Oladipo is expiring. That’s the only reason Houston wanted him. Take on bad contracts next season for picks.
The draft capital is amazing. Harden and Durant will be 38 and 39 by the time the last of these picks come up. It may be KG/Pierce all over again for Brooklyn. I woke up feeling down that we'd trade Harden for Simmons straight up and we'd be in the worst position: bad and without draft capital. Now we will be bad with a lot of draft capital. It'll be a long time before the team is good again, but there's potential now.
The problem with our roster is that we are not shitty enough to be a bottom dweller team, thus guaranteeing us a top 4 pick. OKC own our pick this year (well swap) and Brooklyn's swap will be worthless this year as well unless they get a major injury to Harden/Durant/Irving. I hope we somehow make a playoff run, even if we are 7th or 8th seed. I honestly don't care, will be a lot more fun than just sucking since we don't have interesting prospects to suck with.
The best thing about this deal is that it gives Tilman the chance to deflect the blame of having to rebuild. Expect some version of the following: "James left us in a bad position and Rafael has done a great job of keeping us competitive while setting us up to be successful in the future."
They'll have approximately 81 million dollar on the books next year. That's not including the 31 million cap hold on Oladipo. Assuming they don't resign him, the max cap space they can have is about 22 million or so. Of course if they trade E.Gordon they can open up more.
Why did we not just take Allen instead of giving him to cleveland for a pick that will most likely be a late late first round pick from the bucks? Sounds like a terrible deal.
Seriously, I don't get all the complaining. Likely scenario is that Brooklyn is really good for the next 2-4 years, but that still leaves a few years of extremely good picks when Durant and Harden age out. If they flame out entirely all the better. We were never getting a superstar back, nor were we gonna get high picks in the next few seasons. This way we mill about for a few seasons, but we will be armed to the teeth with good picks eventually.
ABSOLUTELY criminal that James Harden got rewarded for crying and screaming like this. We should've traded his ass to some lottery team. Now he has basically set an example for every star to follow in his footsteps to get what they want. You think he cares about those picks? No, he will just request a trade to another team and join another team when his contract expires.
We should have known that the Harden trades would be for picks. When Wall was traded for Westbrook, Tillman was ecstatic about getting the picks in one of the interview! In addition, this means that Tillman doesn't need to worry about going over Luxury Tax for foreseeable feature while we are in rebuilding mode and while his businesses recover from the aftermath of the pandemic.
I think it’s funny people think that what we are looking at currently is capable of making the playoffs.... MAYBE the last play in spot. But I predict we do more to ensure that the tank train is running on all cylinders before the season ends.
