Unprotected draft trades are coming home to roost

[Mavrelous]

Surveying the landscape of teams who splurged on shiny stars with their future without hedging, paints a very dark picture.
The Suns are stuck with a borderline PO team.
Bucks are old and non-competetive in the east.
Nets donated 3rd pick overall and had to buy back control of their picks at a high price.
Clippers are out of control the next 4 drafts with Kawhi on one knee and Harden is 35.
Hawks will send lottery 1st and still have unprotected swap and 1st down the pike.
Mavs will enter 4 years of no control over draft in 27, when Kyrie is 36 y/o

Bucks 1st trade got them a ring, but the 2nd backfired, Clippers and Suns are massive failure, Mavs got a finals runs but are injured now.
Wolves got WCF but had to dump KAT.
Only team that looks like they pulled off a good deal was the Cavs.
On the other end of spectrum, Rockets, Thunder, Spurs and Jazz are loaded with picks.

A cautionary tale that should alert owners that draft debt is costlier to their franchise than corporate bonds...

[Papi_swav]

I agree, I think from now on every first round pick traded will have protections on them except if it's traded for a legit star player. Some of these teams will cough over top picks and it might get ugly. Alot of these teams just threw around picks like candy but they should of at least put protections on them just in case.

[Devilanche]

GM going see the bucks all in getting them a title and believe they are the next one .

[Dan Z]

I wouldn't be surprised if less picks were traded in the near future. A big reason being that some teams are out of picks and other teams already have a ton of them.

[zimpy27]

Well nuggets and bucks maxed out and won rings.

Yes some fail and some win.

[Mavrelous]

Well nuggets and bucks maxed out and won rings.

Yes some fail and some win.

Nuggets always protected themselves, there are winners for sure, but the losers are more than the winners.

[tbhawksfan1]

There need to be more pick trade restrictions. The imbalance between teams that have way too many and those that have near none is a joke. It clearly effects the opportunity and development of young guys coming into the league

[zimpy27]

Well nuggets and bucks maxed out and won rings.

Yes some fail and some win.

Nuggets always protected themselves, there are winners for sure, but the losers are more than the winners.

Yeah I agree but that's every season. You have 16 playoff teams and 1 winner. Basing it on rings is biased. Maybe base it on playoff series wins?

[Mavrelous]

Well nuggets and bucks maxed out and won rings.

Yes some fail and some win.

Nuggets always protected themselves, there are winners for sure, but the losers are more than the winners.

Yeah I agree but that's every season. You have 16 playoff teams and 1 winner. Basing it on rings is biased. Maybe base it on playoff series wins?

Agree, but still, Suns won 1 PO series, and it was only due to Kawhi going down. Clippers won 3 PO series in 5 years, these were massive failures, Nets won 1 series, another massive failure, even Bucks ring wouldn't have happened if Kyrie doesn't land on Giannis foot...
There really haven't been any surefire success stories from these trades for the trading side except the Lakers for AD, and even then they turned around and blew it with the Russ trade.

[jayjaysee]

Think with the way Dame is playing, it’s really too early to say much about that trade. If they can get Middleton right or trade him for someone that plays like Middleton.. They aren’t a matchup many teams should want.

There are definitely losers and lost opportunity by going for the player available now. And some the juice never seemed worth it.. But there’s value in just being a good team for a really long time.

A championship makes everything worth it, but just being a borderline contender means a lot to fans/ownership.

[SkyHook]

Surveying the landscape of teams who splurged on shiny stars with their future without hedging, paints a very dark picture.
The Suns are stuck with a borderline PO team.
Bucks are old and non-competetive in the east.
Nets donated 3rd pick overall and had to buy back control of their picks at a high price.
Clippers are out of control the next 4 drafts with Kawhi on one knee and Harden is 35.
Hawks will send lottery 1st and still have unprotected swap and 1st down the pike.
Mavs will enter 4 years of no control over draft in 27, when Kyrie is 36 y/o

Bucks 1st trade got them a ring, but the 2nd backfired, Clippers and Suns are massive failure, Mavs got a finals runs but are injured now.
Wolves got WCF but had to dump KAT.
Only team that looks like they pulled off a good deal was the Cavs.
On the other end of spectrum, Rockets, Thunder, Spurs and Jazz are loaded with picks.

A cautionary tale that should alert owners that draft debt is costlier to their franchise than corporate bonds...

