In Monte We Trust

[Fantazija]

I was upset in the moment of the trade because I did enjoy Haliburton and everythinghe brought to the team from top to bottom.

Reality is that it is a lot more difficult to find a talented big man than a talented guard. There used to be rule that you're not supposed to trade a big man for a small man. The team that gets the big usually comes out on top. The personality of Haliburton is irreplaceable, but there are a lot opportunities to replace his production. Extremely difficult to find a Sabonis type player.

To be fair while Domas is definitely a rare combo of size and skill at his position it is not easy to build a team that can go deep in the playoffs around him.To make the playoffs - yes.To go deep - questionable..The scoring goes down in a postseason.I am not sure if we can get enough stops with DS as a lone big surrounded by shooters to beat really good teams 4 times in a 2 week span.

 

[Fantazija]

I did watch. Not real time, but via DVR later that night.

Again, I’ve seen trades like this pay immediate dividends many, many times before. A dozen games isn’t gonna tell us a thing, let alone one single game.

If they post a winning record over the next 25 games, make the postseason and look good there — that’ll really say something.

Still, we won’t have a really strong indication how this is going to workout until sometime next season, probably around the New Year holiday. If they are playing winning basketball by that time, then we’ll know they’re are headed down the right path.

Agreed.If Kings finnish strong this season and have a winning record 20 games into next season than seems logical to call this trade deadline a success.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

For what I understand, Dave Joerger, after finding out he was likely to be fired the next day (Vlade was interested in Luke Walton-who was also about to be fired by the Lakers), lost the last game of the season vs. Portland. As a result, we had only 39 wins for the season.

He tanked well before that imho. But he ABSOLUTELY threw the final game after running up a huge halftime lead on a Blazers team that thought they wanted to lose that night (as it turns out, all the teams jockeying for who to play wound up losing and the Blazers had a surprise WCF run).

 

[Groovygreg]

A great many Kings fans were ready to toss Marvin Bagley out the door for a late second rounder. Monte McNair assessed the market, determined it was for buyers, recognized Detroit's interest in Bagley (perhaps the only team out there with genuine interest) and exploited it to get a player that was very clearly on his radar. Somehow, he turned the most disappointing pick of the 2018 draft--a player whose value was assumed to amount to nothing more than a bag of chips--into Donte DiVincenzo and added wing depth. He wasn't kidding last night when he said he had work to do after introducing the media to Sabonis/Holiday/Lamb.

As with the Sabonis trade, Monte got his guy, but I'm pretty impressed with his ability to bolster the Kings' wing depth and length while not committing long-term money to any of those extra pieces and not sending out any draft picks.

In my estimation, Sabonis + DiVincenzo + flexible wing depth is of considerably greater value than Haliburton + Buddy + Bagley. In a vacuum, of course. Bottoming out may ultimately prove to have been the more sensible path forward. But Monte has reiterated time and again that he's never had any intention of tanking and stockpiling youth/picks. When taken at his word, and considering his stated goals, his work at the trade deadline gets an A- from me. Moving Holmes for someone like PJ Washington would have bumped this up into the solid-A/A+ territory.

And hey, Monte's still got his first rounder this year. It likely won't be as high as it would have been without these moves, but I think Monte's feeling himself. It's an asset he preserved. If he does nothing more than make his selection and go home, I am confident in his ability to find great value outside the top picks of the first round.

<mic drop>

 

[Tetsujin]

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