Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[veji1]

look willbcocks, a sunk cost ist money that is 100% gone and lost. Lewis was owed 20M$ and was hardly going to play. You label that as a sunk cost saying those 20M$ were virtually gone and that limiting the loss to a net 14M$ was the best business decision to be made. Am I correct ?

Well look, the FO magically turned what you label a sunk cost in 2 veterans players, overpayed but competent players... Wow how brilliant, turning a 14M$ sunk cost in a 43M$ investment over 2 years !

Now you may not agree, and think it is a poor piss decision, that they are throwing good money after bad, but don't get all condescending, ok?

cheers.

[fishercob]

Still curious of there's a realistic way to get max or near-max space in summer 2014. That may be the plan, from Ernie & Ted's perspective...

Good question. One that hasn't been brought up in 70 odd pages of this thread. And it's an important question. Perhaps the most important question surrounding the trade.

The answer is, "no".

In Summer 2014, we will have the following players under contract:
Nene - $13M
Vesely - $4.2M
2012 #3pick - $4.9M
2013 #15pick - $1.5M

That's $23.6M right there. We will have the following cap holds:

Wall - $14M
Seraphin - $6.9M
Booker - $5.9M
2014 1st round pick - $1.2M

That's $26.8M in cap holds which gets our cap figure up to $51.6M. Three minimum salary guys and it's $53M. Add Blatche's $8.4M and it's up $61.4M.

At best, we avoid signing anybody else to anything more than a minimum contract, we amnesty Blatche, and we renounce Booker. That would get our salary down to $46.5M which leaves us roughly $12M in cap room.

Question on the cap holds: when can those guys be extended? Meaning, if we extend them for less than their cap holds, that's more room we will have, yes? I have a hard time seeing booker and seraphin combining for $13m per year on their next deal.

[willbcocks]

look willbcocks, a sunk cost ist money that is 100% gone and lost. Lewis was owed 20M$ and was hardly going to play. You label that as a sunk cost saying those 20M$ were virtually gone and that limiting the loss to a net 14M$ was the best business decision to be made. Am I correct ?

Well look, the FO magically turned what you label a sunk cost in 2 veterans players, overpayed but competent players... Wow how brilliant, turning a 14M$ sunk cost in a 43M$ investment over 2 years !

Now you may not agree, and think it is a poor piss decision, that they are throwing good money after bad, but don't get all condescending, ok?

cheers.

I just want the financial aspect of the trade to be described fairly, which Ted did not do in his blog, and which you did not do in the post I quoted (or even this one here, though you were closer--cutting Lewis saves 10 million, not 6).

Paying someone 14 million not to play is not the epitome of bad management. NO just did that, and everyone, literally, is applauding them for a great trade. Paying Lewis 14 million not to play saved the Wizard 30 million dollars because of the arenas trade.

Considering sunk cost is about making good decisions. The 14 million dollars was Lewis's already. The decision management faced was whether they wanted to pay him 10 million dollars for another year of his services or cut him. If it were my money, I certainly would have cut him. I played poker semi-professionally for a while, and if you don't want to lose money, you must cut your Lewises.

[verbal8]

That's $23.6M right there. We will have the following cap holds:

Wall - $14M
Seraphin - $6.9M
Booker - $5.9M
2014 1st round pick - $1.2M

Question on the cap holds: when can those guys be extended? Meaning, if we extend them for less than their cap holds, that's more room we will have, yes? I have a hard time seeing booker and seraphin combining for $13m per year on their next deal.

I could see Booker's value ending up as less than his cap hold(assuming a max length deal). However I don't see any way that Seraphin signs for less than his cap hold. I think Brandon Bass may be the closest comparison for Booker and he opted out of a player option for 4.25 million. So even at 4.5 million(which would likely be a steal) it shaves off 1.4 million.

What might make sense with Booker to maximize cap space is giving him a deal for the qualifying offer. It does make it unlikely he sticks around long term, but it would save 2.5 million over his cap hold. If Seraphin continues his improvement his extension could make this all a moot point.

[veji1]

I just want the financial aspect of the trade to be described fairly, which Ted did not do in his blog, and which you did not do in the post I quoted (or even this one here, though you were closer--cutting Lewis saves 10 million, not 6).

Paying someone 14 million not to play is not the epitome of bad management. NO just did that, and everyone, literally, is applauding them for a great trade. Paying Lewis 14 million not to play saved the Wizard 30 million dollars because of the arenas trade.

