It’s not a bad strategy, regardless of where we finish. Cornes and others are significantly overrating the value of the picks we traded to get Hopper and Taranto with the exception of the future first rounder which is an unknown at this stage.If we finish top 4 this year or next and get a good look at a flag shot then it's the right move, if we don't then Cornes is right and it was a bad strategy.
We are near guaranteed 7 years of quality service from two very good players in the deal. The odds of getting that from any of the 4 draft picks in the range of 12-31 is a lot less.
I hope we continue to look for trades like this in the future because long term, we will do much better than using the equivalent picks in the draft.