So I went looking into what it cost us to get the pick that netted us Damian Lillard (Spoiler: it was Gerald Wallace). But that has its own accounting, which is fun to look back on. In 2012, We traded Gerald Wallace to New Jersey for the corpse of Mehmet Okur's career, Shayne Williams's comatose career, and a first rounder that ended up being the #6 pick overall. Highway robbery in retrospect, but is it still if we account for how we got Gerald Wallace? We traded Dante Cunningham, Sean Marks, and Joel Przybilla, a 2011 first round pick, and a 2014 first round pick to Charlotte for Gerald "Someday I'll Turn Into Damian Lillard" Wallace. The 2011 pick turned into Tobias Harris, who is better than any player on our team not named Jusuf, CJ, or Damian. The 2014 first round pick turned into Shabazz Naipier. Shabazz, of course, is a Blazer now. Tobias Harris was a pick acquired by trading Jerryd Bayless, who was acquired by trading Jarrett Jack, Josh McRoberts, and Brandon Rush. Jarrett was a draft day trade too, one we paid for with Linus Kleiza and Ricky Sanchez. Linus Kleiza is where draft fans start face-palming. He's part of the trade that saw us trading the 2005 first round draft pick (Deron Williams) for Martell Webster, Linus, and Joel Freeland. Martell netted us Luke Babbitt and the pleasure of waving at Ryan Gomes as he drove by on his way elsewhere. We drafted Dante, and acquired Sean Marks and Joel Przybilla as free agents. So that's that, right? Well, not so fast. Dante's pick came in a trade we made with the Clippers for Mike Taylor. You remember Mike Taylor, right? He was drafted by us after we traded 2006 2nd Round draft pick James White for his pick, a 2007 2nd rounder that became Derek Byers (who, through alchemical processes, became Raymond Felton, then Robin Lopez, then finally nothing at all), and Alexander Johnson. I want to take a minute on Alexander Johnson, because it was he who was used in a trade to get the pick that became Joey Dorsey, who was traded to Houston for the pick that became Nic Batum. The same Nic Batum who was traded to Charlotte for Gerald Henderson and Noah Vonleh. Wait a second... that means the final accounting is... Gerald Wallace (acquired at the cost of): James White (31st pick, 2nd round, 2006) [Dante Cunningham, Derek Byers, Nic Batum] Sean Marks Joel Przybilla Tobias Harris (acquired at the cost of): Deron Williams Josh McRoberts Brandon Rush Shabazz Naipier [2014 1st round pick Shabazz Naipier] for Damian Lillard Noah Vonleh
Also, Deron Williams was the third pick in the 2005 draft (with Chris Paul still available); we traded that pick away for Webster and Jarret Jack.
Yeah I'm only looking at the crushed waveform of what the pick turned into; if we had the pick, our GM wouldn't have taken anyone good
Interesting historical note that almost everyone gets wrong: Obviously, it worked out well for the Blazers, but the trade for Gerald Henderson was also a good one for the Nets. They wanted a vet to show Deron Williams that they were seriously about building a playoff team so that he would re-sign with them. It worked, he signed a long term contract with them. Of course, you can debate the merits of their plan, but regardless, the trade made it work. At the time Williams was considered basically equivalent to Chris Paul. Unfortunately for the nets, Williams would slowly go down hill, and Wallace went down hill fast. Regardless, they got what they wanted. It was a good trade for the nets.
Crash didn't look great by the end of his time with the Blazers though; while it was a move to impress Deron, everyone here on a message board could see he was past his prime. It was an interesting move but even at the time it didn't feel like a particularly good one for them.
For part of that scenario....we didn't even have an official GM....Larry Miller and Chad Buchannan were President...and head scout if I remember right...Larry Miller didn't seem to enjoy that role at all and quickly went back to Nike....Buchannan went to work for Cho