Considering sunk cost is about making good decisions. The 14 million dollars was Lewis's already. The decision management faced was whether they wanted to pay him 10 million dollars for another year of his services or cut him. If it were my money, I certainly would have cut him. I played poker semi-professionally for a while, and if you don't want to lose money, you must cut your Lewises.

Look, you can't just rip the FO saying they made a bad decision by not buying out Lewis because NO did it. You have to understand that the Wizards are not in the same phase of the rebuild as the Hornets : The Hornets traded Paul last offseason and just landed their n°1 pick. They are basically at stage 1 of the rebuild, stage 0 being destroying what you had as team to start anew. The Wizards have had Wall for 2 years ! it is high time they move on from stage 1 to stage 2 which is trying to win games while developping the young talent and not getting stuck long term financially.

For NO to trade for Lewis and cut him is a good decision because they can finish distroying the team they had (trading Okafor and Ariza) and build afresh with very limited financial commitments.

The rebuild in NO might be going better than the one in DC, sure, they starting by trading their superstar to get assets in exchange, while DC started it rebuild when its super expensive superstar blew ist knee.. tougher position to start in really.. But this is the way it is. the FO is going along with the Process and trying to see where they land.

and Again Lewis was not a sunk cost as his contract was traded for 2 competent albeit overpayed players... It might have been a very poor investment (made from a position of weakness, ie having Arenas), but it does not fit the definition of a sunk cost.

[willbcocks]

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. The 14 million was and is a sunk cost. We traded that sunk cost for an equivalent sunk cost of Charlotte players. But then we threw another 25-30 million (don't know the exact figure) for two years of Okafor and Ariza.

Look, again, my original post was only saying that our financial position before and after the trade should be described accurately by all, that Leonsis was not doing that, and that the position that "Leonsis would never pay Lewis 14 million to go away" either is inaccurate or reflects poorly on Leonsis.

I also would protest if people start complaining about us adding 40 million dollars salary in Okafor and Ariza--that would be equally dishonest.

[willbcocks]

I also disagree that NO is in a very different position from us--they have a number one pick who's likely better than Wall, a great young building block in Gordon, and the #10 pick. The biggest difference is they've decided that they want to collect more assets before they trade in their flexibility for veterans, which is precisely what I would have done if I were Washington.

I was not unhappy with the Nene trade, as I think he holds his value and I thought McGee needed to go for various reasons (cap and play related), but if I were running the Wizards, they would have a look very similar to NO's.

[closg00]

I also disagree that NO is in a very different position from us--they have a number one pick who's likely better than Wall, a great young building block in Gordon, and the #10 pick. The biggest difference is they've decided that they want to collect more assets before they trade in their flexibility for veterans, which is precisely what I would have done if I were Washington.

I was not unhappy with the Nene trade, as I think he holds his value and I thought McGee needed to go for various reasons (cap and play related), but if I were running the Wizards, they would have a look very similar to NO's.

I think Ernie made things unnecessarily difficult for the Wizards by drafting poorly last-year. The things he pointed-to as filling needs from the trade (better rebounding), he could have gotten for pennies in last-years draft ( Faried and Williams). We would have been better positioned going forward had he taken Thompson or Leonard (Not-hindsight).

Despite last-years draft, things were looking-up after we got Nene, and we were headed in the right direction with plenty of Cap.

[tontoz]

and Again Lewis was not a sunk cost as his contract was traded for 2 competent albeit overpayed players... It might have been a very poor investment (made from a position of weakness, ie having Arenas), but it does not fit the definition of a sunk cost.

It absolutely is a sunk cost. A sunk cost is a present cost incurred due to past actions, regardless of what those actions were.

Nobody is saying that trading for Lewis was a bad deal.

[hands11]

hands, to give an analogy, my objection is that just because you add good ingredients, it doesn't make your stew better.

Ariza and Okafor in theory make the team better because they are respected veterans. We are 80 pages in practically on how well they play, but for sure, they are respected veterans.

I wonder if in practice they don't crowd the roster, not really provide the quality of play upgrade anticipated, and if they cost way too much. For Ted's money they don't cost too much. When it comes to play, however, I think the Wizards possibly gave away the #46 and added too much seasoning to a dish that was already pretty tasty. Too much salt … ewww.

I think teams and coaches win by having good chemistry and cohesiveness as well as by having talented players who have experience. Randy Wittman is going to have to orchestrate the team, balance the minutes, and he is going to have to deal with discouragement, in fighting, and bruised feelings from guys who aren't playing. I suspect he will have to manage egos this season, or his assistants will. It sucks to be on the bench. The team better be a winner, and the right guys better play, or the Wizards just made things worse, not better.

hands, next year won't be better because of Ariza and Okafor if they are just more live bodies. Lets see how they play and how all this plays out. The way the NBA works is the guys who make the big bucks tend to play big minutes. If these guys play just because of salary and not performance, that will be disastrous. If they come in and kick butt, then Ted/EG will look golden.

