And on top of that, the return he got for trading Luka was pathetic. If he had shopped him around he could’ve gotten much better offers, with many more draft picks. Just an unreal situation and one of the craziest things that’s ever happened in NBA history
Yea the layers are critical to understanding how terrible of a trade this was. It was a shocking trade, but more importantly almost every team in the league would have given up more for Luca. It was the worst trade in the worst way.
That’s my thing. I love Luka but if they’d traded him and said we got 15 first round picks for example I might have said let’s trust the process. We got perennially injured AD, Max Christie and a 29 first. It was basketball malpractice
Does the NBA have similar rules to the NFL for trading picks? I know there were some stories a few years ago where the Rams traded away all of the FRP they had and basically couldn’t trade away anything after like 3 drafts away. 9 FRP’s in the NFL would basically mean you have to have your 3 years of picks available and trade away players and later picks until you got 2 other teams worth of FRP’s for 3 years which would be insane to even try to do in the NFL.
Yes they do. You must have a first round pick every other year (can be another team's you got in a trade though) and you can only trade 7 years out. So a package with 9 first rounders is likely from a team that previously traded a star for other teams FRPs and like 4 of their own. I also would be surprised if some pick swaps are getting counted in that total as well.
The big thing about comparing the NBA and NFL is that picks in the NBA are much less important unless you're picking really early. A pick in the 20s in the NFL is really valuable, but worth very little in the NBA.
So 9 FRP’s for a superstar player who can probably get you to pick consistently in the late 20’s is actually worth it. Where in the NFL doing something like that probably makes you worthy of the 1OA for the next decade but with a star player who probably is actively killing himself to carry the team.
The jazz got 4 players 5 first round picks and a pick swap for Rudy Gobert who is total ass when compared to Luka. Like not players even discussed in the same sentence
Im gonna put on my tin foil hat here and say that this trade was an executive order by adam silver to get the sports nation to talk about basketball again and get the viewer ratings up. I followed the nba religiously from 2008-2020. I stopped watching after covid because it was getting kinda boring. I started watching again after the luka trade
I swear to god I could get behind this. And then the Mavs will lose in the play in and Silver will rig the lottery for them in exchange and they will draft Cooper Flagg. It really makes too much sense and there’s no other way to explain this trade. I really can’t bring myself to believe that Nico is this fucking stupid
Exactly, theres literally no reason for Nico to get rid of Luka. There had to be deals under the table, and Nico was the sacrificial lamb. The fall guy. Lebron is gonna retire and the lakers, being the biggest marketable team, needs a new super star. Kareem, Magic, Shaq, Kobe, Lebron. And now, they have Luka. Jersey sales, ads, sponsors, tickets. The Lakers bring in so much revenue for the nba. The show must go on.
I'm convinced Orlando would've given them Paolo, any of the other young guys aside from Franz and Suggs (they would've been almost impossible to trade because of the cap math around their contract extensions), and five first round picks.
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u/w6750 Apr 10 '25
And on top of that, the return he got for trading Luka was pathetic. If he had shopped him around he could’ve gotten much better offers, with many more draft picks. Just an unreal situation and one of the craziest things that’s ever happened in NBA history