Woj: Deni to Portland for 14th pick and Brogdon

[nate33]

Now the only question is it the all time worst trade in franchise history? That will take 5-10 years to figure out

Exactly.

This wasn't just a bad trade. This may well turn out to be an historically bad trade. Maybe not quite a Richmond for Webber level bad, but still awful. It may also pan out to be one of the most lopsided trades league-wide in the past 10 years outside of the Doncic trade.

[AFM]

I'm reading the comments on that Deni video and I swear this one was written by WizD:

He needs to work more on flexibility and body stability, soften the muscles of the body,
no kidding
by taking professional ballet classes
you can achieve the result of flexibility
which will give Danny a huge advantage in entering the basket
it will also help him with body stability
it will also make Danny less likely to fall
most of his entries into the basket are led by force and collision with opposing players,
you can see the player Sharp
in how elegantly his body works when he enters the basket, similar to Michael Jordan,
which seems to Sharp has a role model in Michael Jordan

[Kanyewest]

If we'd kept Deni, I think we'd be sitting at about 25 wins right now.

Can't have everything.

With respect to this type of thinking. If the Wizards had started Jonas (or Holmes) instead of Sarr there would be the same outcome. If you are trying to tank you will tank. I mean, we played Bub 2155 minutes. I would say that they could easily have slid into one of the bottom 4 teams again.

So yeah, thinking they could have had both Deni the 14% shot at the top pick.

Guess we will get to agree to disagree on this one.

I don't think it is certain either way which makes it an interesting argument. If you believe that a few players impact the game more than others and are often responsible for more of the results (ie something like Pareto Principle) then you could argue that Deni's a large impact on Portland's 11 plus wins already from their over under. But if you believe that Portland's improvement is a collection of equal improvement of his teammates then perhaps Deni's impact on wins is smaller. Personally I believe that the best players on teams guide results although there have been exceptions like the 2008 Wizards without Gilbert Arenas.

Also I don't think the Wizards would have missed Carrington in the short term if they had Jared Butler (assuming they stay healthy). It also begs to question on how soon the Wizards would find themselves in an optimal rotation or would the Wizards engage in blatant tanking strategies to start the season. And if so, how much would this increase/decrease Deni's value.

This could have been their rotation and there are scenarios where this team good be much better than the 15 wins that the current group has done so far.

Poole/Butler
Champagnie/Kispert
Coulibaly/George/Kuzma
Advija/Sarr/Kuzma
Jonas/Sarr/Holmes

As typing out these rotations, the Wizards also did allow themselves to play Sarr/George more (along with Carrington), a good amount of minutes which may allow them to develop faster. Not sure if the Wizards would have played Sarr/George as many minutes especially with Kuzma on the roster.

Also, I wonder if Kuzma's play would collapse as much without Deni on the roster. Kuzma was significantly better in his last season - while he's certainly not a good player per say, his impact on tanking this season seemed enormous compared to last season and I don't think Kuzma is as checked out with Deni on the roster. Maybe Deni not being on the roster was a reason that Kuzma also pushed out. Although, this may have decreased Kuzma's trade value which would have been an argument for keeping Deni.

Which brings us to what the Wizards roster would like after the trade deadline (assuming the returns are identical)

Poole/Smart
Middleton/AJ Johnson/Kispert
Coulibaly/Champagnie
Advija/George
Sarr/Holmes/Vucevic


At the time of the trade I thought there was no way the Wizards would improve by 10 plus wins. Now I'm not so sure because of how much Jordan Poole improved - and the additions of Sarr/George might lead to a few but the trade deadline moves also had a large effect.

It would also seem like the WIzards would have to trade Deni if they wanted to tank the following season in order to keep their pick. Although if the Wizards had fared well in the lottery, perhaps they would be fine with the rebuild ending.

