Hoops

NBA Trades and Draft Picks in Hindsight

Bogut was the right pick. CP3 and D-Will would have been passing to no-one by Michael Redd or D-Mason for the past few seasons otherwise.

Timing of Jennings is right now for Bogut and that leaves Ridnour to be a decent role player for the team.

Biggest recent flopp in the draft was Detroit taking Darko Milicic #2 in 03.

Considering Melo has become arguably the "best" scorer in the league over the past couple of years, Detroit could have been rolling the past 3 years with a "potential" Billups/Gordon/Anthony lineup. Detroit could have been what Denver is now.

I'm not sure if they picked now that the bucks would take Paul. Particularly since they now have Jennings.

Generally, good bigs are harder to find than good smalls. If Bogut improves a little more to be a 20/10 and 2 guy rather than 15/10 and 2 I think it was the right pick for the Bucks. The East is weak in terms of quality big bodies and he could dominate for a long time, with the right pieces around him.

If they had CP3 in 06-06 instead of Bogut, and were looking for a big since the 05 draft, the only comparable options are Horford, Noah, Griffin and Oden - none of these guys have shown they will be better than Bogut, and Milwaukee have not been high enough to draft any of them anyway.

That said - CP3 may have made their team a lot better straight away, and who knows what could happen in free agency.

A couple of doozies close to my heart were:

Celtics (during the horrible Gaston/ Chris Wallace era) sending Joe Johnson to the Suns for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk! Okay, they had their East Conference Finals run, but then ownership refused to pay Rogers so he walked! Ouch! If only they'd traded Walker for Rogers and Delk!

Ainge trading for Telfair instead of just taking Roy or Gay in 2006! Fortunately this didn't hurt the Celtics as badly as it could have, because it did bring Theo Ratliff's expiring contract to Boston, which was a critical component of the Garnett trade.
Ainge also redeemed himself by stealing Rondo off Phoenix in the same draft!

If I was going to start a team around someone, I'd go with Paul rather than Bogut. So in that sense, Paul and not Bogut, should have been #1. But I agree with TR, its hard to be critical of the Bucks for picking Bogut given the roster they had at the time and the massive impact Bogut had on college basketball that year. From their point of view, Bogut WAS the best value pick at the time.

Yeah I was a real detractor of the Kidd for Harris trade, but things seem to have worked out quite well for Dallas so far this season. Without Kidd Dallas would probably be back in the pack that's fighting for 4 - 8 in the West.

While Paul appears to be a better pick in hindsight, watching Bogut yesterday against Dallas he was sensational. With a better team around Bogut (it's already got potential with Jennings) the Bucks could rise a few spots in the East.

Yeah I was a real detractor of the Kidd for Harris trade, but things seem to have worked out quite well for Dallas so far this season. Without Kidd Dallas would probably be back in the pack that's fighting for 4 - 8 in the West.

While Paul appears to be a better pick in hindsight, watching Bogut yesterday against Dallas he was sensational. With a better team around Bogut (it's already got potential with Jennings) the Bucks could rise a few spots in the East.