TripleThreat wrote:BRIGGS wrote:
I’m sticking with Duarte —- I hope the Knicks promised him and if I was higher in draft wouod still take him up to about 10 or so.
The trick ( and complication ) of trading up or down across a large section of draft slots is practical trades usually only happen against the next tier.
For example, if the Knicks had the 10th overall, trading back to 25th overall, where Duarte might fall, is really difficult. The Knicks have to justify this move and it's hard to do that, moving back 15 slots. Also the team moving up has to trade volume, and most teams don't have that kind of volume to surrender and still build a functional team.
Thus what makes practical sense, but is hard to do is
1) Trade 10th for the 15th plus some other assets
2) Trade 15th for the 20th plus some other assets
3) Trade the 20th for the 25th plus some other assets
It's easier to bridge 15 slots with three DIFFERENT teams instead of just one team. But the problem is not that many teams actually want to trade up or down in any given draft. Plenty of teams will talk about it, because it's due diligence, but few will pull the trigger on it.
Think about the massive complexity to set up three "trigger trades" on the same night. This would require three other teams to want to move up but also that the players that they want to fall to them in those new slot. That's an insanely difficult amount of luck, timing and effort. So you need to talk to the GM of the other team, but he has to coordinate with his owner and analytics team and cap guru as an entire front office. You need like 50 people total to be in lock step to make something like this work.
So on Duarte. He might be there at 32. Probably not. If he's not, you grab higher upside guys at 19 and 21. Or if your guys are all off the board by 21, you can try to trade back to 25-28. But again, you need a team willing to do that.
The idea of trading up and down is just random filler pushed by sports writers who have to write something to make a living. It's way more complex than anyone at ESPN is going to talk about. Then again, most of the guys at ESPN are idiots. Actually trading up or down is very rare and very hard.
I like Duarte as a fan of the game. But is he going to be worth that kind of effort and time when the Knicks could focus their energy else where?
There's literally nothing wrong with 19/21/32/58 as constructed. Why do the Knicks "need" to do anything? They can get good players at all those slots.
Knicks picked Knox in part because the front office needed to be smarter than everyone else.
Knicks picked Toppin for who the **** knows why but they got cute when it's perfectly OK to go basic and simple ( get a projectible high floor guy like Vassell)
The Knicks should move on a deal if they are approached with a sweetheart/Godfather offer. By virtue of having lots of cap space, other teams will have to come to them. So let other teams come to them and if they can't find a Godfather offer, then their current situation is still pretty good.
