Fire up the Trade Machine

[HermanG]

Honest question, what is the Lauri Finnish military situation? I know he still has mandatory service to complete, any chance he gets sent after the all-star break? I can't tell if its a meme or real possibility, and can't find much online except he still has some service to complete

The shortest service period is 6 months and can be done in parts. Each part that must be completed on one go is exactly 6 weeks and service can be halted and continued later from the start of each part with defense forces officers aproval. So he can do 4x 1.5 months or 2x 3 months for instance.

The athlete school he has applied and been approved to starts a rookie group at the end of April.. which is inconvenient for major teamsport athletes but designed mainly skiiers and winter athletes in mind. The other group starts like october, which is obviously out of the question.

So he is not necessarily gonna miss any games.. but if we know we are missing the playoffs its better for him to step into the service sooner rather than later.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Not sure how the military service works... but I can't imagine he can just show up whenever he wants. Just thinking about how our country works and the mountains of paperwork and time needed to do anything.

Assuming he for sure is going to do the military service eventually, the timing would be so perfect if he could go this year.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

The shortest service period is 6 months and can be done in parts. Each part that must be completed on one go is exactly 6 weeks and service can be halted and continued later from the start of each part with defense forces officers aproval. So he can do 4x 1.5 months or 2x 3 months for instance.

The athlete school he has applied and been approved to starts a rookie group at the end of April.. which is inconvenient for major teamsport athletes but designed mainly skiiers and winter athletes in mind. The other group starts like october, which is obviously out of the question.

So he is not necessarily gonna miss any games.. but if we know we are missing the playoffs its better for him to step into the service sooner rather than later.

Do it April and do the full 6 months then? Shut down end of March so he has time with family and is healthy for service (also an excuse) would mean he only misses a handful of games at the end of the year though.

 

[Eddie Zero]

The entire point of these trades is to be worse this year and ensure a high draft pick. We would be half-assing the rebuild to trade picks for guys unless we’re talking superstars.

Don't tell Danny we are rebuilding smh He flipped the roster in one offseason and already has the draft picks to use to get another starter on this roster if he wants to win.
He can still pick somebody in this draft, maybe a lottery pick that can help right away if the pick is good enough, but it is far from reasonable to think the draft is his path to a rebuild.
Now he might use the draft like you say and dial it back once trade values are solid again if they are right before the deadline, but it already looks like they missed that window because the vets values are plummeting

 

[HermanG]

Also about the earlier discussion.. remember that the way front offices create competition for players they intend to trade is that they leak information on purpose. So whenever you hear those obscure "are getting calls" reports without the immediate denial statements they are likely leaked on purpose.

 

[Jaanipoeg]

Do it April and do the full 6 months then? Shut down end of March so he has time with family and is healthy for service (also an excuse) would mean he only misses a handful of games at the end of the year though.

Yeah, I mean if we shut him down at the end of March that could still be something. Misses ~6 games, which can marginally help the tank and get the hardest portion of his military service (the April/October stint) over with. Plus, I think after his at times rocky stint in Chicago that winning most improved player does matter to Lauri. This would still keep him over ~70 games played and still a strong candidate. I feel like missing the last 15-20 games would eliminate him in people's polls.

 

[Ron Mexico]

We've had pretty great health luck and we are like 1/2 game out of being #8 and 2 games away from #6. The odds of a top 4 pick between the #11, #8, #6 9.4%, 25%, 37% - its significant. We won a bunch of close games early... think we were like 5-2 in games decided by one possession. That is now reversing. We have been in a ton of games which is great. The margins are thin and we can offload 1-2 guys and get in the 6-8 range which provides a real chance at hitting. Memphis hit from the #8 spot and ended up with Ja.

What’s the odds of a better player in the draft? Should we aim for #8 range to get a Ja? What’s the draft pick that gets a player that helps us win a chip? #1 picks are the dream right? So why is Duncan the last guy drafted 1 that won the team that drafted him a chip at that spot?

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

What’s the odds of a better player in the draft? Should we aim for #8 range to get a Ja? What’s the draft pick that gets a player that helps us win a chip? #1 picks are the dream right? So why is Duncan the last guy drafted 1 that won the team that drafted him a chip at that spot?

