Official Trade Thread - Part XXX

[The Consiglieri]

But would you have picked Karl Malone over Kenny Green and Clyde Drexler over Jeff Malone?

That kind of genius might have been a bridge too far for this little hamster brain of mine .

[gambitx777]

Gary Harris, Joffrey Lauvergne ,and a pick or two in this draft (Denver has in this draft), what ever is negotiated for Beal S&T.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

It's probably fair to knock CCJ for some of his trade ideas - he tends to undersell players he doesn't love - but his scouting acumen has always been impressive.

Also, it's weird to talk about a man who is standing in the same virtual room. Uh... hey man... how goes?

Even I would say leave the financial cap stuff and trades to others. Nate, doclinkin, TheSecretWeapon, etc.

Scouting by far has been my forte.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

At this point I would trade Wall for the rights to Kris Dunn, expiring deals and a future first.

I'm sure you would. You also said you'd trade Wall for Marcus Smart and a pick.

At least we know there's someone out there who would do a worse job than Grunfeld.

*edit* and yes, I'm putting you on ignore. No need to even say it.

Let's be fair here though, yes CCJ has never liked Wall, but I also know that his 2010-2011 draft day haul would have included Cousins, and Faried (front court issues solved), and then he'd have a 17th overall pick, and 35th from '10, the 6th and 34th from '11 (Dont remember who he wanted with those picks), the third in '12 (cant remember if he would have grabbed Beal, Drummond or Robinson), I am fairly certain his wish list was either Crowder or Barton with that 32nd pick, both of which would have been steals, the third pick in '13 and our second rounder (he wouldn't have thrown that away), wouldn't have dealt away the clarkson pick in '14 (don't remember if he would have taken Clarkson,but I know he wouldn't have traded the pick) and both picks in '15 (I think he was in line with the consensus to go with Portis).

CCJ's track record with picks is quite strong, with the occasional head scratcher, his Wall distaste has always been a bit odd, but somewhat understandable, he saw Cousins as a transformative elite big man, as did I, and preferred him, as almost did I (the knucklehead issues made him unavailable to me). He was right about Cousins, kind of wrong about Wall, and is sticking with that a bit. He also absolutely nailed Faried.

If nothing else, the team would fundamentally be better with picks made by CCJ from '09-'15 just as it would be by most of us.

My picks good and bad:
'09: Curry or Rubio (i leaned Rubio, but probably would have gone Curry because Curry wasn't a strict PG only type) and Blair.
'10: Wall, Seraphin and Lawal
'11: Leonard (i preferred to trade up for kantner), Faried (i kept flipping between Faried, Harris, Butler, Motiejunas, Mirotic and Singleton, Faried impressed me in the tourney)
'12: Drummond or Beal (charlotte saved me from Kidd-Gilchrist, who had above both of them), Miller, Barton, Crowder, D. Lamb, and Denmon were my 2nd round guys, and I stupidly had Q Miller above crowder and Barton
'13: Noel (i had anthony bennett #3 after Noel and Oladipo, dodged a bullet there like in '12, and I had Mitchell, Wolters, Withey and Muscala as the target at 2nd round slot. Probably go Wolters
'14: Was against the Gortat deal so protested this draft, paying zero attention whatsoever.
'15: Portis was my pick until I found out about the Oubre option. He was a top 8-10 recruit from the '14 class, and I was perfectly fine with aiming high with him, though I would have preferred moving up for Winslow, Turner or Lyles.

For sure, what's interesting is how the core would evolve, Rubio or Curry would have changed the '10 pick to Cousins, with Leonard Faried, Cousins, and Curry, would not take Drummond in '12, would go with Beal, in '13, with Cousins, and Faried up front, no need for Noel, and then I catastrophically make the Bennett pick (which is funny because just as I had the biggest bust up so high, I also had Gobert, and Giannis higher than virtually anybody, very much hit and miss).