[MDStar]

Historically bad trade is quite a reach and so is the All-NBA stuff. Sure, with a sample size of the last 15 games, he's been awesome but for the season, he's been just good. As most have said, he's not a bad player by any means, in fact, he's a really good player. However, he's what?, a borderline top 10 player this season at the small forward position? Lebron, Tatum, Butler, Kawhi, Wagner, Cam Johnson, Bridges, Barnes, Derozen, J. Johnson, are all alot better or debatably better than he his. And that's just at his position. Not sure why any of this is surprising though, the dude was a consensus lottery pick. Even still, with as great as this board would have you believe he is, where would he go in a redraft of the 2020 picks? Probably 6th or 7th. He's not getting picked over Edwards, Hali, Ball or Maxey, and its really debatable if he goes over Bane or Vassel. Is that an elite player that sets an organization back a decade if that trade him? Let's be real.

[nate33]

I'm reading the comments on that Deni video and I swear this one was written by WizD:

He needs to work more on flexibility and body stability, soften the muscles of the body,
no kidding
by taking professional ballet classes
you can achieve the result of flexibility
which will give Danny a huge advantage in entering the basket
it will also help him with body stability
it will also make Danny less likely to fall
most of his entries into the basket are led by force and collision with opposing players,
you can see the player Sharp
in how elegantly his body works when he enters the basket, similar to Michael Jordan,
which seems to Sharp has a role model in Michael Jordan

That absolutely has to be WizD. Classic!

[nate33]

Lebron, Tatum, Butler, Kawhi, Wagner, Cam Johnson, Bridges, Barnes, Derozen, J. Johnson, are all alot better or debatably better than he his.

Over the past 58 games, since March 12th, Deni has averaged 21, 8.5 and 4.5 per 36 minutes. He has done so while being a top quarter percentile defender and posting a TS% of .624.

He has been better than every guy you mentioned except Lebron, Tatum, Butler and possibly Wagner.

where would he go in a redraft of the 2020 picks? Probably 6th or 7th. He's not getting picked over Edwards, Hali, Ball or Maxey, and its really debatable if he goes over Bane or Vassel. Is that an elite player that sets an organization back a decade if that trade him? Let's be real.

2020 was a strong draft. I'd still take him over Ball and Vassell without hesitation. Ball never plays and Vassell has regressed. I'd probably take Deni over Maxey too given his two-way versatility, though others might disagree. Look at how awful Philly is with Maxey as the main guy. I have Deni in the same tier as Bane. Only Edwards and Haliburton are indisputably better.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Ya'll making this too complicated.... After you watch Deni, if you think there aren't at least 50 guys better you are not watching enough other guys play basketball, because nothing about his game says he's going to be one of the best players in the NBA.... You can talk him up, post his good games and it still won't reflect him being remotely in the stratosphere you're trying to place this guy in.....

Deni is 59th in VORP, 65th in Win Shares and in PER, and 58th in BPM. He is very close to top 50 according to several metrics.

I know this hurts your soul because you've been hating all season, but Deni has proven his haters wrong this year. He's been for all intensive purposes a fantastic player this year.

I don't hate Deni..... Keeping Deni and doing a half way rebuild would've been so Wizards/ Les Boulez type of team building.... In a vacuum I realize Deni had potential and was better than a lot of our other picks before and after him, but he wasn't a Luka or even a Jaylen Williams and definitely not a Jaylen Brown..... He can be a good player and not one of the top 50 all at the same time.....

We had to trade him as he was our most valuable asset..... Did we get enough, I don't know and honestly its a sailed ship which is why I'm like damn why are we still talking about this ONE former player..... How ya'll are expressing yourselves is how I felt when we traded Webber, Rasheed and Big Ben, and if that's your connection to Deni, then maybe I can relate directly to your feelings as that's how I felt when we traded all of the above...... When we drafted Deni I really wanted him to be good and it took 4 years to finally put it together but I never thought a team would trade 4 picks and a quality albeit injured vet for him...... That was surprising, so I know you like to use analytics as if basketball is a science experiment, but to me basketball is art.... It's not simply quantified in numbers, because context and situation definitely are important variables to factor in.... You can look at a player stats and that won't necessarily tell you if that player has an unguardable first step..... You can data mine and I can just see it, but also what else is happening while you're solely focused on numbers....

