Official Trade Thread - Part XXXI

[nate33]

If Mahinmi gets healthy and Oubre continues to improve, we will be 7-deep in legitimate NBA-caliber players next year. Indeed, we may have 7 starting-caliber players (although Morris and Mahinmi may only be borderline starting caliber). Hopefully, Sato will emerge as another decent rotation player as well. If we find one vet-minimum guard who is a worthwhile 2nd stringer, we should have a respectable 9-man rotation when everyone is healthy. And we'll also have our 2017 first round pick who probably won't be all that useful next year, but could be useful the year after.

One other hope would be to trade a guy like Nicholson for an overpaid but worthwhile rotation-caliber guard. A 3rd string PF might be worth a 2nd string guard in the abstract if the contracts match.

The bottom line is that it would be easier to fix the bench than to blow it up and rebuild from scratch.

Don't we also have the MLE? We could be getting close to the lux tax line, but I thought you get the full MLE up until the lux tax apron, which I think is $4 million above the lux tax line. Though I'm not sure of any of this.

Yes. We have the MLE. It'll be interesting to watch EG ask Ted for authority to use it after wasting $30M in free agency acquisitions this past summer.

[montestewart]

If Mahinmi gets healthy and Oubre continues to improve, we will be 7-deep in legitimate NBA-caliber players next year. Indeed, we may have 7 starting-caliber players (although Morris and Mahinmi may only be borderline starting caliber). Hopefully, Sato will emerge as another decent rotation player as well. If we find one vet-minimum guard who is a worthwhile 2nd stringer, we should have a respectable 9-man rotation when everyone is healthy. And we'll also have our 2017 first round pick who probably won't be all that useful next year, but could be useful the year after.

One other hope would be to trade a guy like Nicholson for an overpaid but worthwhile rotation-caliber guard. A 3rd string PF might be worth a 2nd string guard in the abstract if the contracts match.

The bottom line is that it would be easier to fix the bench than to blow it up and rebuild from scratch.

Don't we also have the MLE? We could be getting close to the lux tax line, but I thought you get the full MLE up until the lux tax apron, which I think is $4 million above the lux tax line. Though I'm not sure of any of this.

Yes. We have the MLE. It'll be interesting to watch EG ask Ted for authority to use it after wasting $30M in free agency acquisitions this past summer.

Go for it, Terd! Every dollar devoted to 9th seed is like money in the bank. You gotta spend money to lose money. Trade next year's 1st while you're at it it, for that extra UNNGH! the team will need.

[pcbothwel]

We have $36m+ a year in 4 guaranteed multi-year contracts that are complete boat anchors: they can't be traded away except for an equally big problem: Mahinmi, Morris, Nicholson & Smith. And we have an enormously expensive contract for Beal who, as I say hasn't proven he's worth it. Right now I'd say his contract is also untradable except for someone else's problem. That's 5 guys/$60m. Add another $35m+ for Wall, Gortat, Oubre & Satoransky. To me, at this point those are fixed costs for next year -- $95m for 9 guys. Of whom there are 3 (Wall, Gortat, Oubre) we can be sure we'll want and 2 (Beal, Mahinmi) of whom we hope that's true.

PIF,

Boat Anchors: Sorry, but I dont see it. Nicholson and Smith are the worst, but make less than the MLE. Far from a boat Anchor. Morris makes 8M for the next 3 years (including this one). While being an inefficient scorer, who doesnt rebound enough and plays low IQ team defense... He can make shots, set good picks, and plays uniquely strong man defense on some bigtime scorers (Melo, Aldridge, Love, etc.). He is a 7th man/bench big and is paid accordingly.

Mahinmi is the biggest contract and only one that could really be an anchor, but lets not confuse injured player with poor play. He is NOT Evan Turner. He is a high IQ defensive big that helps a defense be more efficient. Lets at least give it until January to assess him.

Beal is not untradeable. If you take out the truly elite superstars (LeBron, Westbrook, Durant, Anthony Davis, and Harden) and look at other players who make 23M+ over the next 4-5 years, I think Beal matches up with them especially when you consider he is 23.

Conley: 30M for 5 years and is 29 with a significant back injury. Age 32 and 33 seasons could be rough.

Lillard: 28M for 5 years. High usage scoring PG that while extremely productive, is a complete sieve defensively and is not a good distributor. PG's that dont even average 6 assist while playing terrible defense can be an absolute liability if their shot goes cold, or if they simply cool off slightly. Obviously, he is better than Beal but Im far from all in on Lillard.