Its impossible to predict how things evolve because different selections push forward different future slots, but it's clear that both CCJ, myself, and virtually everyone here would have built a better team than what we actually have if for no other reason than virtually none of us (there are exceptions, but not many) would have screwed the pooch so thoroughly with the '09, and '11 drafts. That was where the roots of the current debacle lay, two top 6 picks, this board collectively: about 90-95% of us wanted players vastly superior to what we got, particularly in '11 where the consensus seemed to be Leonard, Faried, Harris, Walker, (there was at least one poster who was as crazy as I was with Bennett, liking Marcus Morris), Vucevic,Mirotic, basically the board would have hit big with the 2nd first rounder, and probably with the first as well since I think Leonard had a majority of support with the 6 slot.

Add in that the board would have likely gone Curry (with some posters going another direction due to having more faith in Arenas coming back again from injury) with that '09 pick and it's truly horrifying to think about.

As a west coast Wiz fan/victim from the bay its incredibly fascinating to see the parallel's with both teams falling apart around the same time, both teams bottling rebuilds in the mid-nineties and early aughts with horrible trades and draft picks, both experiencing tiny blips of success in the mid-aughts, only to both crater by '09, and then you see that with virtually identical records in '09, you can see where Golden State got there rebuild so right, even while totally bollocking up picks and never landing a truly top pick, while we landed 3 top 3 picks (5 total top 6 picks), and ended up blowing things badly in every way possible (terrible selections, terrible trades, terrible usage of assets and team building). We could have been the warriors now, actually better because we had better assets to work with in terms of picks, and yet the Warriors did a better job of it with virtually every asset they had. Very depressing.

Wow. Awesome post, TheConsiglieri!

My trades can be bad. I've had a weird track record with John Wall.

Two years ago I decided he is a hardworking, good man. Very good but not great player; except when John plays in God mode. Then he's a beast. (Yeah, I've been AT LEAST kind of wrong for hating on Wall at all. )

No, I've never loved his competitive acumen but he is only human. I think John is having some leg issues and/or fatigue that affects his defense more than anything else.

I have no personal dislike of Wall. However, I'm a Wizards fan of 45 years. I think Wall is not the same as the franchise. He's merely the main cog and the engine.

But is he a great engineer and winner?

[payitforward]

Ruz: look forward to seeing the plan. There are probably some posters here who don't enjoy this kind of stuff -- but I do. Maybe we should have a "post your plan" thread? Call it something like "The Wiz: From Here to Where?"

Dudley: I don't think you can get players for the minimum who produce at his level and will give you the almost 2200 minutes we'll have gotten from him; I think that's unrealistic. I probably overestimate what he'll earn in my post above, but it'll likely be *more* not less than he earned this year.

Play him at the 3, and he is considerably above average. In fact, he's played some 2 for a good part of his career. If he were the primary backup at both wing positions, we could hardly do better. We've played him mostly at the 4, which makes no sense.

Had we signed Biyombo last off season, and not bothered w/ Anderson or Neal, and not made the trade for Morris, we'd have had roster room for a young 4 like Alan Williams, we'd have been a better team and had a better record, and we'd have a mid-R1 pick in the upcoming draft.

It's amazing how quickly the soup tastes bad once Ernie starts p#ssing in it.

Ok PIF, I spent a good/bad half hour plus on this, so hopefully it's not terrible or completely unrealistic. It does involve getting a lot younger, fwiw. I'm assuming a 92 mil cap because that's the last I heard.

Trades: Gortat for moves that net us 3 2nd round picks - 1 high and 2 mediums. Even an Ernie Grunfeld should be able to do that.
With those 3 picks, going by where draftexpress has them, I pick: Brice Johnson (33), Caris LaVert (40), and Monte Morris (43). I guesstimated the rookies cost 1,200,000 each.

Sign 2 free agents and Beal: Whiteside at the full 25% of the cap = 23 million. And Sullinger - I'm guessing at a contract starting at 10 million. He should actually cost less, because he had a disappointing season. But I think he can turn things around - especially if he gets his weight down. Jones from Houston is an alternative. I just made a guess for Beal at 18 mil.

Sign Sato to a multi-year deal starting at 4 million.

Sign 2 veteran minimum players. Hey, we have 2 guys like that - Thornton and Hickson make sense. By rule, you can go over the cap to sign them.

