Official Trade Thread Part XLVI

[queridiculo]

I just want Kuzma gone, I don't give a lick about return value.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

The Kings always seem to be the fit for Kuzma.

What about something like Kuz, Kispert, 2nd rounder (currently 35) for Huerter, Lyles, 1st rounder (currently 12)...

Wizards add another 1st for rebuild, cut down long term money with Lyles expiring & Huerter 1 yr.

Kings in win now mode with current roster:

Huerter & Kispert are fairly even trade slight upgrade for Kings & longer control with roster. Main move for Kings is upgrade of Lyles for Kuzma, who's on team control for next couple years reasonable deal, fits teams win now mode with current roster.

Currently 8-7 need upgrade to compete in West, deal with them now while the season still has optimism.

https://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/8812415

[AFM]

Watch on YouTube

[Jkam31]

The Kings always seem to be the fit for Kuzma.

What about something like Kuz, Kispert, 2nd rounder (currently 35) for Huerter, Lyles, 1st rounder (currently 12)...

Wizards add another 1st for rebuild, cut down long term money with Lyles expiring & Huerter 1 yr.

Kings in win now mode with current roster:

Huerter & Kispert are fairly even trade slight upgrade for Kings & longer control with roster. Main move for Kings is upgrade of Lyles for Kuzma, who's on team control for next couple years reasonable deal, fits teams win now mode with current roster.

Currently 8-7 need upgrade to compete in West, deal with them now while the season still has optimism.

https://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/8812415

We’re not adding Lyle’s to that deal we need size

[nate33]

Watch on YouTube

At the moment, JV is the only vet on the roster whose production relative to his contract size constitutes positive value.

[penbeast0]

The Kings always seem to be the fit for Kuzma.

What about something like Kuz, Kispert, 2nd rounder (currently 35) for Huerter, Lyles, 1st rounder (currently 12)...

Wizards add another 1st for rebuild, cut down long term money with Lyles expiring & Huerter 1 yr.

Kings in win now mode with current roster:

Huerter & Kispert are fairly even trade slight upgrade for Kings & longer control with roster. Main move for Kings is upgrade of Lyles for Kuzma, who's on team control for next couple years reasonable deal, fits teams win now mode with current roster.

Currently 8-7 need upgrade to compete in West, deal with them now while the season still has optimism.

https://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/8812415

We’re not adding Lyle’s to that deal we need size

We don't need him, but how else can you match salary? Y'all just don't have midrange contracts to move (assuming you have no desire to move Murray).

[Jkam31]

The Kings always seem to be the fit for Kuzma.

What about something like Kuz, Kispert, 2nd rounder (currently 35) for Huerter, Lyles, 1st rounder (currently 12)...

Wizards add another 1st for rebuild, cut down long term money with Lyles expiring & Huerter 1 yr.

Kings in win now mode with current roster:

Huerter & Kispert are fairly even trade slight upgrade for Kings & longer control with roster. Main move for Kings is upgrade of Lyles for Kuzma, who's on team control for next couple years reasonable deal, fits teams win now mode with current roster.

Currently 8-7 need upgrade to compete in West, deal with them now while the season still has optimism.

https://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/8812415

We’re not adding Lyle’s to that deal we need size

We don't need him, but how else can you match salary? Y'all just don't have midrange contracts to move (assuming you have no desire to move Murray).

Huerter, Jones, McLaughlin, and Len work you guys would have too release two players after the trade I believe

[payitforward]

The Kings aren't giving up a lottery pick to acquire Kuz.

[AFM]

Nobody is. I think we either get a handful of 2nds, or maybe a distant 1st.

[The Consiglieri]

Nobody is. I think we either get a handful of 2nds, or maybe a distant 1st.

Definitely should have ignored his opinions and moved him last winter.

[Frichuela]

Nobody is. I think we either get a handful of 2nds, or maybe a distant 1st.

Definitely should have ignored his opinions and moved him last winter.

100%. The biggest mistake made by this front office to date, IMHO.

Also, looking at who could trade for Kuz, there are not that many potential options just looking at the money matching angle. Maybe Detroit, LAL, SAC and SAS.

Of those, the best option is probably to trade Kuz to Detroit for an expiry such as Hardaway Jr. The question is could get a distant lottery protected 1st (say 2029) for him? Not sure…Kuz is from Michigan and Detroit is looking to compete. So maybe they bite…

[nate33]

Nobody is. I think we either get a handful of 2nds, or maybe a distant 1st.

Definitely should have ignored his opinions and moved him last winter.

100%. The biggest mistake made by this front office to date, IMHO.

Also, looking at who could trade for Kuz, there are not that many potential options just looking at the money matching angle. Maybe Detroit, LAL, SAC and SAS.

Of those, the best option is probably to trade Kuz to Detroit for an expiry such as Hardaway Jr. The question is could get a distant lottery protected 1st (say 2029) for him? Not sure…Kuz is from Michigan and Detroit is looking to compete. So maybe they bite…

At the time, Kuzma was in Year 1 of his 4-year descending contract.

