Franz at his worst and early stages was a Swiss army knife already.....Jalen Green at the start was one of the bottom tier players in his first year.
I think a lot of people here only watch the Rockets, if any actual full games at all and it shows when they talk about players on other teams and say absolutely ridiculous things. At no point in their respective NBA careers was Jalen Green anywhere close to Franz Wagner. Even in the stretches where Franz struggles to shoot/score he provides so much more value to the team.
Fans often overvalue their own players... unless that's compared to someone they wanted to draft over their own guy (Mobley, Bancharo, Edey, etc.) I voted yes because Wagner has already had a very high floor. And I've always liked smart and skills over athleticism. Jalen's "March Madness" no doubt affirmed his high ceiling and it looked like a legit trade off between the two guys.
the only way the Orlando GM would ever even entertain such a thing is if Stone had incriminating Diddy party tapes
Sure, but draft position doesn't matter, a lot of players drafted after Jalen are MUCH better than he could ever dream of being. In his own draft class Jalen is 2nd behind Wagner in minutes played....but he's 16th in win shares....which is a compilation metric that rewards players who play the most minutes. He's also 16th in his own draft class in VORP, 29th in BPM, and 36th in WS/48 You can order them however you like, but the 4 best players in Jalen Green's draft are Sengun, Mobley, Barnes, and Wagner, all 4 were drafted after Jalen.
Cade has improved remarkably....but he's still not a good overall player. He's got some of the same problems Jalen does, Cade is a mindless chucker that isn't a quality defender. Now, sure, Cade has surpassed Jalen....but not by enough to really talk about. Funny enough, the Pistons are like what would have happened to the Rockets if they didn't nail their late first round guys after drafting busts early. The Pistons have blown 4 top 5 picks on Cade, Ivey, the lesser Thompson, and Holland. Unfortunately for them, there's no Sengun or Tari to make up for those bad picks.
At the time of this poll, Franz had a really rough end to last season and a horrendous playoff. But he has taken a massive leap this season while Jalen has not, so it's a no-brainer now.
Franz is playing in the East. Every good player in the East is blowing up because of how bad the East is. They fight garbage teams 3x more than West teams so their stats and efficiency end up inflated. If you look at the record West has 65% wr over the east which is the highest since 2000.
I think you're drastically underestimating the gap. Cade is a genuine offensive orchestrator averaging 24/7/9, which is a stat line that Jalen has achieved in one game in his entire career. And if we want to give Cade the chucker label, fine, but much of that is a function of him being responsible for so much of the Pistons offense and the organization not doing a good enough job of surrounding him with capable shooters. But even with Cade's shooting struggles, he's still been the more efficient of the two over the past full season and change. And before I get accused of basing everything off stats, I actually sat through every single Pistons game of Cade's rookie season. I've paid the price to have this opinion lol.
To be fair to Cade, he was actively sabotaged by a coach who was trying to get fired so he could retire while also taking home $78M. This year he looks really good and unlike Jalen, in games where he can't shoot he still does other things like rebounding and passing.
Cade's passing was there from Day 1, figure, that alone makes him better than Jalen..... You could say Jalen is quicker but quickness is something you have and cannot effectively get better at.....you can become slower though. Cade on the Magic? That would have been another story, and you bet ....Penny Hardaway's name would come up! Franz is better fit and good where he is.
The only high lotto pick in that draft I wouldn’t trade Jalen for is Josh Giddy. And even then with Jalen’s contract I’d pull the trigger on a straight up salary dump. Stone’s decision to give 25% of our cap to Jalen for the next 3 years ranks up there with building around KPJ. Just straight up foolish. but at least Presti can properly evaluate his prospects and netted assets for Giddy instead of tethering OKC to a bad contract.
I agree he’s better than Jalen. But I’m not a huge Cade fan. He seems way too slow, not a defender, and not really a good shooter either (although better shooter than Jalen of course). I don’t see him as a key cog of a championship team.