Example... Kobe shot poorly in the 3 finals without Shaq for the most part, but because of the gravity he pulled with 2 and 3 defenders on him throughout each series, that allowed Bynum, Pau and Metta to eat off the boards... That won't be reflected positively in the stat line but it will certainly affect the outcome of games..... I view basketball differently because I used to play ball all over this city and outside as well and I see the personality that is reflected in dudes games.....


Stats don't tell the entire picture of how a guy plays..... You could have a bunch of efficient players, who don't have great handles, have limited shot charts, and aren't very agile, and most times they'd lose to a less efficient, athletic team of shot creators..... Analytics is just a tool, not the entire package....

The eye test (stats not telling the entire picture) is why so many were bullish on Deni his first couple of seasons. Odd that you seem to be using this as a knock against him. Dude is a flat out high IQ basketball player that has the intangibles that are not easily captured in metrics. His defense is a perfect example of this. He's currently at 1.5 stocks a game, but he is rarely brought up in defender conversations because he doesn't get a lot of highlight steals and doesn't over go for blocks because he plays sound, fundamental defense. As nate says, he's a top quantile defender, but he's only really getting his notice for what he's doing on offense, when he has shown he can be an elite defender who is very good on most nights.

[smoothSeph]

The only thing I'd need for closure is the FO to come out and admit why they traded him.

That said, the kid is a beast getting downhill. We saw that with us. But I'd like to see a team attempt to take that away from him before crowning this superstardom we're reading in this thread.

The Kings did that. They kept him to 24, 9 & 3 and only gave him 11 shots.

I good defensive team maybe? We could put a gameplan in for a player and it wouldn’t exactly work either.

[pancakes3]

The knock on Deni was that he's inconsistent, and while he's great at going downhill, he rarely went downhill when he was here. There would be moments where he flashed his potential, and a string of games where he got to the rim but he would tweak an ankle, or get benched, or something would interrupt his flow.

Even now in Portland where he seemingly has put a lot of that together, there was still inconsistency, a stretch of injuries, and only really had a good March through about a dozen games where he's drawing fouls, nailing 3's, and playing consistent minutes/games. Blazers are 5-10 in their past 15 games, same as the 'zards.

[nate33]

The knock on Deni was that he's inconsistent, and while he's great at going downhill, he rarely went downhill when he was here. There would be moments where he flashed his potential, and a string of games where he got to the rim but he would tweak an ankle, or get benched, or something would interrupt his flow.

Even now in Portland where he seemingly has put a lot of that together, there was still inconsistency, a stretch of injuries, and only really had a good March through about a dozen games where he's drawing fouls, nailing 3's, and playing consistent minutes/games. Blazers are 5-10 in their past 15 games, same as the 'zards.

"Inconsistency" is the argument people use when they can't come up with a good reason to criticize the player.

There is no evidence that Deni is any more inconsistent than any other good player. Yeah, he's not a first option scorer, so his scoring output is going to vary depending on the opposition's defensive scheme, but that's the truth with all second-option and third-option scorers. They take advantage of holes in the defense when teams sell out to stop the primary scorer. But if teams play straight up, then the primary scorer gets more shots.

Defensively and on the glass, Deni is about as consistent as forwards get.

And to criticize his "stretch of injuries" is also absurd. Deni has missed just 6 games this season. Over the last 4 seasons, Deni has missed just 13 games out of a possible 315. He has played the 9th most number of games in the league over those last 4 seasons. He is the 9th most durable player in the NBA. (And a couple of the guys ahead of him, like Niang, Looney and Valanciunas are bench players. Deni is actually the 6th most durable among full time starters.)

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

The only thing I'd need for closure is the FO to come out and admit why they traded him.

That said, the kid is a beast getting downhill. We saw that with us. But I'd like to see a team attempt to take that away from him before crowning this superstardom we're reading in this thread.

The Kings did that. They kept him to 24, 9 & 3 and only gave him 11 shots.

I good defensive team maybe? We could put a gameplan in for a player and it wouldn’t exactly work either.

