bwgood77 wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:bwgood77 wrote:
The reason we got such a great deal IS that we held all the leverage. I thought we were stuck with Paul who added very little, if not negative play on the court because his shooting was bad and his midrange game was gone as well as his defense. His intangible leadership was hard to replace but his contract was just as bad given what he was unable to provide. And we all know what people thought about Shamet.
Now you could argue we held the leverage with KD too who ALSO only wanted us. Now they could have traded him elsewhere but he may have asked out there, etc, so it was unlikely another team would offer much. What we gave up for KD dwarfs what we gave up for Beal in a big way, and KD's intangibles are negative, with zero leadership, the opposite, etc. I really don't understand how anyone could think we gave up too much when we gave up two negative contracts for FAR worse players than Beal. Seconds very RARELY work out and keep roster spots for long, and very rarely make the rotation, despite your affinity for them.
Also, as people constantly forget, we couldn't have used that money for other players if/when CP3/Shamet expired due to Book's supermax kicking in, keeping us over the cap.
Had we gone into the season with CP3 and Shamet and heard we had a chance to get Beal for them and 2nds, people would be bashing Ish and Jones nonstop.
Just because we can both agree that we had all the leverage, doesn't excuse overpaying when we didn't have to. I get that our front office doesn't value picks IN ANY RANGE but again, those picks whether 2nds or trade swaps are still cost-controlled currency that could've returned greater depth for us! And those pick swaps do matter (count) as cumulative lost value because WE DON'T HAVE CONTROL OVER THEM and can't really apply them to trades (outside of maybe last-minute draft night deals) If we end up keeping that pick as the worst of three! But even then, what kind of value should we expect from that scenario?
I'll repeat too
"it's not about the 2nds" for me in the sense that I'd actually believe we would use them because I know that this front office won't actually do anything with the draft! It's an issue for me (whether you think I'm being unreasonably greedy or not) that we deal from a position of strength and win trades because that's what the top franchises that are actual contenders do. But we just continually give away important assets that otherwise (had we negotiated better/ stronger) could've been applied to actual legitimate depth pieces and we might have experienced better outcome than what we ended with! This is important because of our specific very limited situation post-trade.
And you keep using the Paul and Shamet contracts as being negative value contracts when Bothn had only one year remaining on their deals as the following year for either in 24-25 was NON GUARANTEED!! Now we saw how quickly Washington was able to flip Pauls' contract, But they just as easily could've sat them out for the season (as they were straight tanking) and then had upwards of $40 million cap reduction the following summer If they chose too. Again, back then (during that offseason, many of us discussed potential alternative trades Were they really negative and not just neutral considering any other potential teams over the cap or tax line could've again traded for either and exchanged them for other players with multiple yrs to get cap reduction earlier, just as Washington utilized their contracts for. Now maybe we wouldn't want to replace Paul with Jordan Pooles' contract, Just some alternative replacement trade options we likely discussed back then were Fred Van Vleet, Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, Kyle Lowry, John Collins, Rozier, Brogdon, Mike Conley, Spencer Dinwiddie, Bojan Bogdanovich, Collin Sexton or DeAngelo Russell, etc.
Now I do understand that none of these names are really as good of talent as Beal, BUT ALSO, none of these names is making as much per annum as he is, and none of these names is carrying the most toxic contract in the league, none of these names has the dreaded immovable no-trade clause, none of these names has the injury history that Beal does, and none of these names would've cost as much as we gave up for Beal. This means that we could've utilized those assets for depth across the roster rather than burning 90+ % of it on a single player. My point in this is that it's just not accurate at all that we had no alternative options. And while those options clearly wouldn't have been nearly as exciting or splashy, Those options coupled with more retained assets and trading Ayton too would've clearly yielded far more potential options than we're left sitting with now.
