Thee Idiotic Minivan K
Well-Known Member
Ainge said it best. No aspect of the season was fun.When there is no avenue to get better. We had zero assets and zero picks.
Ainge said it best. No aspect of the season was fun.When there is no avenue to get better. We had zero assets and zero picks.
Valid question and I think its different for each situation. The key element to me revolved around Donovan... "Him and Rudy don't have to be best buds" was a common refrain from Jazz folks... well guess what? They do have to enjoy working together and be more than just co-workers for it to work long term and for Donovan to be happy. If that relationship was awesome I think you keep those two together and try something different. It likely doesn't work even if they homies... but when there is so much tinder for a drama fire it doesn't take much to explode with where the relationship was.So what is the window for deciding when to blow it up and start over versus seeing if you can build on what you have? We had two all-stars who were still getting better or in their prime. How quickly do you decide you cant make it and blow it up because you aren't good enough? I get blowing it up if your all-stars are past their prime. This could very easily become perpetual pain if you dont get really lucky with the picks.
I think we were a play in team either way. Look at how we closed the season after going 20-7... factor in we have no young players and all the older guys are likely to decline at least a little... the cap meant using the Taxpayer MLE was going to be crazy spendy.I definitely think there were things the front office could have done differently the past few seasons to give us a better chance to win with Rudy and Don, but I think it reached the point this offseason that blowing it up was the best option. We had no cap space, no draft picks, and none of our players outside of Rudy and Don have much trade value. I Honestly don't see a path forward where we could have improved the team around Rudy and Don. This team needed a major overhaul...making moves around the margins using our taxpayer MLE and vet minimums wasn't going to move the needle at all, we needed to make upgrades in the starting lineup, and I don't think we had a way to do that. We could have kept Rudy and Don the next few years and we likely still would've been a good regular season team, but in the playoffs we were never going to be anything more than a first or second round exit.
I definitely think there were things the front office could have done differently the past few seasons to give us a better chance to win with Rudy and Don, but I think it reached the point this offseason that blowing it up was the best option. We had no cap space, no draft picks, and none of our players outside of Rudy and Don have much trade value. I Honestly don't see a path forward where we could have improved the team around Rudy and Don. This team needed a major overhaul...making moves around the margins using our taxpayer MLE and vet minimums wasn't going to move the needle at all, we needed to make upgrades in the starting lineup, and I don't think we had a way to do that. We could have kept Rudy and Don the next few years and we likely still would've been a good regular season team, but in the playoffs we were never going to be anything more than a first or second round exit.
Instead of trading our old car for 5 raffle tickets, we could have kept the car for an additional year to get us to work, then traded it for 4 raffle tickets. Or, best yet, we could have kept the car, traded the hubcaps that everyone thinks are sexy for 3 raffle tickets, then go make major fixes and/or upgrades on the car by bartering the raffle tickets. And still be able to get to work.Valid question and I think its different for each situation. The key element to me revolved around Donovan... "Him and Rudy don't have to be best buds" was a common refrain from Jazz folks... well guess what? They do have to enjoy working together and be more than just co-workers for it to work long term and for Donovan to be happy. If that relationship was awesome I think you keep those two together and try something different. It likely doesn't work even if they homies... but when there is so much tinder for a drama fire it doesn't take much to explode with where the relationship was.
Could have kept Rudy and pivoted around him I guess... but we got such a big return in trade its tough to say no and Don might not return back pieces that are win-now or good enough.
I'm also a little sick of hearing everyone say they should have changed the roster around those guys... that is only valid before last season... as I think we were conservative there. We were trying like hell to move guys and very clearly the market said "we won't give you anything good". Bogey, Ingles, and Mike (for the right price) could have been moved... but the returns were subpar. Do we think Ainge was sitting there thumbing his hole and not trying to move those guys. Then Ingles tore his ACL... Mike and Bogey are generally declining in trade value... I think it is very easy for us to say "do something!!!" but there wasn't anything good.
Again, under the DL regime I think we could and should have changed things up... sounded like JZ was trying in the offseason and Quin put the breaks on it.
It was just so clear to me that it was the right time if you wanted to get a premium for the guys you have... waiting a year would provide what?
