I think that the trade for Wiseman was evidence of the FO’s investment in its pie-in-the-sky plan for Stewart to somehow “develop” into a power forward as if his poor mobility wasn’t inherently going to limit that. Even if he were to dump a lot of muscle, I think he’d still be slow – and he’d be sacrificing the benefit that his strength gives him at center.

The Wiseman trade was, I believe, a major manifestation of this FO’s runaway focus upon accumulating as much raw talent as possible no matter how state of the roster. I can only assume that the rush to trade Bey, a viable rotation shooter at power forward (a quantity of which this roster is currently short) was because Wiseman (a player whom Weaver had, frighteningly, had at #1 on his 2020 draft board) became available… never mind that they already had a project center in Bagley and that, counting Stewart, Wiseman would be the 4th center on the team.

Now Wiseman, with whom the hope was presumably that his terrible decision-making was the product of lack of seasoning, can’t even find minutes to test that hypothesis.

Really bad trade, by any definition.

I’m glad you enjoyed it!

Ausar at the 4 means a lot less shooting at PF, essentially just cuts two bigs out of the rotation (though I won’t miss either of them), and, though it means getting the regrettable offensive dead weight that is Isaiah (he’s just too slow to play PF) out of the starting lineup and into a position that he’s actually fit to play, the starting lineup is going to be operating at a disadvantage no matter what position he’s playing right now.

Ausar would also take a beating there, because he’s on the slight side at the moment and any team with bigger guys at the position would go out of their way to bully him wherever possible.

The other guy got downvoted, but he’s right: in the three games Livers has played this season, he’s been much more efficient than Burks and Sasser. He’s been very inefficient himself, of course, but they’ve been a good deal worse.

Today’s power forwards are shooters. Moving Ausar to power forward won’t make him being a non-shooter less of a problem.

Sure. But it’s a tiny sample size, he’s only just returned from injury, he’s been playing primarily with a terrible bench unit, and the team got stomped in two of those games for reasons that had little to do with him.

I think it can work in a motion offense, where he can slash/backdoor cut, that could lead to a little more spacing (when his defender can’t sag off of him to help)

His defender already sags off, and that makes it harder rather than easier for him to cut. And NBA defenses are excellent at defending against cuts in the first place. The best perimeter cutters last season averaged about 2.6 points per game on them.

Him moving and cutting more can help in theory. In practice, the spacing it can generate is far less than what would be needed to substantively reduce the consequences of him being unable to shoot. It’s more harm reduction than solution, but it’s not harm reduction enough. Non-shooters are just punished very hard by defenses, and there’s no way around it. They also punish their offense by being a non-option to finish from the perimeter.

I would rather he become a better shooter than bank on him becoming Draymond 2.0

I don’t think there’s ever been another Draymond, and Draymond wouldn’t be able to provide non-negative value if he wasn’t playing in an offense centered around him alongside vast quantities of elite shooting that includes the most gamebreaking shooter of all time.

I like Ausur, but he’s a power forward right now.

You’re thinking of power forwards from a decade ago. Power forwards are perimeter players now. They shoot. If they can’t shoot, it’s a problem.

Morris wasn’t a free agent acquisition, but he would have been a solid pickup if he had been. Beyond that, Weaver passed on the chance to add even a single long-term role player of any sort and instead kicked the can down the road in favor of taking on Harris’s expiring deal alongside some minor draft compensation. Given how Harris looked last season after his surgeries, there was no realistic prospect of him playing productive minutes.

Weaver also failed to secure sufficient forward depth and to sign an honest-to-goodness third-string point guard so this team wouldn’t yet again be forced to give Killian big minutes in the event of an injury.

In sum, he could have at least some very basic moves, even if adding another decent role player wasn’t in the cards. Not did only he not do so, but he even actually left some holes in the roster which have thus far been painful to the team’s performance. It was not ideal.

I think he could have signed some reliable rotation guys who would be with the team for awhile. He instead kicked the can down the road in favor of taking on Harris’s expiring deal alongside some minor draft compensation. Given how Harris looked last season after his surgeries, there was no realistic prospect of him playing productive minutes.

He failed to provide enough forward depth or to sign an honest-to-goodness third-string point guard so this team wouldn’t yet again be forced to give Killian big minutes in the event of an injury.

Basic moves to shore up the periphery of the rotation could have been made but weren’t.

I think he could have signed some reliable rotation guys who would be with the team for awhile. He instead kicked the can down the road in favor of taking on Harris’s expiring deal.

He also failed to provide enough forward depth or to sign an honest-to-goodness third-string point guard so this team wouldn’t yet again be forced to give Killian big minutes in the event of an injury.

Basic moves to shore up the periphery of the rotation could have been made but weren’t.