Derozan: 28M for 5 years. For all the talk about Derozan being even better this year, Im still not impressed. He started off red hot this year, but has cooled off and is the exact same player as last year except he takes 4 more shots to get 4 more points. He cant shoot it from distance (28% career and this year) and heavily relies on foul shots. Again, he is a really good player, but 28M for the next 5 years for a SG who plays poor D and has a career ORtg/DRtg of 108/110 and TS of 53% doesnt exactly outshine Beal.

Antetokounmpo: 25M for 4 years. Beast. No explanation needed

Assuming Conley comes back and plays like he did to begin this year, then we all assume that the above three are better than Beal as of today. The below people are all players that are either equal to Beal more or less

McCollum: 26.5M for 4 years. Love him. Him and Beal are actually quite comparable both offensively and defensively with CJ having the edge in offense and Beal on D, so I'd say him and Beal are basically equals.

Drummond: 25.5M for 5 years. While he continues to be a monster on the boards and his defense has improved, he is really a liability on offense and the FT line. For the last 4 years his FGA within 3 feet have dropped from 81%, to 68%, to 59%, to 49% this year while his FGA from 3-10 feet have received the increase. The problem is that he has a career FG% of 37% in his career and 34% this year. If he cant make shots from 3-10 feet, then his offense is what it is. Which while valuable, is extremely limited. He will probably be worth the money, but he is not known as a character/locker room leader and is pulled late in games.

Adams: 25M for 4 years. I love Steve Adams and his demeanor, but he has proven to be a really good Center that is averaging 14 and 9 per 36. Serious question, Does Steve Adams play better over the next 4 years than Gortat played over the last 4 years? Just a thought...

Now, we get to the players who make the same kind of money that are NOT as valuable as Beal...

Batum: 24M for 5 years. I get that he plays solid defense on the wing and can be a good passer, but the guy has been thoroughly mediocre over the last 3 years and will be 32 in the final year of his deal. He is a low usage wing that has a TS of under 52% two of the last three years. He gets as many steals and blocks as Beal does, yet he is 6'8 with long arms. That makes me wonder how good of a defender he really is as that Charlotte team has been really good on D the last two years with Clifford and previously bad defenders look competant/good (I.E. Marvin Williams, Lin, Al Jefferson, Hawes, etc.). I'll take Beal all day over Batum moving forward.

Barnes: 23.5M for 4 years. Yuck. A high usage, inefficient scorer that doesn't get Assist, blocks, or steals while being 6'8 (All less than Beal). He is also a poor defender with slow feet out on the wing...

Parsons: 23.5M for 4 years. A REAL boat anchor. Injury prone wing that doesnt do anything particular well besides shoot threes. 3rd option on a mediocre teams and 4th option on a really good team. Injuries are really starting to mount up and his contract just started.

Beal is clearly above these players and I didnt even include guys have 3 years left (Melo) or make just under 23M (Ryan Anderson).
Oh, and all of the people listed were just from this last offseason. Wait until next summer when non elite players like Ibaka, Holiday, Teague, Hill, Patrick Patterson, Noel, Len, KCP, Muhammad, Gallinari, Gay, and Lowry all get 4/80M - 5/140M contracts.

[Ruzious]

There are 21.5 reasons why Beal is tradable. Enough teams still get mesmerized by scoring averages, imo. Plus, he's making 42.2% of his 3's and actually shoots a high volume of them.

[Ruzious]

Don't we also have the MLE? We could be getting close to the lux tax line, but I thought you get the full MLE up until the lux tax apron, which I think is $4 million above the lux tax line. Though I'm not sure of any of this.

Yes. We have the MLE. It'll be interesting to watch EG ask Ted for authority to use it after wasting $30M in free agency acquisitions this past summer.

Go for it, Terd! Every dollar devoted to 9th seed is like money in the bank. You gotta spend money to lose money. Trade next year's 1st while you're at it it, for that extra UNNGH! the team will need.

If Vegas is taking money on it, I'm guessing it's 80% Yes that the Wiz trade next year's pick. UNNGH indeed.

[pcbothwel]

There are 21.5 reasons why Beal is tradable. Enough teams still get mesmerized by scoring averages, imo. Plus, he's making 42.2% of his 3's and actually shoots a high volume of them.