Ok, I will work with your analogy. After watching the interview with Oka and Trevor, I will agree that they don't smoothly fit with this group personality wise like Nene did. At least not yet. Mo and Mason as older seasoned vets know they were role players brought here to support the younger players. They had no misconceptions. But even then, Evans got a little frustrated at one point. Oka and Trevor are at an age they that have a little more ego regarding their starters status and roles. It doesn't appear this has been completely integrated yet. But neither should be confused, they played for losing teams. If they want to be a part of a winning program, they need to be about team first to build that. With Nene and the roster as they ended the year, this team was already on a good path toward that and I think if healthy they were a playoff team even before the trade. From the answers they gave in the interview, it seems they have not spoken with Randy much about how they will fit in here. Their answers should have sounded more like, we will do whatever the team needs us to do to win. They Wizards played well the end the season. I think by adding both of us, the team is even deeper so I like our chances for a playoff run. Randy is a good coach, he will figure out how to use us best. That will all get worked out before the season starts.

So in your ingredients analogy and stew I say this is the difference. Once you add to much salt, you can't get it out of the stew. While in this example, we have the salt. It isn't really in the stew yet but it kind of is. And it can be removed if needed. It is different. Besides, I'm not sure salt if a good example. These guys are not really a seasoning. They are more like potatoes and celery.

As for who plays based on amount paid. I already addressed that. How and why you acquire players goes to determining that. Nene was acquired because they wanted a core ingredient. They got ride of young players with potential and took on a long contract to get him. These two were acquired because they needed to deal with the second worst contract in the league. They broke up on bad contract for two less bad contracts. They can contribute or they can get moved easier then the Lewis contract.

So yeah, Randy has some work to do. These guys just got here so they need integrated. Randy needs to steer the stew to mix them in. Right now they are not. One or both could start. Or not. They could stay. Or not. Sure Ted and EG are saying they value their veteran experience but I don't see that they were brought here to take over as core pieces. It's not like they just traded for Durant or Wade. I don't see either of them as a Nene. This is Wall's and Nene's team along with a core group of young talent. That is what I see. These two are just vet role players who I believe will be asked to lead from behind, not from in front like Nene. They are more rentals then core bricks. I think that will get worked out in time. If not, they will get shipped out.

I was a bit disappointed with both in their interviews. Trevor seems like he will be easier to integrate. I think they have some work to do with Okafor. From the little I have seen, I'm not sure his personality fit. Lets see if Randy can get him straighten out.

[fishercob]

That's $23.6M right there. We will have the following cap holds:

Wall - $14M
Seraphin - $6.9M
Booker - $5.9M
2014 1st round pick - $1.2M

Question on the cap holds: when can those guys be extended? Meaning, if we extend them for less than their cap holds, that's more room we will have, yes? I have a hard time seeing booker and seraphin combining for $13m per year on their next deal.

I could see Booker's value ending up as less than his cap hold(assuming a max length deal). However I don't see any way that Seraphin signs for less than his cap hold. I think Brandon Bass may be the closest comparison for Booker and he opted out of a player option for 4.25 million. So even at 4.5 million(which would likely be a steal) it shaves off 1.4 million.

What might make sense with Booker to maximize cap space is giving him a deal for the qualifying offer. It does make it unlikely he sticks around long term, but it would save 2.5 million over his cap hold. If Seraphin continues his improvement his extension could make this all a moot point.

I don't know. I don't understand the changing CBA landscape well enough to know how contracts will look this summer, next summer, and the one after.

[MDStar]

Still curious of there's a realistic way to get max or near-max space in summer 2014. That may be the plan, from Ernie & Ted's perspective...

Good question. One that hasn't been brought up in 70 odd pages of this thread. And it's an important question. Perhaps the most important question surrounding the trade.

The answer is, "no".

In Summer 2014, we will have the following players under contract:
Nene - $13M
Vesely - $4.2M
2012 #3pick - $4.9M
2013 #15pick - $1.5M

That's $23.6M right there. We will have the following cap holds:

Wall - $14M
Seraphin - $6.9M
Booker - $5.9M
2014 1st round pick - $1.2M

That's $26.8M in cap holds which gets our cap figure up to $51.6M. Three minimum salary guys and it's $53M. Add Blatche's $8.4M and it's up $61.4M.