I'd like to see a team attempt to take that away from him? This goes with the assumption they haven't. Breaking news, he's really good at it and it's hard to stop. That's why there's been several comparisons as him being a "Baby Lebron" in that capacity. He's also a 37% three point shooter over the past two seasons so you have to respect his shot. This year he's upped his volume considerably from deep too, so there's not even the low usage from three argument to be made anymore. He's also become one of the best guys in the league at drawing fouls. You make it seem like he's some guy that has never been scouted, a bit disingenuous there.

There's new excuses to why Deni is doing what he's doing each time a log into this discussion. Pretty interesting that some see so hell bent on embracing the obvious. That is, he's a damn good player.

[payitforward]

If we'd kept Deni, I think we'd be sitting at about 25 wins right now.

Can't have everything.

With respect to this type of thinking. If the Wizards had started Jonas (or Holmes) instead of Sarr there would be the same outcome. If you are trying to tank you will tank. I mean, we played Bub 2155 minutes. I would say that they could easily have slid into one of the bottom 4 teams again.

So yeah, thinking they could have had both Deni the 14% shot at the top pick.

Guess we will get to agree to disagree on this one.

You may be right, come to think of it. Here's my thinking overall:

1. Facilitating a total rebuild was (rightly) the focus of the new FO.
2. The 2025 draft seems to offer a chance to acquire a "generational" player. Thus, the deeper the tank in '24-25 the better.
3. Deni Avdija, as a good & improving player, presented at least some level of threat to the depth of that tank.*
4. We moved Deni for a sizable set of assets: 2 R1 picks, 2 R2 picks, & a quality veteran.

My conclusion is that based on the above, there is a reasonable basis for the trade we made.

Moreover, Deni has has actually upped his level of production to a meaningful degree. I.e. he is producing at a level beyond what a reasonable person would have predicted based on his history -- even given his improvement in '23-24. &, accordingly, based almost exclusively on adding Deni, Portland has gone from 21 wins last season to 32 wins with 7 games left -- i.e. likely a 35-win season. That's a 67% improvement in win total.

This admirable jump inevitably makes the trade looks less advantageous to the Wizards than it would look absent the jump. Duh. But, to my knowledge, no one explicitly predicted a jump of this kind.**

OTOH, it also seems to imply that, had we retained Deni, we would likely have experienced more or less the same 67% jump -- i.e. that right now we might well have @26 wins rather than 16. Our tank would have been significantly affected. We would have almost no chance of walking away from the '25 draft with Flag or Harper. We would be more likely to end as the 7th or 8th worst team (with Portland, NO, Utah, Charlotte, Philly, Brooklyn & maybe Toronto all worse than we).

Reasonable minds can disagree, of course, but to me the above scenario provides a rational basis for the trade of Deni Avdija.


* We can of course discuss what the level of threat might have been, but if one doesn't accept the premise in general there's no discussion possible of this transaction.

**If you did predict a jump of the kind Deni has made in '24-25, good for you. I must have missed it: please provide a link to the post in which you explicitly claimed it would happen.

[The Consiglieri]

Now the only question is it the all time worst trade in franchise history? That will take 5-10 years to figure out

Exactly.

This wasn't just a bad trade. This may well turn out to be an historically bad trade. Maybe not quite a Richmond for Webber level bad, but still awful. It may also pan out to be one of the most lopsided trades league-wide in the past 10 years outside of the Doncic trade.

I don't think it's close to Webber level bad.

Webber was traded for a corpse who basically was entering his decline in his mid thirties (though he was coming off some good seasons, he was OLD, and being a Golden State local, was more than acquainted with his best days being behind him) Webber was an all star in '97 and traded in '98, he made 5 straight all star games after that (starting the 2nd season with the Kings) and if not for serious injury, probably would have had several more great seasons.

Richmond was able to produce some mild #'s for us on crap teams, because who else was gonna shoot (until Rip showed up), but at the time that trade was made, the fan base knew that whatever might have been from the Howard-Webber-Wallace (then Strick) build, was over, and the team was going to immediately sink to dog ----. Richmonds points would be empty volume #'s on a crap team going nowhere, while Webber would be a foundation piece on a team that got robbed of an NBA Finals trip by a corrupt ref.

