On the record...

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

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.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

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.

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?

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

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 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.

We could have traded our draft picks in 2026 and beyond (as some will tell you they don't mean much) but does that even land you Jerami Grant? Is that gonna change things in a material way?

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.

 

[KqWIN]

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 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.

 

[infection]

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?

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.

 

[infection]

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.

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.

 

[infection]

But yes, now that the car is gone, we absolutely must tear it all down. On principle I can’t get into watching a ****** team that has kept the wrong guy and knowing I’m watching a ****** team and a half *** rebuild because he came into the league in the most privileged position with this franchise and put us in this situation because he couldn’t just come out and be adamant about being competitive with the guy we just dumped.

 

[KqWIN]

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 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.

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.

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.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

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.

 

[KqWIN]

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.

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.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

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.

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.

Winning in the NBA is the choice between uphill battles I guess... I have a much stronger understanding of how a Don/Rudy battle will be versus one where you rebuild and collect assets. Did we try everything... nah? Did we try enough stuff to have good enough data... I think so.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

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.

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.

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"

Those high level "raffle" tickets have brought high-level "cars" that turned into titles (Bentley's? in this analogy).

We swapped some cash-flowing video rental stores for a bunch of speculative tech stocks... maybe there is a netflix or amazon in there... there will surely be some flops... but it was the right move and its not nearly as speculative as swapping out a car for raffle tickets.

 

[Jingled]

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.

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.

 

[NUMBERICA]

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.

And if he takes the QO then they lose him for nothing.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

It's so dumb to trade good players for copious amounts of worthless picks...

How'd you get those good players...

With worthless picks.

k

 

[KqWIN]

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.

However much you believe that Blazer value Keon, the Jazz could have absolutely beat it in a way that would have improved the team. You can go back to the threads when this happened. It's fine to change your opinion, but don't act like this is some kind of crazy opinion. Everyone thought LAC got away with one. We can agree to disagree here, but this trade really makes it hard for to believe that we tried everything we could and didn't find a way to improve the team. It's not like Roco and Powell. There was a long list of players that would have really brought something to this team, some of them probably couldn't be acquire, but I just can't get behind the idea that these guys were impossible to get and that we tried everything we could to do something. The theory that Keon's value to POR was so high the trade couldn't be done just isn't very plausible to me.

So how does that happen, why did we not do that? It can be a couple different things. Either Ainge/FO was unaware that he could make that deal could be made, or it was not in alignment with the plan that they had already decided on to blow it up. I initially thought that Part Time Danny was a thing and he might have just been content to collect a check from his friend, but given what's happened in this off-season and Danny's history, I've begun to believe that he probably came in with the plan to blow things up already. That makes the most sense to me and I think it gives Danny the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, I think he had a good idea of what he wanted and that he was tilted towards blowing it up versus building around Don/Rudy. That's fine, but it's just my personal opinion that we should have valued the opportunity of having Don/Rudy together more than we did. Yes

The other option would be that they actually thought this team was good enough or better without those trades. Like I said, they wouldn't be the only people who that. I still can't believe the moaning and groaning we had on the idea of acquiring Smart, but I do have to acknowledge that it wasn't popular to actually want to execute that trade. I don't know if Danny would have traded Bogey for Smart straight up or if that was even an option, but I do know people heavily opposed that trade on this forum. If that's the case, it's certainly not a "we tried everything we could". It fits into that grass isn't always greener attitude that I mentioned.

 

[Elizah Huge]

It's so dumb to trade good players for copious amounts of worthless picks...

How'd you get those good players...

With worthless picks.

k

It’s just wild to me that people act like we got 3 quarters on the dollar when we actually got 9.

Those unprotected picks could also come in super handy before they convey. Say we’re trying to move up in a draft in the near future those can help IMMENSELY.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

And if he takes the QO then they lose him for nothing.

Would be a huge risk for a guy coming off a major injury.

Cleveland is going about this pretty smart. YEah it will piss Sexton off, but he isn't one of their main dudes and they are probably going to get him on a great deal that will be highly tradeable.

 

[KqWIN]

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.

I think Rudy's value was highest right now, Don I'm not so sure about. I think his value doesn't really change much in the next few years because of his established status and age. But it's really not about getting the most trade value out of those two, it's about giving the franchise the best chance of winning. I definitely would have shuffled around some pieces and gotten a new coach. If it still didn't work, you can still trade those guys. It's not like they disappear. I think the coaching and roster were so incredibly flawed around those two that it left so much room for improvement. In any case, it was really painful to waste the Don/Rudy era on roster that were very obviously flawed. It's truly one of the greatest failures of this franchise.