I don't wish Boogie to be traded unless we can make out like bandits.....if we can get the #1 pick and a few more assets I am down for that. I am not for giving him away. If the right coach can be brought in (I have my doubts) things can turn around with Boogie in the fold....
by "wish fulfillment," i was mostly speaking to the
massive overreach in your interpretation of the kings levying a one-game suspension at demarcus cousins as some kind of indication that vlade divac is ready to ship cousins out as soon as this theoretical "godfather offer" comes along. you're squinting with all your might as you try and read the tea leaves, but that doesn't mean there's anything of worth to see here. the suspension in question hardly represents a body of evidence that vlade and boogie aren't "on the same page." it just means that the kings felt it necessary to punish boogie for a specific instance of poor behavior. so, let's all open our books to chapter 1 of "correlation does not imply causation, and other critical thinking 101 aphorisms."
now, it may very well be that the kings listen to offers for demarcus this summer, or that he's traded by the deadline next year, but i have no reason to believe it to be true
at this time, or that vlade intends to say "buh-bye" to demarcus once an attractive offer is on the table during the offseason. the kings are opening a new arena in the fall, and the front office still has a mandate from ownership to win as soon as possible. building around an existing superstar in his prime like demarcus remains a surer path to winning
now than the hope and potential associated with the "#1 pick and a few more assets." unless one of those "assets" is a bonafide superstar, i'm certainly not prepared to trade demarcus until there is no other path forward for this franchise (and as an aside, while the #1 pick will always be a tremendously valuable asset, and while i like brandon ingram and ben simmons a fair amount, let's not pretend that they're the lebron's of this upcoming draft)...
if vivek and vlade want to pivot in their strategy and initiate a full-scale rebuild by trading demarcus, then that's fine. i'll disagree all-the-live-long-day, but that's fine. however, until i receive some
solid information--rather than the idle supposition of those eager to be proven right--that suggests they intend to pursue such a strategy, i'm not buying it. it's just that there's always a particular kind of glee that emanates from particular segments of the fanbase in posts like the initial one i quoted when it comes to the allure of trading demarcus, and i felt like calling it out as bald-faced wish fulfillment, and not the well-reasoned, expertly-articulated presentation of "the facts" that you'd like to think it is...