I mean if you want to throw out all these gotcha questions and keep harping on guys that are drafted by the team they win a title with... I'd like to introduce you to Wardell Curry the 7th pick of the 2009 draft.

The higher you pick the more options you have and the better chance you hit. So if we land at 6-8 rather than jumping up... yes we have better odds at getting a guy that can help win a chip... can it be done with a pick in the 11/12 range? Yup! Your odds of jumping up to top 4 also increase by a wide margin. Even if you got a "meh" return on a vet rotation piece... its worth it to increase our draft odds.

 

[Ron Mexico]

I mean if you want to throw out all these gotcha questions and keep harping on guys that are drafted by the team they win a title with... I'd like to introduce you to Wardell Curry the 7th pick of the 2009 draft.

The higher you pick the more options you have and the better chance you hit. So if we land at 6-8 rather than jumping up... yes we have better odds at getting a guy that can help win a chip... can it be done with a pick in the 11/12 range? Yup! Your odds of jumping up to top 4 also increase by a wide margin. Even if you got a "meh" return on a vet rotation piece... its worth it to increase our draft odds.

I don’t think that is true. The percentages for higher picks are debatable especially lately.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

What’s the odds of a better player in the draft? Should we aim for #8 range to get a Ja? What’s the draft pick that gets a player that helps us win a chip? #1 picks are the dream right? So why is Duncan the last guy drafted 1 that won the team that drafted him a chip at that spot?

Lebron

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I don’t think that is true. The percentages for higher picks are debatable especially lately.

Okay??? I know Steph was picked with the 7th pick so that part is definitely true.

I can promise you the first 4 picks in the draft have an exponentially higher hit rate than other 4 pick ranges without doing any research at all.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

https://nbarankings.theringer.com/

Not that this list is the end all be all... but 10 of the top 21 players in the league were drafted top 4... go through the full list and note which guys were lotto picks and which later. NBA talent is disproportionately found in the top 4... most of the guys on the list were lotto picks. There are several huge outliers like Jokic and Giannis obviously. Even Curry.

Hell... our best player was picked with the #7 pick. Is it hit and miss? Yup. Its still the best way for us to get top tier talent and it is not close.

 

[HermanG]

Lebron

Lebron was signed from FA after Cleveland had just picked top 3 like 4 years in a row. Doesnt matter who drafted him originally.. he was for all intents and purposes a FA signing.

Still barely won a chip with a team full of absolute top draft picks.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

https://nbarankings.theringer.com/

Not that this list is the end all be all... but 10 of the top 21 players in the league were drafted top 4... go through the full list and note which guys were lotto picks and which later. NBA talent is disproportionately found in the top 4... most of the guys on the list were lotto picks. There are several huge outliers like Jokic and Giannis obviously. Even Curry.

Hell... our best player was picked with the #7 pick. Is it hit and miss? Yup. Its still the best way for us to get top tier talent and it is not close.

Plus it's not like this is completely random. You hope that our front office is better than average at drafting. What we're really saying when we want a high draft pick is that we want our guys to have first dibs on drafting.

 

[sip]

I don’t think that is true. The percentages for higher picks are debatable especially lalately.

In the end is still comes down to talent evaluation but having a higher pick gives you the opportunity to choose from more players. It really is that simple.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Lebron was signed from FA after Cleveland had just picked top 3 like 4 years in a row. Doesnt matter who drafted him originally.. he was for all intents and purposes a FA signing.

Still barely won a chip with a team full of absolute top draft picks.

Kyrie then... they also had another #1 pick they got to use to trade for Kevin Love.

Anyone arguing against the #1 pick being anything other than extremely valuable is just not paying attention. When you only have the #1 pick and just championships as your criteria it cuts a lot of good outcomes/results out. Again go imagine Memphis with Cam Reddish, Cam Johnson, Tyler Herro even... instead of Ja... how's that looking. I get that they haven't won a title, but when that is the criteria then your only argument should be we should try and get the #1 pick every year until we get a Lebron, Duncan, Shaq, level talent. Like 90% of the title teams are built around those types of dudes.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Plus it's not like this is completely random. You hope that our front office is better than average at drafting. What we're really saying when we want a high draft pick is that we want our guys to have first dibs on drafting.

