DuckIII wrote:Moreover, a team led by Coby and Ayo as its two main players is going to suck. It’s not an anti-tank move to keep them. At their age, quality, and contracts they are basically the two guys on the team at the absolute bottom of the “trade to rebuild” list.
They're both going to be UFAs in 2 years.
At that point, who knows what their contracts will look like as two years is a long time, but I will throw out two scenarios:
1: They continue with iterative improvements and also get lots of shots Coby is a 20/7 guy around 39% from 3 and Ayo is a 17/5/5 guy with good defense and a good 3. Neither are starts, but both are clear starting caliber players with possibly some room to grow still.
In this scenario, both guys probably get at least the 25% max.
2: They do not make improvements and in fact regress over time, and are maybe MLE type players that are best suited for playing 20 minutes off the bench. At this point, they are not really relevant to our plan.
In either of those scenarios, I would trade them for decent first round picks right now to foster a rebuild starting in 2+ years. I'd be looking for 1sts that have a shot at being in the lottery (even if protected from the top 5 or so) and seem highly likely to be in the top 20. Maybe two slightly worse picks vs 1 better pick depending.
If the offer is what you say (late 1st for Coby and a couple 2nd for Ayo), then I'd hang on to them. I think the offer would be closer to what I just said though. If I'm SA, I would consider giving the Bulls back their 2025 pick and maybe a lotto protected 1st to pair Coby with Wemby (unless a different team would give me a better player for the same deal). That said, who knows, you might be right, I might be wrong in terms of offers.
I don't view either as "critical" to trade in a rebuild, but they aren't at the bottom, because their contract situation is going to stink in 2 years, and we aren't going to be any good the next 2 years. They are unlikely to be meaningful assets on their next deals for a rebuilding team, and it's hard to imagine any scenario we aren't a rebuilding team in 2 years.
Obviously if you can get anything for Vuc or DeMar or Zach in a rebuild scenario you should do it, but you probably have to pay to get Vuc off the roster (that obviously does not help a rebuild), you might have to pay to get Zach off the roster (would not help the rebuild), and trading DeMar would only be a S&T and thus unlikely to bring back anything meaningful (which would also not help the rebuild except perhaps making you worse to get a better pick of your own).
No one else has a long enough deal or enough value to warrant discussing in a trade except Caruso, whom probably is by far the most obvious trade candidate in a rebuild scenario, but Coby / Ayo are probably the next two best candidates if you actually want to rebuild and realize you're going to need two gap years.
That said, all moot, as we aren't going to rebuild.
