MrSparkle wrote:Dan Z wrote:HomoSapien wrote:I really liked Gafford. I thought we should've kept him. All that said, the trade at that moment, wasn't a "bad" deal. We netted Troy Brown who at the time was a recent 15th overall pick, Daniel Theis who was considered to be instrumental to Boston's premier defense, and JaVonte Green who I feel was more of a throw-in but ended up becoming a rotation player.
It became a bad trade when we gave up on Theis so quickly, despite him playing well for us and providing something that no one else on the roster really provides. If we had committed to him as a role player, I think this trade ages better.
Did AK even want to re-sign Theis? I can't remember if he said anything about that. It seemed odd to trade for him and let him walk. Was part of that to avoid paying the luxury tax?
Not sure, but I think they originally wanted to S&T Theis for Caruso so they could use their MLE on another guy, but then there were limits to how many S&Ts they could execute over the cap (and Rockets paid less salary for Theis anyway), the Demar trade came up, so they ended up trading Theis for the TPE (which they of course never used), and signed Caruso with the MLE. Might've mixed the order up. That was a creative off-season, but had Reinsdorf been willing to pay the tax, it could've been much better (pay Lauri's asking price and sort the rotations later, spend the MLE/TPE on another forward, using the bird rights on Theis, etc.). Reinsdorf of course drew the line at adding too much guaranteed salary. They also probably had a choice of DJJ vs. Nance Jr. but went for the marginal savings and less guaranteed salary. I mean , honestly, we're all conditioned to think frugally due to Reinsdorf, but any normal new-age owner would've just paid the top dollar to keep all the talent, hedge whatever moves they made.
I also think Billy and Arturas concluded they'll never run big lineups again, after the dismal post-deadline performance, as the team transformed from small ball to big ball (Thad/Vuc/Theis/Lauri rotation) to hyper small ball (DJJ and PW at C). This has backfired, if we may all agree to an extent. I mean, there's small ball (playing an athletic SF at PF), but then there's stupid ball (playing a front-court of Demar/Caruso/Vuc for huge minutes, out of necessity, where you give up standing reach and athleticism at all 3 positions in the paint).
Lonzo, Pat and Zach's injuries aside, there have been SO MANY other issues to write about (at a basic level, team chemistry and low ceiling once things clicked), 4 years in, it's now impossible to feel sorry for Arturas and Reinsdorf.
It makes me question AK's ability to plan for the future. He should've kept all these things in mind when making moves (ownerships budget limits, Theis being a FA, etc.).
