TripleThreat wrote:
Trading for Zinger was a good market based decision for Dallas. It might not work out. But the resource management logic behind the deal and extension adds up. It would be the same for the Knicks in a Mirror Test. It would be a good market based decision but still carry the risk that it might not work out. Something to consider is Dallas could have retraded Zinger after the extension. Not right away, but soon enough to get more value for him than they paid for him. The extension is a push / pull, it can turn into a cap anchor, but it also negates any of Zingers leverage to control his trade destiny.
The goal is to create opportunity against the existing marketplace, not absolute results.
I do not dispute that, in fact, I also hated the trade when it happened. What did I think would have been a fair return for KP? I had visions and schemes of a package for AD + Jrue or something like that, so I was clearly disappointed by what we got at the end. But there are visions without knowledge of the full facts, and then there is reality that hits sooner or later.
At the time the cap space for two max FAs in the summer was seen as real value. In the end we blew that value. Dallas also had more risk tolerance to buy a high-profile player while his value was eroded by an injury. We showed a lack of that type of risk appetite twice: first with KP, then with KD. Not in the least because we had taken chances on oft-injured players before, and that had blown up in our faces. So, the a Mirror Test is a good test, but not if the Mirror gives us clouded visions that had misled us in the past.
Where I am getting to: there are boneheaded trades that look boneheaded right at the time when they are made, and the Knicks, unfortunately, made a fair share of those. But I do not see the KP trade as one of them. There were simply too many unknowns at the time of that trade. Those unknows had to settle down before its outcome could be judged. The way things are settling now, it looks like we are losing. But imagine if Mills and Perry do not pull the trigger, the trade deadline goes by, KP does not return from injury that year, and we are saddled by his cap hold and THJr's contract over the summer, so also no KD/KI/KT. And then we spend the entire year guessing if he is worth re-signing, if he would stay, if his whole bar/rape antics should have been an obvious reason to ship his ass outta here. Not to mention that KP without Doncic, but with a "for sale" sign hanging from his neck, would have been a different (worse) player than the KP we have seen this year. I think Mills and Perry might have been run out of the town a lot sooner in that scenario. Maybe it would have been a good thing.
8/1/2020 1:07 AM