Why This Trade is Upsetting

Here’s a guest post about the recent Kahn Salary Dump Special, from our valued TWolvesBlog Forum user “Bonk”

Enjoy…

The Sessions/Hollins/Draft Pick for cap space (technically Delonte West & Sebastian Telfair, but word is we will be cutting both to save money) trade bothers me for a number of reasons:

1 – Unlike other KAHNstructed trades, this one included HIS GUYS. He has only been around for a little over a year, yet he has already traded multiple players that he signed to F.A. contracts and was boasting about merely a year ago?! So basically both of his FA signings last year were mistakes? For people who believe he has a long-term plan that we all just do not see, this makes ZERO sense.

2 – I read somewhere that we are now around $8 million under the minimum salary required before the season starts…so why wouldn’t we keep Delonte &/or Bassy? They are solid players. We will have to use that 8 milly before the season starts on someone. What am I missing here?

3 – As the KAHNniver said several times during the season ticket holder brunch I attended with him last summer, one of his main goals is to make this organization a prime destination for player development. He wants this place to be the type of place that free agents want to go to in order to get better and become more visible. Well we did just the opposite of that for Sessions, our big free agent signing last year, so that is pretty contradictory. All he did here was go from a 2nd year on the rise starter averaging 13 & 6 to a 3rd year backup averagin 8 & 3 on a horrible team. Yeah, I’m sure that did wonders for his development, confidence, exposure, game, and visibility. NOT.

4 – Telfair is a good backup. He plays the game the right way, and deserves a fair shot somewhere. Now with J-Fly injured and Ridnour as our only healthy point, shouldn’t we be keeping him? (again, see point #2 as well) Of course we won’t, because he is “McHale’s guy” and David already KAHNcelled his first stint here, by trading him and Rhino (2 relatively effective, young, and cheap players) for an expiring contract (Q-Rich, then Sleepy Blount) which we never used to trade, or for anything really.

5 – Ridnour > Sessions? Maybe. But maybe not. And Ridnour is older, slower, and clearly has less upside than Sessions. So David KAHNpounded his Sessions “mistake signing” by basically redoing it a year later, except for a dude who is almost 30 and has nowhere to go but down? On a 15 win team…this really makes sense? Oh, but I forgot, KAHN has a master plan. Yeah, doesn’t seem like it.

6 – Did a draft pick really need to be thrown in to get this trade KAHNducted? I mean, all we are in essence doing is selling Sessions and Hollins to the Cavs for dudes who either they or we are going to cut. Therefore, they are really already getting the 2 assets in the trade. I understand that Hollins was worth getting rid of, but the Cavs clearly wanted Sessions, and are desperate for new and decent talent. I just wonder if we couldn’t have pulled this trade off somehow with someone without including a pick. Once again, we are in essence getting nothing in return but their salaries off our books.

7 – Why do we keep making money saving changes over and over and over? What is this money going to ever get used for? To sign more guys like Webster/Pekovic/Darko? I really don’t see how we are going to SIGN a player of much of a higher caliber than that anytime in the forseeable future. So shouldn’t we occassionally try to get BETTER via trade, rather than get worse and cut money? It’s not like we are over the salary cap, or have an abundance of assets, or have key free agent targets to use this money on, so shouldn’t a trade involving us occassionally IMPROVE the team? (aside from the Beasley trade. So Kahn is like 1 for 6 in these trades)

8 – It seems like David KAHN’t think ahead properly. He signs Pekovic & Darko first, so then everyone in the league knows he has to trade Al. He signs Ridnour first, so then everyone in the league knows he has to trade Sessions. This is killing their trade value! And everyone obviously knows the KAHNman has an itchy trigger finger, which also doesn’t help our cause.

I had more reasons but these are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head this morning. Hopefully I’ll think of the rest later when I have more time, and can ammend this list to make it a full top 10.

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