We got nothing of value for Webber, period, and it destroyed the franchise the team was trying to build from 1992-1998.

Deni was and is none of those things, and the return is a billion times different. We got multiple firsts, and seconds, and a flipable vet, along with a more effective tank in back to back loaded draft classes. We don't know if we ever get anything better than complimentary talent out of the picks in '24 and '29 etc, but we also know that losing Deni was part of what allowed us to make a run at the best pick possible in back to back loaded classes.

We got 3 pieces of value for Deni. Like you, I viewed it as an underpay, and still do, it's a trade that could easily end up a 500 points for 1 team, for 300 points for the other in terms of the pieces going both ways. But Webber was a 799 points going one way, 1 point going the other trade.

In saying this, I'm not arguing Richmond wasn't a great player, he was in the past, but he was also entering his age 33 season for a reasonably young team, he offered nothing of value to a team in that situation. It was a trade that made zero sense in any universe and could not be sold as intelligent, or at least understandable.

People may hate the Deni trade, fair enough, I just didn't like it, hate I can't get to, because I understood why they did it, I just didn't feel they got enough back.

The Webber trade has gone on to be probably the worst trade of the nineties, or damn close to it, i don't see any universe that is true this decade, the closest trade to the Webber deal is the Doncic trade which is oddly almost identically stupid (young and mega elite, for old and in decline).

To me, this is a classic example of a trade where the motivation behind hit is totally understandable, but the haul is just not enough. These happen frequently, and at the end of the day, this a trade where it feels like Portland got $1, and we got about 55 cents. At the time, I probably would have priced it out at $1 for them and .75 for us, but with Deni's beginning to climb up a bit of a tier, its made it at least 10-15% worse than it felt at the time.

I just realized, lol, that at least one, and probably two of the people who were more sanguine, or outright cheerful about the deal, were in part, feeling that way because they viewed 2 firsts as 2 firsts, period, whereas I was at the time, and remain someone who wanted a very specific kind of first (a blue chip first in a strong class, and a second first projected to be in the top 20 in another class, at minimum). Instead, we got zero blue chip anything, which at the time then, and now, I viewed as unacceptable for a player with his production and his cost profile in a league getting more and more top heavy with unwieldy contracts and overpaid players left and right, and then very few players on literally cheap deals like Deni.

It remains a bad deal, and I agree with you Nate, on that, it's a deal with basically will have 100% lost unless we manage to steal a top 1-2 pick out of the next two drafts (and even in that case, at best it will be a push, because the tanking piece was a part of the motivation, but unpredictable and could not be a core justification). It's just not remotely at the same scale of the Doncic deal, or the Webber deal from 27 years ago, those are catastrophe deals, like the Lakers getting the Magic Johnson draft pick for a rubber band and some paperclips, or that deal the Celtics did for was it Bird or McHale? And now the Doncic one.

Deni is simply not remotely at that scale of stupid, both because of his ceiling, but also because of what came back (multiple firsts, multiple seconds, a body to trade, and better tanking results).

[The Consiglieri]

Yeah, probably, I thought so at the time, tend to think even moreso now, I do think if we end up landing the 1st or 2nd this year, it will have been worth it, but I definitely felt at the time he should've been traded for '25 or a '26 first of a bad team, and another future first at minimum. Not happy w/what they got, but I still definitely think it could be worth it in time, but it will require luck in the lottery to be so (I absolutely believe if he had stayed we would currently have at best, the third best lottery odds, maybe 4th: 2 wins away from being tied with Charlote, 5 away from the Pelicans). One interesting detail I will freely admit discovering is that we have only two close losses, total, this season, which is rather odd. We tend to get our ---es thoroughly kicked, or win, and those two losses were in OT (at least as of a week ago).

Landing the first or second pick this year has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not this was a good trade, period. This zombie logic has got to die. You could have still tanked with Deni on the roster. Would they have maybe had to get a bit more creative, sit him out for some games, etc.? Sure. But if you can't figure that piece of the puzzle out, while still holding onto a major young talent, you don't deserve to be running an NBA franchise.

