Woj: Deni to Portland for 14th pick and Brogdon

[Silvie Lysandra]

I was open-minded to this argument at the time. The difference is that I didn't see the urgency to rush into the mediocre trade we made with Portland. I thought (I believe correctly) that we could have still tanked the 2024-25 season with Deni on the roster and finished with the 3rd to 6th worst record in the league and still have only slightly worse odds at a top 4 pick.

I just don't think the numbers support this. Ironically, it underrates Deni by a long shot.

Just replacing 25-30 Kuzma/rookie George/Bilal minutes a night with Deni minutes adds 3-4 wins by itself. And after you trade Kuzma, that effect becomes even more pronounced. The Wizards won 9 of their 18 wins after the Kuzma trade (with one win the day before he didn't play in). 10-22 is a 25 win pace, without Deni., which would have put us at the 6th worst record. With Deni? A guy who, as we both know, made an even worse roster look decent? Honestly, had we traded Kuzma before the season and kept Deni this season, we may have straight up been fighting for the playin. Even if you do keep Kuzma, just having Deni takes away not just from Kuzma's minutes, but from Bilal's minutes, George's minutes, and arguably even Sarr's minutes if you want to give Deni some small ball C run. Either way, those are a lot of nightly minutes that you are taking away from bad or mediocre (Bilal and Sarr and George obviously can and likely will be better, but they were bad to mediocre last year) and replacing them with fringe All-Star minutes.

It's very easy to imagine a 30 win Wizards team with Deni having to settle for Maluach or something.

Fundamentally, you believe it's possible to square the circle between how much Deni contributes to winning games and how much we needed to not win games, and I just don't think it is. He has a HUGE impact on winning, but not on the level of a genuine superstar, which we didn't and likely still don't have on the roster. And while you could argue for a non-tanking approach built around Deni and drafting well with picks 6-10, that's a different argument strategically, and one that I don't think this particular braintrust would have really gone for (it's very clear what Presti and his protoges think in regards to the tank vs don't tank debate).

Heck, we may have been able to trade Deni straight up for Dylan Harper. It's a deal that would have made a ton of sense for San Antonio.

I think this is a stronger argument (that we pulled the trigger too early), though nobody could have predicted the Spurs getting another top 3 pick when the general consensus was that Wemby could get them to the playin at minimum, and the Spurs seemed pretty committed to just taking Harper (I'm surprised the Blazers didn't dangle him) And then you're passing on the chance of Flagg to boot.

[AFM]

I call it Schrodinger’s Avdija. He is both a for sure all NBA all star player, and also a player not good enough to lead us to more wins. Depending on what exactly you are arguing

[dckingsfan]

I call it Schrodinger’s Avdija. He is both a for sure all NBA all star player, and also a player not good enough to lead us to more wins. Depending on what exactly you are arguing

He is both dead to us and very alive in the NBA.

[dckingsfan]

as I've been saying (in agreement with doc), the reason why Deni was traded was *because* **** rosters play like playin level rosters when he's on the floor. Trading a guy like that is a reason the trade was smart (if highly risky) because even with the flattened lottery odds, I'd rather increase my odds at the #1 pick by 30-80% or even higher. And yes, there are ways to tank with a guy like that on your roster. But they're not foolproof, and it also means that you're paradoxically hoping your other young players *don't* improve too much, and having a guy like Deni makes it more likely and makes that potential improvement more likely.

Let's say Bilal makes the jump this year to being an above average NBA player, and Sarr becomes an average NBA player. Let's say we still end up in the 4-6 range (rather than dropping from 2-6, we just pick 6th "naturally" and still draft Tre). That's a pretty exciting young team, but with no bonafide potential #1 option, and more importantly, we're losing this year's pick for sure, in a draft class that seems to have multiple #1 worthy players. Maybe you could build something like the Pacers out of that, but in that scenario, we wouldn't even have a Halliburton. You're hoping that our players improve *beyond* reasonable projections, essentially.

