Official Trade Thread - Part XXX

[gambitx777]

If miami is really done with whiteside, would we trade gortat for him? I mean he is clearly a bone head guy not to a McGee level but still a hot head.
I hope we move beal, I hope we trade ever one not named wall, Porter, Obrue, Sessions, Temple. I say sessions and temple because they are perfect veterin team guys and if you want a soft re boot around wall you need those vet guys to soften the blow. BTW if beal would take 11 mill a year then yeah I'd keep him hes worth it, but max..... no I'm not paying him a 5 year max not with what hes shown us.

[Dark Faze]

wouldn't touch whiteside

wiz will match brads largest offer without immediately offering a max imo

[TheSecretWeapon]

Now that I think about it, Wall should really be the only untouchable on this team. So ted better **** not let Randy drive him into the ground. I'm on board for the tank and firing, wall deserves a better team and management around him

I don't think anyone -- including Wall -- should be considered untouchable. Wall is good, not great. He's CAPABLE of great, and he's great on some nights. But he's also putrid on some nights. Elite players play great most of the time.

[Dark Faze]

the question is at what point do we just settle for the best we think we can do?

at some point do you go for a guy like dwight and pray or you do stay chasing a free agent of a certain caliber that never comes--suddenly Wall is 30 and its time to rebuild again

[Ruzious]

I think it's a shame that Dwight Howard takes such a beating on sports talk radio and even on message boards. Dude used to carry an otherwise bad Orlando team to the playoffs every year - PERing 25 a year on 60% TS% and eFG and meanwhile being arguably the most dominant defender in the NBA. All most loud people focused on was that he didn't win championships... and that he smiled too much. Somehow, his smiling supposedly meant that he didn't care and didn't try hard enough. And since leaving Orlando, he's had bad back problems - so he's not the dominant player he used to be because of physical problems. Still, he consistently gets a 20 OPS with excellent eFG. But his team - playing against the GS's, LAC's, SA's, OKC's, and Dallas - hasn't won a champion. Therefore, he's supposedly an under-achiever, a cancer, a loser. Enough people say it loudly enough, and it becomes fact in the casual fans' eyes.

[Severn Hoos]

Agreed, Ruz - I was never the biggest fan of Dwight's game, but he seems like a genuinely good guy, and it is a shame he has gotten such a bad rap.

Now, watch Ernie trade Beal, Otto, and this year's unprotected 1st for him...

[Ruzious]

Agreed, Ruz - I was never the biggest fan of Dwight's game, but he seems like a genuinely good guy, and it is a shame he has gotten such a bad rap.

Now, watch Ernie trade Beal, Otto, and this year's unprotected 1st for him...

Please no - not for that loser!

[pcbothwel]

wouldn't touch whiteside

wiz will match brads largest offer without immediately offering a max imo

I wouldnt trade for him, but I would certainly look to sign him this offseason. Gortat turns 32 in 5 days and no contending team has 33-35 y/o Center unless they were an all-time great (Shaq, Ewing, Duncan, etc.).
I think Gortat then becomes a great trade chip, or possibly an elite backup. In the age of small ball, A guy like gortat would absolutely destroy backups and give us cover at the end of games if they start hack-a-Hassan. You can then look to move Gortat later on when the right opportunity presents itself.

[queridiculo]

Agreed, Ruz - I was never the biggest fan of Dwight's game, but he seems like a genuinely good guy, and it is a shame he has gotten such a bad rap.

Now, watch Ernie trade Beal, Otto, and this year's unprotected 1st for him...

Genuine good guys? He's one of the dirtiest players out there, between than and his constant whining he deserves every bit of that rep he's got.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Now that I think about it, Wall should really be the only untouchable on this team. So ted better **** not let Randy drive him into the ground. I'm on board for the tank and firing, wall deserves a better team and management around him

I don't think anyone -- including Wall -- should be considered untouchable. Wall is good, not great. He's CAPABLE of great, and he's great on some nights. But he's also putrid on some nights. Elite players play great most of the time.

I think this is a little harsh. I'm not sure anyone in the league has to carry his team as much as Wall does.

Yes, some of his boneheaded, no pass, momentum killing, heat check possessions still drive me to distraction.

But what are his options? Passing to Temple for yet another brick?

I'm telling you, Grunfeld should be sued for tortious interference.

[just1bullet]

Cavs get Dudley Ryan Anderson and NENE
Celts get Love
Wiz get Smart Lee and Celtic lowest #1
Pelicans get Hunter Mozgov RJ hunter and Celts top 15 protected #1
Trade works in trade machine

Cavs get TWO 3 point specialists and a PF who can play the 5...all three contracts are out this summer
Celts get Love and still keep 1 of their #1 picks
Wiz get a test run on Lee a good guard,
Pelicans get a #1 for Anderson, Hunter on the cheap and a test run on mozgov

[80sballboy]

I think it's a shame that Dwight Howard takes such a beating on sports talk radio and even on message boards. Dude used to carry an otherwise bad Orlando team to the playoffs every year - PERing 25 a year on 60% TS% and eFG and meanwhile being arguably the most dominant defender in the NBA. All most loud people focused on was that he didn't win championships... and that he smiled too much. Somehow, his smiling supposedly meant that he didn't care and didn't try hard enough. And since leaving Orlando, he's had bad back problems - so he's not the dominant player he used to be because of physical problems. Still, he consistently gets a 20 OPS with excellent eFG. But his team - playing against the GS's, LAC's, SA's, OKC's, and Dallas - hasn't won a champion. Therefore, he's supposedly an under-achiever, a cancer, a loser. Enough people say it loudly enough, and it becomes fact in the casual fans' eyes.

