We just lost significant value in trading OBI…you can’t keep losing trades like that and hope to improve the team.

It annoys me how the new CBA is causing a lot of these deals now. You know, the Celtics trading a rotation piece for nothing, the Knicks trading Obi for nothing, the Suns trading Cam Payne for nothing, etc.

I would like to see a healthy competition and continual churning regarding the 5 fringy spots (last 3 roster spots and 3 2-ways). In other words, I like that they are keeping a roster spot open for a prospect who shakes loose due to a numbers casualty.

If we’re going to become a yearly contender (this feels like a better framing of the pertinent question, as one could reasonably argue we were literally “a contender” this past season) I’m almost positive it won’t be with both of them on the roster.

The case for keeping Randle over RJ is about as simple as it gets. He’s had a handful of good, even great, NBA seasons and RJ has had zero.

The case for keeping RJ over Randle relies on a lot of projection, which doesn’t make it wrong. It just means that if we go this route we may well regret it if the optimistic projections don’t pan out.

The hang up is Randle doesn’t have trade value commensurate to his production, because teams don’t really like high-usage 4s and there are questions about his ability to scale down his role. So it’s not like we can trade him for some massive haul, even though players in his BPM range do in fact get traded for massive hauls all the time.

I dunno, to me all signs point to trading RJ if another team values him relatively highly. We don’t know if he’s good, he gets paid a lot, and even if he takes leaps in other areas his poor shooting will always force us to build lineups around him, something his production definitely doesn’t justify now and likely never will.

I don’t think it’s so much about him loving Randle as that he is more valuable on our roster in his role on his salary than he would be in a trade. I think the GMs in the league are well aware of his flaws, and while he has some plus trade value, it wouldn’t bring back enough to justify letting go of an all-star level player. We just lost significant value in trading OBI…you can’t keep losing trades like that and hope to improve the team.

Now if he has another solid season, maybe his value ticks up because his contract is that much shorter and that much further from the max.

Nate Knight is a lefty as well…