Woj: Wizards finalizing deal to acquire Marvin Bagley, Isaiah Livers and picks for Galinari and Mike Muscala…

[leswizards]

For those hoping that Bagley comes in and plays better than he did in Detroit: almost no players come in and play better for Wes than they did elsewhere. Almost all come in and play worse than they did elsewhere.

Kuzma played better for Wes.
Tyus is playing better for Wes.
Porzingis played better for Wes.

I don’t understand why you believe that about Kuzma. His 3 lowest drtg and ws/48 have been the three seasons he has played for wuj. 3 of his 4 lowest ortg’s have been the 3 seasons under wuj.

Tyus is having a career low drtg. His ws/48 is much lower than his past 2 seasons. His ortg is a career high though.

Kpop did have career highs under wuj for ortg and ws/48. But he had career low drtgs. However, now that he is Boston he has new career highs in ortg and ws/48, and his drtg has dropped lower than what it was under wuj.

I understand that drtg is highly influenced by team defense. The point is wuj constantly has teams that play awful team defense causing his players to have career low drtg.

[nate33]

For those hoping that Bagley comes in and plays better than he did in Detroit: almost no players come in and play better for Wes than they did elsewhere. Almost all come in and play worse than they did elsewhere.

Kuzma played better for Wes.
Tyus is playing better for Wes.
Porzingis played better for Wes.

I don’t understand why you believe that about Kuzma. His 3 lowest drtg and ws/48 have been the three seasons he has played for wuj. 3 of his 4 lowest ortg’s have been the 3 seasons under wuj.

Tyus is having a career low drtg. His ws/48 is much lower than his past 2 seasons. His ortg is a career high though.

Kpop did have career highs under wuj for ortg and ws/48. But he had career low drtgs. However, now that he is Boston he has new career highs in ortg and ws/48, and his drtg has dropped lower than what it was under wuj.

I understand that drtg is highly influenced by team defense. The point is wuj constantly has teams that play awful team defense causing his players to have career low drtg.

DRtg is a stupid stat that depends almost entirely on how well the team defends. If we had Rudy Gobert instead of Daniel Gafford, the DRtg of Tyus Jones, Kuzma, Deni and Poole would radically improve even though there would be nothing better about their individual defense.

[payitforward]

It's shocking how bad Isaiah Livers is. The guy is averaging just 9 points per 36 and posting a TS% of .460. How can you shoot that poorly when your usage is that low? He is posting a -10.1 point differential on the worst team in league history.

Yet, as I've pointed out, he shot 42% on 3s as a rookie. & his rookie TS% was .629 (as a wing, btw, not a 4 wch is what he's been playing...).

Don't get me wrong here -- I'm not making any claims for him. But, it's good at least to be able to look back to that rookie year performance level (even if it was only in 383 minutes).

[tontoz]

Drtg works fine for team defense. For individuals it is a completely different stat. Pretty much worthless. The formula is a mess.

[leswizards]

Kuzma played better for Wes.
Tyus is playing better for Wes.
Porzingis played better for Wes.

I don’t understand why you believe that about Kuzma. His 3 lowest drtg and ws/48 have been the three seasons he has played for wuj. 3 of his 4 lowest ortg’s have been the 3 seasons under wuj.

Tyus is having a career low drtg. His ws/48 is much lower than his past 2 seasons. His ortg is a career high though.

Kpop did have career highs under wuj for ortg and ws/48. But he had career low drtgs. However, now that he is Boston he has new career highs in ortg and ws/48, and his drtg has dropped lower than what it was under wuj.

I understand that drtg is highly influenced by team defense. The point is wuj constantly has teams that play awful team defense causing his players to have career low drtg.

DRtg is a stupid stat that depends almost entirely on how well the team defends. If we had Rudy Gobert instead of Daniel Gafford, the DRtg of Tyus Jones, Kuzma, Deni and Poole would radically improve even though there would be nothing better about their individual defense.

The coach is responsible for team defense and I am using the stat to show that wuj as coach consistently gets less out of his players on defense than they have done for their careers. Almost every player who has ever played for wuj has had an either a career low drtg or a below average drtg. That is not a sign of lacking personnel, but a sign of poor coaching.

[AFM]

This is a total whatever trade for me.

[TGW]

This is a total whatever trade for me.

I mean the players are useless, but one team got picks out of it. I think it was a really good trade for the Wizards. Anytime you give up nothing for something it’s a good trade.

[payitforward]

Per 36 Bagley is averaging 20/9 with a TS of 64% this season....

True enough.

OTOH, he's below average as a rebounder, below average in assists for a Center (tho that's likely a function of the team's bad offense overall), turns the ball over at an above average rate for a C, & averages more turnovers & fewer steals than average for a C.

All that said, he isn't absolutely terrible -- he was just a terribly disappointing #2 pick.

This is a total whatever trade for me.

I mean the players are useless, but one team got picks out of it. I think it was a really good trade for the Wizards. Anytime you give up nothing for something it’s a good trade.

Yup. Given all the rest of the factors involved, it's a terrific trade for us.

[NatP4]

One of worst teams in NBA history trading draft picks for veteran players

[nate33]

Really underrated move. We were really struggling with our center position and Mike wasn't ever gonna be the answer. We were also I like kicking the tires on livers. Two second rounders and some young guys with potential to turn it around. I love it. A+


Bagley will get time

Livers might get cut or end up on the gogo. Depends on if he has a connection to the front office. With Bernard, Omoruyi and diallo he's a bit redundant pulling bench warmer duty.

We Bassically paid 17 mill for a look at Bagley and 2 seconds pricy but creative.

Det saves 4-5 mill this year and 12.5 next.