Beal scoring 21.5 PPG is hardly why. How about looking at all the guards in the last 30 years who have averaged 30+ Points per 100 possessions with a TS greater than 56% at 23 or younger. The list is real short, especially when you look at starters (30+ MPG)... how short: 10
CP3
MJ (Twice)
Harden
Arenas
Wade
Irving (Twice)
Parker
Ben Gordon
Eric Gordon
.... And Beal

The 9 players named with Beal are all HOF players except Ben Gordon. Arenas and Eric Gordon were well on their way except for Injuries.

2 things occur when you increase the age from 23 or under to 25.
1) You see the same people above listed again and again, which tells me that guys who can do this offensively at that age continually do it.
2) You see other Great player pop up and Beal is still younger than them. I.E. Steph, Ray Allen, Penny, Drexler, Reggie Miller, and Klay Thompson.

The only guys who appear who werent great players are players that couldnt shoot like Beal, so they had trouble as they got older. (I.E Paxson and Sidney Moncrief)

The two players that did this and could shoot like Beal were Ben Gordon and Kevin Martin. So, there is a chance he becomes one of them..but, Ben Gordon was smaller (2.5 inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter at the draft even though Beal was 19 and Gordon was 21). And Kevin Martin never appeared to have the Drive Beal does. I mean, just look at his diet/weight loss. He is quiet, but extremely driven.

So with that said...Im going roll with this Beal thing for another year or so.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I wasn't being clear enough (as usual!). You're saying that there are only two teams that can contend for a title right now. I might disagree and say the number is three, or even four. But the teams that can contend now are not relevant to what I was saying I thought our goal should be (or, really, the goal of any franchise in any sport).

"A path to contention" to me means that you have the players, other assets & skills that offer you a chance to be in the next group of two-to-four teams that are contending. Not that we should always have the goal to contend this season, or even next season. But you want to be on a path where it's not inconceivable that you contend two seasons from now, and it's very likely that you are a h#ll of a lot closer to doing it at that point than you are now.

That's what "I don't see" for "this group." I remind you that two years ago when we won 46 games and got to R2 of the playoffs, I said that I thought the team had peaked, and that we'd be worse not better in the next two years. I got tons of flack for that, of course, but in fact I was right. It was obvious to me that we'd been propelled to 19-6 by a lucky accident (Rasual Butler with a superman cape on). We went 27-30 the rest of the season. The following year we won 41 games and gave up some future assets for the privilege. This year we are worse yet.

Plus we've tied our hands salary-wise in a horrible way. So those "one or two moves" you mention aren't likely -- i.e. they aren't in that "path" I was talking about. Not to mention that I think "one or two moves" getting us past 10 teams to where we're right behind the Cavaliers... that's fantasy. Especially since other teams too are capable of making one or two moves!

And, anyway, what are those one or two moves? I mean, if we've moved from "Kevin Durant is the savior and will drop from the sky to play here because this is where he's from and he likes his Mother's cooking," which always seemed like pure fantasy to me, to some other such scenario (perhaps involving Cousins: "...savior... drop from sky... cuz can't be happy w/o playing w/ John Wall....") you can be sure I'm not buying that stock.

Finally, to be on such a path, we'd need leadership that has any idea what path we're on at all ever! We don't have that. We have leadership that acquired Jason Smith, Andrew Nicholson & Trey Burke because those three guys were going to help us be in the playoffs. Then added Marcus Thornton as our #1 SG option off the bench and gave Mahinmi $16m a year because... because... well, just because! Then filled out the roster with three guys who it isn't clear are even D-League level standouts.

So tell me who's beating that Curry, Thompson, Durant & Green lineup in the next two years? Maybe Cleveland or the LA Clippers if they keep everyone would have an outside shot but who else? Should the other 27 franchises break up their cores because they have little chance of contending?

As far as the Wizards, the core of the team that you continue to build with consists of four guys aged 26 to 21. There's no reason to tear down that core. It's the other 11 guys that are the problem. Of course we need new leadership, that goes without saying. But a draft pick here and an acquistion there makes a big difference. Nearly anyone we acquire that puts Burke, Thornton & Smith on the bench makes us better.

In your exercise you added Thad Young, Garrett Temple & DeWayne Dedmon to our lineup and it nearly doubled our win total. That's just an indication of how bad our bench is at the moment. Nice guys for sure but I wouldn't consider any of these guys to be real difference makers, big names or guys you'd have to sacrifice a great deal to acquire. And you certainly shouldn't have to rebuild and tank to get such players.

