Trade Talk: KD vs. Brooks, Green, etc.

This seems like a pretty square trade, though all things considered, I wouldn't be surprised if the Suns ultimately come out looking better than Houston.  Ideally, KD would solve the scoring issues within the Rockets' roster, which the world witnessed this past postseason.  Meanwhile, the Suns put themselves in a position to move forward post-Durant without being stuck in limbo or under pressure to win immediately.  They may be garbage next season, but they're not going to trash(?).  But if you were to force me, I would say in the grand scheme of things Phoenix got the best of the deal - even if not by a wide margin - for two main reasons:

KD IN PHOENIX HAS BEEN A DISASTER SINCE DAY ONE

This is the fault of the Suns' braintrust more so than Durant.  You have to remember that they had a really good team before bringing KD in, a good team in the OKC Thunder sense - well-rounded, balanced, with size and depth, not overstacked at a particular position and complete with an MVP candidate (that being CP3).  Remember that squad, pre-KD, actually made it to the Finals.

That compatibility was in large part due to the presence of CP3, perhaps the last true PG allowed to operate in the NBA.  When Phoenix acquired KD, Paul instantly became redundant.  Why?  Because even with all-time great PGs by his side, like Kyrie for instance, Kevin still insists on running point, at least based on what I've seen.

KD is kinda like an Allen Iverson.  If you have someone like him at the center of your offense, the other four guys should more or less be supporting players.  You know, it's kinda hard to get mad at KD for hogging the ball.  That's something Phoenix should have understood before not only putting him next to Booker but going even further to acquire Beal - all three of whom are used to being primary, allstar-level scorers and furthermore wings.

KD wasn't so much of a detrimental chuck when he won those championships with the Dubs, but they had already established themselves as champs beforehand, besides having Draymond "the Equalizer" Green.  Like why was Draymond compelled to bark on him like that to begin with?

ANOTHER FAN FAVORITE BETRAYED

The Rockets, going back decades, have always had what may be considered an above-average braintrust.  But remember that up until like last season, they spent some years in the garbage zone.  They had these promising players like Green, Porter Jr., Smith Jr. and even Sengun but couldn't make it work.  Then, came Dillon Brooks.

Players like Brooks and Draymond are, imo, the most valuable in the NBA in terms of their uniqueness.  There's a number of guys out there that can put up triple-doubles.  Lebron rarely plays defense, to the detriment of his team even, but because he can score, rebound and assist, you know, put up stats, you have pundits declaring him one of the players in the NBA.  But off the top of my head, I can only think of three players in the entire league who have displayed the ability to regularly galvanize an entire team with their defensive tenacity, with none of the triple-double guys being amongst them.

I'll admit that, against the Warriors this past postseason, Brooks looked like a nonfactor.  After watching the highlights, I even had to resort to box scores to make sure he played.  I thought dude was injured or some shit.  And it also seemed that Draymond took his heart and in doing so, definitively changed the tide of the series in the Dubs' favor.  You know, I talk shit, you talk shit, but at the end of the day only the one who wins is going to be justified.  Brooks is like a Draymond without a Steph.

I probably would have been more inclined to trade Fred VanVleet for KD, maybe.  Fred carried the team offensively during Round 1, and you would think Houston would reward him by letting him shoulder more of that responsibility throughout.  It's almost like acquiring Durant is a roundabout way of saying they don't believe in VanVleet, because it's difficult to see their styles meshing.  I'm expecting that now, maybe Fred will play more off the ball, like a 2.

As for Jalen Green, yeah, he more or less had to go.  Up until recently, he was arguably the star of the team, yet dude deadass got benched during crunchtime vs. the Dubs.  There's really no need keeping him around under those circumstances, you know, if he isn't developing, and I don't quite see how he's going to fit next to Booker either (presumably, he'll be coming off the bench).

Hopefully Jalen will wind up in Milwaukee, like Kevin.  That roster, with those old dogs upfront (i.e. if they keep Brooks), is better suited to accommodate young, erratic shooters.  With Dame hurt they need that kinda energy, though in a more constructive way.

Maybe the Bucks will end up with Booker instead?  But I can imagine both Porter Jr. and Green running wild next to Giannis, who more-fundamental style would be able to mitigate some of their shortcomings.  If Milwaukee is going to retain Giannis, all things considered (i.e. an injured Dame being on the books), they need to start thinking a little outside of the box.

