#3 - We have made multiple offers for Okafor since he entered the league. At this point if you don't believe that to be true, you might as well just ignore all media. It's been widely reported and backed up by numerous sources. The fact that Ainge offered the Brooklyn pick for a player came directly from Ainge himself. Bulpett was the one who told us it was Okafor and we have never seen anyone say otherwise. Go whine to Bulpett if you are upset about his reporting. Go write angry letters to ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, NBC, etc and all the many local and national publications who reported what Bulpett wrote without fact-checking. My assumption is that they did... and nobody from Boston or Philly disputed it - so they continued to credit Bulpett with breaking the factual story.
Zach Lowe and Amin Elhassan said otherwise. The Sixers denied the rumor. I assume that Ainge made a lowball offer, but I don't think Okafor fits the kind of player he would overpay for and Ainge spoke about a "big package" and not just the pick.
I suspect one of two things. Either Ainge was looking at Okafor as a piece in a three-way trade with a team that wanted an established player and not just picks and he was not the main target or Ainge was working on a true surprise like a godfather offer for Durant out of a belief that a short stint with Stevens would convince Durant to re-sign.
Yes. Yes. LB repeatedly conveniently avoids mentioning this part. I agree with you completely that the odds are overwelmingly in favor that the trade was not for Okafor.
I ignore it, because he's shown no source supporting this claim. I'm not going to do that research for him. First of all, I remember Zach Lowe saying he doubted the report, but he never claimed Bulpett was wrong. He never offered an alternative for who Ainge was referring to. If I'm wrong there, prove it. Show me where Lowe actually offered a contradictory report to who Ainge was referring to.
Second, Philly never disputed Bulpett's report. Show me otherwise. I ignored what Loosecannon said, because neither of his claims are true and I didn't want to waste my time writing a post saying that. Especially since it's really irrelevant to what Philly would be wiling to trade Okafor for today. One way or the other, it doesn't matter if we offered the Brooklyn pick + Bradley + Smart for Okafor at the deadline. That's in the past. Just like it doesn't matter that we offered half the team to Charlotte with hopes of getting Justice Winslow. It's not like Charlotte can turn around and say, "hey we changed our mind... give us jaylen brown and terry rozier + 4 other picks for Frank Kaminsky". Too late. They blew it. I don't know why people get so sensitive about things we offered in the past. There was a time when we considered moving Paul Pierce for Ty Thomas and Luol Deng. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don't make. Don't get bent out of shape about it. I doubt Golden State fans are losing sleep over the fact that at one point in years ago their team genuinely gave thought to moving Steph Curry for Rajon Rondo.
Here is a podcast where Lowe doubts that Okafor is a target.
Here is an article by Keith Pompey, 76ers beat writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which refers to the team denying the rumor.
It was reported around draft day that Ainge was asking for Okafor and additional assets for the Nets pick. It was also reported that Ainge was not increasing the offers he was making for guys like Jimmy Butler. This suggests to me that the deal Ainge would have offered at the trade deadline would have similarly wanted Philly to cough up more than just Okafor.
Overall, Okafor is a flawed player whose skill set is a poor fit for what Stevens wants to do. He'd make sense if you wanted to slow the pace down and try to pair him with Cousins in imitation of what the Grizzlies have been doing.
Topic: Would you trade 2017 Nets pick for Okafor? (Read 30141 times)