That gives us 13 players. You can fill the other 2 spots as needed with D League types. Roster is:

Wall 16,957,900
Sato 4,000,000
Morris 1,200,000
Beal 18,000,000
LaVert 1,200,000
Oubre 2,066,640
Porter 5,893,981
Morris (Markieff) 7,400,000
Sullinger 10,000,000
Johnson 1,200,000
Whiteside 23,000,000
Hickson
Thornton

It comes to 90,918,521 plus the minimum salary players. I think it's a good young balanced roster. Not a championship team but a team that could get around 50 wins and continue getting better.

This is fun!

So we are starting Wall, Beal, Porter, Markieff, and Whiteside (I assume). Using their current per-game minutes (w/ the assumption that Beal stays healthy and Whiteside plays @ the same minutes as Gortat did this year), that's just about 160 minutes per game, leaving @88 minutes a game for the bench.

The only change in starters, Whiteside, definitely improves us. Sullinger coming off the bench instead of Nene improves us too. Sato can't actually come over next year, but reality is just a detail in this picture anyway ( ), so lets just project him in his first year being about as good as Sessions (who had a pretty good year). & I'll plug in Temple over Thornton just because he makes the comparison more straightforward because he played so much (he was actually more effective as well).

That leaves an awful lot of minutes for rookies and Oubre. And that's where things would get tricky. We have a pretty bad starting PF; plus, he plays only 25 minutes a game. It doesn't help us for him to play more! How good do you think Brice Johnson is going to be - and how soon? This is specially a problem, because Sullinger doesn't really play the 4, and nor does Whiteside. But... maybe you *could* have them both on the floor?

The rest of the new team is younger -- which I prefer, as it give us more of an upside going forward -- but I don't think it's better next season. More likely the opposite.

I don't see 50 wins, to tell the truth. The two FAs make us better than we are w/ Gortat and Nene. & most of that difference is Whiteside vs. Gortat. In other words, your biggest move -- signing Whiteside -- is likely to get what you are getting.

What if we traded Gortat for a promising young 2 and a high R2 pick. And we traded Beal for a promising young big and a high R2 pick. If we got Brice Johnson and Grayson Allen w/ the 2 picks I'd be plenty stoked!

Would Boston give us Crowder and their #31 for Gortat? No. But I can dream, can't I?
Would the Lakers give us Julius Randle and their #32 for Beal? Hmmm. Who knows?

That would get us Crowder, Randle, Grayson Allen and Brice Johnson. Sign Whiteside and Biyombo. Now that's an interesting team! That team could get to 50 wins.

[BigA]

Sato can't actually come over next year

Item in the Satoransky thread says they can buy out his contract before the extension starts.

[Ruzious]

PIF, see BigA's post - I posted the article in the Sato thread. I'd be fine getting Grayson Allen, but I think he's going more like mid first, and I do have a problem with his tripping issue. I'm not a fan of Randle's. He can put up good rebounding numbers, but he's a sloppy shot-jacker for a PF and is limited defensively. Beal for 32 and Randle is not something I'd consider. If I'm trading Beal, I try to get Russell of LAL before he blows up.

If you're Boston, I think you're very happy with Crowder and weary of Sullinger. I don't see them matching for RFA Sully or trading Crowder. And why sign Biyombo when you have Whiteside? You can't play them together, imo. Again, Jones from Houston would be someone I'd consider at PF if Sullinger doesn't work out.

[pcbothwel]

PIF,
I've been on the Whiteside bandwagon for a minute now and im pretty convinced it is the best way to move forward without KD.

- Send Gortat to Boston for either (Jordan Mickey, #31, 2018 1st from Memphis) or (Sullnger and #31). I like Option 1.
- Resign Beal (to max if necessary, but you cant let him walk. S&T for youth/pick and TPE at minimum.)
- Sign Sato to 3/12M
- Sign Joakim Noah to 1 year deal. We'll have caproom, but a 1/5M deal should do it
- Bring back Alan Anderson to vet min.
- Sign one of the many vet FA Pg's to backup Wall (Augustin, Sessions, Bayless, Lawson, Brooks, etc.)
- Sign a vet forward to 1 year deal (Dudley,Ilyasova, Marvin Williams, Jerebko, Trevor Booker, Nene, etc.)
- Draft BPA at 31 (Kay Felder, Brice Johnson, Hernangomez, Ante Zizic etc.)

