[Grades] Grades v. Magic 11/3/2016

[Amit149]

1. That doesn't refute anything that I said, and I never made the argument that acknowledging that we've failed to build around Cousins requires the belief that Cousins is not a great player. Those two beliefs are mutually exclusive, even though they are often both held by the same people.
2. This is just restating my first point in a way that makes it more palatable for people who want to rationalize getting Cousins out of town. If you believe that there's some "magic bullet" trade that we could make for Cousins, that would make us better than we could be with Cousins (not better than we are with Cousins, better than we could be with Cousins), then that suggests that one believes not only that we have failed to build a team around Cousins, but that it's not worthwhile to try, because I don't think that anybody can sit there and actually say that we've made a good faith effort to build a team around Cousins's strengths since Cousins has been a Sacramento King. We've tried, maybe, twice in seven years to run a system that plays to his strengths (and, it should be noted, got frustrated and impatient when it didn't translate into an immediate turnaround both times), but without the complementary players that would have made it work. The rest of the time, we've been throwing **** against the wall, and hoping to get lucky.

1. What I tried to say was that you don't have to believe that it's "impossible" to build around him as you framed it, only that we failed to do it and in a way "missed our chance".
2. Another distinction in that case is that said trade is worthwhile for us is, as you said, that it's better than what could be with Cousins- but not what could've been- in that case we should look at where we stand now and not that we could've build a far better team around him in the past.

I think the main thing the separates your opinion from mine is that I don't think you take into account the time-table and contract situation of Cousins and the team in general.
Cousins is signed for this season and the next one, which means at the end of this season he'll be on an expiring contract.
If we fail to do anything meaningful this season (which seems very possible) than outside a trade we are betting all we got that we could make it work next year and resign him with both Rudy and DC out of their contracts- that's a huge risk, and we might be better off pushing the rebuild button and getting value for Cousins now to rebuild instead of betting our future away to make up for "sunk cost".

I think that Cousins is a great player.
I think you can build a very good team around him (I think he's not the easiest piece to build around, since in my opinion it's easier to build around perimeter players- but it's most certainly possible).
I think that chances are we aren't going to succeed in building a team who's most optimistic ceiling is more than reaching the playoffs only to be sent home in the first round in the next 2 years considering where we are now and the fact it will only get harder this summer.
I think that if that happens Cousins is rightfully going to leave the team to build his legacy as a player and not be the star wasting his career in a borderline playoff team at best.

And so I think trading him now and getting some young players with more years left on their contracts could be better for us, we had a chance and blew it- we can continue to try and make it work all the way to the bottom or try to cut our losses and build something new.