I agree completely with your post. Despite this, I am coming around to the view that the trade was probably not a bad idea.
Doesn't mean that the trade, or even the timing was good. We still got robbed. However, against my initial thoughts that trading DMC itself was a bad idea, I'm coming round to the view that perhaps it was time to move on.
If we had kept DMC, we would have been perpetually in the hunt for the 8th seed for the next few years. We might have made it sometime, and missed the others. Over a 3 year period, we would have had a middling pick in 2018. Cousins would have taken around 40% of our cap. With just one pick, little or no cap space, a bad team, and a small market, our only hope of improvement would have been big strides by some of the kids. And who is to say DMC wouldn't have demanded a trade an year or so after getting paid? What contracts would we have needed to take back to get that salary matched?
Now, despite the poor returns we got in the trade, we get Buddy, and three draft picks over the next two years, all expected to be high (perhaps NO pick this year might be in the range of our own pick next year prior to the trade). Plus we get tons of cap space, which, if we can use wisely, we can turn into additional assets.
While the trade itself was bad, given our unique draft situation, we'll end up with slightly more than just what the trade gave us. Is the hope of a slightly better future, better than potentially making playoffs once or more over the next few years, and seeing one of the best bigs tear into the other teams? Tough call, but I've started leaning towards the hope the trade offers.
I will say I was against trading Cousins but I could certainly see the arguments for trading him as well and it has nothing to do with his personality or with #CharacterMatters.
Scenario 1: Keep Cousins
In Cousins you know that you have a big man that you can build around. Someone who bends the defense and creates open looks for his team mates. You still have WCS who started playing well about 2-4 weeks before the trade. There was progress there so there was a useful player to look forward to that you could play with Cousins.
You still had Malachi showing signs of being a good young SG prospect who fits well in the system. You still had Skal developing in the background and Papagiannis working on his craft.
Whether or not Kings would have made the play offs or kept their pick no one really knows. Its all guesses at this stage. We know that Cousins was banged up due to the workload he carried with this team so chances are he would have missed some games. But for arguments sake let's assume that Kings would have just missed the play offs and conveyed the 1st round pick to Chicago. You still have Bogdanovic in the wings that you are planning to bring over to off-set the loss of a draft pick. You signed a couple of good solid veterans in Temple and Tolliver and a bit of a bust in Afflalo.
Going into summer you had enough cap room to offer max deal to a player but also a bunch of expiring deals. By just missing out on the play offs you rebuilt your image around the league from a franchise that couldn't keep out of its way to a franchise that plays hard every time they get out on the court and on the verge of being a play off team. In the FA you go out and try and sign a difference maker. Can it be Jrue Holiday or Otto Porter or someone that comes in, addresses the position of need going forward. Or you could do what the Kings did last summer to add solid role players that filled a position of need.
Now there are also trade possibilities out there. Let's not forget what someone like Isaiah Thomas was signed and/or traded for. There are bargains out there to be had and some players fit some systems better than others. Smart, thorough franchise can make those signings.
So going into next season you still had kids that had a season and another off-season of development, in prime Cousins, maybe a difference maker FA or a couple of solid FAs, maybe a trade or maybe not. So with the move to get a number of young talented player via the 2016 draft, you have replenished your asset base. You can maybe start thinking about having the Cousins-WCS-Skal-Papagiannis-Tolliver front court going forward making Kosta a tradable asset. You would have your SG position solidified with steady veteran in Temple, experienced rookie in Bogdanovic who you could play straight away and a young developing Richardson. You might be able to even play all 3 some spot minutes at SF.
All of a sudden, just by internal improvement of the young players you could have a better rotation than you did this season plus enough money to drop a max contract on someone. Sign a couple of veterans and its a team that would once again push for the play offs but a team that has enough young pieces to make it more of a long term thing than a one and done team.
Is the approach perfect?! No because there are a number of uncertainties but you still have your big guy that you re-sign to a max deal once you have done all the signings and as long as you have that franchise level player on the books you are in a better position than if you didn't have one.
Scenario 2: Trade Cousins
I can certainly see the merit in going down this path but provided that it is done the right way and you get a god father haul coming your way. Kings have done neither. They traded their in prime franchise player for 50 cents of a dollar. They got Hield who could be a good player but with that shot he is guaranteed to play many years in the league on some role. They get a pick but it is top 3 protected and an early 2nd round pick. So essentially, the Kings traded their franchise for a couple of 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick. That is more than a measly return. Sure you keep your pick that pick is not going to be early enough to give you a chance at a genuine A grade talent whether you chose to make the pick or trade it.
Bottom line is Kings are picking mid lottery again, this time twice in one draft. That should get you a couple of very good young players but will you draft a franchise level guy? I am not even taking into the account the sins of past trades where Philly can swap with Kings this year and get the 2019 pick unprotected. That is a huge blow for a rebuilding team.
Now I have no problem with rebuilding provided that it is done right. That means that the most important goal for the season is to develop players the right way and teach them the right habits. It means that you as a franchise must absolutely nail your picks. There is no room for failure. This approach allows you to accumulate players in similar age brackets so that if you are lucky to draft a franchise player or two, you already have majority of your roster or core rotation in place that is in similar age bracket, have played together for years and know each other's games well.
Now the danger you have here is that you can get stuck in this perennial cycle of being a lottery teams by not having a clear vision and patience to stick to it, by not making the correct calls on draft nights and at the trade table and just generally in the every day operations of the franchise. If anything, this franchise has shown that they don't have neither. They don't have a clear vision or a plan and they certainly do not have the patience to see it though. In order to rebuild successfully you need to draft well, develop well, trade well and be patient. Rebuilding successfully is not easy. It requires luck, patience and know how. Now Kings could get lucky and get their franchise guy or guys this draft but there is no quick fix, no quick turn around. Rebuild generally takes 5 years and sometimes more. You need to be in for the long haul and then pull all the right moves along the way. At the moment the Kings are miles away from it and things are even more complicated by this debt of draft pick/s that is looking over the franchise.
I would feel more confident and comfortable with this approach if the Kings were a stable franchise with clearly defined roles within the franchise and that are respected around the league and held in good regard. Unfortunately this franchise is known as the circus show of the NBA and rightly so. I have everything crossed that this changes but something tells me this is not changing as long as Vivek Ranadive has a say in basketball matters. He thinks he is smarter than everyone and by trying to outsmart others around the league, all he ends up doing is outsmarting himself and the franchise. He might be a smart tech savvy guy but he is not basketball smart.