Has anyone who supported going for Nurkic managed to come up with a suitable trade that would not have reduced our flexibility this summer? We would have had to move someone who was going to be on the roster next year making more than $2m. KO or Marcus is the starting point. Something tells me Denver wouldn't be interested in KO and if any of you are trading Smart for Nurkic all I can do is laugh and hope you're not still here when I stop.
He may be talented, he may even have succeeded here although I doubt he would have got the playing time. However Ainge clearly wants to have a shot at max FA this summer so there's the reasoning. Was that a mistake? No of course not, Having the chance to leap forward by adding someone like Griffin is not worth sacrificing for a guy like Nurkic
Denver targeted Plumlee and gave up a first plus Nurkic to get him. Denver wasn't looking to trade away Nurkic for guards and picks. They were willing to deal Nurkic and a pick for what they felt was a big man upgrade. Boston just didn't have what Denver was lokking for. Why don't people get this?
I think Olynyk is at least as valuable as Plumlee, although maybe Denver wouldn't have seen it that way.
Denver obviously rated Plumlee highly, probably too highly. Denver also seemed to undervalue Nurkic, although the Jokic/Nurkic fit just wasn't going to ever work, so they kind of had to move one.
But I doubt Ainge ever offered that. Maybe because he wasn't interested in Nurkic, maybe he didn't think that was an option, or maybe he wanted to preserve the cap space. My guess is on the latter.