As of last winter, Kuzma's contract averaged $22.5M a year over 4 years. His 2023-24 salary was 18.8% of the cap. This year, his contract averages $21.5M a year over 3 years. His 2024-25 salary is just 16.7% of the cap will be just 13.9% and 11.4% of the cap in the next two years respectively.

All Kuzma had to do was maintain his production from last year and it was reasonable to assume his trade value would increase over time; so, I get the logic of them turning down the trade. Unfortunately, Kuzma's efficiency has absolutely collapsed this season. Hopefully, this is just a slump and he will resume his play of old. Kuzma has had stretches of very productive play in the past, it's not impossible that he will have another stretch going forward. The guy is only 29.

[payitforward]

I don't know... it's hard to imagine a 29 year old player's trade value increasing over time -- at least I can't come up with an example off the top of my head. Or even a 28 year old player (which he was at the time).

Still, the logic you lay out is valid -- there was certainly no reason to expect that his trade value would decline, & maybe his declining salary alone would mean he'd bring in a little extra a year later.

It doesn't look that way so far. His TS% has never been any good, not even one year of his career, but now it's fallen through the floor.

That said, Kuz has only played 224 minutes so far. No reason to panic.

[The Consiglieri]

Definitely should have ignored his opinions and moved him last winter.

100%. The biggest mistake made by this front office to date, IMHO.

Also, looking at who could trade for Kuz, there are not that many potential options just looking at the money matching angle. Maybe Detroit, LAL, SAC and SAS.

Of those, the best option is probably to trade Kuz to Detroit for an expiry such as Hardaway Jr. The question is could get a distant lottery protected 1st (say 2029) for him? Not sure…Kuz is from Michigan and Detroit is looking to compete. So maybe they bite…

At the time, Kuzma was in Year 1 of his 4-year descending contract.

As of last winter, Kuzma's contract averaged $22.5M a year over 4 years. His 2023-24 salary was 18.8% of the cap. This year, his contract averages $21.5M a year over 3 years. His 2024-25 salary is just 16.7% of the cap will be just 13.9% and 11.4% of the cap in the next two years respectively.

All Kuzma had to do was maintain his production from last year and it was reasonable to assume his trade value would increase over time; so, I get the logic of them turning down the trade. Unfortunately, Kuzma's efficiency has absolutely collapsed this season. Hopefully, this is just a slump and he will resume his play of old. Kuzma has had stretches of very productive play in the past, it's not impossible that he will have another stretch going forward. The guy is only 29.

I have to admit there's some hypocrisy in it, as I tend to be a swing for the fences tear down type, believing in 1000% tanking, full scale tear downs, and drafting on ceiling rather than floor, but with vets, for whatever reason, I'm a big believer in preserving floors and reducing risk. I've seen far too many times where teams have played with risk, and then had it blow up in their face with player injuries, and other potential long shot scenarios. With older players, I think playing with injury risk, and players hitting age ceilings is simply too risky to justify the counter argument. At the time I respected counter-arguments like yours, and one of the reasons I considered them potentially valid wasn't just the value of the declining cost on such a deal ramping up trade value over time, but also spreading out the assets for the build to the '24, '25, '26 and '27 classes. However, I always figured we could simply trade him for future picks, rather than for '24 picks, and that would handle my concern with piling up too many assets early.

While I will totally own your counter argument had plenty of validity, the problem I had it with it back then when it was brought up was that you simply play with fire the longer you let players age out over time, and this asset was 28 turning 29 in the summer, peak athleticism for most sports is age 21-26 or 27. He was well past that. Injury issues also tend to pile up over time as players get older. To my mind, with someone with limited trade value like Kuzma (he was not gonna give you a Beal in '20 trade return, he was basically a move him for a 1st and a 2nd/throw in asset), it simply wasn't worth the risk, period. A few months later I had this truth compounded when my Guardians (I'm a weirdo that's both a Cleveland Indians and Montreal Expos/Washington Nats Fan, going back to the mid eighties when I was a kid and there was no team in DC) decided to hold onto Bieber at the '23 deadline during a lost season only to lose Bieber to Tommy John Surgery last spring. An asset that could have brought a near Cy Young on the block level return that summer, now was completely and totally worthless. I'll grant that pitchers are much more volatile in terms of health, season to season, than basketball players, but the truth holds: If you suck, you should be selling your assets, not risking losing them to nothing. Turning both Beal and Kuzma into essentially 1/10 of the expected return because you held too long is the sorta thing that derails rebuilds. Beal already did this to us, losing Kuzma, nowhere near Beal value but still, for largely nothing, is yet another HUGE self-inflicted wound.

