they just took the attitude of "why trade for him, he'll sign later" with PG and Kawhi. they couldn't afford to punt and have another season of lebron's waning prime in limbo. they kind of had to make the move now. they did get bent over on the picks though, so many ways that that could go sideways for them like you said.

if the pels keep ball and ingram and they both keep getting hurt, they still have all the picks, which would have been pretty normal return for a star not that long ago.