Post by flats on Mar 26, 2013 8:18:39 GMT -5
We don't exactly have their draft choice. Basically, no one in the NBA is willing to just trade draft choices anymore since we got lucky and robbed the Clippers of Kyrie Irving in exchange for Mo Williams. So teams "protect" the picks they trade, meaning "We'll give you our 2013 first rounder, but if it's a top 3 pick then you'll get our 2014 instead." It can go the other way too - with the team on the receiving end saying they want the pick protected on the other side of the round, so they don't get a really crappy first rounder. That's a deal the Lakers made with the Suns for this year's pick - the Suns get the Lakers pick IF they're out of the playoffs. When Christ Grant was negotiating the Ramon Sessions deal I believe, he asked the Lakers to throw us the part of this pick that wasn't protected - so we get it if they DO make the playoffs. But the Lakers made it even more complicated than that, asking for this year's Heat pick that we got in the LeBron trade in return. Just to play it safe in case the Heat pick was actually better than the Laker pick Grant set it up so that we have the right to choose which one of these picks we want and give LA the other.
SO - what this means in practical terms. If LA misses the playoffs the Suns get their lottery pick, and we get the Heat pick (which will be the last pick in the first round, number 30 overall). If the Lakers make the playoffs we can swap that #30 pick for their pick, which will be lower. The best case for us is them being the 8 seed, because that would correlate to the best pick. So we would jump from the 30th overall pick to the 15th or 16th.
Plus we've got our own pick which will probably be top 5-6, and a couple early 2nd rounders to play around with if we want to move up a few more spots.
SO - what this means in practical terms. If LA misses the playoffs the Suns get their lottery pick, and we get the Heat pick (which will be the last pick in the first round, number 30 overall). If the Lakers make the playoffs we can swap that #30 pick for their pick, which will be lower. The best case for us is them being the 8 seed, because that would correlate to the best pick. So we would jump from the 30th overall pick to the 15th or 16th.
Plus we've got our own pick which will probably be top 5-6, and a couple early 2nd rounders to play around with if we want to move up a few more spots.