I'm not arguing that your take isn't valid, you have a take and its totally rational, and would have been the right decision probably 50-65% of the time, but what's the extra pay off in waiting versus getting next to nothing because the 30-50% bad case scenario played out? How much extra would you really have gotten for Kuzma, trade deadline '25 or summer '25, or even running up the risk to '26? Versus just moving him for the 1st and change in '24? I just don't think Kuzma is the type to get you an extra first or an elite prospect, which is why I just wanted him moved, and flat out didn't care if there was a stink on the franchise because we moved him when he didn't want moving (big deal, winning will bring FA's in, and we won't have our core till '25-'26, and those are the people we will want to spread good word of mouth about our organization. Kuzma being mad at us, when we are garbage and can't sign FA's of quality anyway for another 1.5-3 years doesn't have sticking power to me, as long as they build right).

[nate33]

I have to admit there's some hypocrisy in it, as I tend to be a swing for the fences tear down type, believing in 1000% tanking, full scale tear downs, and drafting on ceiling rather than floor, but with vets, for whatever reason, I'm a big believer in preserving floors and reducing risk. I've seen far too many times where teams have played with risk, and then had it blow up in their face with player injuries, and other potential long shot scenarios. With older players, I think playing with injury risk, and players hitting age ceilings is simply too risky to justify the counter argument. At the time I respected counter-arguments like yours, and one of the reasons I considered them potentially valid wasn't just the value of the declining cost on such a deal ramping up trade value over time, but also spreading out the assets for the build to the '24, '25, '26 and '27 classes. However, I always figured we could simply trade him for future picks, rather than for '24 picks, and that would handle my concern with piling up too many assets early.

While I will totally own your counter argument had plenty of validity, the problem I had it with it back then when it was brought up was that you simply play with fire the longer you let players age out over time, and this asset was 28 turning 29 in the summer, peak athleticism for most sports is age 21-26 or 27. He was well past that. Injury issues also tend to pile up over time as players get older. To my mind, with someone with limited trade value like Kuzma (he was not gonna give you a Beal in '20 trade return, he was basically a move him for a 1st and a 2nd/throw in asset), it simply wasn't worth the risk, period. A few months later I had this truth compounded when my Guardians (I'm a weirdo that's both a Cleveland Indians and Montreal Expos/Washington Nats Fan, going back to the mid eighties when I was a kid and there was no team in DC) decided to hold onto Bieber at the '23 deadline during a lost season only to lose Bieber to Tommy John Surgery last spring. An asset that could have brought a near Cy Young on the block level return that summer, now was completely and totally worthless. I'll grant that pitchers are much more volatile in terms of health, season to season, than basketball players, but the truth holds: If you suck, you should be selling your assets, not risking losing them to nothing. Turning both Beal and Kuzma into essentially 1/10 of the expected return because you held too long is the sorta thing that derails rebuilds. Beal already did this to us, losing Kuzma, nowhere near Beal value but still, for largely nothing, is yet another HUGE self-inflicted wound.

I'm not arguing that your take isn't valid, you have a take and its totally rational, and would have been the right decision probably 50-65% of the time, but what's the extra pay off in waiting versus getting next to nothing because the 30-50% bad case scenario played out? How much extra would you really have gotten for Kuzma, trade deadline '25 or summer '25, or even running up the risk to '26? Versus just moving him for the 1st and change in '24? I just don't think Kuzma is the type to get you an extra first or an elite prospect, which is why I just wanted him moved, and flat out didn't care if there was a stink on the franchise because we moved him when he didn't want moving (big deal, winning will bring FA's in, and we won't have our core till '25-'26, and those are the people we will want to spread good word of mouth about them).

Yeah, I'm not really disagreeing with you either. I certainly wouldn't have been upset if they pulled the trigger on the Dallas trade last winter. I'm just saying that I understand management's thinking in declining the trade. It was a reasonable gamble that doesn't look like it's going to pay off.

[The Consiglieri]

The only factor that helps to ameliorate the pain on this is that I really do think they hit a double or a triple with Bub, a single or a double with Sarr, and I think Kyshawn, considering where he was picked and the bust rate there, could end up being essentially a triple, in terms of expected value of the slot, versus actual value of the player. The fact that we appear to have way, way, way overperformed expectations in a bad draft, at those slots, will do a lot of making up for having screwed up with Kuzma.

[chrbal]

Nobody is. I think we either get a handful of 2nds, or maybe a distant 1st.

Definitely should have ignored his opinions and moved him last winter.

100%. The biggest mistake made by this front office to date, IMHO.

Also, looking at who could trade for Kuz, there are not that many potential options just looking at the money matching angle. Maybe Detroit, LAL, SAC and SAS.

Of those, the best option is probably to trade Kuz to Detroit for an expiry such as Hardaway Jr. The question is could get a distant lottery protected 1st (say 2029) for him? Not sure…Kuz is from Michigan and Detroit is looking to compete. So maybe they bite…

Prior to us signing Tobias Harris, maybe. Now, I highly doubt it.

[payitforward]

Well, it would depend on how little we need to take back, but for sure it would have been more likely before you picked up Harris.

At the same time, if it was between the two of them, I can't imagine anyone preferring Kuz.

[payitforward]

How about Valanciunas to the Lakers? For junk & picks?

[Jstock12]

How about Valanciunas to the Lakers? For junk & picks?

Demand Bronny+picks for JV.