Wall / Augustin
Beal / Sato / Anderson
Otto / Sato / Oubre
Morris / Mickey /Jerebko
Whiteside / Noah

That is a well rounded and competitive team. We also maintain caproom (about 15M) and flexibility going into 2017 FA if we want to make a big move for someone like Blake Griffin or Kevin Love. We'd have all of our picks, the Memphis pick, Beal @ 22M and Morris @ 8M.

[payitforward]

PIF, see BigA's post - I posted the article in the Sato thread. I'd be fine getting Grayson Allen, but I think he's going more like mid first, and I do have a problem with his tripping issue. I'm not a fan of Randle's. He can put up good rebounding numbers, but he's a sloppy shot-jacker for a PF and is limited defensively. Beal for 32 and Randle is not something I'd consider. If I'm trading Beal, I try to get Russell of LAL before he blows up.

If you're Boston, I think you're very happy with Crowder and weary of Sullinger. I don't see them matching for RFA Sully or trading Crowder. And why sign Biyombo when you have Whiteside? You can't play them together, imo. Again, Jones from Houston would be someone I'd consider at PF if Sullinger doesn't work out.

Could be I'm wrong about the Sato extension. I don't know what "buy out" his contract means. In any case, happy to lay even odd $$ that he won't be a Wizard next year, and w/ a little bit of odds-making happy to bet he'll never be one. A horrible, wasted draft pick.

Your version of the plan gave us Beal, Brice Johnson, Caris Levert and Monte Morris -- 4 guys. Mine gave us Crowder, Randle, Grayson Allen and Brice Johnson. Not to put too find a point on it, Crowder is a better player than Beal. Period. Allen is a better prospect than Caris LeVert, and *surely* Randle is a higher value acquisition than Monte Morris!

Now, that's not to say Boston and/or LA makes the trades I outlined! Then again, we don't know if the trades you have in mind can be made either (tho to be fair, maybe yours are more likely!).

Of course, Boston is happy with Crowder! The question is only whether they'd rate Gortat higher; he upgrades them significantly at Center and would likely get them *deep* into the EC title race in next year's playoffs.

They might also feel they can't absorb any more youth than will come to them w/ the #s 4, 16 & 22 picks, which they also have! Not to mention the #35, 50, 51 & 58 pick, all of which they have as well. (Gee, I guess they figured out how to win without getting a "jolt" from an "established player" -- w/o p#ssing away their assets, IOW.)

Biyombo is the backup Center on the Raptors. He'd be backup Center for us as well. Not sure I see what problem you're having w/ the idea, but I may be missing something.

Grayson Allen -- we were using the current DR ratings in this exercise, right? He's listed at #31. For that matter, Brice Johnson looks too good to me to go #33, but that's where he's currently placed.

Randle / Jones -- First off, I've completely lost my belief in Terrence Jones; his 2d year in the league he looked like he was going to be a tremendous pro, but in 2014-15 he was only able to play in 50 games and he played at a much lower level than the previous year. In 2015-16, he's once again played fewer minutes than the previous year and played worse too. But, I understand your reservations about Randle; maybe you're right, in fact probably you are. So, sure, Russell would be great instead!

[TGW]

PIF,
I've been on the Whiteside bandwagon for a minute now and im pretty convinced it is the best way to move forward without KD.

- Send Gortat to Boston for either (Jordan Mickey, #31, 2018 1st from Memphis) or (Sullnger and #31). I like Option 1.
- Resign Beal (to max if necessary, but you cant let him walk. S&T for youth/pick and TPE at minimum.)
- Sign Sato to 3/12M
- Sign Joakim Noah to 1 year deal. We'll have caproom, but a 1/5M deal should do it
- Bring back Alan Anderson to vet min.
- Sign one of the many vet FA Pg's to backup Wall (Augustin, Sessions, Bayless, Lawson, Brooks, etc.)
- Sign a vet forward to 1 year deal (Dudley,Ilyasova, Marvin Williams, Jerebko, Trevor Booker, Nene, etc.)
- Draft BPA at 31 (Kay Felder, Brice Johnson, Hernangomez, Ante Zizic etc.)