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using RealGM mobile app

Bear in mind that their 2023-24 salary is prorated. So Detroit saved $4M under the cap, but it was actually only about $2M saved since the season is half over. So we paid $15M for Bagley and two SRP's. We also don't know if any cash changed hands as part of the transaction. Teams can include up to $5M in cash, but reports rarely cover it.

[pcbothwel]

One of worst teams in NBA history trading draft picks for veteran players

I think they are telling themselves that Cade is a Tatum type lead scorer and Duren can be a starting 5 on a playoff team. If they can sign two guys looking for the payday (siakam + bridges?), they would still have an improved Ivey, Ausar, and 2024 top 3 pick to build around them.

[PaulinVA]

Read on Twitter

[Kanyewest]

For those hoping that Bagley comes in and plays better than he did in Detroit: almost no players come in and play better for Wes than they did elsewhere. Almost all come in and play worse than they did elsewhere.

Delon Wright, Montrez Harrell, Porzingis, Tyus Jones, Kendrick Nunn were better

Jordan Poole, Dinwiddie, Danillo Galinari, Will Barton were worse.

[pcbothwel]

I don’t expect Bagley to do much of anything except eat some minutes as a backup big.
That said, he played most of his minutes with Ausar, Hayes, Stewart, and Ivey. Offensively, you can’t get much worse in regards to floor spacing and decision making/ball movement… so pairing a guy like bagley, who struggles in those areas, with that lineup is AWFUL. He’ll be a better fit with Wright, Kispert and Deni.

[nate33]

Read on Twitter

Interesting.

I'm assuming it was because TPE's were involved. I guess Detroit had a TPE large enough to absorb Muscala so that was treated like a separate trade: Muscala for TPE, which left us with a $3.5M TPE.

What I don't understand is the remaining portion of the deal. It was effectively a trade of Bagley's $12.5M salary and Gallo's $6.8M salary. The difference between those two salaries is $5.7M, which is where the Detroit TPE was created, but how did we execute a trade that was this lopsided? We weren't $5.7M under the cap and we didn't have a TPE big enough to absorb Bagley's total salary. The CBA lets you make lopsided trades with a salary differential as high as $5M. I don't know how we absorbed a $5.7M differential to generate a TPE.

I wonder if we somehow used our large $12.3M TPE for the Porzingis trade. If so, that would suck because that's a valuable asset to help some other team get under the luxtax.

[nate33]

I don’t expect Bagley to do much of anything except eat some minutes as a backup big.
That said, he played most of his minutes with Ausar, Hayes, Stewart, and Ivey. Offensively, you can’t get much worse in regards to floor spacing and decision making/ball movement… so pairing a guy like bagley, who struggles in those areas, with that lineup is AWFUL. He’ll be a better fit with Wright, Kispert and Deni.

He is posting a TS% of .639 this year, but that's in a pretty low sample size that had lots of garbage time. We should probably expect something closer to his average over the last two seasons, which is .586. And that's really low for a center who isn't a stretch big.

So basically, he's a pretty mediocre rebounder and a mediocre volume scorer who doesn't play good defense.

[NatP4]

Played most of those minutes during the first month of the season in which he was a regular rotation player. Has started 10 games this year.

[nate33]

Played most of those minutes during the first month of the season in which he was a regular rotation player. Has started 10 games this year.

On a team like Detroit, the entire second until plays a lot of what I consider to be garbage time because they're down 20 in the 2nd half and the other team stops trying very hard.

But we are arguing a pretty minor semantic point here. Whether or not he is playing "garbage time" or just "2nd string minutes on a bad team that is often being blown out", the point is, 478 minutes of higher shooting efficiency that is significantly out of line with his career numbers is probably not something I'd use to make future projections.

[leswizards]

Read on Twitter

Interesting.

I'm assuming it was because TPE's were involved. I guess Detroit had a TPE large enough to absorb Muscala so that was treated like a separate trade: Muscala for TPE, which left us with a $3.5M TPE.

What I don't understand is the remaining portion of the deal. It was effectively a trade of Bagley's $12.5M salary and Gallo's $6.8M salary. The difference between those two salaries is $5.7M, which is where the Detroit TPE was created, but how did we execute a trade that was this lopsided? We weren't $5.7M under the cap and we didn't have a TPE big enough to absorb Bagley's total salary. The CBA lets you make lopsided trades with a salary differential as high as $5M. I don't know how we absorbed a $5.7M differential to generate a TPE.

I wonder if we somehow used our large $12.3M TPE for the Porzingis trade. If so, that would suck because that's a valuable asset to help some other team get under the luxtax.

I think that I remember reading an article after the Wizards made a complicated trade in the past that just as long as the completed trade worked under the cap, the individual trades that were combined in the trade don’t have to meet the cap rules.

[payitforward]

...the point is 478 minutes of higher shooting efficiency that is significantly out of line with his career numbers is probably not something I'd use to make future projections.

Correct! But, there is at least a little good news here all the same.

1. On his career, Bagley has demonstrated clearly that he cannot shoot the 3. In fact, his % this year is his lowest ever! But... at least he's more or less stopped shooting them! On his career, he's averaged @3 attempts per 40 minutes -- this year the number's down to only .5.

2. OTOH, he's shooting 2 pointers at a career high %. & more of them per 40 minutes than his career average.

3. Plus, he's pushed his FT% up to a career high -- on the 2d highest # attempts per 40 minutes in his career.

Now... not shooting 3's limits his usefulness, obviously. All the same, those areas of improvement are also significant.

I.e., he's irrelevant to us -- we're rebuilding. But, maybe, if he finishes the season strong, he could fit into some kind of a trade next off season???