The wizard Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that Orlando has traded 28 year old swing man Arron Afflalo to the Nuggets for the 21 year old Frenchman, Evan Fournier, and the 56th pick in this years draft. Assuming the government doesn't get involved on any interstate violations of the Commerce Clause, it appears the Nuggets will be getting away with robbery.
Look, I get that this trade and the Mavs-Knicks trade are precursors to future moves, but I do not see the value in trading a valuable commodity in Afflalo, a guy who put up nearly 19 ppg last season with a PER of 16. He is not overpaid, coming in right in at just under $8mil a year over the next two seasons. That is what you pay players of Afflalo's skill set. To give you some context, that is what guys like Trevor Ariza, Ersan Illyasova and John Salmons are paid. Afflalo is better than all of them.
Some are reporting this move is step one in the Nuggets plan to get an elite like Love. I'm going to hold off on explaining how that's possible, but tonight will give us some more answers. As for the Magic, I don't see any logic in trading an established veteran who can be a leader on a young team, for a bag of bargain french fries and a bench player. Again, they may have a separate angle to play in dumping Afflalo's salary and giving themselves some flexibility this Summer. Who knows.
What I do know is that if the status quo stays, the Magic will continue to suck and people will continue to not give a shit about them. They could have had the chance to go Exum-Oladipo-Afflalo or Smart-Oladipo-Afflao next year, but I guess they wanted some French, which history has shown us, will lead to likely defeat and/or further humiliation.
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