Ah yes, stats define us all, right? If Howard is so good, why are the Rockets trying to trade him? Why did they fire McHale? Why are they under .500, losing to the likes of the lowly Wizards at home?

[80sballboy]

Now that I think about it, Wall should really be the only untouchable on this team. So ted better **** not let Randy drive him into the ground. I'm on board for the tank and firing, wall deserves a better team and management around him

I don't think anyone -- including Wall -- should be considered untouchable. Wall is good, not great. He's CAPABLE of great, and he's great on some nights. But he's also putrid on some nights. Elite players play great most of the time.

I think this is a little harsh. I'm not sure anyone in the league has to carry his team as much as Wall does.

Yes, some of his boneheaded, no pass, momentum killing, heat check possessions still drive me to distraction.

But what are his options? Passing to Temple for yet another brick?

I'm telling you, Grunfeld should be sued for tortious interference.

Agree, he's our quarterback and makes people better. But he's not somebody you can count on for 25+ per game, which is what we need from him against good teams. You just can't replace a talent like Wall no matter, so we have live with the shot selection, the horrible turnovers and misses from the end of quarters. I don't think he's GREAT either, because it appears he's more focused on stats and individual honors than winning at times. Maybe that's the NBA nowadays. I just want W's and really don't care about who makes All-Star games.

[gambitx777]

Cavs get Dudley Ryan Anderson and NENE
Celts get Love
Wiz get Smart Lee and Celtic lowest #1
Pelicans get Hunter Mozgov RJ hunter and Celts top 15 protected #1
Trade works in trade machine

Cavs get TWO 3 point specialists and a PF who can play the 5...all three contracts are out this summer
Celts get Love and still keep 1 of their #1 picks
Wiz get a test run on Lee a good guard,
Pelicans get a #1 for Anderson, Hunter on the cheap and a test run on mozgov

Not a terrible trade, we don't loose anything but we get a young guard out of it, but I owuld send the other first to NO and send hunter and Olynyk to us.
Then we would get 3 young players and not just 1.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Now that I think about it, Wall should really be the only untouchable on this team. So ted better **** not let Randy drive him into the ground. I'm on board for the tank and firing, wall deserves a better team and management around him

I don't think anyone -- including Wall -- should be considered untouchable. Wall is good, not great. He's CAPABLE of great, and he's great on some nights. But he's also putrid on some nights. Elite players play great most of the time.

I think this is a little harsh. I'm not sure anyone in the league has to carry his team as much as Wall does.

Yes, some of his boneheaded, no pass, momentum killing, heat check possessions still drive me to distraction.

But what are his options? Passing to Temple for yet another brick?

I'm telling you, Grunfeld should be sued for tortious interference.

Harsh? Against the Bucks, Wall accounted for 19 zero-point possessions (missed shots and turnovers). In a different conversation, I looked at the question of how much Wall "carries" the Wizards compared to the rest of the league, and the production gap between Wall and Gortat is about average (distance between a team's top total producer and their second best producer).

The Wizards have guys in the "pretty good" and "middle of the road" category. What they lack is an elite producer. Folks believing really really strongly that Wall is elite and the rest of the Wizards are garbage doesn't make it so. Wall is a good player, but he's not elite.

[jimij]

Only issue with your statement SW is that Wall is responsible for so much of Gortat's production that the gulf between them based on the eye test to me is a lot bigger than the statistical gap. We saw last year in the playoffs with Wall out and Gortat couldn't do much of anything offensively.

I agree that Wall isn't elite but he seems to get less help on a nightly basis than just about any elite player I can think with the exception of maybe Anthony Davis. He was terrible in November and definitely has games where he stinks up the joint but this team is flat out @ss most nights when he sits.

[nate33]

Cavs get Dudley Ryan Anderson and NENE
Celts get Love
Wiz get Smart Lee and Celtic lowest #1
Pelicans get Hunter Mozgov RJ hunter and Celts top 15 protected #1
Trade works in trade machine

Cavs get TWO 3 point specialists and a PF who can play the 5...all three contracts are out this summer
Celts get Love and still keep 1 of their #1 picks
Wiz get a test run on Lee a good guard,
Pelicans get a #1 for Anderson, Hunter on the cheap and a test run on mozgov

The Cavs aren't trading Love for three soon-to-be unrestricted free agents.

[payitforward]

What's "an elite player?" How many "elite players" are there in the league? Are there a dozen? Are there 20-25 -- i.e. 4 or 5 at each position?