Thanks! I don’t think Stew has all that much value on the trade market. Maybe a very late 1st from a contender that feels he fits postseason needs very well. I don’t think he’s necessarily a common commodity; he’s a very strong interior defender under the right circumstances, and he can shoot. He’s just somewhat context-dependent and has weaknesses thanks to his poor size and athleticism.

Let’s go over these individually:

Golden State receives: Bogdanović, Alec Burks and three second-round picks for Andrew Wiggins, Cory Joseph and Brandin Podziemski

This is an immediate no-go from the Warriors unless they believe, for some health-related reasons, that Wiggins is not going to recover. They lose a strong and relatively young contributor at forward whom they absolutely cannot replace given their cap situation and how polarized their salaries are (acquiring Wiggins was made possible only by them having Russell at the time); they replace him with Bojan, whose defense is a problem in the postseason and whose offensive contributions will be much less on that team; and Burks, a bench-caliber role player. That’s a big downgrade.

If they’re confident enough that Wiggins won’t recover from this short dip such that they’d be willing to make this trade, then the Pistons shouldn’t want him anyway.

Pistons receive: OG Anunoby and Thaddeus Young Raptors receive: Bogdanović, Jaden Ivey and a second-round pick of their choice

Beyond bad for the Pistons, regardless of how Ivey develops, given that Anunoby will be a free agent at year’s end unless some catastrophic issue compels him to accept his player option instead (there are no guarantees that he’d re-sign). Ivey may also end up being pretty darned good, he’s five years younger than Anunoby, his cheaper contract will offer the Pistons more flexibility over the next two seasons, he’s a secondary handler the likes of which the Pistons may not be able to replace in the draft or in free agency, and OG has had some issues staying healthy over the last two seasons. All told, I’d deem this a questionable win-now trade even if OG did re-sign, and I don’t think the Pistons are in position to be making win-now trades. I don’t think this makes sense for the Raptors in the first place.

Pistons receive: 2024 first-round pick (their own) and Evan Fournier New York receives: Bogdanović

The least unrealistic of the three, but I don’t think the Knicks will give away a potentially valuable future 1st (especially given the present uncertainties about the rebuild, with how this season has begun) for a guy who would play off the bench in New York and whose postseason defense is a significant concern.

None of these strike me as being realistic for the other teams involved.

While Cade has struggled of his own accord, I’d say that the FO has also done an egregiously poor job of putting him into position to succeed. Look at other rebuilding teams for context. When teams drafts their prospective franchise player, they typically do what they can to put him into position to succeed. This FO has categorically failed at that.

Consider that to date, the most functional lineup Cade (who was very much viewed as a franchise-altering prospect) has played in was CoJo, Bey, Grant, and Stew. Even that very unimpressive lineup had a glaring flaw; Cade lives in the high pick-and-roll, yet the FO saw fit to field him next to a pick-and-clog center who’s terrible on the pick-and-roll. They had a strong pick-and-roll big (Plumlee) on the roster on draft day, but they chose to trade down in the 2nd round to dump him and instead field Cade in a lineup which not only had no pick-and-roll big in the starting lineup but had no athletic big on the roster at all. (They did this despite even Stew shooting threes from center that season clearly not having been in the plan; he could do nothing but actively get in Cade’s way).

Last season’s starting lineup (possibly the slowest, least athletic starting frontcourt I’ve seen in the NBA, and still no pick-and-roll big therein) prior to his injury was even worse, and this season’s starting lineups have been a spacing catastrophe.

Like I said, Cade has had his issues. He also drew a tough hand with the injury. It’s on him to improve. But the FO has categorically failed to field even reasonably competent lineups around him.

Really pulling out all the stops, are we???

The Jazz drafted him 9th not six months ago. No GM would be likely to trade a recent top-ten draftee at a loss, least of all Danny Ainge.

I’m not an expert of the CBA, but aren’t we able to trade our 2024 draft pick on draft night and have it not infringe on the Stepian rule with the Knicks pick?

That’s right. Trading a pick on draft night is inherently not subject to the Stepien Rule; the team makes the selection and then trades it, and the rule refers only to future drafts.

By all indications, Weaver misjudged his character. Given that Bey’s character was (in addition to being generally important) one of Weaver’s reasons for selecting him, that was another error by Troy.

Whatever the issues with Bey were, Weaver’s decision to trade him for Wiseman was an unequivocal downgrade which made the results of that draft even worse. Wiseman became the fourth center on the roster, is far from being a capable rotation player at the moment, and cannot get even development minutes on a roster that is already clogged with bigs.

By all indications, Weaver misjudged his character. Given that Bey’s character was (in addition to being generally important) one of Weaver’s reasons for selecting him, that was another error by Troy.

He subsequently chose to trade Bey for Wiseman. Whatever his faults, Bey seems likely to stick in the NBA. Wiseman was the team’s 4th center and is so far from being an NBA rotation player that he struggled to find minutes on one of the worst teams in the league while Duren was out and did very badly in the minutes he did get.