This is the one year where trading down and extracting future assets from Lotto-bound teams like Suns, Cavs and Bulls would be a very smart thing for us to do..... Not much of a difference between 4th and 5th pick or 4th or 6th or 4th and 7th...so who's going to call us and give us what we want?
Magic said Zo's first call when things went sideways with business manager was Bron and Bron has been a good mentor to him. I question a lot of how Bron operates, but he knows business. A hell of a lot more than anyone else Zo associates with. Much better advice giver than anyone in a 10 mile radius of the Baller brand
Plus he knows how to make others take the blame for his shortcomings; which is an undervalued trait to have.
This isnt the NFL. You do not trade down in the NBA. Every draft in the NBA is top heavy with sprinklers of good the rest of the way, that's it. There has not been a team that has won a title in the last 40 years that didn't have at least one top 5 pick on the team. Not one. Top 5 picks in the NBA draft are sacred selections.
The first Warriors title, unless you are saying Bogut was the difference maker in that. Every team that has won a title has had a collection of talent, mostly a generational talent (who usually go #1) But I agree with you, most of the time you don’t trade down.
Bogut was a difference maker on that team. And him getting hurt in the 2016 Finals cost the Warriors the title more than Draymond getting suspended. Cavs couldnt get the basket comfortably while he was playing and it seemed he always had 2 or 3 blocks in the first quarter.
or math. top 5 picks tend not to wash out, meaning they're overrepresented in the general pool of players. with 15 on a roster, statistically speaking, it's hard not to have a top-5 pick, i'd think. now, if you're saying your own top five pick, that's a more interesting case. but take the case of the 2011 mavs: there were two #2 overall picks (chandler and kidd), but both were well past their prime. further, i'd say it's not top-5. really, it's 1st overall picks that are worth their weight in gold, and even those are only sure things every 4-5 years! the dominant teams have had these guys (TD, shaq, lebron). kd is an odd outlier due to oden's hype/injury. so...i'd trade down unless i had #1.
every situation is different, trading up fails too....garry harris/jusurf nurkic trade for doug mcdourmet, chi initiated that trade up
Chandler's defense was irreplaceable in 2011 for the Mavericks. He won DOPY a year later in New York. He was in his prime still.
