there but the problem is that most of those were very small stakes while they've gotten many of the big moves very wrong. The standards are so low, when did getting rid of McDaniels become worthy of ticker tape parades? It's like people don't realize they could have accomplished much the same thing by not signing him in the first place.
This brings us to the Siakam trade. It's just ... fine? An A+ trade is one that makes your team significantly better. Trading Siakam for a younger equivalent and some bench pieces is just OK, especially when the objective of rebuilding is to get better. Again, the standard is based against what a good FO does, not an average one. Average gets you to 41-41.