That's what I'm saying... Were 2-3 guys away from challenging for the 2nd best team in the East. And were not talking elite players either. 2 or 3 solid role players. Guys you could either draft or acquire for the MLE or maybe even trade for. Maybe even a guy like Sato or McClellan develops. Maybe Ian can have two healthy knees at once and all of the sudden the need to play Jason Smith or Andrew Nicholson at C disappears. To me going that road is far easier and realistic than trading a 26 yr old all-star or dealing a solid 23 yr old because we had a bad off-season.

Of course this all becomes immenently more feasible if Ted we move on from Ernie Grunfeld and if he doesnt, were likely in bad shape no matter what route we take.

Dat, I think you're (per usual) on point.

Most likely, Golden State has a dynasty lineup that might just rule the next 2-3 years. Reminds me of the 50s/60s Celtics in that regard. So the question really is, who's playing for 2nd best and best in the East?

Why not Washington?

The Minnesota Timberwolves (who ALMOST best GS the other night) might overtake the Warriors sooner than one might imagine. But that's the West. In the East, I don't see the Wizards as being totally out of it IF they draft ONE superstar and they make nominal improvements to their bench.

I wanted to write this team off; but, they're better than I'd imagined. I guessed 36 wins, but they look MORE like a 46-win team.

[gambitx777]

One other hope would be to trade a guy like Nicholson for an overpaid but worthwhile rotation-caliber guard. A 3rd string PF might be worth a 2nd string guard in the abstract if the contracts match.

The bottom line is that it would be easier to fix the bench than to blow it up and rebuild from scratch.

Austin rivers, Rubio, Jerryd Bayless, Dellavedova, Stuckey,

[nbafan341]

would wizards trade otto porter? Raptors would be interested, just trying to gauge what it would take.

[deneem4]

Simale gortat for monroe...give us a go to big...the defense is about the same this year...

[pcbothwel]

would wizards trade otto porter? Raptors would be interested, just trying to gauge what it would take.

Well, you're trying to contend this year and assume you dont want to trade anyone from your starting 5. So...
Porter and Smith for Ross, Nogueira, and Powell would be a solid framework

[nbafan341]

would wizards trade otto porter? Raptors would be interested, just trying to gauge what it would take.

Well, you're trying to contend this year and assume you dont want to trade anyone from your starting 5. So...
Porter and Smith for Ross, Nogueira, and Powell would be a solid framework

I think the raptors are open to trading anyone not named lowry and derozan, which means even valancuinas is available.Does that shift things up? Ideally, Idk if every raptor fan would agree with me, but Id like to keep both ross and powell.

[nbafan341]

would wizards trade otto porter? Raptors would be interested, just trying to gauge what it would take.

Well, you're trying to contend this year and assume you dont want to trade anyone from your starting 5. So...
Porter and Smith for Ross, Nogueira, and Powell would be a solid framework

Nougeria, Joseph, and pascal siakim? If not, jonas straight up for porter might work?

[Dark Faze]

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

gortat....

[nate33]

There are 21.5 reasons why Beal is tradable. Enough teams still get mesmerized by scoring averages, imo. Plus, he's making 42.2% of his 3's and actually shoots a high volume of them.

Beal scoring 21.5 PPG is hardly why. How about looking at all the guards in the last 30 years who have averaged 30+ Points per 100 possessions with a TS greater than 56% at 23 or younger. The list is real short, especially when you look at starters (30+ MPG)... how short: 10
CP3
MJ (Twice)
Harden
Arenas
Wade
Irving (Twice)
Parker
Ben Gordon
Eric Gordon
.... And Beal

The 9 players named with Beal are all HOF players except Ben Gordon. Arenas and Eric Gordon were well on their way except for Injuries.

2 things occur when you increase the age from 23 or under to 25.
1) You see the same people above listed again and again, which tells me that guys who can do this offensively at that age continually do it.
2) You see other Great player pop up and Beal is still younger than them. I.E. Steph, Ray Allen, Penny, Drexler, Reggie Miller, and Klay Thompson.

The only guys who appear who werent great players are players that couldnt shoot like Beal, so they had trouble as they got older. (I.E Paxson and Sidney Moncrief)

The two players that did this and could shoot like Beal were Ben Gordon and Kevin Martin. So, there is a chance he becomes one of them..but, Ben Gordon was smaller (2.5 inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter at the draft even though Beal was 19 and Gordon was 21). And Kevin Martin never appeared to have the Drive Beal does. I mean, just look at his diet/weight loss. He is quiet, but extremely driven.

