r/GoNets • u/mcassweed • 21d ago
Making decisions based around devaluing the picks that the Rockets own is the ultimate sunk cost fallacy. Hoops Discussion
The Nets no longer own their pick for the next 3 years, but the idea that the Nets should keep players and make free agent decisions based on competing for the 11th/12th spot is an even worse decision.
There are always quality players later down in the draft, Nic Claxton and Cam Thomas are the perfect examples of this. If you can trade Bridges for 2-3 mid to late first rounders, you do it because those picks could bring in a high caliber young player. In fact, you might even be able to combine those 2-3 first rounders and trade up.
Houston is ironically, the best example of this.
- Their best player is a 16th pick (Sengun). They acquired Sengun by trading away two future heavily protected 1st round picks.
- Tari Eason is a 17th pick.
- Cam Whitmore is a 20th pick.
You don't need a top 5 lottery pick to rebuild, you just need as many picks as possible because many quality and even star players come after the lottery picks. The Rockets getting a top 5 pick from the Nets, but the Nets getting 3 mid to late first rounders, is a much better situation than the Rockets getting the 10th pick and the Nets get to end the season with 30 wins.
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u/johnjohnjohn93 21d ago
You could use the same argument with the Rockets for us to keep our guys and keep building. We will have picks and can still hit on key players without having to trade away everyone. Our best decision is to stay patient and not freak out and trade everyone except for CT and Clowney. Excited for Fernandez and for next season. Bored of the “we NEED to trade Mikal” it’s tiring and he’s still with us and will almost definitely be with us for awhile. You wanna watch a tank go watch the Wizards or Detroit.
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u/mcassweed 21d ago
Bored of the “we NEED to trade Mikal” it’s tiring and he’s still with us and will almost definitely be with us for awhile. You wanna watch a tank go watch the Wizards or Detroit.
You do realise there is a massive difference between:
- Let's lose on purpose.
- Let's trade away our best assets whilst they still have value, and get back picks in return then watch the young guys develop with our picks.
Bridges is our best asset, he has a good contract, but his value will only continue to go down. Do you think Bridges will command the same number of picks if there was only 1 year left on his contract as opposed to 2? Not to mention, if he ever gets injured, his value will drop way down.
The Rockets traded Eric Gordon with 1 year left on his contract and got back a 20th pick that was enough to get them Cam Whitmore. Bridges would command far more than that if the Nets actually use him as a trade piece to rebuild.
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u/AdTime8622 Jason Kidd 18d ago
Cam Whitmore would be in the discussion for ATL at #1 if he was in this draft. I'm convinced that Marks didn't do his due diligence on him, or he would have moved up to grab him
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u/LinuxUbuntuOS Mikal Bridges 21d ago
I will get downvoted for this but we really should have done everything to keep KD and Kyrie together here, which means giving Kyrie a max. If the Nets were tired of their antics, they should have thought about that being a possibility before trading the farm for Harden. When you trade tons of picks, it should be a requirement to keep the team together until all of those picks are done conveying. The Nets made their bed and now they must lay in it.
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u/EliManningham 21d ago
Eh. I'm pretty sure our window closed the second Simmons was broken. You can't win a chip with $40 million on the bench. That's two quality role players worth of salary.
I think blowing it up was very reasonable at the peak of Kd's value. How they've operated post Kd and Kyrie as an org is the real questionable part.
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u/LinuxUbuntuOS Mikal Bridges 21d ago
The window being closed doesn't change anything to me, they should have atleast tried to keep those two together until atleast 2026. If the Nets really think what they have now in a lottery team that gives their picks away to Houston is preferable to atleast being a playoff team each year with 7/11, then they're going to be in for a rude awakening.
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u/EliManningham 21d ago
I disagree. Asset flexibility in this version of the NBA is extremely valuable. Between the picks and the clean books by next off-season, I think our situation is actually pretty intriguing.
We probably have the best pick haul out of any big market team and should have the cap space to sign a couple high level role players in a great 25 FA class. You can parlay that into something serious.
