During Tyrese Haliburton's HoF speech, will we look at the Kings trade as one of the biggest blunders of all time?

[ChipotleWest]

If I was a King’s fan, not drafting Doncic would bother me more.

Thank you, Sabonis is pretty good and they're a playoff team. They passed up Luka for Marvin Bagley III who's on his third team already.

Suns also passed up on Luka. Could have had Booker/Luka, and maybe someone else joins them dunno if it would be KD or not. They drafted Ayton who's also no longer a Sun.

And they are all playoff teams last few years.


How is one team more advantaged than the others?

Difference between playoff team and winning it all possibly.

With the right roster around them, Luka/Booker might have won multiple championships.

[jkvonny]

Thank you, Sabonis is pretty good and they're a playoff team. They passed up Luka for Marvin Bagley III who's on his third team already.

Suns also passed up on Luka. Could have had Booker/Luka, and maybe someone else joins them dunno if it would be KD or not. They drafted Ayton who's also no longer a Sun.

And they are all playoff teams last few years.


How is one team more advantaged than the others?

Difference between playoff team and winning it all possibly.

With the right roster around them, Luka/Booker might have won multiple championships.

True. And they all have that title winning possibility as well. This season, next season, few years down the road.

Time will tell.

[BoogieTime]

Domas has not made more of an impact, he was simply on a better team.

Also, Haliburton is now a two time All-Star in his two full seasons in Indiana, including a starter in the All-Star game.

The Pacers were also on track to finish 5th last season in the East before Haliburton got injured and they decided to tank. Having THAT team 5th in the standings is wild when you see he was playing with rookies and career role players. The impact is absolutely there.

What would the Pacers be this year in the west and playing western teams?

Domas has made more of an impact on the court until now, two seasons in.

We can say its due to injuries, but maybe Tyrese is more injury prone than Domas, which could affect how the trade is looked at down the road. Who knows.

But we need to wait until Tyrese actually provides more value on the court before calling it a huge misstep

I mean, bringing up his injury history is fair, I understand that.

Saying he needs to provide more value while playing is ignorant though. I can’t even see a reasonable debate to argue he doesn’t provide an absurd amount of value.

Take a poll of which player people would rather have, and the poll would be insanely one sided in Haliburton’s favor. If you prefer Domas, that is fine too, but to argue Haliburton needs to provide more on court value is WILD.

What don’t you understand about what I wrote?

The Kings are better on the court these last two seasons for having Domas than the Pacers are for having Hali, IMO and in the opinion of some others

Whether or not the Pacers won on value or what the future projects, it’s hard to say the Kings got reamed so far in to the trade until Hali supersedes the value on the court.

He might not due to injuries, career stagnation. Or whatever

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

What would the Pacers be this year in the west and playing western teams?

Domas has made more of an impact on the court until now, two seasons in.

We can say its due to injuries, but maybe Tyrese is more injury prone than Domas, which could affect how the trade is looked at down the road. Who knows.

But we need to wait until Tyrese actually provides more value on the court before calling it a huge misstep

I mean, bringing up his injury history is fair, I understand that.

Saying he needs to provide more value while playing is ignorant though. I can’t even see a reasonable debate to argue he doesn’t provide an absurd amount of value.

Take a poll of which player people would rather have, and the poll would be insanely one sided in Haliburton’s favor. If you prefer Domas, that is fine too, but to argue Haliburton needs to provide more on court value is WILD.

What don’t you understand about what I wrote?

The Kings are better on the court these last two seasons for having Domas than the Pacers are for having Hali, IMO and in the opinion of some others

Whether or not the Pacers won on value or what the future projects, it’s hard to say the Kings got reamed so far in to the trade until Hali supersedes the value on the court.

He might not due to injuries, career stagnation. Or whatever

I understand what you are arguing, its just silly to me.

I'm saying, you're using the teams talent as the barometer and ignoring the individual talent.

Fox is significantly better than anyone Haliburton has played with in Indiana. The difference between having a second star next to you vs not having that is massive. How can you not see that?

"Well this team is better so clearly they won the trade." Or....they just have a much better team of players to work with?

[Handlez]

Sabonis is great.

What has Haliburton done?

