Wow, is the first world that came out of my mouth.
Why would Tre do this? He is not a dummy so I started to wonder if Neal was a much bigger problem in the dressing room or to the coach than we know on this board.
If you look at Neal's trade history, it seems strange for a perennial mid 20's goal scorer to be traded twice in his third season and sixth season, and left unprotected for the expansion draft (they protected Calle Jarnkrok ahead of him), Vegas didn't seem to push hard to resign him (just guessing, no actually facts for this).
You build teams around key individuals and on the surface Neal seems to be one of these guys, but none of his previous teams seemed interested in keeping him around long-term.
Still not a big fan of this trade but if Neal was a bigger problem in the dressing room than we know of (benching for the last playoff games IMO speaks volumes) then maybe a trade had to happen. For all we know, Peters could have went to Tre at season end and said he is uncoachable, his give a sh** meter is low, bad influence or other things. They might have decided that he was a big priority in getting rid of.
I was curious to see if Neal was going to have a bounce back year with the flames. With this trade and its return, to me there seems to have been a high need to get rid of some rot in the dressing room. Anyways, my two cents and I still believe in Tre.
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