Having picks has won Richmond, Carlton, Melbourne and St.Kilda how many flags in the last 15 years?
When we're framing whether we overpaid in a trade or underpaid or got fair value it's not really about the draft and how those picks would have gone it's really a comparison with other trades.
I've seen it said a lot about the JOM trade that the draft is a lottery etc but that's a bit disingenuous.
Trading is a pretty unsophisticated market, we're not buying coffee beans, so every trade is unique as us each player and takes into account where both clubs are at that time.
The Brad Hill and TOM trades have been mentioned and in both cases it seemed like the price paid was unders comparatively to the general market. It's very curious why this happens, once Brad Hill was going we pretty much knew what we were getting and it was less than his value.
With TOM it seems Sydney took a similar view letting a price go for a steal that now looks like daylight robbery.
The same people that negotiated that trade on our side negotiated the JOM trade and the vendor in that case clearly felt they had far more leverage. I wonder how much we'd have paid for TOM had Sydney played hardball?
Brian Lake looked great value at the time whilst BB's price seemed excessive and Billy Longer would have been even more so.
When in a premiership window I think it makes sense to be prepared to overpay for specific targets, especially if the club believes that picks are over valued. But when rebuilding I can't help thinking that looking for good value against other trades is prudent and being able to walk away will pay greater dividends down the track than bending over backwards to get every trade done.
And back to the original point, would you not agree that the basis of our premiership sides were created through the draft with the later topping up only coming into play when that foundation was in place. Are we not the only premiers who actually bottomed out by trading players for picks and pulled it off?
Wright has never really had access to top picks I would be interested to see how he goes, he was hailed a genius for his use of later picks so I'm certainly curious to see if he can outperform his peers again.
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