Wall / Augustin
Beal / Sato / Anderson
Otto / Sato / Oubre
Morris / Mickey /Jerebko
Whiteside / Noah

That is a well rounded and competitive team. We also maintain caproom (about 15M) and flexibility going into 2017 FA if we want to make a big move for someone like Blake Griffin or Kevin Love. We'd have all of our picks, the Memphis pick, Beal @ 22M and Morris @ 8M.

I actually like this approach. It's not perfect but I like getting stuff for Gortat, while replacing him with a younger, more athletic, more defensive oriented player in Whiteside.

[Ruzious]

PIF, see BigA's post - I posted the article in the Sato thread. I'd be fine getting Grayson Allen, but I think he's going more like mid first, and I do have a problem with his tripping issue. I'm not a fan of Randle's. He can put up good rebounding numbers, but he's a sloppy shot-jacker for a PF and is limited defensively. Beal for 32 and Randle is not something I'd consider. If I'm trading Beal, I try to get Russell of LAL before he blows up.

If you're Boston, I think you're very happy with Crowder and weary of Sullinger. I don't see them matching for RFA Sully or trading Crowder. And why sign Biyombo when you have Whiteside? You can't play them together, imo. Again, Jones from Houston would be someone I'd consider at PF if Sullinger doesn't work out.

Could be I'm wrong about the Sato extension. I don't know what "buy out" his contract means. In any case, happy to lay even odd $$ that he won't be a Wizard next year, and w/ a little bit of odds-making happy to bet he'll never be one. A horrible, wasted draft pick.

Your version of the plan gave us Beal, Brice Johnson, Caris Levert and Monte Morris -- 4 guys. Mine gave us Crowder, Randle, Grayson Allen and Brice Johnson. Not to put too find a point on it, Crowder is a better player than Beal. Period. Allen is a better prospect than Caris LeVert, and *surely* Randle is a higher value acquisition than Monte Morris!

Now, that's not to say Boston and/or LA makes the trades I outlined! Then again, we don't know if the trades you have in mind can be made either (tho to be fair, maybe yours are more likely!).

Of course, Boston is happy with Crowder! The question is only whether they'd rate Gortat higher; he upgrades them significantly at Center and would likely get them *deep* into the EC title race in next year's playoffs.

They might also feel they can't absorb any more youth than will come to them w/ the #s 4, 16 & 22 picks, which they also have! Not to mention the #35, 50, 51 & 58 pick, all of which they have as well. (Gee, I guess they figured out how to win without getting a "jolt" from an "established player" -- w/o p#ssing away their assets, IOW.)

Biyombo is the backup Center on the Raptors. He'd be backup Center for us as well. Not sure I see what problem you're having w/ the idea, but I may be missing something.

Grayson Allen -- we were using the current DR ratings in this exercise, right? He's listed at #31. For that matter, Brice Johnson looks too good to me to go #33, but that's where he's currently placed.

Randle / Jones -- First off, I've completely lost my belief in Terrence Jones; his 2d year in the league he looked like he was going to be a tremendous pro, but in 2014-15 he was only able to play in 50 games and he played at a much lower level than the previous year. In 2015-16, he's once again played fewer minutes than the previous year and played worse too. But, I understand your reservations about Randle; maybe you're right, in fact probably you are. So, sure, Russell would be great instead!

PIF, in our previous posts we both agreed that Boston wouldn't do your trade for Crowder, so give that up. We both like Crowder, but there's a team in Boston that likes him, and they have him.

Fwiw, I'm a Sullinger believer. He's more a 4 than a 5 as long as he's not over-weight. His versatility is a good thing. And I would definitely start him over Morris. Sullinger's a major risk - especially with his play being disappointing this season. But he's a very smart kid, and I'm betting on him finally getting that he needs to get in much better shape. It might be a losing bet, but I'm sticking with it.

Biyombo has another year on his contract. Does he have a buyout? If he does, I assume he's going to cost more than I'd want to pay for a backup center, so I'd want a player who has the versatility to play with Whiteside.

Grayson "Tripper" Allen is a fine prospect, but if he comes out, we both know he'll be a first round pick, and I'm trying to be realistic. Also, I'm not going to pick both Allen and LaVert, since they both play the same position. LaVert is much more realistic in the second round and a very underrated player, imo, so I'm happy to get him. But I'm not depending on any of the 3 rookies to play much as rookies, because I've balanced the roster. Each of them have at least 2 guys ahead of them at their primary position.