I mean if we follow Ainge's career he really made that Celtics team by taking Brown over a handful of guys (it wasn't a sure thing at the time) and had Tatum over the consensus guy Fultz and parlayed that to more assets while getting his guy. He hit home runs in the top of the draft. Still hasn't netted a title though so I guess its a failure by the standard that a couple posters have when arguing against tanking lol. I'd take that failure.

 

[HermanG]

Kyrie then... they also had another #1 pick they got to use to trade for Kevin Love.

Anyone arguing against the #1 pick being anything other than extremely valuable is just not paying attention. When you only have the #1 pick and just championships as your criteria it cuts a lot of good outcomes/results out. Again go imagine Memphis with Cam Reddish, Cam Johnson, Tyler Herro even... instead of Ja... how's that looking. I get that they haven't won a title, but when that is the criteria then your only argument should be we should try and get the #1 pick every year until we get a Lebron, Duncan, Shaq, level talent. Like 90% of the title teams are built around those types of dudes.

Is someone arguing against #1 being valuable? Of course it is valuable. But its no cheat code. In fact, just go to wiki, scroll the list of #1 picks and you will find more busts than champions in that list.. and more players that didnt become superstars than those who did.

There is little to no correlation between picking #1 and winning a chip. If we discount players who left their original teams, that cuts the list to... 1 in last 25 years?

Thats why you also have to discount Lebron. He couldnt rescue the Cavs from suckiness of tanking until he left and let them suck again for 4 more years only to return to play with a long list of top picks.

 

[jom2003]

Do it April and do the full 6 months then? Shut down end of March so he has time with family and is healthy for service (also an excuse) would mean he only misses a handful of games at the end of the year though.

He should go immediately after he made his first AS appearance in SLC. That's literally the biggest thing he's playing for this season. Then he'd be back around August or September which gives him enough time to get back in basketball shape to start the new season.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Is someone arguing against #1 being valuable? Of course it is valuable. But its no cheat code. In fact, just go to wiki, scroll the list of #1 picks and you will find more busts than champions in that list.. and more players that didnt become superstars than those who did.

There is little to no correlation between picking #1 and winning a chip. If we discount players who left their original teams, that cuts the list to... 1 in last 25 years?

Thats why you also have to discount Lebron. He couldnt rescue the Cavs from suckiness of tanking until he left and let them suck again for 4 more years only to return to play with a long list of top picks.

There are no cheat codes lol. There have been like 11 franchises that have won titles in my lifetime. Whether you want to limit it to just #1 or be more reasonable and spread it out to top 5 picks... those teams are littered with guys that went top 5. I suppose we could move the beach or Hollywood to Utah if we wanted to get top talent to win a title instead of doing things we could control like making sure we have as many ping pong balls as possible I suppose.

Also the Spurs won how many titles? Miami won titles cuz they tanked and got Wade... who then recruited Lebron. GS sucked and got Curry... and tanked later as well. Like this is just part of the life cycle... sometimes you'll get Dwayne Wade and sometimes you'll get Michael Beasley.

If you think Lebron's first stint is sucky... well I don't know what to tell you... he took them as far as any Utah team has ever gone. On that list of #1 players there are an equal amount of champs and busts... sure... there are also a **** ton on all-stars. Discounting the value of landing top 4 in a draft with two guys that would go #1 in most years is just hilarious.

Its a very low probability that we ever get a title in Utah... its likely lower than the current odds of landing Wemby or Scoot... that's the thing... we are playing a bunch of low probabilities here... but aiming for a top 4 pick is the best of a bunch of low probability scenarios and I don't think its close. We might be successful with a middle build strategy... but that is where the Wiz, Magic, and Kings live... occasionally you will hit on a Giannis and pull off something awesome.

Put it this way... you just landed the #1 pick in this year's draft... you have an opportunity to trade it and get 5 #10 picks in the next 5 drafts... you taking #1 or the 5 #10s? I don't know about you but I wouldn't trade #1 or #2 for 5 straight #10 picks. It might get to like 7 or 8 #10s before I even start thinking about it.