I’m not crying over the overpay or anything, Mikal is a dynamite player and I love rooting for him. It’s more about Leon’s negotiation skills than anything else. I feel very strongly that Leon negotiated against himself. No one else was paying that for Mikal. Even drawing the line at 4 picks would have made a big difference, and no one was matching that.

Even giving 5 picks but not letting Brooklyn insist on the 5 best picks would have made a huge difference. Give them the two ‘24 picks, the Bucks ‘25, & our ‘26 & ‘28, for instance, and I’d probably have liked the trade.

Aren’t we looking for a player like Mitch?

Dingdingding! Especially with OG out for awhile. My dream is that OG misses a month or six weeks, Mitch is back in that time, and we have a few weeks for them to get some chemistry and Thibs to see what he has. And for KAT to heal and no one else to get hurt. We’d lose more games but be very tough in the playoffs.

Trade works for LA mostly in terms of box office, but especially if the Lakers aren’t done yet. Next move?

I mean, sure, Strat! But until we do, you have to look at it objectively and question whether he was worth what was paid for him, especially when it comes to opportunity cost.

You know my feeling about that.

I think early in a rebuild you should focus primarily on value oriented transactions (winning the trades 😉) trying to secure enough assets and cap flexibility to get the tough parts of the rebuild which are typically the #1 and #2 options. But once you reach a certain point, imo you are trying to secure the best possible player at each position even if you have to overpay. So I was fine with paying OG too much money and giving up more picks than ideal for Bridges, especially because without Bridges contract, I don’t see how we get Towns who is obviously a way better #2 than we had with Randle. I think we have an excellent starting 5. We’ve done the heavy lifting and will now start focusing on upgrading and deepening the bench. In the mean time, this team is damn good when healthy.

I mean, sure, Strat! But until we do, you have to look at it objectively and question whether he was worth what was paid for him, especially when it comes to opportunity cost.

We probably couldn’t have gotten Luka for those picks, but the larget point is that Luka could be had at a much lower price than anyone expected. Same with KAT.

The market has shifted. Supermaxes are going to be more and more limiting unless the CBA is dramatically altered. The best capital for making moves has shifted towards unprotected draft picks and matching salary. Hardly anyone is hoarding cap space anymore. As I said before, it’s not just the price we paid for Mikal, it’s how little was left after the trade. Unless you are relatively confident that the player is the last missing piece to the puzzle, you make that kind of deal when you have surplus picks left.

I’m not crying over the overpay or anything, Mikal is a dynamite player and I love rooting for him. It’s more about Leon’s negotiation skills than anything else. I feel very strongly that Leon negotiated against himself. No one else was paying that for Mikal. Even drawing the line at 4 picks would have made a big difference, and no one was matching that.

Sacramento did about as good as they could hope.

I don’t really get this for SA. I like Fox but he’s already 27 and is good to very good but not great.

Still, there’s no question we paid WAAAAAY too much for Mikal. He’s not gonna be cheap forever.

If they all stay healthy and we manage to win a title over the next 3-4 years he’ll look like a bargain. (I can still dream)

I’m a little worried about Towns for the rest of this season. He hasn’t looked like himself and I don’t understand enough about the injury to understand how much pain he’s in now or will be in a few weeks. Will it get better or stay the same? My guess is he has surgery at the end of the season. I asked a sports medicine doctor about it and he said the recovery from that surgery would probably be fairly quick. But I guess they decided that he play through it instead of being out for a couple of months.

Mediocrity incarnate has been revived.