The interesting thing with trading into next year’s draft is how each club weighs the risk of next year’s draft also being disrupted.
Whether it’s Victoria, NSW, WA, or multiple states; further waves are likely. But everyone will have their own thoughts on that likelihood.
Personally I think it’s highly likely that next year’s draft will be disrupted in some form or another. If so, depending on when/where/how long, the Victorian kids could essentially have missed most of their U17’s and U18’s. Some of those kids will never make up that lost development, so it’s not just a challenge for recruiters.
But at the very least, recruiters could be making their judgments after 2 full years, possibly, of disruptions and multiple asterisks next to whatever numbers they’ve finely tuned to aid their ranking process. Next year’s draft could end up the weakest in modern history. That’s a risk for us if we trade ahead.
Whatever future trading we might do, we should at least use this logic as a bargaining chip to maximise the value of this year’s picks.