[sackings916]

If I was a King’s fan, not drafting Doncic would bother me more.

it's just a clear reminder that even though the Kings are winning now, they're still losing

How’d it feel last season to make a post about how the Kings were missing the playoffs 7 games into the season. That’s what this post is about

[sackings916]

viewtopic.php?t=2238022

Think this post resulted in some real psychological effects on you bud

[Fencer reregistered]

Trade where both teams obviously win, and this the one you pick? Bucks traded Dirk Nowitzki on draft day for trackor Taylor, but ok.

Robert Parish and the pick used on Kevin McHale for the pick used on Joe Barry Carroll (plus the pick used on somebody we've all forgotten).

The pick used on Markelle Fultz for the pick used on Jayson Tatum (plus the pick used on Romeo Langford).

[jkvonny]

viewtopic.php?t=2238022

Think this post resulted in some real psychological effects on you bud

Oh dang lol

[SpreeS]

Wtf is this?

Sabas will finish as TOP5 player in Trp-Dbl in NBA history. With Siakam on the board, Hali a little bit lost in last games:

13G .464/.361/.765 2.6r 9.3a 16.2pts

Sabas in second half of season shows Jokic numbers:

27G .647/.519/.738 14.6r 9.7a 20.4pts

SAC is playing in stronger conf and has better record. Also Sabas is way healthier than Hali. SAC reached PO with Sabas after 16 years and has 46W per 82RS record on avg. What did Hali for Pacers? Where would be Pacers in WC? At the moment they are only better than CHI and ATL...Yea but Hali has great ast numbers...blunders of all time...

[Wingy]

Let’s pump the brakes. His team is in 8th place in the weaker conference.

[The Master]

This Haliburton's situation is pretty overrated in such discussions.

Yes, Kings traded player ultimately superior to Fox for a player ultimately inferior to Haliburton (Sabonis).

That being said, they drafted pretty low (12th pick) a player purely for his talent, not for his fit, so they still got

1) fantastic value for 12th pick (legit all-star in Sabonis)
2) much better value than teams drafting in 2020 with 7-11th picks (Haliburton was near 7-8th pick in many mock drafts and yet slipped to the end of lottery)
3) top3-top5 value in that year's NBA draft

Long story short, they still did pretty well in this whole situation. Yeah, it could've been better (although Fox was already a 25ppg scorer, so timing was awful for them and it's unrealistic evaluation that they could've moved Fox instead), but eg. Spurs went for Devin Vassell because they had Dejounte Murray and Pistons drafted Killian Hayes - and like I said, Haliburton was in this 7th-10th range in mock drafts, so getting Sabonis at the end of the day was still a great value objectively.

Bagley with a 2nd pick in pretty stacked draft is what makes Kings borderline 50W team without bigger upside, and that's their go-to-blunder.

[Bleed-Green]

Kings proceeding to 3 peat is far more likely scenario than this, lmao. They are doing better in tougher conference and their core still has lot of years ahead of them.

I'm not saying that Pacers core is bad, but once they pay Siakam and Hali's contract kicks in, their salary cap will be absolutely screwed. You just can't win championship with 1 2nd tier and 2 3rd tier stars as your core.

[Calvin Klein]

Dude, this is not even in the same universe as passing on Luka for either Ayton or Bagley.

[Roscoe Sheed]

This Haliburton's situation is pretty overrated in such discussions.

Yes, Kings traded player ultimately superior to Fox for a player ultimately inferior to Haliburton (Sabonis).

That being said, they drafted pretty low (12th pick) a player purely for his talent, not for his fit, so they still got

1) fantastic value for 12th pick (legit all-star in Sabonis)
2) much better value than teams drafting in 2020 with 7-11th picks (Haliburton was near 7-8th pick in many mock drafts and yet slipped to the end of lottery)
3) top3-top5 value in that year's NBA draft

Long story short, they still did pretty well in this whole situation. Yeah, it could've been better (although Fox was already a 25ppg scorer, so timing was awful for them and it's unrealistic evaluation that they could've moved Fox instead), but eg. Spurs went for Devin Vassell because they had Dejounte Murray and Pistons drafted Killian Hayes - and like I said, Haliburton was in this 7th-10th range in mock drafts, so getting Sabonis at the end of the day was still a great value objectively.

Bagley with a 2nd pick in pretty stacked draft is what makes Kings borderline 50W team without bigger upside, and that's their go-to-blunder.

I actually think that Fox is a better player than Halliburton and I don't think they even lost the trade because Sabonis has been so good for them and provides more balance in terms of guard and big man talent. The premise of this thread is all flawed.

[DAWill1128]

Sabonis is having a good season 20ppg, 13rpg, 8apg, 63% from FG.