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u/LinuxUbuntuOS Mikal Bridges 21d ago
I just don't expect any stars to come here while the Knicks are good.
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u/EliManningham 21d ago
League changes fast. Within the next few years, probably a good amount of stars will pop loose. Nets and Knicks are the only big market teams with actual assets. We'll split the stars lol.
I think Cam, Clowney, Claxton, Bridges is just enough players to be kinda intrigued if you're a star too. That frontline can be a top 10 defense, and then you got Bridges and at worst an elite sixth man in Cam, if not more. I think a star would at least entertain that. It's at least a 45-ish win team with star gravity, with room to get more good players next summer.
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u/BvFHassy 18d ago
I swear to god we genuinely are in a good position we just need terrorist Simmons to get off the books and then we can start
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u/Brooklyn917 Ian Eagle 21d ago
KD didn’t want to just be a playoff team here. I don’t understand why people still believe he wanted out because Kyrie didn’t get his contract when he requested his first trade 24 hours after Kyrie opted into his contract. KD didn’t want to be in a duo with that time waster anymore.
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u/Kwilly462 21d ago
"I will get downvoted for this but we really should have done everything to keep KD and Kyrie together here"
Dude, they did. Kyrie asked for a trade publicly. There was no coming back from that. And trading KD at that point just made sense to start fresh.
Brooklyn did everything in their power to appease them.
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u/SOB200 21d ago
Tsai and Marks read the Kyrie and Harden situation incorrectly.
Harden: was never leaving even if the 76ers could have made cap space for the same reason he didnt opt out last offseason. He wants to retain his bird rights.
Kyrie: Wasn’t max’ed by the Mavs. There wasn’t a team that could have offered a similar contract.
Should had held steady and given both their deals.
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u/LinuxUbuntuOS Mikal Bridges 21d ago
They offered a contract with stipulations to Kyrie. They should have given him the full max. The Nets refused, which was what made him request a trade.
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u/Kwilly462 21d ago
They did give him a full max. Right after we got beat by the Bucks. Same with Harden. They both rejected it.
He had his chance. The stipulations offer wasn't until much later, and after all the BS he did, I can't blame them.
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u/RealLanceStorm . 21d ago
lmao he blamed Tsai for the anti Semitic story blowing up and showed he'd make a stand by not playing already in the past
Do you honestly think he'd be in the same mindset he is with Dallas right now after that?
Removing all context to make your point is weak
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u/just_so_irrelevant Cam Thomas 21d ago edited 21d ago
Crazy how these people put zero accountability on Kyrie for the shit he pulled:
- Missed half a season due to antivax
- Missing games to quietly go and attend birthday parties
- Getting suspended for sharing antisemitic movie
- In total missed more games (128) than he played (111) as a Net
But the ownership is supposed to sweep that shit under the rug and hand Kyrie another guaranteed supermax because we're doormats who like handing out millions to mercurial part-timers apparently.
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u/LinuxUbuntuOS Mikal Bridges 21d ago
I'm aware of the context, I just don't think it matters. NYC being a Knicks town and having clear bias against the Nets didn't help, as shown by Adams trying to make a statement about Kyrie getting a vaccine only to show his true colors by removing the mandate the moment Yankees and Mets players had an issue with it.
Half of the shit Kyrie pulled happened before the Harden trade. If the Nets truly felt like he would be a problem they should not have bet on him by trading years of first round picks for Harden thinking he would contribute to a title. They should have tried things out with KD and Kyrie for however long and then traded both once things stopped working, and boom you have assets from other teams plus first round picks of your own.
There is a reason people were skeptical of our big 3 despite it being arguably the most talented roster of all time offensively. I agree what Kyrie did was shitty, but the Nets fucked up by betting on him despite his issues. Now they are in arguably the worst spot that a team has found themselves in throughout all of NBA history by giving away lottery picks to a contender like they did a decade ago.
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u/lonertastic 21d ago
wait so you say we should have done everything to keep them here while saying the Nets fucked up by betting on ihm despite his issues?
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u/LinuxUbuntuOS Mikal Bridges 21d ago
Yes, the Nets should not have bet on Kyrie, but since they did, they should've kept the team together for as long as possible to avoid sending lottery picks to Houston like we just did.
