His nickname 'two-way Magnay' has a whole new meaning now
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Fair play to them realising failure and having the balls to cut the cord and move on. But Plan B definitely had to work.
So, what is Plan B?
Moving back 7 spots in the draft to both open up cap space and rid ourselves of Bledsoe's lousy attitude doesn't seem too bad to me.
Looking at contracts, option B looks like it would open up space for option A.
If we also move on from Lonzo and Hart, do we know what we'll have available to spend?
I'm pretty content with the free-agency/trade period we've had so far. It hasn't been the sexy moves to see them launch into title contention but that was never realistic. I think they're undoubtedly better and for little cost.
To come out with:
- flexibility
- Adams upgraded
- Bledsoe upgraded
- no bad contracts
- no bad overpays
I think is about all we could really ask for. I also think there's still the possibility/likelihood of further moves to come.
Even as is, New Orleans should be playoff competitive, assuming further player development and Green is a competent coach. Short of landing another star player, no matter the changes made, this team will only get as far as Ingram and Zion can carry them and if they don't fully buy in, especially on defence, well, let's not think about the consequences.
By my count we traded three first round picks, plus a pick slide (10 to 17), plus pick 40 to turn Jrue into Devonte Graham + one year of Steven Adams plus one year of Valanciunas. In short, we essentially traded away all the draft capital we got from the Jrue trade in the first place, making the trade Jrue Holiday for Devonte Graham plus Valanciunas on an expiring contract. That's appalling asset management.
If we actually lose more picks owing to 'tampering' via trading Lonzo for freaking Satoransky, I think I'll vomit.
I actually like Devonte Graham (see below). I didn't mind our actual draft, based on limited knowledge. I don't actually mind any of Valanciunas, Temple or Satoransky as players. It's just that I don't see any long term planning going on here.
You're more optimistic than me, mate.
Not quite but it certainly hasn't worked out as hoped. From what I understand (likely inaccuracies):
From the Jrue trade:
- we handed off Hill and a Denver pick to get Adams
- we no longer have Adams or Bledsoe
- we still have Milwaukee's '25 and '27 first round picks and '24 and '26 first round pick swaps
From the AD trade:
- we trade pick 4 for picks 8 and 17
- we trade Lakers '22 first
- we sign and trade Lonzo
- we still have BI, Graham, Satoransky, Temple, Chicago future second round pick, '23 pick swap, '24 (maybe deferred to '25) first round pick
- Josh Hart may or may not remain
The bail out first to Memphis is our own lottery protected first round pick. If it doesn't convey they get two second rounders instead.
As far as I'm aware (and I'm not terribly aware), Nawlins owns all their other future draft picks.
So whilst it's been a bit convoluted and wasteful, it's not all doom and gloom. Yet.
I think mainly their long term planning is in Zion, BI, NAW, Jax*, Kira, Didi, Trey and Herb.
In terms of how particularly JV (who I think will get extended) and Graham fit into long term planning - it's to make the Pelicans immediately competitive enough to convince Zion there's the possibility of future success in New Orleans and encourage him to sign on. Satoransky is likely mostly an asset for a future trade.
*Obviously the Jax part of that planning is a little in the air at the moment. That part ain't on Griff.
I need to be optimistic to be honest. I follow an irrelevant football club that's flagless for 57 years, an NFL team that will forever be the biggest joke in the league after losing the unlosable Superbowl in a record never to ever be beaten and a NBA franchise with a history of consistent failure and constant talk of relocation.
If - as the current widespread narrative suggests - the Pelicans still can't make a go of things now despite everything they have going for them, and they lose their third successive transcendent talent in a row (especially only 3 years in), I'm gonna have to walk. It's completely pointless.
Forget all that, we got Trey Murphy who'll be the steal of the draft. Add NAW - who'll be the biggest improver in the league next year - to that, and it's Lonzo who?The way I see it, we got Bledsoe, Hill, 2020's pick #23, Bucks' 2025 & 2027 firsts and 2024 & 2026 pick swaps for Jrue.
We traded that 2020 pick #23 (ended up being RJ Hampton) and two second round picks with Hill to OKC for Adams.
We traded the Lakers' 2022 first round pick, and had a pick slide (10 to 17), plus effectively a second round pick (slide 40 to 51, which was then sold) to dump Bled and Adams for Valanciunas and cap space.
And then we traded our own 2022 first to Charlotte for Graham to make use of the cap space we opened up.
