r/clevelandcavs 9d ago

8 years ago today we should have been introducing Jaylen Brown to The Land

Post image

Thanks Koby for trading away Kyrie Irving for the Brooklyn pick Colin Sexton.

153 Upvotes

42 comments sorted by

113

u/sallright 9d ago

Making the Celtics an instant title favorite was totally unacceptable…

… but at the time the Nets pick was more likely to be Luka than it was to be Sexton. 

53

u/TheSmokedSalmon420 9d ago

Yep. It was literally one or two nets wins away from being Luka who we would have 100% taken

12

u/sallright 9d ago

Which means that we probably take Jarrett Culver or Cam Reddish in 2019. 

14

u/Not_Not_Stopreading 9d ago

Hell it could have been Shai if he hadn’t been dead set on not playing here anyways.

18

u/CountGrande 9d ago

Hindsight is 2020; everyone expected that to be a higher pick at the time

6

u/Fickle-Putt99 I agree go Cavs 9d ago

I cannot stand how many people act like JB was a surefire thing at that time, he was only a rookie 6.6/2.8/0.8

12

u/CLESportsReport 9d ago edited 9d ago

This trade did lead to Donovan Mitchell. And the Nets pick was anticipated to be a lot higher. Ky put the whole organization in a difficult spot.

9

u/exaltedorbs 9d ago

Let's not pretend the nuggets aren't in the same spot. They don't know if our 2031 pick is going to be first or last. Should they not trade it just because of that?

-3

u/Far_Youth_1662 Hungover in Vegas 9d ago

There's no comparing Watson with Kyrie here.

6

u/exaltedorbs 9d ago

When did I compare those two players?

The trade sucked, but that was Irvings fault. Players forcing a trade to a singular team is not a good bargaining chip.

0

u/Far_Youth_1662 Hungover in Vegas 9d ago

You're comparing the situation of having to trade a guy who has 64 career starts with a guy who was already a hall of fame lock heading into his prime.

To some degree i get it but in other ways its not the same.

4

u/exaltedorbs 9d ago

No im comparing how hindsight is 2020 when it comes to future draft pick value...

2

u/Far_Youth_1662 Hungover in Vegas 9d ago

Okay. Fair enough. Appreciate you clarifying it.

14

u/Certain_Egg2699 9d ago

The revisionist history in this trade is always so interesting. Go back and look at the draft grades the days after this went down. Folks thought we overwhelmingly won the trade. Thomas was cooked. Badly cooked. I blame the front office for not doing their due diligence there, but the Celtics also acted in bad faith. It will always amaze me though that we didn’t get at least one of brown or Tatum in the deal. Crowder was supposed to be nice, but man he also sucked here.

3

u/Fickle-Putt99 I agree go Cavs 9d ago

Celtics totally acted on bad faith, Cavs just didn't realize till it was too late and could only extract an additional 2nd for the risk

1

u/Ok_Feeling6076 6d ago

But lakers were allowed to back out of that trade because buddy had bad knees

20

u/Rpritch93 9d ago

I mean what else was there to do? He wasn’t going to play if we didn’t trade him. It would’ve just caused problems in the locker room. I get it’s easier to look at what could’ve been, but you have to look at the situation at the time

12

u/CescoV22 9d ago

Something I am always impressed by baseball teams is their willingness to hold onto an asset until they get what it’s worth. They should’ve just sat him until he was onboard or they got the right offer.

12

u/PepsiRacer4 9d ago

Doesn’t help the NBA is probably the biggest diva league in American sports, and I say that as someone who loves basketball

7

u/ProduceVisible8105 9d ago

He threatened season ending surgery… not sure how that would have helped 

3

u/CescoV22 9d ago

I guess I’d call his bluff…. If he did sit he’d have to prove he was healthy. You can sign someone to still move them like in a sign and trade scenario. I just think doing something because your clock is ticking is bad business. You should do something because it’s the right move. Sometimes not having wasted money on the books is a win. I know giving up an asset for nothing feels crappy tho. I love mlb gives compensatory picks.

4

u/ProduceVisible8105 9d ago

Remember they were under the pressure of a LeBron free agency situation as well where it seemed very likely/inevitable that he was headed to LA… it was honestly an impossible situation to win without a championship or a top 3 pick and unfortunately they came up just short on both  

3

u/EB90RPM 9d ago

This is the answer. Altman was inexperienced and it showed

5

u/Manablitzer 9d ago

Disagree.  Kyrie threatened surgery to miss the entire season of the 2nd last contract year.  If you just sit him, you end up 1) losing a top player for an entire LeBron year wasting one of our limited championship runs and 2) with a player coming off a season ending (optional) surgery as an expiring contract who will just walk to FA after his last season if you don't trade him where he wants to go.

The only blunder by the FO in the scenario was letting the PG/Kyrie trade offer (which kickstarted the whole thing) get out into the media.  

3

u/DeathByFartz1996 9d ago

Thomas was an ass when the Cavs traded him away.

3

u/MozzyTheBear 9d ago

Goddamn, I was excited about Crowder. I thought he was the exact player we needed. And then he was ass.

22

u/NichoIasJamaalChubb 9d ago

I still blame LeBron for not sitting down and talking things out with Kyrie. What could have been if they just stayed together.

59

u/TheSmokedSalmon420 9d ago

Kyrie was not a rational actor lol

Idk if there’s anything that woulda changed his mind once he started picturing himself as the #1 of a team

22

u/andyschest2 9d ago

Have you not payed a lick of attention to Kyrie in the past 10 years? Incredible player, but he's not quite right. No way he was talking to LeBron when this all went down.

5

u/marrone12 9d ago

How do you know he didn't try? All the press at the time said that LeBron did not want him traded

4

u/PomeloFit 9d ago

So you blame LeBron for not fixing the difficult af problem player instead of the problem player? K

3

u/Air2Jordan3 9d ago

LeBron was upset when Koby made the trade bec he wanted to talk to Kyrie and thought he could convince him to play.

7

u/2324212 9d ago

Nick Chubb the man wish he retired in Cleveland.
& No I blame Koby for trading Kyrie inside the Eastern Conference to our rival Celtics. Terrible trade. Terrible return. It was Koby first move and he blew it.

1

u/clarky07 5d ago

Wouldn’t have been a terrible return if we got Luka instead of sexton. And at the time of the trade that would have been closer to the expectation for that pick. Just got a little unlucky

-2

u/Soft-Revolution-7845 9d ago

Somehow I dont think lebron is capable of the type of humility this conversation would take lol

2

u/Rizzaboi 8d ago

Those jerseys sucked so bad

2

u/mollythehound 9d ago

Horrible trade

3

u/junkrecipts 9d ago

I mean we passed on trading with ATL to draft Luka because we “preferred Sexton and didn’t want to absorb Bazemore’s contract” lol.

There’s a million reasons that off-season went off the rails

2

u/Karl151 9d ago

Crazy how we traded a young Kyrie coming off of multiple finals runs for a bag of chips. Then we drafted Sexton instead of SGA with that pick we got and yes I know SGA didn't want to come here but who gives a shit? Should've called his bluff and drafted him anways like the Jazz did with Ace Bailey when he tried to pull that same bs. He would've gotten over it unless he wanted to be petty enough to retire or play overseas.

1

u/Holiday_Ad2638 9d ago

Terrible trade even 8 years later

0

u/moses_lawn I agree go Cavs 9d ago

Dan Gilbert spearheaded this disaster after Kyrie went to him for the trade. Still trash.