Eventful day; I have had a second to think about it. Let's take a good look into this.
SPURS: B+/A-
The best thing about this is you do not have to worry at all about the future, and you get an all-star calibre guy. I'm extremely confident that De'Aaron Fox will be a multi-time all-star with the Spurs alone. He complements the current roster a tonne, and the assets are low. Let's go through them.
Let's start with the players:
Tre Jones—Great player, but has had reduced minutes in the new Spurs rotation; volume has dropped; he hasn't got a great VORP or BPM, so the advanced stats see him as ineffective from a Spurs POV and would probably be better finding a separate role trying to break out elsewhere.
Zach Collins—someone that has really struggled to be effective anywhere he's been in his career. He has lost his role and dropped in minutes, which we expected. The stats say he's been very effective on defence, but the Spurs do not really need any more defence. Just cutting some useless contracts, but an interesting player to note when we talk about the future of the Spurs, and I'll get to that.
Sidy Cissoko—Extremely limited role, but stats are somewhat intriguing, but again, someone you definitely don't stress over as a Spurs fan.
Now that's all the players; what about the picks?
1st Rounders:
Pick 1: Bulls 25 protected pick, one of the more valuable ones, either is a late lottery this year or unprotected next year, going to be very valuable but basically turned that into Zach Lavine, so great value for it.
Pick 2: Hornets 25 top 5 protected, probably will not convey, basically two seconds in 26 and 27, yeah, no value on this one.
Pick 3: Spurs 27, generational talent and Fox; this is a late rounder.
Pick 4: Timberwolves 31, an interesting pick. Obviously, it takes its time to convey, but it will be a very interesting situation to monitor over in Minnesota; it could be a very interesting pick.
2nd Rounders:
Pick 1: Nuggets 28, it's a second-rounder.
Ok, so they absolutely fleeced the kings. Now how I weighed up this trade to be a B+/A- is relative to the trade yesterday. Do I feel they changed the outlook of their franchise for the future? Yes, but isn't a direction-changing move like Luka's deal? Do I view them as contenders off the bat? Probably not. Do I view this as a steal? Yes, but nowhere near the level of the Luka deal.
I gave this a B+/A-; everyone will probably be like "pick one at least," etc. For most rankings, I would agree, but for me and how I grade trades, this is a close one between the two, and I like to be accurate. One feels too high, one too low; it just feels wrong to give either. I can't really decide, but I think you understand the thought behind it. I'll say A, I guess, to give respect to a front office doing a good job.
BULLS: C-
Not too much to say for them really, just happy they finally have some closure on this era. Obviously, there are a couple of names yet to go, but they finally rebuild, and I'm happy for you guys. You can no longer worry about your pick. I'm just happy you can rebuild fully.
Now onto a rant: fire your GM. How can you get so little for Caruso, DeRozan, and LaVine?????? This is crazy; fire this man immediately. I want the Bulls to be interesting, but I just can't see when that will be right now due to being fucked over so many times. I feel bad for the years the Bulls have had to deal with this.
Anyway, enough on what you've lost; let's focus on the stuff you got other than your pick. So Tre Jones is a great player and could really have some potential to be great on this team, but there isn't a role for him here really either; Zach Collins is here to fill some space and nothing else, and then you get Huerter.
I really want to focus on Huerter for this one; he has been one of the most interesting players to see over the last couple of years. And really, it is a huge swing factor in this trade. He could really benefit from playing with this team. One thing I would say about the Bulls is there are too many ball-dominant guards on their roster, and now they've got an off-ball guard for low value who's been regressing for a couple of years. But let's remind ourselves of Hawks and 1st season Kings Huerter; he was a 38% shooter from 3 who averaged 15 PPG in two successful seasons for both teams. As someone who supports the Hawks, I could really see this paying off for them; if they give him minutes and the opportunity to get back to that form, you could move him and get some great value for a high-level shooter and off-ball mover, which are very valuable in the modern day. It will be interesting to see how he's used and if he can show some flashes in this team.
So the trades are a C-, purely as a representation of poor asset management by the Bulls over the past few years, although I could really see this working out for them and definitely set out to do what it wanted to do. Remember my grades aren't extreme; this is a poor trade for me. I think they are leaving value on the board.
KINGS: C-
Wow, this is interesting. So the Fox era is over. We knew this would happen, and this is kind of what I expected to be the destination, so the Fox era had one real season of success. Hopefully, Sabonis has more success.
Anyway, as noted in the Spurs side of this trade, they didn't get really any valuable picks till 2031, so honestly this just confuses me. How could you only get those picks? NO ATLANTA PICKS???? Wow. And no young guys, Sidy Cissoko doesn't count, no matter if he has looked good in 3 minutes a game this year. So really they are still in win-now mode, which I don't like for them, and they'd have nothing to go back on. If they could have gotten Vassell or Sochan or a young guy, this would be more interesting.
They did get Lavine, and I do see people's points that he could be better for the Kings than Fox. Why I don't subscribe to this theory is that to me it just feels like the Kings rebuilt the Bulls again with Sabonis, which is way better, but still I don't view this team as a competitor. It just doesn't make sense that you reunite two players who just played with each other 6 months ago after a failure together.
Something interesting out of this is we will see Monk at point guard, which is great. I really like Monk being your initiating guard, especially when you have Sabonis's passing ability and have secondary ball-handling options around him. He has very little pressure on him to actually create while being the primary.
So I gave this also a C-. I just don't see the logic. I don't particularly like the assets they got in return for Fox. I think it's mismanaged assets, and I really dislike this for them. IDK what you guys think about this, I guess.
So that's it; I might post a grade scale so you guys can kind of see how the grades look to me and how they may translate for you guys. I know I get a lot of questions and people saying I rank too low or not high enough, etc., but again, I give myself limits, and this is just my personal scale.