So that's three first round picks (2020 + 2 X 2022), three second round picks and one pick swap out, and three first round picks and two pick swaps in. So we've actually traded out MORE than the Jrue draft compensation thus far on paper. Of course those Bucks picks in the future may end up technically being better than the ones we traded out, but who knows.
Basically we traded Jrue for Graham and Valanciunas' expiring contract. Three firsts in, three firsts and three seconds out. The pick protection on our pick going to Charlotte (not Memphis, they get the Lakers' pick) is a minor blessing, but still hard to believe we had to even do that when DeRozan and Lonzo among others only garnered second round picks as free agents.
It's pretty ugly.
Problem is we're always chopping and changing.
Zion's first year, we decided to try and compete, so kept Jrue and Gentry around and signed Favors and JJ Redick. Could argue it was worth a shot, but didn't work out.
Next year we hire SVG and basically do the same thing all over again, only this time with Adams and Bled in place of Favors and Jrue. Not surprisingly it didn't work, again.
This year we seem to be in the business of correcting mistakes, whether that's paying for coaching payoffs by selling second round picks, or paying out more picks to get rid of Bled and Adams. It's good we're not following sunk cost, but the overall impression of the last three years is that we haven't been following any sort of a plan.
That has even extended to Lonzo and Hart's tenures with the team - did we want those guys, or not? And if not, why didn't we try and trade them a year ago, if not before? It always seems like we're having a bet each way, consistently indecisive.
Haha chin up, Dees 2021 >>> Pies 2021.
Problem is we're always chopping and changing.
Zion's first year, we decided to try and compete, so kept Jrue and Gentry around and signed Favors and JJ Redick. Could argue it was worth a shot, but didn't work out.
Next year we hire SVG and basically do the same thing all over again, only this time with Adams and Bled in place of Favors and Jrue. Not surprisingly it didn't work, again.
This year we seem to be in the business of correcting mistakes, whether that's paying for coaching payoffs by selling second round picks, or paying out more picks to get rid of Bled and Adams. It's good we're not following sunk cost, but the overall impression of the last three years is that we haven't been following any sort of a plan.
That has even extended to Lonzo and Hart's tenures with the team - did we want those guys, or not? And if not, why didn't we try and trade them a year ago, if not before? It always seems like we're having a bet each way, consistently indecisive.
Haha chin up, Dees 2021 >>> Pies 2021.
I think it's less indecisive and more just wrong decisions.
To me at least they look like they always planned to build a young core to be surrounded with complimentary veterans.
They've consistently hit the draft to load up on young talent in the Griffin regime - all the guys I mentioned bar Ingram being drafted in that time - but they've completely missed on getting the mix of vets right.
My understanding is that Gentry was more of an ownership choice as reward for his handling of the previous year with the AD situation.
SVG I understand the thinking behind the appointment but obviously failed (aside from point Zion and moving Lonzo off ball).
Fingers crossed third time's a charm and Green is the guy that can inspire them to reach their potential.
Uh, encouraging?
Yeah I've got no beef with the drafting, although the jury's still really out on everyone bar Zion. Murphy seemed like the right pick this year, as called by @nahnah .
Also have no argument with the quality of people they've brought in too, mostly good teammates and pros. It's still really odd that they saw what happened with Favors as the big next to Zion, and then shrunk the court even more with Adams. It seemed more like Griffin had always liked Adams, saw an opportunity to get him, but had cognitive dissonance about how he and Zion would ever play together. Oh well.
What does trouble me is that we've really eaten into our chest of assets just chasing our tails for two years. We're not the Lakers, we can't afford to just be trading picks away for nothing, and hoping to score big in free agency. If we've drafted well, that means we've thrown away chances to draft well in the future.
Maybe Griffin has something up his sleeve with Josh Hart. Otherwise it was a curious decision to just let he and Lonzo hit RFA. I get all the cap-enomics and wanting to operate as an over-the-cap team and all the rest of it, but still. We've had a very weird off-season, don't think anyone can deny that now.
I'd just love to see a team without apathy. Play some defence, actually look like you care when you lose.
Hopefully top of the list is scrapping SVG's ''let's see how many open three pointers we can give up in one game... and then try to break that record!" D.
Damning with faint praise, I know.
However compare where we were 10 years ago with where you guys were then, and look at you now. Nobody would have believed that we'd become the rabble, lol.
Working on a better version once I get my mouse