[Ruzious]

PIF,
I've been on the Whiteside bandwagon for a minute now and im pretty convinced it is the best way to move forward without KD.

- Send Gortat to Boston for either (Jordan Mickey, #31, 2018 1st from Memphis) or (Sullnger and #31). I like Option 1.
- Resign Beal (to max if necessary, but you cant let him walk. S&T for youth/pick and TPE at minimum.)
- Sign Sato to 3/12M
- Sign Joakim Noah to 1 year deal. We'll have caproom, but a 1/5M deal should do it
- Bring back Alan Anderson to vet min.
- Sign one of the many vet FA Pg's to backup Wall (Augustin, Sessions, Bayless, Lawson, Brooks, etc.)
- Sign a vet forward to 1 year deal (Dudley,Ilyasova, Marvin Williams, Jerebko, Trevor Booker, Nene, etc.)
- Draft BPA at 31 (Kay Felder, Brice Johnson, Hernangomez, Ante Zizic etc.)

Wall / Augustin
Beal / Sato / Anderson
Otto / Sato / Oubre
Morris / Mickey /Jerebko
Whiteside / Noah

That is a well rounded and competitive team. We also maintain caproom (about 15M) and flexibility going into 2017 FA if we want to make a big move for someone like Blake Griffin or Kevin Love. We'd have all of our picks, the Memphis pick, Beal @ 22M and Morris @ 8M.

I actually like this approach. It's not perfect but I like getting stuff for Gortat, while replacing him with a younger, more athletic, more defensive oriented player in Whiteside.

Yeah, not a bad job by pcb. Mickey would be a smart player to get. Marvin Williams is by far the best option listed for a vet forward to sign, imo. Problem is, his price is going up this year.

[pcbothwel]

Thanks Ruz,
I agree on Williams, thats why i put Jerebko in there. Again, the real linchpin to this is Whiteside, but if he's on board you've got a lot of avenues to take. Reasons I think we'd be appealing to him below:

Spoiler:

1) Location: He grew up in NC (about 3 hours from John Wall) and he went to Marshall University in WV. DC has really embraced Wall as a native in its own way and I think Whiteside would get the same affection.
2) Wall: He and Wall are the same age and grew up 3 hours apart in NC. Wall is also the perfect PG to get Whiteside the ball in positions to do damage (Think CP3 to Jordan/Chandler).
3) Team: We are a competitive team that would contend in the East. And while we value his defense, Whiteside would have plenty of opportunities to score.

And if you want to take it one step further, you could SnT Beal and really make a run at 2017. I.E Beal to Nuggets for Nurkic/Jokic and a future 1st.
- Sign Eric Gordon to similar deal as Noah. In fact, with the new capspace you can afford to overpay both slightly in exchange for adding a 2nd year as a TO...hmm

Wall / Augustin
Sato / Gordon /Anderson
Otto / Oubre / Anderson
Morris / Mickey /Jerebko
Whiteside / Noah

Then in 2017, you look at Griffin and Ibaka and say, "We got Wall, Sato, Otto, Oubre, Morris, Mickey, Whiteside, and 4 1st in the next 2 years. Who want to come on board and dominate the east for the next 5 years?"

Wall
Sato / Oubre
Otto / Oubre
Griffin / Morris / Mickey
Whiteside / Nurkic

Wow. And using the 4 1st and Morris to upgrade the Sg or backup Pg spot. Elite talent in their physical/mental prime (26-28) along with depth and draft picks. One can only dream

[Ruzious]

It's amazing that with all the screw-ups EG's made, we can still put together a pretty nice team if we're able to sign a guy like Whiteside. It's mainly because of the cap's unprecedented increases these next 2 seasons. Otherwise, we'd have no chance. Might as well try to take advantage of the situation.

[nate33]

Ok PIF, I spent a good/bad half hour plus on this, so hopefully it's not terrible or completely unrealistic. It does involve getting a lot younger, fwiw. I'm assuming a 92 mil cap because that's the last I heard.

Trades: Gortat for moves that net us 3 2nd round picks - 1 high and 2 mediums. Even an Ernie Grunfeld should be able to do that.
With those 3 picks, going by where draftexpress has them, I pick: Brice Johnson (33), Caris LaVert (40), and Monte Morris (43). I guesstimated the rookies cost 1,200,000 each.