Sure Beal is a clear superior talent to both Paul and Shamet by a large margin, But we're not discussing talent disparities in this trade, we're discussing contract vs contract and the leverage factors involved! And while you can argue that neither Paul's or Shamets' contracts are positive value, and you might even argue (as you have that they're negative value, their contracts are not even close to how negative Beals' contract is viewed at his albatross salary and an immovable no-trade clause. And then when you actually add in the other severe implied risks involved in acquiring him around his extensive injury history, cap-killing salary, and no-trade clause making his contract widely perceived as the absolute worst in the entire league, even aside from his being 30 already, His talent doesn't really offset those factors much and the value gap closes rather quickly. Now this is not to say that I don't like him as a player and talent and that I'm not happy to have him here, only that I'm not pleased with losing that trade by clear virtue of giving up a CUMULATIVE TOTAL in assets that under all of the conditions I've repeatedly shared, made that sum total unnecessary even if only by a small margin.
Because whether you can agree or disagree on the value of the assets exchanged in the trade, those assets are still viable currency that could've been applied elsewhere for the purpose of more legitimate depth! And a team in our very restrictive situation and with severely limited remaining options, all assets great or small are factors to remaining viably competitive against the numerous other franchises with better front offices that hadn't chosen to mortgage their future on a very limited window and exorbitant top heavy team with no legit depth.
When was the last time a team gave up a ton to get an expiring contract and get rid of a big one? Like, more than Beal? Beal IS the big contract but he's also a recent scoring leader, all NBA, etc.
When was the last time any player was given a contract for $50+ million salary
AND also had a "no-trade clause" that would require a team to adhere to those conditions you mentioned above just to be able to move it? It doesn't happen because no teams hand out contracts like Beals' anymore like not anywhere. It was a one-off type of horrible decision that teams just won't do nowadays. You're right that normally max contract players never change teams, it just doesn't happen because teams don't like giving up star players/talent. I get that's where you're trying to steer me with this question. But then also ask yourself with Beal being so great and all the things that you said above, why he doesn't have ANY OTHER BIDDERS aside from us alone! Usually, whenever a top-end talent is made available, you have multiple suitors, regardless of max salary. But again, The only team pursuing him with his contract was us and only us! Why do you suppose that is man?
I'll go ahead and answer this for you. Because despite being a great offensive talent?
- His extensive injury history is a real concern, as is his well-documented durability issues.
- Regardless of him being a great scorer, He's clearly significantly overpaid at $50 million. Especially for a player with a long history of only playing around half the season.
- Even after all his time as the face of Washington's franchise, His talent never amounted to any significant success/postseason success.
- His contract only gets worse as it increases substantially over the next couple of seasons. And at that amount, his contract makes it very, very difficult to make any substantial roster moves with him on the books.
- His dreaded "toxic" no-trade clause that makes trading him practically impossible. So any team that might consider acquiring him, would also be stuck with him and his albatross salary at maybe 40-something games a season with no cap flexibility unless he wants out himself and will agree to be traded!
You see, despite Beal clearly being a great talent, it's these same above-listed concerns that made him available and Washington desperate to move him so they can start their rebuild because they paid him 50 million to really get nowhere as a focal point for their team. And it's those same listed concerns/ implied risks (by the team acquiring him that offsets that talent-related value significantly enough to where in this situation and under those conditions, his ceiling value should'v still been a discount capped at no more than maybe two firsts beyond the salary swap! No other team was stepping up to trade for him, we bailed out Washington by taking his contract. Otherwise, he'd still be sitting there not really contending, and Washington would still not be able to finally pursue their much-desired rebuild that the ownership AND the entire fanbase were very invested in. Beal wanted to come to Phoenix for a chance to compete, he had the no-trade clause and could dictate exactly where he wanted to go.
And our ownership was desperate to sign a 3rd big splashy name! we had all the leverage because Washington wanted to move Beal equally as badly as our ownership wanted him, and Beal himself wanted to come here. So again, I'll ask you, where is the necessity to give up nearly every asset we had left come from? And you can keep arguing about his high-end talent! I'll acknowledge how good he is too. BUT......................................................
That same great scoring is easily legitimately offset by all of the serious concerns that come along with him, and then on top of that, his horrific contract conditions affect whichever team trades for him. Do you ever wonder why the saying "The best ability is availability"?? If our team is eating over 50 million just to have Beal sit in street clothes for nearly half the season, are we even getting decent value from this trade? Because If he's not playing, he's not impacting the game for what he's being paid. In this context, regardless of him being a really good talent, we overpaid. And this trade was a win! ........................................Mostly for Washington.