SHOUTOUT TO JABARI SMITH JR.(?)

Reportedly, the one player Houston was most keen on trading for Durant was Jabari Smith.  You often hear pundits pointing out how beneficial it is for bigs to develop jumpers.  But what I've been pointing out, for years now, is that in doing so many of them neglect their main advantage, which is their size.

There are some exceptional shooting Cs, but generally speaking Gs remain better at the job.  If you allow dudes to take the easy way out, you know, hoisting up threes instead of posting up or driving, most of them will do it, even the biggest man on the court.

So what I'm envisioning is something like KD chuckin' as usual, and Jabari, instead of waiting under the basket for a rebound, rather opting to linger somewhere behind the three-point line, hoping for a pass.  Indeed, he's the one player on the roster who truly becomes expendable with the presence of Durant, because they have similar builds and to some extent playing styles, tho KD being like 1000x more effective.

It's rare that three-pointers get blocked anyway.  So you don't need to always have your tallest dude at the three-point line.  But I have to imagine that Smith, once again given his height (and agility), must also have some perimeter D value.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? (PHOENIX SUNS)

Speaking of above-average braintrusts, as noted the Suns have made their mistakes in recent years, but they're also known for perennially fielding competitive rosters, if nothing else at least on paper.  To be totally honest, I thought Beal + Booker + Durant + Nurkic, especially once they added Jones to the mix, was going to be akin to a contender.  Things didn't work out like, I would speculate, off the top of my head, the reason being that if you have three high-scoring wings, then you'd have to have a respectable pass-first PG to complement them, you know, distribute the ball, make sure everyone gets their shots, etc.

The thing tho is that in today's NBA, there really isn't anything like "a respectably pass-first PG" since every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to run point or chuck up threes at will.  And the coaches may sit around like 'yeah, our team prefer freestyle basketball', but at the end of the day, the players probably don't give two fucks what they have to say anyway.  It's like everyone is an Iverson these days.

Speaking of which, I'm now starting to feel sorry for Thibs.  I criticized him a lot in the past, but at least he, unless most of his peers, had a palpable coaching presence.  And it's also now blatantly obvious that whoever NYK replaces Thibs with isn't going to be nearly as good as he is.  You know what I mean?  AI coach.

Going back to the Suns, their current roster isn't half bad.  They'd definitely be a playoff team in the East.  Btu what I'm foreseeing is at some point, you know what I'm saying?

Booker is like their Kobe, the star they drafted who, even after a decade, is still with the team that picked him.  That kinda shit is a lot more common these days then some people realize.  But ultimately, they should have never disbanded the aforementioned squad from a couple of seasons ago.  Sometimes, you only get one chance type shit.

Alongside the likes of Ayton, CP3 and Bridges, Booker had a clearly-defined role that like didn't overlap any of his teammates.  He was unanimously the 2-guard, the go-to scorer.  Now, you have guys like Beal and Green alongside him.  I'm not saying any of them are higher in the pecking order than Devin.  But once again looking at OKC for instance, you see the value of having players who complement each other, rather than their skillsets overlapping.

That said, like Memphis and Houston before them, I do expect Phoenix to find value in Dillon Brooks.  He's the type of player that virtually any squad can use.  When you're in a field where dudes make million of dollars whether they win or lose, some extra fire is a good thing.  I'm even hoping to one day see Dillon next to Draymond, as a mentee, eventually becoming his Warriors' replacement once Green retires.  Draymond needs to stop scaring away potential teammates.  The Suns gave up a player who's cancerous in the locker room sense and replaced him with someone who's known to like uplift entire squads though, like Draymond, Dillon could also benefit sometimes from less aggressiveness.

CONCLUSION

The Rockets needed additional scoring this past offseason, the key word in that sentence being past, because you can't take for granted say, for instance, that if they make the Playoffs next season (which they probably will), they'd once again face the Dubs.  Fukaround and they find themselves against a team like the Thunder or Nuggets, and you find yourself asking would Brooks more beneficial in that scenario than KD?

As for the Suns, I would argue they got the better of this trade because, you know, they really-really needed to break up that Big 3, even if Durant hadn't request a trade.  Houston needed more scoring power, but did they really need that much more?  They probably could have packaged Green and Smith and got he type of scorer they needed, alongside VanVleet and Sengun, instead of, you know, going after one of the best in history.  But I can understand, to some extent, why they wanted to get rid of Brooks, once again considering this past postseason.  But how instrumental was he (and Green) to them finishing in 2nd place to begin with?

