The biggest story of the 2017 NBA draft is that the Chicago Bulls finally traded Jimmy Butler...for some stuff. It's hard for me to imagine that they could do no better than Kris Dunn, Lauri Markkanen, and Zach Lavine's new ACL, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there was nothing better out there. I don't know.
What I do know is every couple years some NBA team makes a really dumb trade and my favorite team, the Dallas Mavericks, never seem to capitalize on it.
James Harden was traded for essentially Steven Adams. Pau Gasol was traded for a random collection of picks, players, and just to make it fun, his brother. (And yes, I know, Marc Gasol ended up being an all-star. But at the time no one saw that coming.) The Kings traded Nic Stauskas, Jason Thompson, and Carly Landry to the Sixers so they could sign Rajon Rondo and Marco Belinelli. The Kings also gave the Sixers the right to swap picks in the 2016 and 2017 drafts (the latter of which ended up being number three overall), as well as their 2019 first round pick. Philadelphia was then able to acquire the number one pick from the Boston Celtics and chose Markelle Fultz. If there are any Kings fans reading this, feel free to take a moment and cry.
The above are just a few examples of NBA teams making bad trades. It happens a lot, and the Jimmy Butler trade is just the latest instance. Why aren't more teams in a position to take advantage of dumb GMs?
In the Mavericks' case, they've never been great at acquiring and holding onto assets. In general, Mark Cuban and company have ignored the draft, instead choosing to focus on free agents and swinging for the fences on trade. Cuban established a reputation of paying any cost to win soon after buying the Mavericks. You want the owner of your favorite team to value winning and vow to pay whatever takes to do so. But if money is no object, you don't ever have to get creative when you go shopping. This leaves the pantry bare, because Dallas will trade as many picks and young players as it can in order to acquire the player it's pursuing.
If, hypothetically, you trade all your assets for a temperamental, moody, bitter, enigmatic point guard who mails in playoff games and it doesn't work out, you're going to be set back for a few years and have no chance to make these blockbuster trades. (On the positive side, you could trade your young players and picks for a future Hall of Fame point guard who is a key player on your 2011 championship team)
My point is if you don't already have a top ten player on your team, you should be stashing picks and young players on your roster whenever possible, because you never know when some other NBA team is going to have a mini-stroke and offer you a top ten player for peanuts and a couple of draft picks. This is something the Dallas Mavericks have yet to learn.
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