Cuban has done a lot of stupid things, but there are some limits to it.
The parameters were that the pick would be traded before the lottery. You can't know if it's 1 or 7 at that point. Besides, Cuban would never allow a deal for Luka that has an 86% chance of not being the Wemby pick.
Cuban has done a lot of stupid things, but there are some limits to it.
Doncic is a negative Raptor defensive player, -0.5
Doncic has a better defensive Raptor than lesser offensive players Stephen Curry -0.7, Donovan Mitc , -1.0, and Jayson Tatum, -0.7.
Doncic is the third highest net Raptor.
People love the unknown. We, for the most part, know what we have with Keldon. Maybe there is an X% chance Keldon becomes an all-star, but there is a Y% chance that Unknown Player becomes one! And Y will almost only be > X because most people will always over start the unknown possibilities. A smart team could really take advantage of this tendency by taking the bird in hand (the established player) over the unknown. I feel like Boston did a great job of this with the Derrick trade. Derrick is so much better of a player than any 25th pick is likely to be, and he perfectly fit their timeline while he no longer fit the Spurs. Such a smart trade by them. (Note, that doesn't mean it was a bad trade for the Spurs either. Really this one was a win-win).
I hoping once we have turned the corner we can look to leverage our warchest of picks in a similar way.
In a heartbeat. Even if you WOULD NOT trade Wemby for Luka (which is debatable), your EV of the pick is #4. You're basically asking if you would trade Amen/Cam/Ausar for Luka. Anyone in their right mind should say yes to this in record time.
I wouldn't make the trade. I would take the gamble on getting Wemby and if not build through other players.
I don't like the idea of having luka as the best player on the team.
It would be like trading the pick that could become Tim Duncan for Chris Webber, a young, established one way star. I wonder what the EV for the Duncan pick was?
That becomes a matter of not liking Luka then. Pick another All NBA First Teamer and ask the same question. This is an easy yes. A 14% gamble on Wemby is not the smart play.
You have a shot( the best odds possible even if small) at a franchise player like Wemby who doesn't come around every year you don't give that up for a player like Luka.
I can't find a definiative odds table for the way the lotto was structured in 1997 - if you have one we can certainly calculate out the EV of that pick.
Luka is already a 3x All NBA 1st Teamer and this year an All NBA 2nd Teamer in the worst season of his career in terms of team performance relative to expectations. After Chris Webber's 5th season, he had yet to make an All NBA Team and had made only one All-Star Team. He was also a year older when he entered the NBA.
Anfernee Hardaway or Grant Hill are probably more analogous comparisons, though neither were as accomplished as Luka by the 1997 draft (they hadn't been in the league as long as Luka has at this point either).
But let's use Grant Hill. Would you trade a 14% chance at Tim Duncan for a 100% sure thing in Grant Hill? Maybe you wouldn't. Now what there was a 33% chance that Tim Duncan was Greg Oden instead? And maybe it's a 33% chance he's Yao Ming? So now you're really trading only a 4.67% chance at Tim Duncan for the sure thing in Grant Hill.
It's easy to look in hindsight and say you want the chance at the Greatest PF of all time. But we don't actually know that Wemby will become that. We would be ecstatic if at year 5 Wemby was a 3x All NBA 1st Teamer and 1x All NBA 2nd Teamer! But the odds of that are somewhere above 0% and less than 100% - we don't actually know. We do know, however that Luka is 100% that.
It's a gamble, and there is no right or wrong way to approach it. But I'm going with the data and making this trade 10 times out of 10. If my pick turns into #1 and Wemby turns into Jordan/Lebron... yeah, I might kick myself, but that doesn't mean our decision making was wrong. It's like calling someone going all-in with 7-2 while we have pocket aces. Sometimes, we're still going to lose. That doesn't mean we made the wrong choice.
"A player like Luka"... you mean a 3x All NBA First Teamer and 1x All NBA Second Teamer? I realize Luka probably doesn't pass your weird criteria for athleticism, but he is a franchise player. There is a greater than 0% chance that Wemby does not become what Luka already is.
This one is an easy trade to make. Is Cuban offering it? Let's do it.
The decision becomes a lot harder after you know you have the #1 pick, and I can see both sides to that argument. But at the point, you're just rolling the dice on the probability that Wemby surpasses Luka.
is he as good as Shaedon Sharpe though?
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