In fact, what's "an elite" point guard? Top 2 or 3 in the league? Top 5 in the league?

John Wall is a very very good point guard. He's about the 8th-10th best PG in the league this season -- and you know what: that's really good.

Full stop. On the numbers, there are 2 guys who are *way* better than anyone else at the PG: Curry and Westbrook. On the tier below them, Rondo and Paul are ahead of the rest of the pack. Lowry and a couple of other guys also put up better numbers than Wall.

It's pretty simple what keeps Wall out of the elite. It's his scoring. Now, he turns it over too much as well -- but so do Westbrook and Rondo, and Curry's not far behind.

John Wall's shooting TS% is well below average for a PG. He shoots a relatively low %, and he shoots a lot. Also, he's not making up for bad shooting by his work at the line. He does get to the line a fair amount -- tho not one of the top 15 at that -- but his FT% is terrible for a PG.

Them's facts, not "the eye test."

OTOH, he is definitely an "elite" assist-man. In that sense, you could argue that Gortat is responsible for much of Wall's product, rather than the other way around. If he missed those shots Wall's passing got him, John's effectiveness would drop.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Only issue with your statement SW is that Wall is responsible for so much of Gortat's production that the gulf between them based on the eye test to me is a lot bigger than the statistical gap. We saw last year in the playoffs with Wall out and Gortat couldn't do much of anything offensively.

I agree that Wall isn't elite but he seems to get less help on a nightly basis than just about any elite player I can think with the exception of maybe Anthony Davis. He was terrible in November and definitely has games where he stinks up the joint but this team is flat out @ss most nights when he sits.

I don't agree much -- at least in the sense that Gortat is unique from other bigs. Most bigs are guard dependent to some degree. Gortat doesn't seem so to a degree greater than other big men. It kinda goes with the position because bigs don't bring the ball up the floor or initiate the offense. That said, Wall surely isn't responsible for Gorat's good rebounding, and Wall isn't responsible for Gortat's superb finishing ability -- he's been outstanding on at-rim attempts throughout his career whether he was playing with Wall or Steve Nash or Jameer Nelson or Anthony Johnson or Rafer Alston.

I'm puzzled about the playoffs thing. Leaving aside the tiny sample size issue, Gortat was 6-7 from the floor in game 3, and the Wizards were +12 when he was in the game. They lost by 2. Gortat shot badly in game 4, and then better in game 5, but then bad again in game 6. So, without Wall, one terrific and one terrible. And then in the ensuing games with Wall, one terrific, one terrible. I'm sure I could go through the game logs and find games where Gortat shot poorly or well with/without Wall.

As for the Wizards being "flat out ass" when Wall sits...yeah, kinda. They're better by 2.6 per 100 possessions better on offense when Wall is in the game; and better by 2.7 per 100 on defense. Those are pretty modest differences. Compare with say Chris Paul (having a down year for him, but still WAY better than anything Wall has ever done), whose Clippers are 15.0 points per 100 possessions better offensively and 1.1 points per 100 defensively when he's in the game. Or the Thunder, which are better by 10.3 pts per 100 and 4.5 pts per 100 defensively when Westbrook is in the game. Or Toronto, which is +9.5 per 100 possessions on offense and worse on defense by 1.6 pts per 100 on defense when Lowry is in the game.

In other words, yeah the Wizards are better when Wall is in the game, but not to the degree we'd expect if Wall was an elite player. (I do note that you've basically agreed with my conclusion, although disagreed with the details. Just sayin'...)

[payitforward]

...As for the Wizards being "flat out ass" when Wall sits...yeah, kinda. They're better by 2.6 per 100 possessions better on offense when Wall is in the game; and better by 2.7 per 100 on defense. Those are pretty modest differences. Compare with say Chris Paul (having a down year for him, but still WAY better than anything Wall has ever done), whose Clippers are 15.0 points per 100 possessions better offensively and 1.1 points per 100 defensively when he's in the game. Or the Thunder, which are better by 10.3 pts per 100 and 4.5 pts per 100 defensively when Westbrook is in the game. Or Toronto, which is +9.5 per 100 possessions on offense and worse on defense by 1.6 pts per 100 on defense when Lowry is in the game.

In other words, yeah the Wizards are better when Wall is in the game, but not to the degree we'd expect if Wall was an elite player. (I do note that you've basically agreed with my conclusion, although disagreed with the details. Just sayin'...)

This points to an interesting feature of stats in a game like basketball. How much better/worse a team is w/ e.g. Wall in or out of the lineup certainly tells us something about Wall, but it is also dependent to a large degree on who replaces Wall when he sits -- and, as well, to who replaces other players when Wall sits.

Ramon Sessions is having a career year -- and it's by *a lot.* He's playing just about as well as John Wall overall. He doesn't get the same number of assists, but he is posting a .57 TS%. That's 7th best in the league (among PGs who play 20+ minutes a game). It's driven by his ability to get to the line -- 4th most time per 40 minutes in that same group. And he doesn't turn the ball over much.

Very few other subs putting up numbers like his. This has to go some way to explain the in/out efficiency differential -- at least on the offensive end. No?