So with that said...Im going roll with this Beal thing for another year or so.

This is a great post and really helps put things into context. Beal really is having a breakout season so far. If he keeps it up, maybe he really will enter the ranks of elite shooting guards.

And your point about Beal's work ethic bears repeating. He started off as merely a shooter with good athleticism, but no moves to speak of. Beal has worked very hard to add extra dimensions to his game every year. That hard work didn't show up in the numbers for a while because he forced the issue and played with too high of a usage rate while "field testing" his new moves, which hurt his efficiency. But it may all be paying off now. He now seems to have countermoves to most defensive strategies, which is making him a pretty reliable scorer. With his work ethic, I expect him to continue to work on weak points of his game and get better and better.

[nate33]

would wizards trade otto porter? Raptors would be interested, just trying to gauge what it would take.

I consider Porter to be pretty close to untouchable. I would definitely value him higher than most counterparties would in a trade scenario.

[nate33]

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

gortat....

Ouch! That's pretty bad.

He was pretty bad last year too, but not this bad:

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5:MIN*G*20:GP*G*10&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

[Ruzious]

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

gortat....

Ouch! That's pretty bad.

He was pretty bad last year too, but not this bad:

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5:MIN*G*20:GP*G*10&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

Mike Muscala 6th in the NBA - ahead of Whitehead? He must have improved dramatically.

[nate33]

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

gortat....

Ouch! That's pretty bad.

He was pretty bad last year too, but not this bad:

http://stats.nba.com/players/defensive-impact/#!?CF=DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*5:MIN*G*20:GP*G*10&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT&dir=-1

Mike Muscala 6th in the NBA - ahead of Whitehead? He must have improved dramatically.

Interesting. It's notable that his DFGA's is quite low, even after accounting for minutes. Could it be that Atlanta packs the paint to help protect him, ceding the midrange shot and the 3-ball?

[payitforward]

...Beal really is having a breakout season so far. If he keeps it up, maybe he really will enter the ranks of elite shooting guards....

Beal has improved, that much is certain. He's played 20 games and has had a larger percentage of good games among them than in past seasons. And, improvement is more important than anything else. That is, it is objective; it's a simple fact. Claims beyond that too often rely on cherry-picking numbers that give you the result you want. Not just in Beal's case; fans of a player or a team are given to this pretty naturally -- no surprise!

On the season, here's how Beal compares to an average guy playing his position in the NBA:

Shooting (this is where Brad stands out and where most of his improvement has come)
Points per 48 minutes:
Brad -- 29.6
Average -- 20.3

FGAs:
Brad -- 23.2
Average -- 17

FTAs
Brad -- 6.5
Average -- 4.2

TS%:
Brad -- 56.9%
Average -- 53.9%

That's terrific. His 3 pt. % is above average, while his 2 pt. & FT %s are below average. But the details aren't as important as the result. Significantly higher efficiency than average on significantly higher usage than average.

The Other Stuff (when a player is on the floor you get everything he does/doesn't do)

Defensive rebounds (all these #s will be per 48 minutes)
Brad -- 3.0
Average -- 5.4

Offensive rebounds
Brad -- 1.0
Average -- 1.2

Assists
Brad -- 4.4
Average -- 3.8

Turnovers
Brad -- 2.5
Average -- 2.3

Blocks
Brad -- .5
Average -- .6

Steals
Brad -- 1.2
Average -- 1.6

Fouls
Brad -- 2.8
Average -- 3.5

The combination of this set of numbers, non-shooting numbers, which is overall below average, brings Brad back to the pack overall in his effect on team wins. Of course, one could argue -- as nate has done -- that Brad doesn't rebound because he sneaks out and gets high % shots, which are good for the team. But, that claim simply says that his high TS% is caused by lack of rebounding. When a player is on the floor, you get everything he does or doesn't do, and all of it has effects on wins/losses. You have to count it all; you can't discount any of it.

Now, anyone who wants to can argue anything he wants to, so I'm sure there'll be lots of justification-narratives to come. That don't change the facts: Brad has improved. That's great. If he continues to improve, that'll be even greater. And if so -- if he keeps improving (not just playing at his current improved level but continuing to get better) -- then, yup, maybe he will enter the ranks of elite SGs. He's only 23, so one can certainly hope for that continued improvement.