Myles Turner, Deni, Jaylen Brown, and Desmond Bane is an exciting young core - but can it win a title? That looks more like the pre Kawhi Raptors, last years Pacers, or the no-Ja Grizzlies with Bane, but is it a bonafide championship contender? Probably not. And you're also losing an asset on top. You're hoping that Sarr turns into JJJ, and Bilal becomes closer to Tatum than Brown, and/or Tre (and btw, assuming that we still get the #6 pick is generous here) becomes closer to Klay than Bane.

Now maybe on a strategic level, it would have been better to take the double you had with Deni instead of try to swing for the fences by a pure tanking strategy. But that's the way to argue against the trade, not simply by comparing immediate returns. It was a chess move, and maybe it was a non ideal chess move, but most of the critiques of it have been at the level of checkers.

I was open-minded to this argument at the time. The difference is that I didn't see the urgency to rush into the mediocre trade we made with Portland. I thought (I believe correctly) that we could have still tanked the 2024-25 season with Deni on the roster and finished with the 3rd to 6th worst record in the league and still have only slightly worse odds at a top 4 pick.

I agree that if we still struck out in the 2025 lottery, then we would be in a trickly situation where it may be too hard to tank the 2025-26 season. But in that scenario, Deni could still be traded THIS SUMMER, only for much better return because by now, his break out is evident for all to see.

Heck, we may have been able to trade Deni straight up for Dylan Harper. It's a deal that would have made a ton of sense for San Antonio.

And it wasn't like we couldn't have traded him during the 2024-25 season during his breakout. Or that we wouldn't have hit on a top 4 pick in the lottery (with the slightly reduced odds).

[payitforward]

I.e. if one wants to criticize the Deni trade, no problem -- but the critique has to be that "we didn't get enough for Deni," followed by justification of the claim. &, in fact, this was the approach nate took initially (if I recall correctly), writing that if we were going to trade Deni we should have gotten the same kind of value that Cam Johnson had just brought.

Mikal Bridges. I wanted the Mikal Bridges package.

Right! Sorry.... & Mikal Bridges was worth more than Cam Johnson, to be sure.

At the same time, I thought then & still do think that Bridges had established himself more firmly & at a higher level than had Deni. But, this is a minor point. &, in fact, by now I'd a lot rather have Deni than Bridges!

My main point -- wch I've made in a zillion contexts here! -- was/is that you can't really say "we shouldn't have traded Joe." Anyone should be available in a trade: it's all about the deal. Hence , OTOH, you certainly can say "we didn't get enough for Joe."

When we traded Deni, I thought we did "get enough" for him. Not necessarily if you rated him at the level of his 35 previous games, but it would be fair not to do that. To discount some off of that.

Then he continued his breakout -- & even improved on it! -- w/ Portland! I don't think that can be denied. Meaning that now I would be happy to get him back for the assets we got for him.

Which doesn't mean, btw, of course, that I wouldn't turn around & trade him again for a different package.

&, of course, it's possible that a guy we get w/ one of the picks we got from Portland will wind up even better than Deni! I'm not predicting it (why would I?). But it could happen. Whereupon, again, we'd reassess the trade.

Now for today's French lesson -- "Ras le bol!"

[nate33]

I call it Schrodinger’s Avdija. He is both a for sure all NBA all star player, and also a player not good enough to lead us to more wins. Depending on what exactly you are arguing

Agreed, but in the other sense. Silvie is arguing that Deni is worth 12 freaking wins! If Deni is that freaking good at age 23, you don't trade him for anybody! That's superstar talent.

Cleveland traded Markkanan and five FRP's for Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell added 7 wins for Cleveland.

Or put it this way:
Either Deni is pretty good, but only worth 5-7 wins and we could still have tanked with him on the roster. Or Deni is extremely good, worth 12+ wins, and it was clearly a horrific move to trade him for two middling FRP's.

EITHER WAY, IT WAS A BAD TRADE!

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

I call it Schrodinger’s Avdija. He is both a for sure all NBA all star player, and also a player not good enough to lead us to more wins. Depending on what exactly you are arguing

He is both dead to us and very alive in the NBA.