The Luck of the Draw

A couple of days ago, even before Cade Cunningham debuted and promptly proceeded to stink the place up, I began writing an article which in part touched on how rookies such as himself and Jalen Green are overrated.  And I don't mean that in a literal sense, like they will never become legitimate NBA stars.  But my argument is rather that the NBA has devolved into a league that for whatever reasons fans and even organizations seem to actually believe that a top-notch draftee is going to come in and instantly transform a garbage team into a competitive or even contending one.  Meanwhile, this belief has very little historical basis, even as far as number one picks go.  And as for the few rookies who did come in and instantly transform a plagued squad's fortunes, those tend to be some of the best basketball players in the history of the sport, not just the next hot thing coming out of college or high school or whatever.

In fact to my knowledge there is only one player who, as a rookie, led his team to the NBA Championship, as in being named MVP of the series.  But don't forget that Magic also had Kareem on his squad, who averaged a solid 33 points during the 1980 NBA Finals.  In other words the Lakers, who got to the Semifinals the year prior, wasn't a garbage team when they drafted Magic.  And the only reason they had the number-one pick was as the result of a deal they made with the Jazz a few years earlier.

Then there is Tim Duncan, who was named Finals MVP in 1999, i.e. his second season in the NBA. I remember watching one documentary where someone said something like 'Tim Duncan was the most unanimous number-one pick in NBA history'.  And in fact some people actually referred to the 1997 Draft as "the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes".  And even though the Spurs did in fact suck the season prior, they weren't a garbage team but rather had a roster that was decimated by injuries, most notably to the Admiral, who played in less than 10 games.  So it's sorta like they unintentionally tanked.

Another honorable mention is Shaq, who in the very least made the Magic a universal threat in his rookie season.  Also, buttressed by Penny, he led the squad to the NBA Finals in just his third year.  But of course they ended up getting their asses bust by the Rockets.

Another player I can think of who at least made his team must-watch during his rookie year was Allen Iverson.  Lebron took what had to be the most-mediocre team to ever make the NBA Finals to the big dance in just his fourth season.  And to note, AI also accomplished a comparable feat in his fifth season with the Sixers.  And again, all of the players mentioned above were number-one draft picks.

And I didn't forget Dwayne Wade who, as a fifth-overall pick, won Finals MVP in just his third season.  But as with Magic and the Lakers, that Heat team wasn't garbage either.  Oh yeah, Hakeem Olajuwon was another number-one pick who eventually won a couple of championships for the Rockets, but it took them a decade to do so.  Also the likes Jordan, who as a number-three pick did it in like six years, though not with the roster he met when he came to Chicago.  And please, in all due respect, don't even mention Kobe and the fact that the Lakers began their three-peat during his fourth season, as some may even argue that he wasn't the best player on the Lakers during his post-Shaq championships.

So basically, out of the last 40 years, only a handful number-one picks had managed to lead the team that drafted them (or usually any team for that matter) to the big dance.  Therefore, logic would dictate that perhaps we shouldn't expect too much out of them.  And if that's true for the top pick, then how much more for players like Jalen Green, who didn't even go number one?

 CONCLUSION

These days most of the top draft picks play only a year in college or wherever before coming to the NBA.  If not for that, many of them would be coming in straight out of high school, which would likely create an even bigger disaster in terms of questionable draft picks than we're currently facing.

I remember coming across an article a while back where some insider was saying that one of the drawbacks of the one-and-done system is that NBA scouts only have a very-limited time to familiarize themselves with prospects, which would at least partially explain why they seem to fuck up so often these days.  But that said, these aren't amateurs talking shit at a computer like myself.  These GMs and executive braintrusts are actually paid big money to make educated draft choices.  But instead, it seems like a lot of times they're just dickriding and going along with popular opinion.  You know, nobody wants to take the blame if a draft pick proves to be a bust.  So perhaps the safest thing to do is to just go along with the consensus, so that if the player doesn't work out then you can just be like 'well, I picked who anyone else would have under the circumstances' and put the onus of the blame on the player himself, which in a way is totally what these professionals are paid not to do.