I suppose that you could add the Heat to the list. They're currently a play-in team and if they keep their FRP this year then they lose unprotected ones in 2026 and 2028.

[daoneandonly]

I hate the bleak Mavs draft outlook. Definitely very poor use of assets and foresight. There was zero reason to give SA a pick swap in 2030 for Grant WIlliams. And by all accounts Hornets wanted Josh Green for PJ Washington; yet Dallas felt the need to pay the price of a first to use Grant Williams instead.

[tsarcast]

There need to be more pick trade restrictions. The imbalance between teams that have way too many and those that have near none is a joke. It clearly effects the opportunity and development of young guys coming into the league

Maybe a rule where you can't acquire more than 1 extra pick per round in a given draft? or maybe that would hamstring the sellers to much at the deadline over multi-year tanks.

[theBigLip]

Pistons are only down a single FRP which will probably convey this year. But for all the bad years and available cap space, being down a FRP and just holding extra 2nds seems like a loss as well.

[OGSactownballer]

I really think it’s going to fix itself with the hard cap restrictions (first and especially second apron) over the next several years.

We already have seen the valuation of picks go up and the valuation of non true star players go down in a similar manner to the NFL.

[OutsidetheNBA]

Surveying the landscape of teams who splurged on shiny stars with their future without hedging, paints a very dark picture.
The Suns are stuck with a borderline PO team.
Bucks are old and non-competetive in the east.
Nets donated 3rd pick overall and had to buy back control of their picks at a high price.
Clippers are out of control the next 4 drafts with Kawhi on one knee and Harden is 35.
Hawks will send lottery 1st and still have unprotected swap and 1st down the pike.
Mavs will enter 4 years of no control over draft in 27, when Kyrie is 36 y/o

Bucks 1st trade got them a ring, but the 2nd backfired, Clippers and Suns are massive failure, Mavs got a finals runs but are injured now.
Wolves got WCF but had to dump KAT.
Only team that looks like they pulled off a good deal was the Cavs.
On the other end of spectrum, Rockets, Thunder, Spurs and Jazz are loaded with picks.

A cautionary tale that should alert owners that draft debt is costlier to their franchise than corporate bonds...

I agree the Suns and Clippers are in bad shape, but I don't think the picture is all that dark for the rest.

Sure, the Nets lost Reed Sheppard, but I think they came out of the entire process with the same or a slightly better outlook than beforehand. They were 35-37 the year before KD/Kyrie came with Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert as their only good players. Five years later, they're a rebuilding team with a ton of future picks and swaps coming their way and all the owe is a '27 swap (and they have a couple incoming picks that year).

Bucks got a title. The Lillard trade hasn't worked out as hoped, but the moment they put Giannis on the market they're going to get a bunch of assets back. They have swaps with the Blazers in '28 and '30, but given the Blazers' current trajectory and the assets the Bucks could get for Giannis, I'd guess those swaps won't mean much.

Mavs, Hawks, T-Wolves are similar. Reasonable worst case scenario, they decline and their star players ask out. Okay cool, they get a bunch of assets in return for their star players and build from there.

I think the lesson is "don't trade future picks unless you have a *star* who will be in his prime through the traded drafts." Suns, Clips, KG/Pierce Nets didn't follow that rule. Everyone else -- not ideal, but not terrible so far.

[luciano-davidwesley]

There need to be more pick trade restrictions. The imbalance between teams that have way too many and those that have near none is a joke. It clearly effects the opportunity and development of young guys coming into the league

That would only help the big teams bullying smaller markets out of their star players by artificially reducing the return.

Teams can only sell half the farm already anyway due to the Stepien rule. I say let them lay in the bed they made.

[gswhoops]

I'm generally of the opinion that the league shouldn't punish smart teams to help dumb teams, and this definitely qualifies.

[Daddy 801]

There need to be more pick trade restrictions. The imbalance between teams that have way too many and those that have near none is a joke. It clearly effects the opportunity and development of young guys coming into the league

Disagree completely. Hire a better GM if you don’t like the results of his work.

[vxmike]

Pistons are only down a single FRP which will probably convey this year. But for all the bad years and available cap space, being down a FRP and just holding extra 2nds seems like a loss as well.

Pistons have a super clean salary situation though and could leverage their remaining cap space this year plus THJ’s expiring deal to load up some assets from teams that need to dump salary. They can be a key facilitator in so many of the big trades being discussed.