ASK IRA: Did Heat’s Duncan Robinson trade prove to be win-win for all involved?

Q: Is Duncan Robinson’s success a knock on Erik Spoelstra’s coaching? – Bob, Davie.

A: No, it’s actually a credit to Erik Spoelstra’s coaching, for developing such a prospect who similarly thrived at times with the Heat. The decision for the Heat was whether to pay Duncan Robinson $20 million for this season, or try to get off some of the otherwise guaranteed $10 million owed for this past season if they had waived him prior to this past season. Therefore, the sign-and-trade and move for the less-expensive Simone Fontecchio. Whereas the Heat would have owed Duncan $20 million for 2025–26 had he stayed, the Pistons have him at $16.8 million this season, with nothing more than $2 million guaranteed beyond. Then there are the development questions, including whether it would have benefited the Heat this past season to have retained Duncan and played him ahead of the likes of Jaime Jaquez Jt. and Pelle Larsson. Instead, Fontecchio handled such duty on a one-year, expiring $8.3 million deal that next will have him as a free agent this summer. An argument could be made that the Robinson trade was a win-win move for all involved, including the Pistons. And even in Saturday’s Pistons loss to the Cavaliers you saw the duality of the Duncan Robinson experience, the late 3-pointer, but also being picked on twice defensively by James Harden. For Duncan, it always has been a matter of having to be in the right place at the right time.

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Q: Why even do this sham joke of a lottery? – Tomasz.

A: Because the alternative is to allow teams to race to the bottom with impunity. At least now, teams know they can’t automatically lose their way to the No. 1 pick. And while the NBA has established in the incoming lottery rules a “relegation zone,” where the three worst teams get few lottery chances, it is not in any way true relegation. If you want that, have a 22-team main league (counting the two incoming expansion teams) and a 10-team relegation league. As in soccer, have the bottom, say, three of the 22-team top league go down in relegation and the top three in the 10-team relegation league move up. Like the FA Cup and other European cups, allow all 32 to participate in the NBA Cup and make players from both leagues eligible for All-Star Weekend. It will never happen, but can you imagine the desperation to both avoid going down as well as the desperation to get back up. Of course, the international relegation systems also do not have playoffs in the top leagues, and that’s where the NBA recognizes a sizable amount of its revenue.