Would you rather a GM A) overvalue his players and miss out on deals because he thinks better ones could be had. B) Be quick to accept trades and sometimes lets his players go too cheaply. In the first situation, stuff like not trading Rudy for a first rounder can happen, then he leaves to Europe and the Blazers take a step back in talent. In the second situation, overall talent level will often take a dip also. I would much rather have situation A, since it will only occasionally result in talent loss, but B will be a continuous degradation of overall team talent.
Even the best GMs are guilty of "B" sometimes. Trades are not an exact science. OTOH, a GM who overvalues his players will screw the team up in multiple ways - eg Nash refusing to draft Paul or Williams because of Telfair.
B The reason being is that a GM quick to accept trades still isn't going to trade players like Roy, Oden and Aldridge too quickly. I think if you look at "supposed" deals that have been out there, would the team be better with Blake at point and Gerald Wallace at the 3? Supposedly he was available for RLEC and Batum. Or are we better with Miller and Batum? Would we be better with Paul at point? Coulda had him if Nash didn't overvalue Telfair.
We wouldn't have Oden, but we would probably still have Roy. That same trade could have been made if we had drafted Paul. Telfair and Ratliff to Boston got us #7, which got us #6. Portland still would have been a lottery team, so it might have ended up that we would have had Paul, Roy and someone like Gay. The following year we woul dnot have had the 1st pick, but still lottery bound IMO. At this point, Paul, Roy and Gay make us better than Roy, Aldridge and Oden. Then trading RLEC and Batum for Wallace who could play the 4 along with Joel and Camby. Solid team. Hindsight for sure though. Just saying, drafting Paul wouldn't have cost us the best player out of the 2006 draft like most people like to say.
I vote neither ... OK, OK, that's not the exercise. If forced to pick I guess I'd lean towards A); making no deals is probably better than making bad or ill-advised deals.
I'd rather have a GM who would trade his 3rd-string SG for a first round pick, if he was given the option.
No Oden, and no LMA, and very likely Z-BO would have been retained. Paul/Roy/Batum/ZBO/Cambyzilla. Not bad, is it?
It really depends on every unique scenario. If forced to pick, I'd go with A. Didn't we see the result of B in the Jailblazer era?
I think it has to be "A" most of the time but if your GM is never willing to go for "B" then thats not good. You have to take chances in life sometimes. If you are careful and sucessful with your "A" decisions then an occasional and properly timed "B" wont impact you so much.
