Shams: Porzingis to ATL

[hugepatsfan]

Boston fleeced in both deals IMO...
They got positive value for both players when they are negative value.
ATL is puzzling, they traded an expiring (1.5 years left) and 3 seconds to get Mann, not they pay to dump him 4 months later? Unclear what the rationale was, it's not like he played bad for them.
Nets angle is also unclear here...

I think this trade board tends to look at things more from the cap sheet perspective than on the court. End of the day, GMs keep their job by fielding teams that win games. Jrue and KP are both really, really good players. They're pretty solidly top 40-50 players in the game. Are they old, expensive, and/or injury prone? For sure. BUT that's why teams get the opportunity to add them for practically nothing.

Even really bad teams need to be able to show growth and progress. Like if Joe Cronin wants to keep his job while POR is 12th in the West he needs to be able to point to the team playing better even if results aren't there and young players progressing. You need better players for that, but as a 12th seed you don't want to give up actual assets for that. So you take Jrue for practically free with a lot of on court value basically as a salary dump. It's a good balance between making those improvements and preserving your higher end means to add talent.

On the Porzingis deal, the East is wide open. ATL has intriguing pieces. You want to improve your upset. Fans here go gaga for the #22 pick... let's be honest. 95% of the players drafted that late are total garbage. The NBA bust rate of picks in the 20s is insane. And even many of the ones that pan out won't be any good for a year or two. ATL wants to set themselves up to be a team that can go on an out of nowhere run like IND did this year or even them a few years ago in the Conf. Finals run. Once again you need better players to do that and in a league where everyone else wants good players, those can be expensive. Porzingis, because of that injury risk and salary, was one of the good players you can get for such a paltry asset cost. When you weight it all out, #22 is expendable enough to them that they can stomach that risk.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Boston fleeced in both deals IMO...
They got positive value for both players when they are negative value.
ATL is puzzling, they traded an expiring (1.5 years left) and 3 seconds to get Mann, not they pay to dump him 4 months later? Unclear what the rationale was, it's not like he played bad for them.
Nets angle is also unclear here...

I think this trade board tends to look at things more from the cap sheet perspective than on the court. End of the day, GMs keep their job by fielding teams that win games. Jrue and KP are both really, really good players. They're pretty solidly top 40-50 players in the game. Are they old, expensive, and/or injury prone? For sure. BUT that's why teams get the opportunity to add them for practically nothing.

Even really bad teams need to be able to show growth and progress. Like if Joe Cronin wants to keep his job while POR is 12th in the West he needs to be able to point to the team playing better even if results aren't there and young players progressing. You need better players for that, but as a 12th seed you don't want to give up actual assets for that. So you take Jrue for practically free with a lot of on court value basically as a salary dump. It's a good balance between making those improvements and preserving your higher end means to add talent.

On the Porzingis deal, the East is wide open. ATL has intriguing pieces. You want to improve your upset. Fans here go gaga for the #22 pick... let's be honest. 95% of the players drafted that late are total garbage. The NBA bust rate of picks in the 20s is insane. And even many of the ones that pan out won't be any good for a year or two. ATL wants to set themselves up to be a team that can go on an out of nowhere run like IND did this year or even them a few years ago in the Conf. Finals run. Once again you need better players to do that and in a league where everyone else wants good players, those can be expensive. Porzingis, because of that injury risk and salary, was one of the good players you can get for such a paltry asset cost. When you weight it all out, #22 is expendable enough to them that they can stomach that risk.

The biggest thing to remember is that players, while having a value which may fluctuate from team to team, only need to be assessed in the trade they are in.

Porzingis was, for all analysis, traded for a neutral package. #22/Mann was dumped in space, and Niang, at his salary, is neutral at best.

However, a team like Atlanta was willing to send an asset, #22, in order to exchange their bad salary for KP's higher cap hit.

All it takes is one team to be in a financial situation suitable for a player in order to acquire them. Too often do people assess all 400+ players in the NBA in a vacuum, which is a fine starting point, but not how actual NBA trades happen.

For example, Atlanta just traded a mediocre 1st and with a mediocre/bad salary for a big man who can put up 21/8/2.5 and shoot nearly 40% from 3P. Atlanta is taking a calculated risk, but they have a floor on the deal, which is "Get out of 2 years of Terrence Mann" if the worst health outcome for KP is the result. On the flip side, if KP plays 40-50 games, I would consider the trade good for Atlanta, and any more games played by KP are great for Atlanta.

