ASK IRA: Is Heat approach to get it right rather than getting it done?
Q: Don’t understand the Heat fans worries that we missed out on good but not great free agents. Settling for good is how the Knicks have remained irrelevant for decades. – Bernardo, Fort Lauderdale.
A: Don’t know if this can be classified as Question of the Week (considering it is not in question form), but yes – very much yes – to this. Free agency tends to be another aspect of the instant-gratification element of sports, similar to immediate expectations on draft picks and young prospects. For some teams, winning the initial stages of free agency is all there is. Then reality hits home. For other, methodical franchises, the big picture and the long view dominate. And those are the teams that also tend to dominate when it comes to contention. So let them drop their balloons and confetti at the start of free agency. Then cycle back to the standings and playoff results months from now. Winning July 1 is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Q: Hello, Ira. Are the Knicks and Sixers open to possible investigation due to the deals for Jalen Brunson and P.J. Tucker being trumpeted days in advance of when free-agent negotiations were supposed to start? – Paul, Miami.
A: The difference between those rapid-fire agreements and the ones that brought Kyle Lowry to the Heat and Lonzo Ball to the Bulls last summer is that Jalen Brunson and P.J. Tucker were straight-up free-agent signings, with no need for back-channel sign-and-trade negotiations. So the courtship was able to be done from afar, without team officials having to discuss trade permutations in advance of free agency. So, no, New York and Philadelphia likely will not lose second-round picks as the Heat and Bulls did for their free-agency timetables last summer.
Q: I still don’t understand why teams are obsessed about draft picks. At age 19, you aren’t winning anything with them on their rookie contracts. Even the best are going to fail a few times in the playoffs. Maybe if you can get a bunch of picks the same draft, but spreading three over five years? Your 2023 pick and your 2027 pick aren’t on the same timeline. Even two years at that age can be problematic, as we are thinking about trading a 22-year-old Herro for a 25-year-old star who is closer in age and development to Bam Adebayo. – Dave, Placentia, Calif.
A: But what trade picks are is the unknown, presenting all the possibilities, with none of the warts. To a degree, they’re the crypto of NBA trade currency. They could be Bitcoin durring the best of times, or something closer to where we stand today. Draft picks are about hope. And in the NBA, hope springs eternal.
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