But what you think we could get for a trade and what was actually possible are likely to be very different. We had a plan in place if Henry got bid before #7 but you think they didn't do their homework on all the possible options should a bid come at #9?
It cost Brisbane a future 2nd to go up just one pick in the 2nd round. Clearly future picks (especially after the 1st round) had very little value this trade and draft period. You look at all the trades done using future picks and no club got good value out of them but people are expecting we should have? At least we got a 2nd rounder equivalent back from our future 2nd. If another club (that wasn't waiting to match bids) had multiple 3rd/4th rd picks worth points I would agree we could have reduced our deficit further - unfortunately none did. You can only work with the cards that are available to you.
We effectively got a pick #9 without spending our future 1st - we just downgraded it by 2 picks. As a comparison it cost Melbourne their future 1st (they finished 2nd bottom remember), #26 and #50 to get pick #8 originally.
Without our own future 2nd and a downgraded 1st we should also be motivated to climb the ladder. If we make finals a 2 pick downgrade from say #10 to #12 will look like nothing at all. It'll only look bad if we finish bottom 4 - so lets not.
And the worse we finish, the less the downgrade will be anyway.