Reactions to yesterday’s trade between the Sacramento Kings and the Philadelphia 76ers have been as uniform as they have been resoundingly negative towards the Kings. Name your analyst; pretty much every opinion piece written by non-Kings writers has completely panned the trade, headlined by ESPN’s Kevin Pelton giving the Kings an F.

I’m not scared of popular opinion; it’s been wrong before, and it’s wrong now. Basically, the consensus says that Sacramento mortgaged much of its future to field a team that could maybe sniff the No. 8 seed next year. I’m not paraphrasing there; I’ve heard that exact assessment given multiple times.

Let’s say the Kings get Rajon Rondo and Wesley Matthews, as seems to be their goal now. They’d then have a starting lineup of Rondo, Matthews, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein and DeMarcus Cousins. Off the bench, you have a unit spearheaded by Darren Collison and Ben McLemore.

This is a top-10 starting unit in the NBA, and I might even go on the record to say it’s top-5. One stat to frame this argument: the Kings’ 2014/15 starting lineup of Collison/McLemore/Gay/Jason Thompson/Cousins actually had the fourth-best Net Rating (minimum 300 minutes) in the NBA at plus-16.4! Yes, some regression from that mark is to be expected, as it contains an unsustainably-good Defensive Rating of 92. But it’s a good start.

Swapping in Rondo for Collison is probably a net-neutral, I’ll admit (which is more about Collison being a good player than Rondo being washed out). But swapping in Matthews for McLemore is nothing short of monumental. Matthews is better in every conceivable statistically category, and statistics don’t even show his main value over McLemore: hard-nosed, skilled defense. And say what you will about Cauley-Stein’s offensive game, but I think his defensive impact alone will make him an upgrade over Thompson even as a rookie.

So, on average, that’s a respectable upgrade at the three spots surrounding Cousins and Gay. And at the end of the day, it’s these two who will determine how far this team goes. They are about as skilled and as versatile a one-two punch on offense as there is right now, but just get absolutely no respect due to spotty track records.

Look, players get put in bad situations; that doesn’t mean they’re bad players. Kyrie Irving was the subject of much ridicule before this season, but in an improved situation he proved indispensable to the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ success. Monta Ellis was considered a straight up “bad” player when the Dallas Mavericks signed him in 2013, and went on to play a huge role in the Mavs’ third-ranked offense that season.

Cousins and Gay also suffer from old arguments that stick around long past their expiration date. Writers to this day call Gay an “analytics nightmare,” ignoring the fact that his shooting splits this year were 46/36/86. Cousins still gets called a headcase, but if you were a superstar player on the Kings these past few years, with all the inept moves made, you’d be agitated too.

Winning is the greatest psychologist, and it’s what I expect Sacramento to do should they acquire Matthews and Rondo. This talk of “maybe sneaking into the playoffs” could look real silly real fast.

Casey Sherman is the Toronto Raptors Beat Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @shermham