I trust Danny implicitly but seeing Ibaka, Noel, Nurkic, Bogut and even Tiago Splitter all go to good teams for next to nothing was a little offputting.
One can only presume that he only trusts Zeller being able to slide in understanding our team schemes if indeed in the playoffs.
Splitter is pretty much retired, he will never play again, and Bogut predictably got injured.
I know, I'm just saying that these quality bigs went for nothing. Splitter wouldn't have been available for the playoffs, so that is an exception, and of course I understand not trading away real assets for Bogut, given his injury history, but 1 more quality big would have made a huge difference - especially when KO is having an off night. Just Nurkic, Noel, and Ibaka then...
his reasoning could simply be that the assets being requested in a trade (and it's speculation if the C's were in any way involved in discussions with the players you mentioned) were much more than what was actually involved in the eventual trade OR he values the requested assets higher than he does the players in question.
None of Nurkic, Noel or Ibaka would have put this team over the top and into the finals. made us better this year, probably -- hard to see how they couldn't in a vacuum -- but not knowing who or what picks would have had to go out in a deal may have hurt us too. I don't like the idea of considering a year as a 'throwaway' year but I can support team efforts to improve the team in some manner from year to year (even if that improvement is blowing up a team that has peaked to begin a rebuild such as the PP/KG deal).
my guess would be Danny doesn't want to use assets for a partial-year rental of a player that he would not resign after the season or would cost too much to resign in the summer. it would seem that he's keeping as much cap flexibility as he can in the hopes of getting a solid FA or two and perhaps using some current players/picks in the summer to land another top player. thought --> sign Hayward. Trade AB, Crowder and maybe a pick (reluctant to move Nets pick if giving up those 2 players) for Butler.
IT/Butler/Hayward/Horford is a solid foursome to add to via Free agency while still having Smart, Brown, Rozier, Zizic, Yabu and 2017 pick in hand. a decent big man FA and possibly resigning Amir and KO to reasonable deals to fill out the bench and this team's looking better for next year.