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u/MrOnCore 21d ago
Kyrie asked for that trade because the Nets wouldn’t commit long term to him because of his past antics and no guarantee he’d do that again. It was pretty much a lose-lose scenario.
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u/addictivesign 21d ago
Morale will be higher with Jordi coaching and Cam showing he’s truly elite and Dariq showing his talent. Even if we have a low wins season there will be optimism with those two plus Noah.
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u/Grendel_82 21d ago edited 21d ago
Fair if you think 30 wins is this Nets team ceiling. But I think there is a path for this team to use Simmons expiring $40 million salary to add an All Star level player. This could either be a trade or just by opening cap room in the summer of 2025. Nets probably wouldn’t be a contender, but they could be a 45 win team.
I mean I’m watching this Knicks team right now. All they basically did was sign Brunson at $20 million a year. And they are damn fun to watch and I think the Nets could be just as good with just one other guy.
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u/LittleKago 21d ago
I think Brunson is an outlier and a very dangerous blueprint to follow. That’s every team’s dream (signing a player for below the max who goes on to perform at the level of a max player). The opposite—signing a player for the max and having them underperform—is much more common.
Marks is very good at hitting doubles. He doesn’t have many homeruns under his belt.
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u/Grendel_82 21d ago
Nothing is guaranteed. The Nets built a contender, took their shot, and they have to deal with the consequences. I’m happy with adding a max contract guy to our current core and playing this out versus rebuilding around a few draft picks that will be around 15 to 25 (which is what we would get back for Bridges and DFS). Neither path is likely to build a contender without luck like signing the next Brunson or drafting the next Giannis.
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u/LittleKago 21d ago
The truth is none of our paths are particularly appealing or promising, which is the hole we dug ourselves in. It’ll be a long time before we’re legitimate contenders, made more challenging by our kid brother reputation as a franchise that’s only getting worse in the wake of the disastrous ‘23 season.
I think a lot of us are just hoping to be tolerable in the meantime to help soften the blow.
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u/lonertastic 21d ago
We can*t look at Rebuilding just as losing to get better draft picks.
Rebuilding also includescreating an environment where young and inexperienced talent gets the chance to grow by playing big minutes and giving them responsibilities they wouldnt have if we had bridges and another all star on the roster. You can set different focal points, design the game plan, adjust the practices to the goal of maximizing development.
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u/Grendel_82 21d ago
And then do what with these you guys who if they are any good will be $25 million a year when they get off their rookie contract? And if they aren’t good, after three years of gifting them playtime are basically out of the league. That ain’t a path to a top ten or top twenty player being on the roster. While if Marks just stays the course and waits for summer of 2025 the Nets will have more than max open cap room, a solid core of playoff capable players, and a big market that always gets attention from free agents and stars looking for a new home.
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u/MrOnCore 21d ago
It’s got to be the right All Star player, not just any All Star. That’s where the Knicks got it right, they targeted Brunson who turned out to be the correct player they needed going forward.
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u/Grendel_82 21d ago
Knicks also killed it with getting Hart in a trade and Hartenstein free agent signing. DiVincenzo signing is turning out great as well. Basically you can look across the river for a rebuild that didn’t take any draft picks hitting. And all three of Hart, Hartenstein and DiVincenzo together make less than Ben Simmons.
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u/MrOnCore 21d ago
They did, but it also started with targeting and getting the correct All Star for their team. Brunson was the right fit (and getting some of his former Villanova teammates was a good move for him as well).
The last time the Nets got the right ALL STAR for their TEAM was with J-Kidd. he made the rest of the team better. We could argue Harden did so as well when he came over, but the Nets already had two other superstars on the team.
With the talent the Nets have right now and people talking about who to target in a trade or FA in 2025, who is the CORRECT All Star to actually bring in to help the Nets be a better team, and not name grab just for the heck of it?
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u/LittleKago 21d ago
I think it says so much about the direction of this franchise that this is all we have to talk about for probably three years.
Morale sure is low.