Has our future position gotten better, worse, or stayed the same since trading Rudy/Donovan?

[HermanG]

I dont know if the cutter is "before the trades" or "right after the trades".

I think we sold pretty close to peak value and had we kept those two guys we may be looking at Mitchell as a pending FA right now. So if the cutter is pre-trade, you have to account for the timeline where we never make the trades. In that scenario I dont think the overall value of our roster/picks would be this high right now.

If the cutter is post trade, then we have definitely lost some of the value. But that is what happens when you tank, accumulate young talent and dont see them pop up to something truely meaningful.

 

[Step-Back Lauri]

Worse. They didnt tank properly from the go, and then Ainge helped Wolves become better by trading Conley there to stabilize them. Worsening those Wolves assets. I give D- for Ainge.

 

[FrenchJazzFa]

The best things at that stage will be to send DA to retirement....

 

[Tanktastic]

They have wasted many of those picks they had. And the picks that they still have, have declined in value because Cavs and Twolves are good.

So: much, much worse.

 

[Shad]

Further away than ever. Totally directionless with no end in sight

Absolutely this. We thought the Corbin/Jefferson days were day. We are going to be bad for a very long time. All of our draft picks in the last 3 years are bench players at best.

We have to decide to pay kessler 30 million a year or not... while being the worst defense in the history of the league.

Our picks from the cavs and wolves won't ever be good.

Last years team was the worst and most unwatchable Utah Jazz team in the last 30 years.... and this forum confirms it when some game threads had 1 or 2 pages of comments about the game.

Outside of the summer league to watch tre Johnson and the 21 pick, I don't even want to watch 1 regular season game... hendricks, Johnson, and the 21st pick are the only reasons to watch any games.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

I think there is a fundamental question here, that I don't have the answer for. Do teams who hit on later picks because they are good at drafting, or because they are lucky?

If you believe that wherever you draft there will be a good player available then it would have made more sense to be as competitive as possible every draft and just be really good at drafting at whatever spot we end up with.

If you believe that drafting well past a certain draft position is entirely based on luck, and that the statistics show that the higher you draft the better player you will have on average, then it makes sense to optimize our draft position every year.

The answer is obviously somewhere in the middle, but whatever side you fall on will determine how you feel about our strategy post DM and Rudy trades.

 

[The Midnight]

LoL.. wayyy too many glass half-fulls on the forum.

The tanking route is a path that takes at least 4-5 years to bear fruits.

We’re at what, year 1?

Patience, my young padawan.

 

[stitches]

I think it has gotten worse, but not because the path we took was the wrong path initially. I think that 2022 team had exhausted its opporunities for contention and we had extremely limited avenues for improvement. That was an aging team that didn't seem like they liked each other very much(especially the two stars of the team) and was asset poor(except for Mitchell and Gobert).

I still think Ainge and Zanik made a mistake not leveling the team to the ground the very first year in an attempt to extract some marginal value... and all we got out of those is what? LAL pick that will end up in the 20s. Those two years in limbo were horrible decisions where we tried to be competitive, failed and missed on the best prospects. I can't fault them for falling to 5 this current year. But what they did in 2023 and 2024 is definitely something that can be held against the FO. We wasted 2 years for nothing... For Taylor Hendricks and Cody Williams. I said it at the time and I will keep saying it - whatever you decide - you decide it and pick a lane. You don't try to balance between two different chairs because at the end you end up on the floor with none of the benefits of either path.

 

[Hornacekamania]

I think it has gotten worse, but not because the path we took was the wrong path initially. I think that 2022 team had exhausted its opporunities for contention and we had extremely limited avenues for improvement. That was an aging team that didn't seem like they liked each other very much(especially the two stars of the team) and was asset poor(except for Mitchell and Gobert).

I still think Ainge and Zanik made a mistake not leveling the team to the ground the very first year in an attempt to extract some marginal value... and all we got out of those is what? LAL pick that will end up in the 20s. Those two years in limbo were horrible decisions where we tried to be competitive, failed and missed on the best prospects. I can't fault them for falling to 5 this current year. But what they did in 2023 and 2024 is definitely something that can be held against the FO. We wasted 2 years for nothing... For Taylor Hendricks and Cody Williams. I said it at the time and I will keep saying it - whatever you decide - you decide it and pick a lane. You don't try to balance between two different chairs because at the end you end up on the floor with none of the benefits of either path.

Completely agree with all of this. The 22-23 season felt like such a waste, and I really think the plan was to look average so they wouldn't be an embarrassment with the All Star Game. Last season as a mess.
I can't be mad at getting the fifth pick this year; I can be mad if they wind up wasting it.

 

[The Midnight]

I think it has gotten worse, but not because the path we took was the wrong path initially. I think that 2022 team had exhausted its opporunities for contention and we had extremely limited avenues for improvement. That was an aging team that didn't seem like they liked each other very much(especially the two stars of the team) and was asset poor(except for Mitchell and Gobert).

I still think Ainge and Zanik made a mistake not leveling the team to the ground the very first year in an attempt to extract some marginal value... and all we got out of those is what? LAL pick that will end up in the 20s. Those two years in limbo were horrible decisions where we tried to be competitive, failed and missed on the best prospects. I can't fault them for falling to 5 this current year. But what they did in 2023 and 2024 is definitely something that can be held against the FO. We wasted 2 years for nothing... For Taylor Hendricks and Cody Williams. I said it at the time and I will keep saying it - whatever you decide - you decide it and pick a lane. You don't try to balance between two different chairs because at the end you end up on the floor with none of the benefits of either path.

Pretty clear to me they didn’t wanna do that cos they wanted to keep selling tickets.

That’s the only explanation to the half-hearted approach.

The first 2 years of the teardown DA insinuated that he could go “big game hunting” and the local media and fans ate it all up.

Meanwhile we gathered enough rookies in the team and the fans continue to come to see them.

Go look at the ticket sales, they haven't dropped at all these past 3 years.

It was a calculated move by Ryan and DA to have the cake and eat it too.

Very smart on their part, but we were all fools for being a part of it.

Now we’re on a long road back to relevance and are back to square 1.

 

[Sardines]

LoL.. wayyy too many glass half-fulls on the forum.

The tanking route is a path that takes at least 4-5 years to bear fruits.

We’re at what, year 1?

Patience, my young padawan.

 

[Tanktastic]

I think there is a fundamental question here, that I don't have the answer for. Do teams who hit on later picks because they are good at drafting, or because they are lucky?

Teams make their own luck. You can't guarantee anything even by being the league's best at drafting. One Jokic can be luck. If a team is consistently either getting lucky or being unlucky, then that's proof of something.

It's also how much risk you take. If you pick the Taylor Hendricks type of players, no-one will probably blame you for messing it up, but the ceiling is extremely low. If you take risks with players that most have red flags on, you can get lucky. Like with Giannis (absolutely, completely raw), Jokic (fat, slow and what even is he) or Brunson (so, so small and no defense).