It's not gonna die. If Deni is on the roster, the team is going to be more efficent, period, if he's this good, approaching all star level good, is he going to flip a game or two or three in a scenario where we are fighting tooth and nail with the Jazz and Charlotte and even New Orleans for positioning this year, and next. YES. It does, and when I talk top 2, that's half the payoff, the other half, is the band between 1-5.

[payitforward]

...If Deni is on the roster, the team is going to be more efficent, period, if he's this good, approaching all star level good, is he going to flip a game or two or three in a scenario where we are fighting tooth and nail with the Jazz and Charlotte and even New Orleans for positioning this year, and next. YES. It does, and when I talk top 2, that's half the payoff, the other half, is the band between 1-5.

See my post just above, where I conclude that...

...based almost exclusively on adding Deni, Portland has gone from 21 wins last season to 32 wins with 7 games left -- i.e. likely a 35-win season. That's a 67% improvement in win total.

This admirable jump... seems to imply that, had we retained Deni, we would likely have experienced more or less the same 67% jump -- i.e. that right now we might well have @26 wins rather than 16. Our tank would have been significantly affected. We would have almost no chance of walking away from the '25 draft with Flag or Harper. We would be more likely to end as the 7th or 8th worst team (with Portland, NO, Utah, Charlotte, Philly, Brooklyn & maybe Toronto all worse than we).

[nate33]

**If you did predict a jump of the kind Deni has made in '24-25, good for you. I must have missed it: please provide a link to the post in which you explicitly claimed it would happen.[/size]

I predicted that Deni would at least maintain the production he showed throughout the second half of the season, which was a consistent 19, 9 and 4 on a .600 TS% per 36. And I thought an incremental improvement was reasonably likely given his age and work ethic. I thought All-Star was a legitimate possibility and I compared him to Jaylen Brown, Scottie Barnes and Banchero.

We really need to take a moment and appreciate what Deni has done in the final third of the season. He isn't just a rock solid player, he has produced like an All-Star.

Since February 8th, Deni has averaged 19.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists on a .604 TS%. The team was just -1.2 per 100 possessions in those minutes, so Deni had this talentless roster playing like a 37-win team while he was on the floor.

Compare that production to three other All-Stars this season:
Player A: 19.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 6.1 assists, .566 TS%
Player B: 22.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, .545 TS%
Player C: 23.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, .580 TS%
Avdija: 19.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists, .604 TS%

Of those 3 All-Stars and Deni, who would you take?

Spoiler:

Player A is Scottie Barnes
Player B is Paulo Banchero
Player C is Jaylen Brown

I'm no longer sure what Deni's ceiling is. It's not like there's any reason to think he has plateaued. Can he keep getting better as a ball handler and decision maker and reduce those turnovers? What if he develops a more reliable step-back 3? Right now, teams can only deal with him by giving him space and shading his right hand, but if he starts hitting step-back 3's, there won't be much of an answer for him.

[dckingsfan]

If we'd kept Deni, I think we'd be sitting at about 25 wins right now.

Can't have everything.

With respect to this type of thinking. If the Wizards had started Jonas (or Holmes) instead of Sarr there would be the same outcome. If you are trying to tank you will tank. I mean, we played Bub 2155 minutes. I would say that they could easily have slid into one of the bottom 4 teams again.

So yeah, thinking they could have had both Deni the 14% shot at the top pick.

Guess we will get to agree to disagree on this one.

You may be right, come to think of it. Here's my thinking overall:

1. Facilitating a total rebuild was (rightly) the focus of the new FO.
2. The 2025 draft seems to offer a chance to acquire a "generational" player. Thus, the deeper the tank in '24-25 the better.
3. Deni Avdija, as a good & improving player, presented at least some level of threat to the depth of that tank.*
4. We moved Deni for a sizable set of assets: 2 R1 picks, 2 R2 picks, & a quality veteran.

My conclusion is that based on the above, there is a reasonable basis for the trade we made.

