So he
is Dion Waiters?
Regardless, if you look at the trade as Dion for Smith, yes, it's an awful deal for us. If you look at it as trading Dion for two rotation guys and a first-rounder, it looks a lot better.
I don't look at it incorrectly as others seem to think... "He must be thinking this is only Dion for Smith..."
I'm looking at the totality of the trade.
And yes, you're right -- JR Smith right now, is Dion Waiters,
right now. Now there's folks here who are saying Dion Waiters is just as much a known commodity and has as much room to grow as JR Smith, which is very little. If that's what you think, then okay, I get it. But if you believe Dion Waiters had ample room to develop and improve, then the trade doesn't make sense.
Again, that's really the last of it.
I'm not going to root against these guys. But I seem to be doing this almost every other year. We had this conversation after the Deng trade which I said was a bad idea and got blasted for. Or the Shaq trade which I said was a fucking joke, or several others that to me, didn't seem to make a great deal of sense considering the direction the team should be going.
It always seems this front office, whether it be Grant or Griffin, is merely reacting to events during the season rather than having a workable plan for the future.
We gambled on so much...
That Dion would be better than Barnes or Drummond...
That Tristan would learn to play basketball, even with all of his supposed athleticism.
That Luol Deng would transition well from Chicago to Cleveland considering we have no idea how to run an NBA organization.
That Spencer Hawes could get us into the playoffs.
That draft picks don't mean anything when LeBron James is on his way.
That the second round of the NBA draft is meaningless.
That Anderson Varejao would play a season of basketball (wtf...).
That LeBron James' friends could play.
That a rookie coach who may be an old dog who can't learn new tricks, and doesn't understand the NBA, would lead us to the Finals in his first year in the NBA.
That a detoxed LeBron James could do what he did in Miami.
That Kevin Love would
attempt to learn to play defense.
Again... I've not been a debbie downer over the season.. I said I'd give Blatt a chance, and give this front office a chance. But we're so far into the season, and just like last year, I gotta call it how I see it. This was a bad trade.
And the reason it's a bad trade is because we should have had the foresight to know if Dion would work out or not since we've had him for several years already.
Knowing that we should've sold high, not at his lowest possible value in his career. People will ignore this point though.... so, then we have nothing to talk about.
My problem is with management's inability to value or develop assets correctly. Our inability to utilize the draft. Our lack of scouting. Our lack of developmental coaches. And no system in place to mold players.
At best, Waiters was a failed experiment, a shitty gamble to draft a player who could create his own shot playing in a redundant role with Kyrie Irving. This gamble made no sense considering who was on the board. Again, the front office not making smart decisions. But to this day, folks on this board still shit on Andre Drummond to backup the decision to draft Waiters. It's ridiculous.
But anyway a Byron Scott, Mike Brown, and now a David Blatt later, we blame Waiters for not developing himself, rather than the system (think Kawhi) developing him. And he gets shit on on his way out the door; not just by posters here but by the organization (see: The Bullshit Whisperer).
I'm done with the debate. I just wanted to voice my viewpoint without it being paraphrased and warped to fit someone else's post. I don't begrudge anyone who doesn't agree with me -- that's cool, to each his own.
We'll now see how Smith and Shumpert (whenever he plays) helps the Cavaliers. And we'll also see how Waiters helps the Thunder. But
this team,
our team, from the top to the bottom, looks like a fucking dumpster fire.
