I think there remains an outside shot of us trading up to no.2 since the Lakers need a PG as much as a C. But there is so much hype surrounding Okafor/Towns that I'd suspect we'd need to find more valuable assets outside of THJr, Cole Aldrich and Cleanthony Early to make it happen.
More likely than not, we should trade down. I now believe that it's in our better interest to put an emphasis on acquiring a quantity of assets as opposed to focusing on quality. I'd accomplish that by making a succession of incremental trades that moves us further into the draft and also gives us an additional pick.
First, I'd trade our 4th pick (Mudiay), THJr and Calderon to the Kings for their 6th pick and Nik Stauskaus. George Karl intends to run a high octane offense and a guy like Mudiay could be a star in that kind of system.
Second, I'd trade the 6th pick to the Heat for their 10th pick, 40th pick and Shabazz Napier. If mock drafts remain consistent, Winslow will be available with the pick who is a Riley type player.
Third, I'd trade the 10th pick to the Celtics for Gerald Wallace, their 16th, 28th, 33rd pick and a favorable future first. Word on the street is that the Celtics desperately want to move up to select Willie Cauley Stein, who should definitely be available at 10. At 16, I'd look to select the better prospect of either Bobby Portis or Jerian Grant. With the 28th, 33rd and 40th picks, I'd look to trade up to get a pick for the lesser prospect of either Grant or Portis. I definitely think that the Mavs at 21 would be a potential trade partner since they'll be looking to maximize their cap space this offseason, which this trade allows them to do. Remember that you don't need to pay 2nd round picks and the 28th pick barely makes $1 million.
So in effect, we'd walk away with Jerian Grant, Bobby Portis, Shabazz Napier, Nik Stauskaus and a future first round pick from the Celtics for the 4th pick. I could live with that even though there'd be no stars in that bunch. All 4 could be pretty good bench players and are cheap enough to allow us to use our cap space entirely on signing players for our starting lineup though I'd be inclined to leverage some of it on the impending OKC firesale of Mitch McGary, Perry Jones III, Jeremy Lamb, Dion Waiters and Steve Novak. With some 2nd round picks sprinkled in on their part, we could field a similar team to the one the Celtics featured in the playoffs.
5/20/2015 11:29 AM