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If the Dorks manage to persuade O'Keefe he wants to play for less than his market value and then they flounder around all over a no 16 draft pick they are completely and utterly deluded about the real value of picks. As I wrote elsewhere a couple of days ago, the no 16 pick doesn't excite me in the slightest. Give me O'Keefe any day of the week. Indeed, if we had the no 16 pick I'd willingly give it up just to keep him at the club.
But commonsense / past practice dictates that the Swans deserve some scant compensation for the loss of one of their top 5 players, even if he is an old man of 28. The expected value of pick 16 is miniscule in comparison to even three years of O'Keefe, especially for a club in the position of Hawthorn.
If you don't believe me, have a look at the rate at which players taken around that mark turn into even good players, let alone potential matchwinners. Yes, with whatever pick you have there is a teeny weeny chance of picking up a top-20 in the comp type player, or even a top-50 in the comp type. But outside the top 10 - arguably even the top 5 - the chances of finding that gem don't decrease significantly as the picks get lower.
I'd argue that ROK should have - if they were rational - more value to Carlton than pick 6. Their greatest asset at the moment isn't Judd, or Gibbs, or Kruezer, though they are very attractive assets. But sooner or later they need to decide they want to get up there amongst the top 4 or so and at least give themselves a chance of winning a flag. And surely their immediate window is while they still have Fevola at the peak of his powers. That means the next 3-4 years. Which is exactly the period of time they can reasonably expect ROK to keep on playing very high quality footy. Even if they do snare a potential top-5 midfielder with pick 6, it will only be a fluke if they become a matchwinner before that player has 4 or so years under his belt, minimum. Even amongst those sooperstars, the Bartels, Coreys, Abletts, Hodges, Cooneys of this world are more typical than Judd and Selwood.
ROK may not be enough on his own to elevate them to the level of the Hawks and Cats but surely they have faith that some of the rest of their kindergarten other than Gibbs, Murphy and Kruezer have the potential to become very good players, and that the natural development from these will also help elevate them. But even if it does take more than 3 or 4 years, the worst that will happen is those young'uns gain from an injection of more high class experience into the team and learn something from ROK's professionalism. It's that, or add another teen to flap around for a few years so their midfield can peak just as Fev hangs up his boots.
On a related matter, I am very pleased for Melbourne that they seem intent on keeping Bruce around the place. It would be easy for them to ship him off for a draft pick and throw the "rebuilding" line / need more picks line at their fans. But Bruce is an excellent player in a club severely lacking in excellent players in that age range and I'm sure they'll get more development out of Pettard, Bate, Jones, Morton etc from the chance to play alongside him than they will from the chance to draft a Willoughby, DOK, Pfeiffer or the like.
But commonsense / past practice dictates that the Swans deserve some scant compensation for the loss of one of their top 5 players, even if he is an old man of 28. The expected value of pick 16 is miniscule in comparison to even three years of O'Keefe, especially for a club in the position of Hawthorn.
If you don't believe me, have a look at the rate at which players taken around that mark turn into even good players, let alone potential matchwinners. Yes, with whatever pick you have there is a teeny weeny chance of picking up a top-20 in the comp type player, or even a top-50 in the comp type. But outside the top 10 - arguably even the top 5 - the chances of finding that gem don't decrease significantly as the picks get lower.
I'd argue that ROK should have - if they were rational - more value to Carlton than pick 6. Their greatest asset at the moment isn't Judd, or Gibbs, or Kruezer, though they are very attractive assets. But sooner or later they need to decide they want to get up there amongst the top 4 or so and at least give themselves a chance of winning a flag. And surely their immediate window is while they still have Fevola at the peak of his powers. That means the next 3-4 years. Which is exactly the period of time they can reasonably expect ROK to keep on playing very high quality footy. Even if they do snare a potential top-5 midfielder with pick 6, it will only be a fluke if they become a matchwinner before that player has 4 or so years under his belt, minimum. Even amongst those sooperstars, the Bartels, Coreys, Abletts, Hodges, Cooneys of this world are more typical than Judd and Selwood.
ROK may not be enough on his own to elevate them to the level of the Hawks and Cats but surely they have faith that some of the rest of their kindergarten other than Gibbs, Murphy and Kruezer have the potential to become very good players, and that the natural development from these will also help elevate them. But even if it does take more than 3 or 4 years, the worst that will happen is those young'uns gain from an injection of more high class experience into the team and learn something from ROK's professionalism. It's that, or add another teen to flap around for a few years so their midfield can peak just as Fev hangs up his boots.
On a related matter, I am very pleased for Melbourne that they seem intent on keeping Bruce around the place. It would be easy for them to ship him off for a draft pick and throw the "rebuilding" line / need more picks line at their fans. But Bruce is an excellent player in a club severely lacking in excellent players in that age range and I'm sure they'll get more development out of Pettard, Bate, Jones, Morton etc from the chance to play alongside him than they will from the chance to draft a Willoughby, DOK, Pfeiffer or the like.
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