So all these teams would rather get less from other teams just because Boston has more assets but won't give them all up. It just isn't logical.
Since when are people logical? No one wants to "lose" a trade, so it becomes easy to convince yourself to take another offer rather than lower your demands to Ainge.
Mike
that is just nonsense
Spoken like a guy who has never negotiated anything bigger than a garage sale purchase. Look what the Kings traded Cousins for. Look what the Bulls traded Butler for. Look what Atlanta got for Dwight Howard just one year after signing him as a free agent.
People make bad decisions ALL THE TIME when ego and emotions get involved. And yes, that includes Ainge. It seems like he remembers almost giving away the store for Justise Winslow and is now being VERY careful in trade talks.
Mike
I've negotiated million dollar contracts. Part of my job. It is just nonsense to think a team is going to take a lesser offer because of appearances. You can miss windows and end up with less like what happened with Cousins and Butler, but the Kings and Bulls didn't take a lesser offer to prove a point or for appearances. At the time they made those trade, those were the best offers on the table. The Celtics wouldn't include 3 or the BKN pick in the discussions regarding Butler. Thus, I am pretty confident that Minnesota did in fact have the best offer on the table.
1. Neither you nor I actually know anything. We don't know what Chicago asked. We don't know what Danny offered. Someone who actually negotiated million dollar contracts would understand how foolish it is to speak with certainties when you don't actually know what's going on.
2. Someone who actually negotiated million dollar contracts would also understand that different people make different judgments. When presented with multiple offers, they will evaluate them differently and come to to different conclusions about which is best, and some people are better at it than others. What were the other offers for Butler? You don't know. Ainge has said Chicago never engaged him on Butler this time around? Why not? I don't know.
3. Ainge could have put Smart, Olynk, Bradley, the LA/Sac/Philly pick and another non-Brooklyn future first on the table for Butler. While Levine might have a higher ceiling, he's coming off and ACL injury, Bradley is clearly better right now, Smart is better than Dunn, Olynyk already is what you hope Markanen becomes and they get two future firsts AND keep the 16 this year. But they apparently didn't even try and ask Boston for that better deal. Why? Perhaps because their egos wouldn't let them accept getting far less from Ainge than they'd been asking for over the last two years.
4. And, of course, Chicago had Butler under contract for two more years, so they didn't need to take any deal for him right now. If Ainge misses on Hayward or PG13 but does get Griffin, suddenly Butler is much, much more attractive to Boston.
I would have thought our last Presidential election destroyed anyone's delusion that we live in a rational universe where rational people make rational choices, but I guess I was wrong.
Mike