Kind of a hollow argument when you think about all the examples of All-NBA/All-Star talents spending their early years on terrible teams.

[payitforward]

I was open-minded to this argument at the time. The difference is that I didn't see the urgency to rush into the mediocre trade we made with Portland. I thought (I believe correctly) that we could have still tanked the 2024-25 season with Deni on the roster and finished with the 3rd to 6th worst record in the league and still have only slightly worse odds at a top 4 pick.

I just don't think the numbers support this. Ironically, it underrates Deni by a long shot.

Just replacing 25-30 Kuzma/rookie George/Bilal minutes a night with Deni minutes adds 3-4 wins by itself. And after you trade Kuzma, that effect becomes even more pronounced. The Wizards won 9 of their 18 wins after the Kuzma trade (with one win the day before he didn't play in). 10-22 is a 25 win pace, without Deni., which would have put us at the 6th worst record. With Deni? A guy who, as we both know, made an even worse roster look decent? Honestly, had we traded Kuzma before the season and kept Deni this season, we may have straight up been fighting for the playin. Even if you do keep Kuzma, just having Deni takes away not just from Kuzma's minutes, but from Bilal's minutes, George's minutes, and arguably even Sarr's minutes if you want to give Deni some small ball C run. Either way, those are a lot of nightly minutes that you are taking away from bad or mediocre (Bilal and Sarr and George obviously can and likely will be better, but they were bad to mediocre last year) and replacing them with fringe All-Star minutes.

It's very easy to imagine a 30 win Wizards team with Deni having to settle for Maluach or something.

Fundamentally, you believe it's possible to square the circle between how much Deni contributes to winning games and how much we needed to not win games, and I just don't think it is. He has a HUGE impact on winning, but not on the level of a genuine superstar, which we didn't and likely still don't have on the roster. And while you could argue for a non-tanking approach built around Deni and drafting well with picks 6-10, that's a different argument strategically, and one that I don't think this particular braintrust would have really gone for (it's very clear what Presti and his protoges think in regards to the tank vs don't tank debate).

Heck, we may have been able to trade Deni straight up for Dylan Harper. It's a deal that would have made a ton of sense for San Antonio.

I think this is a stronger argument (that we pulled the trigger too early), though nobody could have predicted the Spurs getting another top 3 pick when the general consensus was that Wemby could get them to the playin at minimum, and the Spurs seemed pretty committed to just taking Harper (I'm surprised the Blazers didn't dangle him) And then you're passing on the chance of Flagg to boot.

Agree 100%

[payitforward]

Agree -- as above -- except I would say that...

... Just replacing 25-30 Kuzma... minutes a night with Deni minutes adds 3-4 wins by itself....

this is extremely conservative. Adding Deni & Clingan, along w/ Camara's improvement, brought Portland 15 more wins. Over half of that was Deni.

[dckingsfan]

My point all along has been that the lottery is a crap shoot in both directions, and in fact, the lottery actually helps the teams in the 5-8 range more so than it helps those in the 1-4 range because the teams in the 1-4 range really don't have anywhere to go but down. In the 7 years since the new lottery odds have been implemented, there have been 28 teams with a top 4 draft position, only 13 have actually ended up with a top 4 pick. Meanwhile, of the the 28 teams that fell in the 5-8 range 11 of them have ended up with a top 4 pick. We saw that dynamic in spades this last draft when the #5 slot and the #8 slot ended up picking #3 and #2.

It really has changed the calculus but I think that many teams and fans struggle with this (especially us older fans) where absolute tanking was an imperative. Now, being decent and getting lucky seems to be a better n-game theory practice.

[nate33]

Agree -- as above -- except I would say that...

... Just replacing 25-30 Kuzma... minutes a night with Deni minutes adds 3-4 wins by itself....

would likely add about 16-18 wins to a team's season. On the one hand, Kuzma costs you wins. On the other hand, Deni gets you wins.

This is utterly ridiculous. Kuzma was terrible, but a 16-18 win improvement would require a point differential improvement of 8-9 points per 48 minutes.

