People that are against the trade fall into two camps- 1) the trade isn't worth anything unless and until you sign FA or otherwise use the space productively; or 2) we gave up too many "future assets" to make the trade.
Reason 1 I can buy. I too wish the trade actually brought us back players rather than the hope of players. We will see how that pans out. But reason 2 is ridiculous. What future assets did we actually give up?
First Round Swap- Your post assumes we win the 8 seed by making this move and having a core of DMC-WCS-Gay-Ben-DC and presumably two other pieces on par with (at least) DC's talent level. That is a strong 7 man core. I agree that core is likely contending for the playoffs. If we are contending for the 8 seed in the West we are winning around 40-45 games. I don't care how good Okafor is; there is no way Philly is winning 40-45 games next year. I think the chances of us having a worse record that Philly in 2015-2016 are next to none. 2016-2017 is harder to project, but the early odds are that the Kings will again have more talent than Philly. So I don't think the swap ever happens. In essence, we gave up nothing.
Future pick- Sometime after 2018, we owe them a pick in the 11-30 range. We won't give that pick up unless we won at least 35-40 games the year before. If this trade makes us as bad as you think it will, we won't give a pick to Philly for a long time. If the trade makes us good, we probably won't care as much about the cost of the pick 3 years from now. Would I rather have the pick? Yes. Did we give away a huge asset that will hold back a future rebuild? No. If we are bad we will keep our pick until we are better.
Stauskas- I love that Stauskas is now a great future asset and trade piece because we traded him. By all reports, we tried desperately to unload him before the draft to get another pick. No one bit. He has zero value in the league. Nor was he going to get the chance, on a Kings team desperate to win now, to get playing time to improve his value. Not much of a future asset.
JT- I love that the narrative on JT changed the second we traded him. This is a guy that this board (and apparently our front office) has been trying to trade for 2 years. Apparently no one wanted him. But Greg Monroe gets $15m per year, and suddenly JT is a diamond in the rough? While the fact that a few free agents got silly money might make JT's contract "less bad," it doesn't make it less of an anchor on our salary cap. JT is still earning nearly $7m per year to fill a role we either don't want or we have decided we can fill better. We don't need to pay a guy not in the FO's long term plans that much money. I love JT, but I think it is best for all to move on.
So I think the "we gave up so many future assets" narrative is really overstated, and a straw man for people who don't like the trade (Or ESPN) to say we got ripped off.
Reason 1 I can buy. I too wish the trade actually brought us back players rather than the hope of players. We will see how that pans out. But reason 2 is ridiculous. What future assets did we actually give up?
First Round Swap- Your post assumes we win the 8 seed by making this move and having a core of DMC-WCS-Gay-Ben-DC and presumably two other pieces on par with (at least) DC's talent level. That is a strong 7 man core. I agree that core is likely contending for the playoffs. If we are contending for the 8 seed in the West we are winning around 40-45 games. I don't care how good Okafor is; there is no way Philly is winning 40-45 games next year. I think the chances of us having a worse record that Philly in 2015-2016 are next to none. 2016-2017 is harder to project, but the early odds are that the Kings will again have more talent than Philly. So I don't think the swap ever happens. In essence, we gave up nothing.
Future pick- Sometime after 2018, we owe them a pick in the 11-30 range. We won't give that pick up unless we won at least 35-40 games the year before. If this trade makes us as bad as you think it will, we won't give a pick to Philly for a long time. If the trade makes us good, we probably won't care as much about the cost of the pick 3 years from now. Would I rather have the pick? Yes. Did we give away a huge asset that will hold back a future rebuild? No. If we are bad we will keep our pick until we are better.
Stauskas- I love that Stauskas is now a great future asset and trade piece because we traded him. By all reports, we tried desperately to unload him before the draft to get another pick. No one bit. He has zero value in the league. Nor was he going to get the chance, on a Kings team desperate to win now, to get playing time to improve his value. Not much of a future asset.
JT- I love that the narrative on JT changed the second we traded him. This is a guy that this board (and apparently our front office) has been trying to trade for 2 years. Apparently no one wanted him. But Greg Monroe gets $15m per year, and suddenly JT is a diamond in the rough? While the fact that a few free agents got silly money might make JT's contract "less bad," it doesn't make it less of an anchor on our salary cap. JT is still earning nearly $7m per year to fill a role we either don't want or we have decided we can fill better. We don't need to pay a guy not in the FO's long term plans that much money. I love JT, but I think it is best for all to move on.
So I think the "we gave up so many future assets" narrative is really overstated, and a straw man for people who don't like the trade (Or ESPN) to say we got ripped off.
