Not a bad article, and sums it up quite well, even when it uses some of the tiresome cliches (such as "should've traded Kruezer for Judd").
I found this part most interesting
Quote:
Greg Swann, who did this deal and had been successful in presiding over Collingwood's youth-focused philosophy, was unable to shift the collective thinking at his second club, despite employing the same coach (Mick Malthouse). Carlton have not drafted for an extra first-round draft pick in 14 years. Collingwood, meanwhile, for all its recent warts, has had seven top-20 picks over the past three post-seasons, eight if you count the swapping of Heath Shaw for Taylor Adams. Whether it works or not, the Collingwood direction is as clear and unambiguous as Carlton's has been muddled.
In 2001, Carlton drafted out of the Judd-Hodge-Ball-Bartel-Dal Santo-Stevie J-Mitchell-Swan superdraft to get Corey McKernan and Justin Murphy. Then the salary cap cheating penalties hit. The playing list eventually was restored to respectability, probably peaking in 2011. Since then, the Blues have been caught in the twilight zone between contention delusion and a half-baked rebuild. Their draft haul from this year can only be judged in retrospect, but the question must be asked why they always trade for a player, and never for a pick.
I agree with this, that we've traditionally shown zero creativity come trade-time and its hurt us. That said, I'm very pleased with the Jaksch/Whiley/#19 deal for #7 (all the Boekhorst rantings aside...hell for all we know Rogers might've picked him at #7 anyway!), as well as the Everitt and Docherty deals, so we are showing more lateral thinking in this area. But Niall's right that we also need to look at ways to improve our draft position. I'll be curious to see what we do next year, as its supposed to be a pretty busy FA period.