Kuzma was shooting poorly, but even if you replace all of his attempts at a 48%TS with Deni shooting at 62%, that's only worth 250 points on the season, or 3 points per game.

Furthermore, who said anything about replacing Kuzma? You keep Kuzma to facilitate the tank. Deni would have replaced Champagnie's production, which wouldn't have resulted in a massive improvement.

[payitforward]

Sorry I pushed enter on that way too early! As you can see I was in the middle of writing the post.

[nate33]

My point all along has been that the lottery is a crap shoot in both directions, and in fact, the lottery actually helps the teams in the 5-8 range more so than it helps those in the 1-4 range because the teams in the 1-4 range really don't have anywhere to go but down. In the 7 years since the new lottery odds have been implemented, there have been 28 teams with a top 4 draft position, only 13 have actually ended up with a top 4 pick. Meanwhile, of the the 28 teams that fell in the 5-8 range 11 of them have ended up with a top 4 pick. We saw that dynamic in spades this last draft when the #5 slot and the #8 slot ended up picking #3 and #2.

It really has changed the calculus but I think that many teams and fans struggle with this (especially us older fans) where absolute tanking was an imperative. Now, being decent and getting lucky seems to be a better n-game theory practice.

Exactly. People need to read that bolded statement over and over again until they get it through their heads. The lottery odds are VERY flat. It's not a significant advantage to tank all the way to the bottom. And furthermore, you have to factor that draft scouts aren't that good. In reality, the difference between picking in the 2-5 range and picking in the 6-10 range isn't all that big either. So that's 2 dimensions in which the perceptions of the benefits of tanking are much greater than the actual reality.

[payitforward]

...Furthermore, who said anything about replacing Kuzma? You keep Kuzma to facilitate the tank. Deni would have replaced Champagnie's production, which wouldn't have resulted in a massive improvement.

Also true....

Above all, I would not have traded Deni to facilitate the tank. I think that would have been ridiculous. &, as I've written, if I could get him back for what we got for him, there is no question I'd do it!

Which is a metric of his continued development, btw -- his Portland season means even more than his improvement with us. For one thing, it indicates that he may continue to improve given he's only 24.

[dckingsfan]

Agree -- as above -- except I would say that...

... Just replacing 25-30 Kuzma... minutes a night with Deni minutes adds 3-4 wins by itself....

this is extremely conservative. Adding Deni & Clingan, along w/ Camara's improvement, brought Portland 15 more wins. Over half of that was Deni.

Following Portland as well now. The difference was:

1) Billups went all-in on defense (no question this was #1)
2) Clingan replaced Ayton to make that defensive commitment
3) Camara became a defensive POY candidate
4) Addition by subtraction getting Simons out and Scoot in at the end of the year (some D)
5) Deni's offensive breakout and better D (hard to imagine)
6) Sharpe improved dramatically (and also started playing D)

It wasn't just Deni. But they did give themselves a chance at getting to 30+ wins with the chance of lottery luck.

And as nate has said multiple times - you can control minutes and wins, regardless.

[AFM]

I don’t think Deni was worth a lot of wins by the way. I know this because he played for us and we lost a lot.

[doclinkin]

You can't make all trades assuming we will get the worst possible outcome in any lottery.

The odds of falling out of a top 4 slot are fairly high because there's really no where to go but down. But the odds of dropping 3 or 4 slots from the #5 slot or the #6 slot are astronomically small.

When we had the #2 slot, there was only a 52% chance of staying in the top 4. There was a 28% chance we would fall to 5th and a 20% chance we would fall to 6th. We ended up falling to 6th, but it was not a ridiculously improbable event.

But if Deni had brought us 6 more wins, we would have been in the Philly slot as the 5th worst record. We would have had a 42% chance of moving UP to the top 4 (barely worse than our odds at the #2 slot), a 46% chance of picking 6th or 7th, only an 8.7% chance of falling to 8, and virtually no chance (0.6%) of falling to 9th. We would not have fallen to 10th.

