Kind of a rare trade where each team got a great haul. Nets get 5 FRP plus a swap nearly all unprotected for a player rumored to be pushing his way to a single team. Not sure we've ever seen so many picks traded for anyone let alone a player that's never been an all-star. For NY this makes them a legit contender, clear top2 team in the East with Bridges being an iron man as well as a small salary next few years to have many other starters under the cap. If they win a title this is worth it 100x times and they have a real shot for the first time in probably 30 years.
Only question I have is if they can finalize the trade by June 30th? That will avoid them having 2nd apron hard cap and more flexibility to resign BOTH OG and Hartenstein.
I'm glad the Blazers have a decent haul of picks and possibly more if we ship out our vets. But I wonder what Dames prime would've looked like if Olshey had been able to do a move or two like this. Knicks surround Brunson in his 20s with OG at the trade deadline then Bridges the following summer. Meanwhile Olshey had LMA here when he was hired, lost him for nothing, then surround Dame with Aminu/Harkless/Turner/Collins/Bazemore/Tolliver/40 year old Melo as starting forwards. We just never really had a chance to see a Dame roster with quality starters.
I really like that NY team but they are still very Brunson dependent. Sure, Bridges can score some and Randle can as well - but they are still a team with only one guy they can trust to score every game, just tons of quality role players. I am still not seeing them taking down the Celtics if everyone is healthy.
I think Randle is more than a quality role player and he can be trusted to be a second scorer. That doesn't mean that they've leapfrogged everyone in the east including the Celtics though.
I don't know, every year Randle has these 2 months stretches where he is awful and then a 2 months stretch where he is great. You really can't trust him the way you trust a proper star, I think.
OG is better than Randle so I would try to dump Randle's contract to make sure I can re-sign OG and Hartenstein. Start Bridges and OG at forwards.
They don't need to trust Randle for an entire year. They were nearly in the ECF last season. If they get back there - then have 8 good games of play from Randle thats all they need to win a title.
They may not have as good a second offensive option as other teams, but they have much better 4-8 options. They don't have the offensive holes that most contenders have including Denver/Minnesota/Dallas. They have insane defense as well. The 2004 Pistons hardly needed to score when holding other teams under 80 pts. Boston is certainly the favorite but this NY squad could be extremely impressive. They have the depth to get the best regular season record. Might just come down to whatever team has the best health next playoffs is the favorite.
Would this make a Simons for Randle trade more or less likely? They now have more forward depth if they lose Randle, but probably have less of a need for an offensive guard. Duop would be a good 10th man center for NY on a very affordable contract. From Portlands end I'd much rather get picks/youth for Ant with a longer term goal. But if the Blazers want to try and win sooner, then an Ant for Randle swap makes positional sense from the Blazers end. I asked my Knicks friend about the swap last week and he said NY would need something added though.
Mikal doesn't even have to move! I'm confused about the Rockets portion of the trade. Why would Houston trade the Nets back their 1st next year for Phoenix's 1st? They could get a chance at drafting very high maybe even 1st next year. All for a small chance that Phoenix will give up after this season and trade them Boomer or Durant to get their pick back?
One would imagine they have intel that this is potentially something that can happen, be it because PHX is ready to accept that their move of 3 giant salaries does not work in the modern NBA or Durant is getting ready to request a trade again...
Love the deal for the Nets and can't blame the Knicks for making the deal, either. It's a shame we didn't get anything of that level for Dame, but five years and a massive contract extension can really make a difference I guess.
Given the quality of the picks, I would not be surprised if the Picks Portland got for Dame would actually be better. Most of the picks the Nets got will likely be late first round. I am a lot more excited about the Bucks 29 pick and 28/30 swaps than what I suspect NJ will get from these NY picks.
This was a great trade for Houston. If the Nets had their own picks they would push harder to win, so yes while it could move into top4 that is probably much less likely especially with such a strong draft and other teams trying much harder to tank. Houston ended up sending Brooklyn back one swap and one pick. They received two great picks back PLUS two swaps - so they doubled their picks/swaps. Those Phoenix picks might be super valuable - the team got swept in the playoffs, has little way to add talent, and these picks are in 3-5 years from now. Houston also has so many rookies and youth it makes sense for them to get picks/swap a few years further out than the 2025/2026 ones they had from Brooklyn. Now they can use those picks during a hard playoff/contending push a few years later when they have more of a need for rookies/cheaper salaries while they probably won't quite be at that level or that need the next few years. There is one last advantage for Houston, they are rumored to be interested in trading for Kevin Durant, and now they would have the most valuable picks in the league to send back to the Suns.
I'd actually say the pick swap was a poor return from Brooklyn - they clearly gave up more draft equity than they received back in a trade. This does avoid the embarrassment of another Tatum/Brown type of drafts where their picks go elsewhere. Yes they now can have an incentive to tank their own pick. But even with both those factors from a pure draft asset perspective they received less value than they gave up.