Moreover, Deni has has actually upped his level of production to a meaningful degree. I.e. he is producing at a level beyond what a reasonable person would have predicted based on his history -- even given his improvement in '23-24. &, accordingly, based almost exclusively on adding Deni, Portland has gone from 21 wins last season to 32 wins with 7 games left -- i.e. likely a 35-win season. That's a 67% improvement in win total.

This admirable jump inevitably makes the trade looks less advantageous to the Wizards than it would look absent the jump. Duh. But, to my knowledge, no one explicitly predicted a jump of this kind.**

OTOH, it also seems to imply that, had we retained Deni, we would likely have experienced more or less the same 67% jump -- i.e. that right now we might well have @26 wins rather than 16. Our tank would have been significantly affected. We would have almost no chance of walking away from the '25 draft with Flag or Harper. We would be more likely to end as the 7th or 8th worst team (with Portland, NO, Utah, Charlotte, Philly, Brooklyn & maybe Toronto all worse than we).

Reasonable minds can disagree, of course, but to me the above scenario provides a rational basis for the trade of Deni Avdija.

* We can of course discuss what the level of threat might have been, but if one doesn't accept the premise in general there's no discussion possible of this transaction.

**If you did predict a jump of the kind Deni has made in '24-25, good for you. I must have missed it: please provide a link to the post in which you explicitly claimed it would happen.

Yep - fine to agree to disagree as to the impact that really any player will have when the team is "trying" to tank. I think we would still end up with one of the four worst records. You think it likely we could have been 7th, 8th or 9th. I am cool with that.

As a note, I did predict his jump for two years (probably because I was defending taking Deni over Haliburton). I also brought it up when the trade happened. But alas, I am lazy...

One thing. If you think that the best players would be in the '25 and '26 draft, don't go all in on the '24 draft (IMO).

[payitforward]

**If you did predict a jump of the kind Deni has made in '24-25, good for you. I must have missed it: please provide a link to the post in which you explicitly claimed it would happen.[/size]

I predicted that Deni would at least maintain the production he showed throughout the second half of the season, which was a consistent 19, 9 and 4 on a .600 TS% per 36. And I thought an incremental improvement was reasonably likely given his age and work ethic. I thought All-Star was a legitimate possibility and I compared him to Jaylen Brown, Scottie Barnes and Banchero.

We really need to take a moment and appreciate what Deni has done in the final third of the season. He isn't just a rock solid player, he has produced like an All-Star.

Since February 8th, Deni has averaged 19.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists on a .604 TS%. The team was just -1.2 per 100 possessions in those minutes, so Deni had this talentless roster playing like a 37-win team while he was on the floor.

Compare that production to three other All-Stars this season:
Player A: 19.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 6.1 assists, .566 TS%
Player B: 22.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, .545 TS%
Player C: 23.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, .580 TS%
Avdija: 19.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists, .604 TS%

Of those 3 All-Stars and Deni, who would you take?

Spoiler:

Player A is Scottie Barnes
Player B is Paulo Banchero
Player C is Jaylen Brown

I'm no longer sure what Deni's ceiling is. It's not like there's any reason to think he has plateaued. Can he keep getting better as a ball handler and decision maker and reduce those turnovers? What if he develops a more reliable step-back 3? Right now, teams can only deal with him by giving him space and shading his right hand, but if he starts hitting step-back 3's, there won't be much of an answer for him.

Yes, I remember this post -- just wouldn't have been able to find it. Aside from providing a solid rationale for not trading deni, however, you must admit it also provides a solid basis for my conclusion that had we kept Deni -- we'd have @25-6 wins right now. Goodbye top pick in '25.
(of course that may happen anyway -- but it's a lot less likely)

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Despite the validity of my point, btw, it is still reasonable to suggest that we should have kept Deni. On the "bird in the hand vs two in the bush" principle.

But, you can't discuss the issue without including that point.

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...One thing. If you think that the best players would be in the '25 and '26 draft, don't go all in on the '24 draft (IMO).

But we didn't go "all in" -- we went into the draft with three picks -- 2, 26, & 51). We came out of the draft with three players.