We traded the car for 2.5 raffle tickets and kept the hubcaps. I ****ing love hubcaps without a car. Maybe we could put them on display in a china cabinet.So long as we trade Don for a good return and get something for a few of the other vets I am 100% on board with what we decided. If we half *** it now and keep Don and Bogey etc. then I think we just don't know what we are doing.
Valid question and I think its different for each situation. The key element to me revolved around Donovan... "Him and Rudy don't have to be best buds" was a common refrain from Jazz folks... well guess what? They do have to enjoy working together and be more than just co-workers for it to work long term and for Donovan to be happy. If that relationship was awesome I think you keep those two together and try something different. It likely doesn't work even if they homies... but when there is so much tinder for a drama fire it doesn't take much to explode with where the relationship was.
Could have kept Rudy and pivoted around him I guess... but we got such a big return in trade its tough to say no and Don might not return back pieces that are win-now or good enough.
I'm also a little sick of hearing everyone say they should have changed the roster around those guys... that is only valid before last season... as I think we were conservative there. We were trying like hell to move guys and very clearly the market said "we won't give you anything good". Bogey, Ingles, and Mike (for the right price) could have been moved... but the returns were subpar. Do we think Ainge was sitting there thumbing his hole and not trying to move those guys. Then Ingles tore his ACL... Mike and Bogey are generally declining in trade value... I think it is very easy for us to say "do something!!!" but there wasn't anything good.
Again, under the DL regime I think we could and should have changed things up... sounded like JZ was trying in the offseason and Quin put the breaks on it.
It was just so clear to me that it was the right time if you wanted to get a premium for the guys you have... waiting a year would provide what?
I won't disagree that it would have been a challenge to keep building around Rudy and Don and that this challenge was becoming increasingly more difficult with the horrific string of moves the FO had recently made. But that doesn't necessarily mean blowing it up was the right move. The path forward with Rudy+Don was difficult, but the path without them is also extremely difficult. Rudy and Don without much else is a better starting point than having nothing but also having a bunch of mediocre/bad picks.
Measure it against a starting point with not a bunch of "mediocre/bad" picks but an *** load of high value picks (unprotected picks are not mediocre picks even with good teams), and a completely clean cap sheet.
I just think windows are shorter than we might think in the modern era and fighting against that is foolish. The uphill battle of finding better players to replace Bogey or Mike without much in the way of assets, finding cheap FA cuz we are capped out, and hoping Don and Rudy keep their **** together is kind of a fools errand.
I know you think we could have done this deal. Portland valued Keon Johnson in the deal... he had a solid summer league and part of the rumblings I've heard on various podcasts suggest that how you value that prospect is very different than how we value that prospect. So unless we offered up and unprotected pick I don't see how we beat that offer. They also just might really like the prospect you don't and wanted him either way... it happens.I strongly disagree with the bolded part. For one, there several good players that would have been extremely helpful that were traded/acquired for little to nothing. It's not speculation that those players could have been had for very little, it was reality that they were acquired for very little. Powell and Covington is the most obvious example of this. Two perfect fitting players, LAC got them for very little. Of course we could have beaten that offer.
Okay but since the Ainge era... do you think we were sitting on our hands not trying to trade those guys for something valuable? Honestly you think that if Ainge could get Smart for Bogey that he wouldn't have done it? Before that I think you could complain but put that as a qualifier in the post.I'm also not going to forget the moaning and groaning on this very forum when it came to trading certain players. Fact is, a lot of people here justified sitting on our ***. We can't trade Bogey/Clarkson/Conley because he's too valuable. Grass isn't always greener. That kind of stuff was so prevalent. I know this because I thought it was obvious we should have made that type of move, but it was met with so much push back. The FO put too much weight into stuff like, "if Conley were healthy" and not enough weight into stuff like "we have zero good defenders outside of Rudy". And that sentiment was echoed around here too.
