I didn't miss the 27' Suns Pick, which is in the 2nd line of my before/after comparison chart. i compared it to the 26' Nets pick and i believe a D.Booker led Suns team (even without KD) is better than a M.Bridges led Nets team, therefore, the 26' Nets pick is better than the 27' Suns pick. For 29', the Rockets are getting the two most favorable picks of Rockets/Mavs/Suns. Yes the Rockets do gained an additional pick here. i did mentioned this in my comparison 29' Rockets Pick << 29' Suns Pick: 95% #11-14; 5% Top + 29' Mavs Pick Swap right most likely scenario is we getting the Suns pick (most favorable) in 29', and keep our own pick (the 2nd favorable), OR maybe the Rockets are slightly better than the Mavs in 29' so swap the pick with the Mavs and move ahead a few spots. yes end result is the Rockets gained 1 extra pick and 1 extra swap, but lost in general quality of the picks/swaps, it's just my opinion
The Nets 26 team wont be just Bridges if this trade didnt happen. Either Nets will trade Bridges to Knicks and get help or they will trade Simmons who is an expiring to get help. Nets wont stand pat and keep giving us lotto picks without a fight. Bridges is also an expiring jn 2026 so Nets will also look to either flip him or get more help to play with him. If you look at Minny and Spurs a swap and pick is worth a lotto pick now, its like Rox generated a new lotto pick for free.
Rafael Stone masterclass... Ime Udoka 1. Fred/Reed 2. JG/Cam 3. DB/Amen 4. Jabari/Tari 5. Alperen/Adams Out: James Harden In: Tari Eason Reed Sheppard Nets 2027 1st Suns 2027 1st Suns 2029 1st Mavs 2029 1st Our books are clean. One pick to OKC in 2026 and we are home free from Russ/CP3.
fart face? Dude are you 9? Am I arguing with a 9 year old? I guess that makes perfect sense considering the quality of your arguments. My bad, kid. Stay in school.
We select the highest rated player on our draft board and add N'Faly Dante and AJ Griffin for a couple of peanuts and a Diet Coke. Not bad, right? Let Stone work and continue watching TV from Homer Simpson's chair.
Who do you think has done a better job the last few years rebuilding? I would say OKC for sure, ORL has done well but also got lucky to get Paolo and the #1 overall pick, but genuinely curious who you think has done significantly better than Stone? We have had some luck w some lotto balls, but not a ton. If we were truly that lucky we would have landed Wemby or Paulo, we didn't get that lucky. Stone has done well maneuvering to get value out of picks in general, after this draft I would say he has done a better job than most the last few years. If you exclude the top 4 picks we have had in 4 consecutive years and assume those were just consensus picks, lets look at the not so obvious moves. -Cam Whitmore at #20 (this I believe was a result of the EG trade and us upgrading our pick) -Alpren Sengun did not just fall into his hands, he actively traded to move up to get him at #16 which was incredible value -Tari Eason at #17 was a very good pick -The Harden trade in general, look at the assets received, and then they had a chance to get him back for free a few years later. I think this is obvious who won that trade given he wanted back in Houston last year. A lot of teams tend to overthink even their top picks, they seemed to have made the logical decision and took what was seemingly the right guy. It does not always work out that way, but If given the opportunity I think other teams would have made the same moves. I think Toronto would have taken Jalen Green over Barnes if given the chance, OKC had interest in Jalen Green as well and they have a great front office, again you are not going to get everything 100% right. The Oladipo offer didn't make a lot of sense, but neither did that entire team. John Wall, steven silas, Christian Wood, that whole scenario was a disaster, and was likely just some short term strategy to see what they could do, and they seemed to immediately pivot from it. He blew some picks, but what was the true net loss from that? Blown Picks: Garuba, TyTy, JayGup. These were late firsts and we have a lot of them, Morey hated late firsts anyways i thought this was signifcant at first, but look at how many young players and picks we have, i think his mistakes here are excusable at this stage. Who did we miss out on from his mistakes? Maybe Quentin Grimes as a late first and Mobley over Green? Drafting in the NBA is like working in Venture Capital, you are going to have a ton of losses, but you really just need a few home runs and your entire portfolio will change. Even Presti who is one of the best talent evaluators of all time, just gave up Giddey who he drafted #6 overall in a deep 2021 draft. Take another look at the 2021 draft class and who has gotten extensions? Of the guys drafted after our pick only Mobley and Barnes get max extensions, everyone else is either not getting anywhere near a max, out of the league completely, or going be an average or below avg player. What was the net effect of the mistakes you mentioned vs where we are now, I don't think a bad Theis deal or KPJ impacted us too much the KPJ deal was unguaranteed and low risk, we didnt even feel anything from him being gone at all, the net impact is close to none. FVV is an expiring $40M deal this year, they had to pay someone to meet the minimum salary threshold and signing a guy who helped take the team from 20 wins to .500 is not bad. Brook's deal is not even looking that bad, if you look at what role players are making now it is pretty much market, maybe it had 1 more year on it than we would have liked, but it is not really that big of a deal, because what were the alternatives? You have to spend the money, and the alternative would have been giving Harden a super max, which they smartly did not do. The deals Stone has made have mostly been very good, the mistakes he has made have not set the franchise back decades or anything. It is not like we missed out by trading up for Fultz and missing out on Tatum or trading Luka for Trae Young.
