Bad trade offer, and frankly... I don't understand the point of reporting it. Every team in the league has made an offer and gotten rejected. No team is trading away Anthony Davis -- the Rockets couldn't trade their entire roster for him. Sort of puts tanking in another light, huh? For perspective on trading the #1 pick away, the Orlando Magic had the #1 pick of the 1993 NBA Draft (Chris Webber) and rather than pair him with a second-year Shaq, they traded him to the Golden State Warriors for the 3rd pick (Penny Hardaway) and three additional future picks, all of which ended up in the lottery -- #11 in 1996, #13 in 1998 and #5 in 2000. It ended up being Todd Fuller, Keon Clark and Mike Miller. Of course they could have turned it into Kobe Bryant, Rashard Lewis and Jamal Crawford, but the point is it's almost always the best players that make the deal. What seemed like a steal of a deal at the time (four good picks for one) really just came down to the #1 pick being weighed against the #3 pick. Orlando was lucky Penny (a superstar) was available there.
I disagree. Because even the top picks in that draft had a lot of holes. After Bargnani and Aldridge, it's very possible they didn't really like Ty Thomas, Morrison, Sheldon Williams, Gay, or Roy. All of them had major issues. Bargnani did too, but the Raptors obviously love him more than everyone else. If you look at drafts, there are almost never 4 players that are universally loved by all teams. Going from 1 to 4 is a huge risk unless you know that teams 1-3 are going to take some player(s) you don't like. A very risky move and one most teams would never think of doing.
Appears the declined trade was originally mentioned deep inside an ESPN Chad Ford blog. And Sporting News "Hoopsworld'ed" that part into a report, maybe with some "Dictator Stern" at it again element to it. It got us talking, though. Though he wasnt a number one pick, it makes the Rockets trade up for Eddie Griffin make sense. He very well could have gone #1 that year.
A more realistic trade offer would be: Kyrie Irving + the #4 for the #1. Even then, I think New Orleans probably has to say no. At worst, Anthony Davis will be Marcus Camby, who was himself a #2 pick. He could very well be the next Kevin Garnett.
I think Toronto (and other teams) liked Roy a lot but didn't want to take him #1 overall. Given that no prospect clearly separated himself from the pack that year, I think the Raptors would have been willing to roll the dice, knowing they could still get a top prospect (Tyrus Thomas, Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, etc.), along with three other good prospects. Remember, Kyle Lowry slipped to the #24 pick (which I had wished at that time could have been included in the Battier trade, expressly looking at a guy like Lowry to take there). While it wasn't the #1 overall pick, look no further than the 2004 NBA Draft for a similar example of this sort of deal. The Clippers had the #2 overall pick in a draft with two clear-cut top prospects: Dwight Howard and Emeka Okafor. There was no debate that those two would go 1-2 in either order. Yet the Clippers willingly traded the #2 pick to the expansion Bobcats in exchange for the #4 pick and additional assets. I'm not saying that I personally would ever trade the #1 overall pick. I'm just saying that, some years, it's not unheard of to consider--or to actually make--such a deal.
But in the example you gave, had the Clippers had the #1 pick, would they have made the trade? I doubt it, given that Okafor and Howard were opposite of each other(safe, low upside vs risky, high upside). We're not talking about Lebron and Melo here, where both players had superstar potential. Okafor clearly had limited upside. Of course, you can always hypothetically create a draft where the trade proposal of this thread would work. But it's very hard to imagine such a scenario. If Cleveland had a second lottery pick, say pick 12, I can imagine a trade may work depending on the draft. But picks in the mid-20s just aren't that valuable in the NBA. Certainly NBA teams don't expect these players to have the kind of upside that would make it worth it to move down 3 spots at the very top of the draft. That's why I proposed an unprotected 1st rounder of next year. Because then you'd have given up two potential future stars.
Agree to disagree, I guess. Hypothetically, if Anthony Davis were hit by a bus and killed tomorrow (G-d forbid!), or if Davis simply had not declared for the 2012 NBA Draft (which I suppose is a far less morbid hypothetical), I would very much be interested in trading the #1 overall pick for the package Cleveland is offering. There are enough "Tier 2" players (which in my hypothetical would become Tier 1 guys) that at least one of them would fall to #4. Plus, it's a deep draft from 11-40, and there will be several players available at #24, #33 and #34 who could potentially be mid-first rounders on the Hornets' draft board.
I doubt the Cavs would do this deal, but if I',m Charlotte I'd offer the 2nd pick for that same package.
LOL at Cleveland. How stupid do they think NO is? Even if Demps was dumb enough to pull the trigger on that trade does Cleveland really think Stern wouldn't veto it?
Pretty sure Cleveland wouldn't do that deal for the #2 pick. The Cavs will still get one of Beal, Barnes, Kidd-Gilchrist or Robinson at #4. Considering how high they are on Barnes (who is likely to be there at #4), I'm pretty sure they'd only want to move up to #1 and nothing less. That said, the Cavs actually may have TOO MANY good picks and may be a prime candidate to trade/sell 1-2 of their last three picks. If I were the GM of a team without too many committed roster spots and with cash available for use, I'd be offering up cash and/or future second rounders for #24, #33 or #34.
Why is this smart for both sides? This is a no-brainer from NO and a troll offer from Cleveland. Of course Cleveland could end up with the better player, case in point would be last year where Parsons ended up better than almost every other wing player in the draft. However the 4th pick is a large jump from number in every single draft, even the ones with no clear cut because most of the time drafts have been 2-men deep when it comes to franchise cornerstones: Howard-Okafor Oden-KD Rose-Beasley Irving-Derrick Williams etc etc so basically picks 3 and 4 are already a step down from picks 1 and 2, and esp. in a draft like this there's a huge gap between Davis and number 2, never mind pick 4. Not only that, NO has Eric Gordon and the 10th pick, so its not like they need depth. What's interesting is Lilliard could turn out to be one of the top players in this draft, everyone's focusing on the forwards but Lilliard has had an impressive resume as well. There's no way they'll trade Davis, maybe for KD lol.
Oh, many of us were screaming bloody murder about not getting more from Memphis on that deal, and specifically, that pick. I would have felt better about it at the time, feeling less like the Rockets blundered and bent over to make it happen. I still don't understand that, and probably never will. Not getting Battier, who I liked, so much as not getting enough in return.
True, but people conveniently forget that Stromile Swift had JUST signed a long-term, full MLE deal with the Rockets the prior summer and still had 3-4 YEARS left on his deal. This wasn't just a case of taking on a large expiring contract to make salaries match. The Grizzlies took on a lot of "(nearly) dead money" with Swift, who had finally proven after a second team gave up on him that he was both clueless and overpaid. That "negative factor" taken off the Rockets' hands was apparently significant enough for the Grizzlies to refuse to part with that 24th pick. Sure, I would have strongly preferred getting that 24th pick (and Kyle Lowry is EXACTLY who I would have taken with it), but I understand--begrudgingly so--how the Grizzlies' taking on so many years of Swift's contract factored into the value received in return.
