(By the offseason this trade will be possible with no additional salary to match.)

Alright boys, I take back what I said under my Milwaukee trade, THIS is my most HEAR ME OUT of HEAR ME OUT trades I'll have ever proposed. In the somewhat words of Nico Harrison, you may or may not see the vision.

So obvious questions first, why do the Wolves put themselves in a position where they seemingly backslide? Because after taking a look at their roster, I have no idea why their mentality should be in the "we HAVE to get a championship right now in this or the next 4 seasons or else it's OVER!" realm. Don't get me wrong it is absolutely GREAT that they don't have a losers mentality that they have to dig themselves out of, but Ant is just 24, McDaniels, Bones and TSJ are 25, Naz and Ayo are only 26, and their rookie in Joan Beringer is only 19. They even have another 19 year old rookie in Rocco Zikarsky who I've seen people say could've been in the lottery of this year's draft if he just went to college. Even an older guy like Donte is just 29, and for role players the level of production they show between 27 and 30 can be maintained for years, even well past their 30s. I bring it up just to set the context of the situation in Minnesota, this team needs no rush, especially in a western conference this stacked. So what if you can't break out of the WCF for 3 seasons? Even if you're hardstuck there until like 2028 your guys' are still well below 30. I'm probably not phrasing this right, again I don't think they should champion complacency, but I also don't want them to channel it into a misplaced forcing of hands like how Giannis did to the Bucks' as they now find their hands forced into a situation where they somehow found themselves with Doc Rivers.

Does this make them a worse team? Yep, undoubtedly. But I think the part where it makes sense for me is that it doesn't remove them from their current position of being contender-ish, it's just a small step back. As the old saying goes, one step back for two steps forward, right? Because De'Andre Hunter is not such a step back from Julius Randle in terms of what they would provide Minnesota. As a Hawks fan, I'm not gonna gaslight y'all like how I gaslit myself for years into believing he was next up, but even with the lackluster production recently, I believe this season is ultimately just an odd one out, an outlier and a wasted season from him due to injuries. On the Cavs it was a misuse of roles, from a 6th man he needed to be a starter on high usage as secondary shot creator to Donovan Mitchell due to their early injuries, and it was honestly more of the same as we've seen from him throughout his first 4 years as a Hawk, a spell of inconsistent shooting and uncertain on-court decisions. And he has yet to suit up for the Kings more than twice. However, the reason I still maintain this season as not one doing him justice as a player was due to what I saw from him last season. Keep in mind it wasn't a contract year or a proving grounds situation, he really just found his perfect role at 27. Quinn Snyder turned him into a 6th man in the second half of the 2023/24 season and since then he has been AMAZING in that role. Dare I say it was a breakout year for him last year. Firstly, big BIG fucking ups defensively! He's not a Jaden McDaniels or anything, but he can guard second stars or the opposing teams' wings. He's not gonna gamble much to the point where you might have wanted him to jump in passing lanes, but it also means he won't blow defensive coverages and he'll know where to be. On offense he's another transition beast amongst the many Minnesota already have, a damn good 3pt shooter who was up to 40% last year and on average is 36% for his whole career. More to that note, he's really become a perfect catch and shoot player whose added a decent off-ball game to his arsenal. But you don't become a 20ppg scorer and a top 6th MOTY candidate by just being a catch and shoot and transition guy. He worked on his half court shot creation, and yeah it's nothing too impressive, but the biggest takeaway from that is his newfound fearlessness, whereas before he'd immediately pass it up acting as a hand-off guy, now he's not afraid to dribble it out from the top of the key into a pull-up 3 or a drive to the rack. Honestly him having a down year this season only makes it easier to trade for him because he could easily go for 2 1sts if he was giving off the same production he was last year.

Again, does that mean they're better with him than Randle? No, at the very least not yet, but in my eyes this could be the move that gets them over the hump, because I look at this like how Denver looked at the MPJ-Cam Johnson trade. Did Denver get the better player? Obviously we now know that they didn't, but Denver didn't just trade for Cam Johnson, they traded for Cam Johnson AND more cap space for the flexibility to make further roster moves in the future that would help them become a contender again, which is exactly what they did. Minnesota gets 2 years of being below the tax with this trade, and I just think that that rest of the roster is such a tight knit group that losing Randle for one of the better, established 6th men in the league AND the potential to make their roster even better could be such a similar move for them.

Now hopefully I can rest my case for the Wolves, now onto the Kings, and trust me this time there's actual weight to this trade.

For the Kings, Randle fits Perry's vision of a long, athletic and strong wing who can run in transition and catch and shoot. Not to say Hunter couldn't be that, but this bodes well for them erasing more clutter at the 2-3 spot as Randle primarily operates only at the 4 and occasionally a small ball 5, but his measurements and size make playing him at a true wing spot extremely clunky. This means Nique and Carter get more minutes to thrive which would be one of the better things Sacramento as a franchise would have allowed to happen in a long time. This also reinforces the idea of trading Domantas Sabonis who teams will now hopefully bite on as Randle I believe would be a far better pairing with the likes of Raynaud and Cardwell. Speaking of which, wow! Cardwell, Raynaud, Carter and Nique, the Kings have absolutely hit a homerun on these last 2 drafts! Keep it up SacTown! And I actually mean that non-sarcastically! But another point of emphasis on this trade is the first round pick, and yes I know what I said about Minnesota earlier being young and all, so perhaps even by 2030 that pick isn't too valuable, still I imagine this front office isn't stupid about Hunter's situation. In the first place, just to even get him they gave away what most people thought was their most prized asset in Keon Ellis, that means that despite the attraction, real gms saw no true value in him, at least not enough to give them even a single first for Ellis. That also means no one was stacking up 2nd round picks for him. Rest assured, if there was even 4 seconds in line for Ellis, they would not have traded him to the Cavs. The Cavs parted ways with a struggling player to get Ellis, that's obviously not the value the Kings thought he had. Now said struggling player is dealing with an injury, and while I do believe this season was not an accurate reflection of Hunter as a player, one thing that this is a somewhat accurate reflection of however his injury history. He has only played over 60 games 3 times in his now 7 year career. Maybe you can mold him into a star? Doubt it, he's 28. If you're keeping him around to be your 6th man on the eventual title winning roster you build in like 5 years when he's 34, then go figure, but again I think Perry for once isn't stupid about this. From the likes of Schroeder and Ellis, into Hunter, if he can eventually flip that into a first round pick, I think he takes it.