At best, we avoid signing anybody else to anything more than a minimum contract, we amnesty Blatche, and we renounce Booker. That would get our salary down to $46.5M which leaves us roughly $12M in cap room.

Nate, is it at all possible for the team to decide that they don't want to retain Booker and/or Seraphin in an attempt to sign a fee agent? Basically we add Wall's 14 mill and the 2014 1st rounder's 1.2 and that takes us to 38.8 million in salaries with the following 6 players:

Wall, Nene, Vesely, 2012 1st rder, 2013 1st rder, 2014 1st rd

Which at best would make it about $18M in cap space. My point i guess is that by 2014, we will know if guys like Booker, Seraphin, etc. are worth continuing to build around or if we should renounce them and sign a near max free agent to add to Wall, Beal, Nene, Vesely, and our next two 1st rounders.

[veji1]

and Again Lewis was not a sunk cost as his contract was traded for 2 competent albeit overpayed players... It might have been a very poor investment (made from a position of weakness, ie having Arenas), but it does not fit the definition of a sunk cost.

It absolutely is a sunk cost. A sunk cost is a present cost incurred due to past actions, regardless of what those actions were.

Nobody is saying that trading for Lewis was a bad deal.

Well in that sense every single player to which we are committed in a contractual relationship that we cannot end without cost is a sunk cost, aka Wall, Nene, KS and the whole roster... Seems pretty absurd to me. I understood him as saying that Lewis was a net loss and that we should admit it and writedown those 14 millions, and that I disagreed with, but I might have misunderstood...

[hands11]

look willbcocks, a sunk cost ist money that is 100% gone and lost. Lewis was owed 20M$ and was hardly going to play. You label that as a sunk cost saying those 20M$ were virtually gone and that limiting the loss to a net 14M$ was the best business decision to be made. Am I correct ?

Well look, the FO magically turned what you label a sunk cost in 2 veterans players, overpayed but competent players... Wow how brilliant, turning a 14M$ sunk cost in a 43M$ investment over 2 years !

Now you may not agree, and think it is a poor piss decision, that they are throwing good money after bad, but don't get all condescending, ok?

cheers.

Exactly. His is cherry picking his analogy. It is much more complicated then that. The accounting of dealing with Lewis's contract and a CBA roles do not neatly translate into accounting rules.

Here is what they were actually deal with.

They could have played 14M and cleared cap space which would be provided them opportunities. That 14M is an expense. I don't believe they could right it off as a loss. They could have then competed to get over paid players on longer contracts or done BOTD deals. More expense.

Or they could pay Okafor the same amount of money this year on a two year deal. Sure, this is currently on the books for two year, but their is no guaranty either will be here that long. And the expiring contracts a year later can be assets. And this year, they added players of their liking who is still productive. Trevor is the equivalent of them using their 5M that they would have had left over if they bought out Lewis. Oka cost them the same as buying out Lewis. Again, a two year deals that are expiring next year.

They turned that sunk cost into assets. Two smaller contracts that are two year deals. These are better assets then Lewis and his contract.

Review. They turned Gils terrible overpaid long contract and his cancerous presence into Lewis who was a shorter deal and better personality. Neither was productive for their teams. They then turn one crappy 24M contract with a 14M buyout into two useful players with two years remaining. That is a competent job of dealing with Gils terrible contract situation. Now they have players who can actually play and contracts that can more easily get dealt.

So lets see how these two help the team and what becomes of them and their contracts as assets before they expire in 2013

[verbal8]

I am still not a fan of the trade, but I am seeing some justification for doing it.

I think the Wizards must have decided that cap space in the next couple years is not terribly valuable. The free agent crop vs. amount of cap space teams have this year does not look like a very good situation. There is a very limited number of max/near-max players and beyond that it looks like the next tier has the potential to be severely overpaid.

If there is a follow-up deal on the horizon, I could like this deal a lot more. A log-jam is also the flexibility to make a deal for a position of need.

[fishercob]

This Daniel Leroux article is interesting, but there's a bunch in it I don't quite understand. Mods, since this piece was written for RealGM, could you please reach out to whomever to see if Leroux would be willing to do a chat with Wiz fans to explain this in more detail?

It seems like so much of our collective evaluation of this trade is based on the numbers and CBA ramifications. It would be great to see if Leroux could provide some more clarity on the subject.

