A Trade Down I Would Consider

[sofutomygaha]

Vucevic and Cousins actually differ strongly in one respect- Cousins is set to make the league max for the next four years while Vucevic will be on his $2M rookie deal until summer 2015.

[blink]

Good job to Phosita for the out of the box idea.  And although I do like AA as a good match w/ Rondo, and I think AA can be a great scorer w/ the C's, I would hope that we could get a more highly talented player out of our 1st draft picks than AA + Vucevic.  With Orlando being as bad as us this year, seems hard to judge if some of these players are just a 'decent' player on a bad team, or if they have potential to be part of a championship team.

It obviously completely depends on how the lottery falls out.  If the pick is top 4 I think no deal.  If our 1st pick falls at 7 or 8, and Smart or some other Orlando target is still available, then it makes a lot more sense (for the C's).  I don't think Orlando does this though...

[Lucky17]

Lucky17- have a look at this comparison of their advanced stats and the rate stats for their careers so far (they are very nearly the same age)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=1&p1=vucevni01&y1=2014&p2=couside01&y2=2014#advanced::none

Cousins gets more steals, draws more fouls, and gets significantly more usage. Meanwhile, Vucevic has shot more accurately and turned the ball over much less. Otherwise, I'd say they are kind of amazingly similar.

You can also find their combine measurements at draft express, but I'll summarize that Vucevic measured an inch taller, 1/2 inch less wingspan, and an inch less standing reach. They measured the same standing vertical leap. They've both grown and gotten more cut since their drafts, of course.

TP. It's amazing how much data that BR site presents, and ways to look at it.

I took a look at both players' 3rd seasons (Cousins, last year, and Vukes this year), just to filter out rookie and sophomore years (which I thought might skew averages a bit). I was very surprised to see those numbers. While Cousins is clearly the more dynamic/prolific scorer, the statistical comparisons are not so far off.

[LooseCannon]

You can also find their combine measurements at draft express, but I'll summarize that Vucevic measured an inch taller, 1/2 inch less wingspan, and an inch less standing reach. They measured the same standing vertical leap. They've both grown and gotten more cut since their drafts, of course.

Pretty sure Cousins has a better vertical leap now.  Vucevic measured 6.1% body fat then.  Cousins was at 16.4% and close to 300 pounds.  I'd forgotten that he was drafted as a fattie who had some people worried he would be the next Eddy Curry.

[Irish Stew]

Interesting trade idea. As others have said, no rim protection here and looks like the making of a weak defensive team.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Thought I'd piggyback this thread since my preposition is pretty similar to the OP's.

What if the Magic or another bad team (like the Bucks or the 6ers or the Jazz) offer an unprotected 2015 pick plus filler (say a lower first this year from a third team + a prospect) for our lottery pick?

I've been running this through my head quite a few times.

Say we """lose""" the lottery and we have Smart or Randle or Gordon or Vonleh in our range. While they may not be incredibly valuable to us, a team like the Magic who would have just gotten a (supposedly) franchise player like Jabari, getting another high lottery pick in supposedly a great draft could be incredibly valuable.

For us, we get another shot at the lottery next year in all likelihood.

Plus, the fillers we get in return may be highly enticing because, as noted, the value of the pick could potentially be worth a lot to another team.

Suppose part of the filler is a lower first. With this draft apparently being quite deep, we could nab a Gary Harris or the foreign center with an extra pick.

I kind of see us having the option to cherry pick (to an extent) the assets we want in return as a result. We could grab Larry Sanders, and since his contract is so terrible we could grab even more filler or maybe we'd dump Gerald Wallace on them. Or, as the OP suggests, Vucevic.