I think what you're getting at is that trades are not "equal" in the sense of EV, and you're absolutely right. The conditions of the two sides in a trade are not the same unless it's a like for like trade. If teams were exchanging veteran players only, or young players/picks only, the EV would be the same. It's not the same if you're trading younger for older or vice versa. If a team is trying to win, good players are going to have more value to them than a team trying to lose and the opposite for picks. If you're saying the EV on trades is not the same in totality, I'm not arguing against that. The Jazz have greater incentive to want Lillard because they have Lauri and Kessler and the Blazers do not because they do not have Lauri and Kessler
What I'm commenting on is the Jazz side of things. If the Jazz tampered or whatever and lost two first round picks...what is a reasonable expectation of the damage of losing those picks. If they kept the picks, I would expect that we lost about one NBA player. But we also could have used those picks to trade for real players, and you likely would have gotten more. That's an opportunity cost perspective, and that's fair. What I'm getting at is that it's still not some franchise altering loss. I haven't even thought about what POR wants....but if you're just making the decision from the Jazz side.
I think the more valid argument against Dame would be his contract. But cap flexibility.....I don't know but expending the cap flexibility on a superstar player seems like a sound strategy in my eyes. Dame is really ****ing good. I don't think we should hesitate to get him for like half of what we got for Mitchell/Gobert. I think we're kidding ourselves if we think we're getting more than Dame out of two unprotected firsts in any scenario. We have all these assets and cap flexibility in the hopes of getting a superstar. Dame is the most ideal situation, but we're hardly selling the farm by putting two or more picks on the table.