Or... he tried to improve but didn't want to mortgage the whole future and no one wanted our guys. I just think you can't squeeze blood from a turnip and our guys didn't have enough value on the market. I don't know that Ainge was itching to blow this thing up. He surely wasn't like "watch me waste this year so I get the opportunity to blow **** up!"We also heard all year long that changes were going to happen and that this was the last time we were going to see this rendition of the team. When it came to improving around Don and Rudy, I do speculate Ainge was sitting on his ***. Does that mean he was not working? No, but what I'm saying is that he probably already made up his mind to blow it up. So instead of improving, we decided to waste the last year of Rudy and Don to better position ourselves for the blowup. I feel as though there was a strong chance the decision was already made to not go forward with Don/Rudy, so moves to improve around them were not considered.
Its naive to think we were going to get the best of those guys with all the past scars. By all accounts the locker room was completely broken. I don't think there was any realistic path forward with those two... it ain't 2k... they are humans. A better argument is trading Don for some win now stuff and a couple picks and reconfiguring around Rudy... but that has a limited shelf life as Rudy isn't going to have a super long timeline. Does Rudy plus Herro and a handful of picks work? Doubt it... but better shot than Don and Rudy.Whatever you want to put the starting point as, I think we were in a better spot with Rudy/Don. Like I said, the path forward with those two was difficult. But the path forward without them is also very difficult. Can't pretend like we're not in an incredibly uphill battle right now even if we got an "amazing" return on Rudy.
Instead of trading our old car for 5 raffle tickets, we could have kept the car for an additional year to get us to work, then traded it for 4 raffle tickets. Or, best yet, we could have kept the car, traded the hubcaps that everyone thinks are sexy for 3 raffle tickets, then go make major fixes and/or upgrades on the car by bartering the raffle tickets. And still be able to get to work.
These are super silly comparisons.. draft picks are so much more valuable than you are giving them credit... I mean it was those silly "raffle" tickets that landed us two "cars"We traded the car for 2.5 raffle tickets and kept the hubcaps. I ****ing love hubcaps without a car. Maybe we could put them on display in a china cabinet.
I won't disagree that it would have been a challenge to keep building around Rudy and Don and that this challenge was becoming increasingly more difficult with the horrific string of moves the FO had recently made. But that doesn't necessarily mean blowing it up was the right move. The path forward with Rudy+Don was difficult, but the path without them is also extremely difficult. Rudy and Don without much else is a better starting point than having nothing but also having a bunch of mediocre/bad picks.
And if he takes the QO then they lose him for nothing.That is probably the least obvious thing.
S&T's are really hard to work out, even if both teams want to do them.
Cleveland wants to keep Sexton, they just see an opportunity to keep him on a bargain.
I know you think we could have done this deal. Portland valued Keon Johnson in the deal... he had a solid summer league and part of the rumblings I've heard on various podcasts suggest that how you value that prospect is very different than how we value that prospect. So unless we offered up and unprotected pick I don't see how we beat that offer. They also just might really like the prospect you don't and wanted him either way... it happens.
Okay but since the Ainge era... do you think we were sitting on our hands not trying to trade those guys for something valuable? Honestly you think that if Ainge could get Smart for Bogey that he wouldn't have done it? Before that I think you could complain but put that as a qualifier in the post.
Or... he tried to improve but didn't want to mortgage the whole future and no one wanted our guys. I just think you can't squeeze blood from a turnip and our guys didn't have enough value on the market. I don't know that Ainge was itching to blow this thing up. He surely wasn't like "watch me waste this year so I get the opportunity to blow **** up!"
I think maybe he just saw things and evaluated it as something with a low likelihood of returning huge dividends so no need to throw what little resources you have left in a YOLO move. It doesn't have to be some devious plan to be ******... that's not his goal.
It's so dumb to trade good players for copious amounts of worthless picks...
How'd you get those good players...
With worthless picks.
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Would be a huge risk for a guy coming off a major injury.And if he takes the QO then they lose him for nothing.
I really think we chose the right time to blow it up. It was inevitable anyway because Donovan was most definitely not going to re-sign here when his contract was up...so at best we could've had 3 years left of the Don/Rudy tandem, and we had no path to being championship contenders in those 3 years with our aging roster around them and lack of assets/flexibility. The closer we get to Don's contract expiring the less leverage we have in negotiations and the less assets we will get in return. Also, Rudy turned 30 this offseason and I'm not sure we would get the same haul for him in the future as we did now. Rudy and Don's value may never be higher for us than it is right now, which makes it the perfect time to cash in.