Yes, that was a terrible, cost-saving move. One of the NYK picks that were traded to UTA became Gordon Hayward.
I'm glad that we didn't suffer from seeing him leave to Boston without getting any compensation...
If we had taken Hayward though, who knows if he would have ended up as the max player and top free agent this summer. I think he would have had a solid career but he had the chance to grow in Utah and that team was built with him as the centerpiece of the offense. Him going to Boston is something that couldn't be predicted and I'm not so sure he would have left Utah for Boston if the IT/Irving trade was made at the draft instead of recently. IT played a big part in recruiting him and Hayward signed on to join IT's team, that had the best record in the East last year. They only have 4 returning players now though with a new centerpiece and PG. I know Stevens was probably the main reason he signed since Stevens was his college coach but they've changed quite a bit since he agreed to sign.
Who knows who we would have taken there if we made that pick. We could have used it since we traded away our own 2010 pick in the KT trade, so we were left with no 1st rounders that year. Beyond that though 2010 was the last year we made the playoffs since Stoudemire left that summer. We made some bad acquisitions to fill the void he left, signing Hakim Warrick, Josh Childress, and trading for Hedo Turkoglu. At #9 we could have taken Hayward or Paul George, who was selected #10. If we would have went after a PF then Ed Davis and Patrick Patterson were probably the most likely at that spot, they were taken #13 and #14 that year. The team today would look quite different though. It's fun to look back on and guess, since there are so many "what ifs" involved it's easy not to get frustrated with it, IMO.
