Good Ringer article on how small market teams are going all-in on blockbuster trades:
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2022/9/1/23333842/small-market-teams-are-paying-big-prices-to-go-all-in
The key link that connects the Lakers’, Clippers’, and Nets’ deals to the Cavaliers’, Timberwolves’, and Hawks’ more recent moves is another trade by a small-market franchise. In 2020, the Bucks sent three first-round picks (two of their own and one from the Pacers) plus two swaps to New Orleans in exchange for Jrue Holiday.
Unlike the Lakers, Clippers, and Nets, the Bucks had developed their core internally: Giannis Antetokounmpo, in the draft, and Khris Middleton, via an early-career trade. But just as the Lakers—who notably missed the playoffs in LeBron’s first injury-plagued season in L.A.—needed Davis to take the next step toward title contention, the Bucks needed another star, too, and Holiday gave them the secondary creator and ace defender they sought. In the pivotal play of the next summer’s NBA Finals, with the series tied 2-2 and the Bucks leading by a single point, Holiday stripped Devin Booker and lobbed a triumphant alley-oop to Giannis on the other end. Milwaukee won the title, and the prospect of losing future draft equity was irrevocably, emphatically worth it.
That article also links to
this 2019 Ringer article, which looked at every first-round draft pick traded at least 3.5 years in advance of the pick since 1983. The article found that the most successful of such pick turned into Nurkic, with a career PER of 18.7, and the only All-Star that was produced by such pick was Hayward (who interestly enough at that time had a career PER of 17.5.
Again, that article was published in 2019 and would look much different if updated today.