Sign 2 free agents and Beal: Whiteside at the full 25% of the cap = 23 million. And Sullinger - I'm guessing at a contract starting at 10 million. He should actually cost less, because he had a disappointing season. But I think he can turn things around - especially if he gets his weight down. Jones from Houston is an alternative. I just made a guess for Beal at 18 mil.

Sign Sato to a multi-year deal starting at 4 million.

Sign 2 veteran minimum players. Hey, we have 2 guys like that - Thornton and Hickson make sense. By rule, you can go over the cap to sign them.

That gives us 13 players. You can fill the other 2 spots as needed with D League types. Roster is:

Wall 16,957,900
Sato 4,000,000
Morris 1,200,000
Beal 18,000,000
LaVert 1,200,000
Oubre 2,066,640
Porter 5,893,981
Morris 7,400,000
Sullinger 10,000,000
Johnson 1,200,000
Whiteside 23,000,000
Hickson
Thornton

It comes to 90,918,521 plus the minimum salary players. I think it's a good young balanced roster. Not a championship team but a team that could get around 50 wins and continue getting better.

Good stuff, Ruzious. This all seems plausible. Obviously, it'll depend on the performance of those 2nd round picks, but I trust you more than most to make those selections. A couple of small points:

1. Those 2nd round picks won't cost $1.2M each. As 2nd round pick rookies, they will cost the minimum salary, which starts at just $0.54M each.

2. Also, Whiteside costs 25% of the cap, but through some arcane calculations, the actual amount is more like 23%. If the salary cap is $92M, he'll cost about $20.7M or so. That's also what Beal would cost if we paid him the max.

See, I just saved you $4M!

I'm not sure how much I like the Sullinger acquisition. I'd put him alongside a bunch of other potential free agent targets, but not above. My general goal would be to land Whiteside, and then just throw out lowball offers to a bunch of 2nd tier candidates in the hopes of maybe landing one at a good price. Hopefully, I'd do better than Sullinger at $10M a year, but who knows in this market.

[Ruzious]

Yeah nate, I definitely understand I'm going out on a limb with Sullinger, and that might be a bad risk. Like pcb alluded to, maybe wait till the year after to get a PF. That 4 mil just shows to go that we need to team up together along with some of the other clowns here when one of us wins MegaMillions and buys 51% of the team.

[Illuminaire]

I like these ideas. If the Wizards can acquire Whiteside for cap space, that by itself adds a massive infusion of talent to the roster. If you can get high value for Gortat and Beal too, that would definitely enable an effective retool with a path to true contention.

So nice work.

Now the Wiz just need a GM who can pull all that off.

[payitforward]

PIF, see BigA's post - I posted the article in the Sato thread. I'd be fine getting Grayson Allen, but I think he's going more like mid first, and I do have a problem with his tripping issue. I'm not a fan of Randle's. He can put up good rebounding numbers, but he's a sloppy shot-jacker for a PF and is limited defensively. Beal for 32 and Randle is not something I'd consider. If I'm trading Beal, I try to get Russell of LAL before he blows up.

If you're Boston, I think you're very happy with Crowder and weary of Sullinger. I don't see them matching for RFA Sully or trading Crowder. And why sign Biyombo when you have Whiteside? You can't play them together, imo. Again, Jones from Houston would be someone I'd consider at PF if Sullinger doesn't work out.

Could be I'm wrong about the Sato extension. I don't know what "buy out" his contract means. In any case, happy to lay even odd $$ that he won't be a Wizard next year, and w/ a little bit of odds-making happy to bet he'll never be one. A horrible, wasted draft pick.

Your version of the plan gave us Beal, Brice Johnson, Caris Levert and Monte Morris -- 4 guys. Mine gave us Crowder, Randle, Grayson Allen and Brice Johnson. Not to put too find a point on it, Crowder is a better player than Beal. Period. Allen is a better prospect than Caris LeVert, and *surely* Randle is a higher value acquisition than Monte Morris!

Now, that's not to say Boston and/or LA makes the trades I outlined! Then again, we don't know if the trades you have in mind can be made either (tho to be fair, maybe yours are more likely!).