But the West is objectively far tougher than the East, and very likely will remain the case even 3-4 years from now. The Rockets and Nets shared the same seeding (11th) despite the Rockets winning 9 more games. In fact, the win differential between Rockets and Nets is the same as the Rockets and the 2nd seed in the East. That's how much more competitive the West is. It's simply much easier to lose games in the West than in the East. In 3-4 years time, what teams would 31 year old Devin Booker + 34 year old Bradley Beal be better than? Prime Harden is far better than Booker and Beal combined, and even he struggled to win games without a roster around him. Just to put this into perspective, do you know how many 50+ win seasons Booker and Beal have combined in 21 seasons? Only 2. What about the number of 45+ win seasons in their 21 total seasons played? 6. What happens when these two guys are 31 and 34, and take up 70% of the Phoenix Suns' cap space in 2027? This is the pick that the Rockets currently own.
It looks like the West remains in SGA Joker and Luka's hands until Ant and Wemby take over...barring any migration to the East.
I dont understand why other guys cant seem to understand that the trades the Nets pulled off were contingent on one another! Guys are acting like Stone was at home smoking a bowl and then saw the news that BKN traded Bridges and in a moment of stoner clarity thought that trading them back their picks was a good idea. LOL -- I doubt Stone even knew about what the Nets had cooking and the moves were independent of one another from an outsiders perspective. Its literally connect the dots!
Not 3-4 years, the 27' draft order is based on 26'-27' seeding, D.Book (2 month younger than M.Bridges), will be entering his prime at 29-30yr. that year (30th birthday on the opening night of regular season). and the 26' draft order is from 25'-26' seeding when they're both 28-29yr. the 26'Nets pick is much more valuable than the 27'Suns pick for sure, and that's why the Rockets getting extra pick/swap as compensation for loss in quality of the picks/swaps. comparing the East/West, it's meaningless to compare who's the better 10th seed in different conference. it's lottery or non-lottery pick. you'd also consider the teams above/under the ranking. the Nets, while in the East, will be still lottery team in 24-25', even with Bridges before the trade. i don't see them jumps ahead of Celtics/Knicks/Bucks/Cavs/Magic/Pacers/76ers/Heat/Hawks in 24-25. they'd be still in the 10-12th seed range, that's #8-#10 picks in the draft with around 20% chance getting in the top 4 picks in 25' draft
You think the nets turn down that INSANE bridges offer under any circumstance? The knicks easily paid double his value, as poorly run as the nets are i can’t imagine they say no to that deal
the trades for the Nets are contingent to each of the other, no doubt. i think no one on their right mind would blame Stone for making the trade "after" seeing the Nets sent out Bridges and destined to tank big time in 25-26. it's the value he's getting back, imo, not enough for the value going out. also when you're negotiating a trade, and you know your trading partner's getting extra value because its their own picks and that allow them to control their own future, you'd try to squash out some extra value going your way as well, that takes some negotiation skills.
I'd say that the East offers tankers more wins than the West does. I wont be the slightest bit surprised that when its all said and done these PHX picks wind up better than the Nets picks. What are we going to do with yet another top pick next year? At what point does talent saturation become unnavigable? FOMO on Cooper Flagg? This gives the team a longer leash with the current nucleus and if they have to blow it up or cut bait then they will have another round of fresh talent to try again with. Odds are they will be using picks mainly to try and add star level players so having more picks is not a bad thing and could come in handy.
Its not as insane an offer as it first seems when you take into consideration where those offered picks will land. 5 or 6 picks in the 20-24 range have value, but not INSANE value.
You don’t know where those picks will land. 2025 knicks pick? Ya, not great. 2027? Who knows. 2029? Absolutely nobody knows.
Your right, I don't. My best guess is all I have. 20-24 is just where I think the average of them will land. Now, if Washington offered 6 FRP's, that would truly be INSANE!
Bridges is only 2 years before he becomes an albatross. You do get great value for those 2 years but then you will lose value. The most likely scenario (if the knicks resign him) is they traded 5 firsts for zero or negative value. I would not be surprised at all if the nets get one or two lottery picks out of this
That is absolutely false. The Rockets have the assets at this point to trade for a ton of guys if they wanted. In 2 years they could trade: Green Sengun Whitmore Amen Jabari Sheppard Eason AJ Griffin 2025 draft pick (from Suns) 2 picks from Suns either Suns or Mavs swap 4 picks of their own and 2 swaps Several 2nd round picks I don’t know what group of players you get for all of that but it is a hell of a lot.
