I don’t think anyone in their right mind would trade Tatum for Leonard straight up. Heck I even have second thoughts about giving up jaylen brown unless Leonard’s signing long term.
I mean if Kawhi signs a 10 year deal you might consider it because you
One thing that I find strange in NBA talk is how little is being made of the economic value of having young talent like Tatum and Brown on rookie contracts. I understand Kawhi is a top-5 talent, but he'd be coming with an injury history and only one year of control and is going to want max money to stay. Both Tatum and Brown are young, healthy, on cheap multi-year contracts, and have yet to reach full potential.
Then you add in the idea that Kawhi looks to have quit on his current team and trading for him is a hard sell, IMHO. Yet we know the Celtics have made some sort of offer. That's disturbing to me.
If we presume the offer would be Kawhi for Kyrie and one of the young talents, it makes so little sense. Kyrie was great on and off the court before his injury, and looks to be healthy now, and trading him could very well mess up the team chemistry and make other veterans not want to come to Boston.
I'm perfectly happy to roll with Tatum, Brown, Kyrie, Heyword, Horford and whomever else is on the team at the start of the season. Not sure how Kyrie + one of Tatum/Brown for Kawhi makes for a better team.
Long term risk vs short term certainty.
Because NBA talent you have to project out to reaching their peak potential for about 5-6 years. So you aren’t going to get them at their best in this contract or in the best case scenario the tail end of that.
You already know Leonard is the best defensive player in the league and is a top 5 or fringe top 5. He likely will stay that way for 10 years about. Tatum and Brown might never get that far.
The risk is, if they do, you left like 5-8 extra years of Tatum on the table to make it with Kawhi now. The flipside is maybe they just never get close to Leonard’s level.
A team with Kawhi, Kyrie, Hayward is likely automatically running away with the East and has a real shot at getting some titles now.
Who knows what happens in 5 years, Kyrie might leave, he might decline, injury issues, Tatum and Brown might not develop to the level we hope, a team like the Sixer’s might land a super star and their core might live up to potential and all of a sudden they are in the way. There is risk. NBA stars aren’t loyal and their is no threat of a franchise tag. Durant left his team, Lebron left his twice, Garnett left his team to come to he, same with Ray Allen and then he jumped ship to join our rivals, Pierce did not finish here, Harden is not with his original team, George and Leonard are looking to move, Shaq spent his career traveling, Carmelo didn’t stay with the Nuggets.... I could go on. You don’t know what Kyrie and Tatum will do in a few years. Playing the long game isn’t necessarily the best move. This isn’t football and the players all have leverage.
Not every player is Kobe and the Lakers sabotaged themselves to make sure he retired there.
Also I don’t really worry too much about chemistry. This league isn’t like that. The big 3 got a title year one. The Heat went on a 4 year Finals run starting the year they formed. This current Celtic team has 4 starters that were not here a year ago.