Of course, Boston is happy with Crowder! The question is only whether they'd rate Gortat higher; he upgrades them significantly at Center and would likely get them *deep* into the EC title race in next year's playoffs.

They might also feel they can't absorb any more youth than will come to them w/ the #s 4, 16 & 22 picks, which they also have! Not to mention the #35, 50, 51 & 58 pick, all of which they have as well. (Gee, I guess they figured out how to win without getting a "jolt" from an "established player" -- w/o p#ssing away their assets, IOW.)

Biyombo is the backup Center on the Raptors. He'd be backup Center for us as well. Not sure I see what problem you're having w/ the idea, but I may be missing something.

Grayson Allen -- we were using the current DR ratings in this exercise, right? He's listed at #31. For that matter, Brice Johnson looks too good to me to go #33, but that's where he's currently placed.

Randle / Jones -- First off, I've completely lost my belief in Terrence Jones; his 2d year in the league he looked like he was going to be a tremendous pro, but in 2014-15 he was only able to play in 50 games and he played at a much lower level than the previous year. In 2015-16, he's once again played fewer minutes than the previous year and played worse too. But, I understand your reservations about Randle; maybe you're right, in fact probably you are. So, sure, Russell would be great instead!

PIF, in our previous posts we both agreed that Boston wouldn't do your trade for Crowder, so give that up. We both like Crowder, but there's a team in Boston that likes him, and they have him.

Fwiw, I'm a Sullinger believer. He's more a 4 than a 5 as long as he's not over-weight. His versatility is a good thing. And I would definitely start him over Morris. Sullinger's a major risk - especially with his play being disappointing this season. But he's a very smart kid, and I'm betting on him finally getting that he needs to get in much better shape. It might be a losing bet, but I'm sticking with it.

Biyombo has another year on his contract. Does he have a buyout? If he does, I assume he's going to cost more than I'd want to pay for a backup center, so I'd want a player who has the versatility to play with Whiteside.

Grayson "Tripper" Allen is a fine prospect, but if he comes out, we both know he'll be a first round pick, and I'm trying to be realistic. Also, I'm not going to pick both Allen and LaVert, since they both play the same position. LaVert is much more realistic in the second round and a very underrated player, imo, so I'm happy to get him. But I'm not depending on any of the 3 rookies to play much as rookies, because I've balanced the roster. Each of them have at least 2 guys ahead of them at their primary position.

Biyombo has a player option; he'll get more on the open market, so I expect his agent to advise him not to pick it up.

I like Sullinger too. As to Crowder, teams often trade players they "like." Gortat is an outstanding Center; I don't think my trade is out of the question. Then again, makes no never mind as I'd get nowhere calling Boston and saying it was Ernie G. on the line, would I?

I'm not really up on LeVert, but I take it for granted that if you say he's good he is good. I note that he only played @15 games this year (putting up great numbers in small sample size theatre), and ditto last year. Injuries?

Re: Allen, yeah you may well be right. But, in truth, it looks to me like Brice Johnson should be a R1 pick... and easily. What causes him to be rated @#33 right now?

[Ruzious]

Pif, you're probably right about Brice, but there's a chance he slips. While he's done a great job of adding strength in his years at UNC, he's not real long and wasn't a factor as a shot-blocker until this season. In hindsight, I'm guessing that could be blamed on him mostly playing with Meeks until this season. He was sort of a PF/C without being either one. Now, it's looking like he's a tweener in a good way.

LaVert has been injury-prone. Hopefully, he isn't a Beal situation in that regard, but he might be. Last season, he started out great and then had a stress fracture in his foot in midseason - similar to an injury he had the previous year. This season, he had a "lower leg injury", but they said it was unrelated to the stress fractures. When healthy, he's been a guy who fills up the scoreboard. I think if he gets stronger and stays healthy, he can play well in the NBA. And like a lot of players, the development of his 3ball is crucial.

[Ruzious]

Btw PIF, remember when you gave me a hard time about suggesting we consider getting Andrew Nicholson from Orlando as a cheap backup - since he wasn't getting PT with Orlando? Well, he's finally got in the rotation when they got rid of some veterans at the trade deadline, and he's becoming a very effective backup stretch 4.