[Mavrelous]

Boston fleeced in both deals IMO...
They got positive value for both players when they are negative value.
ATL is puzzling, they traded an expiring (1.5 years left) and 3 seconds to get Mann, not they pay to dump him 4 months later? Unclear what the rationale was, it's not like he played bad for them.
Nets angle is also unclear here...

I think this trade board tends to look at things more from the cap sheet perspective than on the court. End of the day, GMs keep their job by fielding teams that win games. Jrue and KP are both really, really good players. They're pretty solidly top 40-50 players in the game. Are they old, expensive, and/or injury prone? For sure. BUT that's why teams get the opportunity to add them for practically nothing.

Even really bad teams need to be able to show growth and progress. Like if Joe Cronin wants to keep his job while POR is 12th in the West he needs to be able to point to the team playing better even if results aren't there and young players progressing. You need better players for that, but as a 12th seed you don't want to give up actual assets for that. So you take Jrue for practically free with a lot of on court value basically as a salary dump. It's a good balance between making those improvements and preserving your higher end means to add talent.

On the Porzingis deal, the East is wide open. ATL has intriguing pieces. You want to improve your upset. Fans here go gaga for the #22 pick... let's be honest. 95% of the players drafted that late are total garbage. The NBA bust rate of picks in the 20s is insane. And even many of the ones that pan out won't be any good for a year or two. ATL wants to set themselves up to be a team that can go on an out of nowhere run like IND did this year or even them a few years ago in the Conf. Finals run. Once again you need better players to do that and in a league where everyone else wants good players, those can be expensive. Porzingis, because of that injury risk and salary, was one of the good players you can get for such a paltry asset cost. When you weight it all out, #22 is expendable enough to them that they can stomach that risk.

ATL legit paid more than Celtics did 2 years ago, and KP was younger, KP didn't improve his reputation in these years, I'd say he confirmed it.
I don't disagree that Jrue is a very good player, and teams that, let's be honest, are a mess in the locker room with no leadership, like the Blazers gain a lot by having him, I think should have been smarter in the negotiations, they should be the one receiving the picks.

[Dr Positivity]

This is a fair gamble for the Hawks, Porzingis could age pretty well if he can stay on the court. Mann could've been good on the Celtics but they are in mega cash unloading mode.

[DarkXaero]

Props to our trio of Celtics fans who worked diligently on Jrue/KP deals. Sad I guess for our handful of Celtics fans who insisted they would never just downgrade on talent to save money. But this was always the right thing to do after Tatum went down.

Not great value for the Nets here unless they just love Mann.

Great deal for Celtics. And good value for the Hawks and a worthwhile gamble in a contract year.

How is this not a great value for Nets? They got a first round pick for taking a contract that's not even a bad one and easily tradeable down the line, and didn't use anything other cap space.

Yeah if the Nets like Mann its fine. I don't think he's anything special so for me he's just a playable line item and that pick isn't great value for 3 years.

If they think he can be part of the next good Nets team or provide some leadership/intangibles to the young players coming in, its fine.

Hence me saying its not great unless they like the player. You like the player, so you are happy. I'm underwhelmed by the player so I don't think its great.

I don't think the Nets have to like Mann for this to be good value for them. He's a rotation player on most teams out there and he's paid what will essentially end up being MLE money. I don't care about Mann, I care about the pick, anything that Mann provides as a plus is a bonus to me.

[DarkXaero]

How is this not a great value for Nets? They got a first round pick for taking a contract that's not even a bad one and easily tradeable down the line, and didn't use anything other cap space.

Yeah if the Nets like Mann its fine. I don't think he's anything special so for me he's just a playable line item and that pick isn't great value for 3 years.

If they think he can be part of the next good Nets team or provide some leadership/intangibles to the young players coming in, its fine.

Hence me saying its not great unless they like the player. You like the player, so you are happy. I'm underwhelmed by the player so I don't think its great.

If they didn’t already have all the picks in the draft I think getting 22 for taking on an ok player on an Ok contract would be nice

I'll be shocked if Nets keep all 5 firsts