The Kings use Fox and Sabonis in the pick n roll with spread spot up shooters. It was the #1 offense in the NBA last year. Sabonis is an absolute truck getting downhill with soft touch and great floor vision, Fox is blistering fast getting to the hoop. It’s an example of getting guys that fit together in a system designed to play up strengths.

Have a hard time imagining Fox-Haliburton ever having that type of floor chemistry. Even so the roster was imbalanced.

The Warriors had to trade Ellis to let Curry flourish and also just to balance the roster with Bogut. It’s kind of the same thing.

The Kings to me have kind of worked themselves into a situation where they are stable and pretty good. But the ceiling depends on Murray’s development. If Murray can get to that next step they will be in the mix for a while.

[SkyBill40]

During that speech, he'd be smart to reflect on what could have been: The Suns taking him and helping turn a franchise around but instead chose to take Jalen Smith, who just happens to be a current teammate, instead. Smith turned out to be a huge miss for PHX and should have cost James Jones his job.

[hardenASG13]

I think Haliburton and Sengun are the 2 most over rated players on this board. Both very good players, but I don't see either of them as potential number 1s on a title caliber team.

In the case of this thread/Haliburton, is he even better than Sabonis? They are both borderline all stars, and the Kings have another one of those who happens to play the same position as Haliburton. I haven't seen Haliburton accomplish much of anything, ever, and think his supporting cast is greatly underrated, while his assist numbers are inflated by the style that they play. I wouldn't write that hall of fame acceptance speech quite yet for him. If he's all that, they should be expected to win a playoff series or 2 this year considering the talent on the Indy roster.

[Duke4life831]

I’ve never got the overreaction to this trade from the beginning and still don’t understand it. Hell I’d rather have Sabonis over Haliburton straight up right now.

[sackings916]

Imagine this, it's the year 2040. Tyrese Haliburton retired in 2036. He retired leading the Pacers all time in 3 pointers made above Reggie Miller, he demolished the Pacers all time assists record by an unreal margin. He's managed to get Indiana one championship. He has 6 assist titles, finished top 3 in MVP twice including a runner up, has made 6 All NBA 1st teams and 10 total All NBA selections. He is a lock for the greatest Pacer.

As Tyrese gets on the stage for his indictment ceremony The Athletic quietly releases an article "The most underrated trade in NBA history, how the Pacers turned Paul George into their greatest franchise player of all time" In this article it details the story of Haliburton, how the Pacers wound up with Sabonis, how Sabonis completely revitalized his career to become an All NBA 3rd team level player, how the Kings broke their historic streak of missing the playoffs with Sabonis, how the Kings had an era of 1st round exists during the Sabonis years, the inevitable firing of Mike Brown, the forced hiring of Doc Rivers which ultimately led to the best Kings season followed by a heart breaking 3-1 loss in the second round to the dynasty Clippers.

The article talks about how the Kings went all in on a poor 3 point shooting athletic guard after witnessing a history of franchises ruined by the likes of John Wall, Derrick Rose, etc. how they never managed to get it together defensively, how Sabonis turned into a liability for their team in the playoffs with less offensive upside compared to Jokic which in some ways made this era of Kings the equivalent to the Dame and CJ Trailblazers when the Warriors were winning.

And then there comes the praise of Haliburton. How he has surpassed CP3 easily for one of the greatest point guards of all time, how he's up there with Zeke, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West for one of the all time greats behind Curry/Magic. How he completely saved the city of Indianapolis and it's championship drought and became the face of all their sports and a face of North American basketball. How he was a crucial floor general that knocked out a legendary France team in the Olympics en route to a gold model win. A France team headlined by multiple DPOY Rudy Gobert, multiple MVP and NBA champion Joel Embiid, and multiple MVP AND NBA Champion Victor Wembanyama, and Haliburton led a rag tag group of tiny guards out hustle and speed past the size of France coached by the legendary Erik Spoelstra.

All of this was created when the Kings decided to go all in on the guy that was harder to trade at the time, DeAaron Fox. A FO that was so desperate for a crumb of success they were willing to take a shortcut to bootsrap their franchise to at the bare minimum a treadmill state. What came to follow was greater than anyone could have expected, and yet the signs were there during Tyrese's tenure in a Kings uniform for those that were paying attention and boy were the Pacers paying attention.

Another season, another premature thread on the Kings, and another backfire. Womp womp womp