Thanks

[veji1]

I also disagree that NO is in a very different position from us--they have a number one pick who's likely better than Wall, a great young building block in Gordon, and the #10 pick. The biggest difference is they've decided that they want to collect more assets before they trade in their flexibility for veterans, which is precisely what I would have done if I were Washington.

I was not unhappy with the Nene trade, as I think he holds his value and I thought McGee needed to go for various reasons (cap and play related), but if I were running the Wizards, they would have a look very similar to NO's.

They are in a very different position because they are just starting the rebuilding process. this is something that is important: a Franchise is dynamic, we need to get moving or stagnation will lead to rot.

What I mean is that we can't act like we are at the beginning of a rebuilding process, while Wall is starting his 3rd year- Without move this year to have cap flexibility for 2013 that team was very very short : we are one injury to Nene away from being again a 25 wins team...

And than you have Wall coming out of another dreadful season, coming into his fourth year as a pro, in a team still going nowhere (because who would sign in DC for a team that just won 25 games for a max contract ? A Batum type of player, not a Howard or a Lebron...), and the only logical thing for him to do is to go elsewhere...

This is waht you guys have to understand. Sure Davis can play in NO for a bad team for one or two years if he can see the positive dynamic, so they are right to blow it up. But NOW is not the time anymore for DC, if they did the risk of having Wall just bolt was too big.

[hands11]

look willbcocks, a sunk cost ist money that is 100% gone and lost. Lewis was owed 20M$ and was hardly going to play. You label that as a sunk cost saying those 20M$ were virtually gone and that limiting the loss to a net 14M$ was the best business decision to be made. Am I correct ?

Well look, the FO magically turned what you label a sunk cost in 2 veterans players, overpayed but competent players... Wow how brilliant, turning a 14M$ sunk cost in a 43M$ investment over 2 years !

Now you may not agree, and think it is a poor piss decision, that they are throwing good money after bad, but don't get all condescending, ok?

cheers.

I just want the financial aspect of the trade to be described fairly, which Ted did not do in his blog, and which you did not do in the post I quoted (or even this one here, though you were closer--cutting Lewis saves 10 million, not 6).

Paying someone 14 million not to play is not the epitome of bad management. NO just did that, and everyone, literally, is applauding them for a great trade. Paying Lewis 14 million not to play saved the Wizard 30 million dollars because of the arenas trade.

Considering sunk cost is about making good decisions. The 14 million dollars was Lewis's already. The decision management faced was whether they wanted to pay him 10 million dollars for another year of his services or cut him. If it were my money, I certainly would have cut him. I played poker semi-professionally for a while, and if you don't want to lose money, you must cut your Lewises.

Again you are using analogies that do not translate. Poker is different. I think the best way to evaluate this situation is to use the rules in place for this situation. The NBA and the CBA is it's own game with its own rules and strategies to maximize your opportunities and loses. The only way to evaluate the deal is to evaluate it for the system in which it took place.

This is not stew. It isn't corporate accounting. It isn't poker. It is the NBA and the CBA.

[tontoz]

and Again Lewis was not a sunk cost as his contract was traded for 2 competent albeit overpayed players... It might have been a very poor investment (made from a position of weakness, ie having Arenas), but it does not fit the definition of a sunk cost.

It absolutely is a sunk cost. A sunk cost is a present cost incurred due to past actions, regardless of what those actions were.

Nobody is saying that trading for Lewis was a bad deal.

Well in that sense every single player to which we are committed in a contractual relationship that we cannot end without cost is a sunk cost, aka Wall, Nene, KS and the whole roster... Seems pretty absurd to me. I understood him as saying that Lewis was a net loss and that we should admit it and writedown those 14 millions, and that I disagreed with, but I might have misunderstood...

Technically KS is a sunk cost (we can't get the 17th pick back for example) , however the cost is minimal relative to the benefit. Sunk costs are generally referring to situations when the cost far exceeds the benefit which is the case with Shards contract, a heavy cost with no benefit.

[VictorPage44]

@v1

Thank you. Booker, Vesely, Crawford, and Singleton havent proven enough to start to build around. None have earned their second contract yet. Need to give Seraphin a year of consistant PT to more accurately judge his value as well.

aLso, It's one thing to have your coaches tell you how to do something, it's quite another to watch your teammates do it night in and night out. However much you want to say the young guys can just learn from the coaches, learning by watching your teammates execute is 1000 times more effective. Team play is infectious. This trade is so much better than overpaying for a longterm FA, or letting a FA use our squad to showcase his talents for a year. We got team players who will lead by example. Young guys can immitate team play, or ride the bench, I like it.