This sure is fun. I hope that pick kills it in the G league next year.

12 comments

1. Yup. Somehow the main opinion on this sub is that we didn’t absolutely shit our pants at the deadline for the second year in a row (though that sentiment is quickly changing with every embarrassing loss). The craziest part of the last week to me is how people went from praising Ochai and wanting to keep him around due to his potential, to being ok with him being moved because “he was never going to develop any further and it was best to just cut our losses now.” What the fuck? Ainge can do wrong, guys. His trades in the 2022 offseason were amazing, but since then, it’s been a whole lot of nothing. I get that he wants to accumulate assets, but he’s got to build a strong team culture too, and trading away beloved locker room guys just because tanks the locker room’s trust in the FO and destroys team culture.

2. I don’t know where you fans got the delusion that this team could make the playoffs

3. trading Kelly Olynyk/Simone Fontecchio/Ochai Agbaji for stuff isn’t why we aren’t making the playoffs. It’s the absence of any other win now moves.

4. I get your frustration but calling it a “historically bad draft” is misleading. It’s certainly worse than last year and next year, but that’s primarily because there’s no clear potential for superstar talent; the high lottery picks aren’t nearly as well-regarded as they typically would be. But picks 15-30ish are probably gonna pan out similarly to most late FRP’s from any draft, and there’s always potential to find a diamond in the rough a la Giannis, Jokic, or Gobert.

5. Before the deadline the Jazz were 4-6 in their last 10 and were about to get jumped by the warriors in the standings, this team as it was constructed had a great run for a bit but was still miles away from having any sort of postseason production. Yeah, they didn’t make any life altering moves, but Ainge did the right thing to get something for 2 players that werent going to be on the team next season and Ochai who hasn’t shown as much as we hoped this season as far as progress.

6. Jeez Louise how many times do I have to type this out.

   We would most likely would have lost KO and Tech during the off season, they would have asked for more money than the Jazz wanted to give them or signed with a different team

   What we are witnessing would have happened eventually and I am happy we are doing it now, instead of at the beginning of next year.

   And for those who say we gave up play off experience just keep in mind that we were the tenth seed, and the Golden State warriors have locked in recently. It would have been tough to make the play in let alone win the play in and then the first round of playoffs would have been extremely tough.

7. It’s kind of funny how badly the fanbase wanted to go lose a road play-in game, after getting sick of first and second round exits.

8. Let’s be real- if we kept Bogey we’d be a playoff team. We have him up for KO and Tech, right? So now we give up those guys, plus Ochai, for an “end of the round” pick in the upcoming draft.

   So we basically gave up Bogey + Ochai for the 28th pick in what’s expected to be a very weak draft. A draft so weak that we were supposedly trying to convey the pick we owe so we could keep a later pick in a future draft.

   Now just imagine if we still had some combination of Conley, Beasley, Vando plus had Bogey and Ochai. We’d be a playoff team with tons of upcoming picks, tons of cap space, and lots of tradable assets.

   Ainge for a great haul in the Mitchell and Gobert trades. And getting Collins for Gay is absolutely amazing. But in the rest of the trades, he hasn’t been so great.

9. I want Kelly back, but Simone and Ochai aren’t difference makers. Not this year. But I liked them too.

10. At least it’s better than last year’s return. Ngl, it annoys me a lot that we essentially made the Wolves, whose picks we own, super good for basically free.

    Also, the draft is weak at the top (supposedly) but we don’t have the top picks so it’s kinda whatever. And I don’t ever give much credence to these pre-draft evaluations of like “historically weak draft class” because people simply can’t see into the future. It’s not like these analyses produce perfect mocks every year so who really cares until these picks actually start playing in the NBA.

11. Funny post, but let’s be realistic here–we were FAR from being a lock for the playoffs.

    Let’s say that we get to the deadline, Danny doesn’t see anything that we want to buy. That makes sense. The market was pretty stagnant. Instead, we decide to stand pat. Do we really think that we’re even getting the 10 seed? We were already like 1.5 behind the Lakers and the Warriors were 0.5 behind us (feel free to fact check me on that, my memory isn’t the greatest). Both of those teams have had some pretty incredible momentum recently. I mean, the Lakers beat the Celtics **in Boston without LeBron or AD**.

    The truth is that we are in an insanely deep Western conference where our two primary competitors for the play-in spot are LeBron James and Steph Curry, probably the two greatest and most successful players of the last decade. Both teams had a bad stretch, but the Lakers got to the WCF last year and the Warriors won the title the year before that.

    I miss Kelly. I miss Ochai. I miss Simone. It feels weird to watch them suit up for the Raptors and the Pistons. But let’s be real for a second: the Lakers and the Warriors are just better basketball teams than us. No shame in that. It’ll be our time to shine soon. This is just a bump on the road to a championship.

12. We weren’t going to make the playoffs if we kept Kelly, Tech, and Ochai.

    Y’all are way too emotional lmao.

    If you *really think* that that trio is the difference between a playoff contender, and a lottery team, then I don’t know what to tell you lmao.