And yet we fell. The way I see it the front office is trying to game the odds in their favor in every draft scenario. It's about maximizing every percentage point, and about using every pick they can to trade UP the draft ladder. What they have not been doing is pooh-poohing the odds and talking about acceptable risk. We were worst in the league for a reason. It was intentional. (We only slid out of that spot because Utah was truly egregious in shutting down their players. The Wiz actually attempted to tank with honor, simply playing heavy minutes to all the youth on the roster. Using the opportunity to develop them while wins are not the object).

You would have gambled on the lesser risk. But again, there's a ton of other teams in this boat race, and you don't know the weather conditions in advance. Win streaks happen. Flukes happen. As we saw with the lotto balls, improbable results are common.

This team has committed to building first through the lottery. Through the draft. They have not half-assed it but have been transparent about it and stuck to the plan. With a non-zero risk of losing our pick, this year or next year. Until that risk has passed there is no point in d,cking around.

We can speculate that somehow Deni's value would have been higher if we both held onto him AND lost all year.

We can speculate it we might have gotten a better deal despite his minutes being stifled while sharing minutes with Kuzma, Bilal, Kispert, and Sarr --whose reps at the time made it known they saw him as a forward not a center. To say nothing of trying to get value from PBJ, Vukcevic, and whatever draft pick we might have gotten with the late 1st we picked up (Kyshawn, but we didn't know it at the time).

But what is inarguable is that they have committed to improving their draft position with every tool they've had at hand. Tanking. Trading for future picks. Trading for swaps. Trading 2nd rounders to climb into the 1st round. Trading 2nd rounders to advance up the lotto.

You can say the chances are small of slipping, but one last second shot in the last game of the year caused us to stumble. The odds are better than powerball, and the fortunes are worth more. It is easy for you to say the risks are acceptable, but the difference between Wembanyama and Coulibaly are worth billions to a franchise. And the chance that you miss out entirely is simply not acceptable. They are gambling with real money, and many people's jobs. We are just risking hurt feelings and toldja-so's

[Silvie Lysandra]

Agreed, but in the other sense. Silvie is arguing that Deni is worth 12 freaking wins! If Deni is that freaking good at age 23, you don't trade him for anybody! That's superstar talent.

Not really. If Deni was 12 wins over a replacement player, then yes that is legitimate superstar level impact. But the minutes he'd be taking were considerably below replacement. He's worth a bunch of wins to the 2024-2025 Wizards because our forwards were so far below replacement that even an above replacement level forward is a huge gap in value (and Deni is actually pretty far above replacement)

Deni was a 2 BPM player, Kuzma was a nearly -5 BPM player. Bilal was nearly -4. Kyshawn was -4. Now replace those minutes and possessions with someone who's above average, AND tends to have positive effects on other player performances. Or if you use VORP, our forwards were probably collectively a -1 VORP (with Kuzma being -1.4) versus Deni's 2.3. Just replacing Kuzma's minutes with Deni's minutes is a 3.6 VORP swing, assuming the lack of Kuzma doesn't have intangible effects on the rest of team (I haven't broken out performances pre-trade vs post-trade but we won a much higher clip despite only adding 14 games of Middleton and AJ Johnson who is also sub replacement.)

Basically, if you dumped Kuzma and kept Deni at the start of the 2024-2025 season, the effect would be similar to adding Evan Mobley or Cade Cunningham or Derrick White in terms of VORP. Also, no Bub means it's possible you replace his minutes (fairly bad) with a veteran who's closer to replacement level. But either way, do you not think adding one of those players would win us quite a few more games? But the problem is that because we're comparing Deni to a very bad player (that might also make other players worse), it means that his impact for bad teams is inflated, but that impact begins to tail off once you have aspirations of being elite.

Also, the flip side of the tank strategy was to draft raw players with tools that are highly likely to suck in their first 1-2 years, while playing older guys that also suck. Now, you can still do that with Deni, but having a guy who not only doesn't suck, but is really good (but not quite a star) impedes that, because past a certain point, you can't not play him. If nothing else, this hurts Keefe's future career, hurts other coaches, etc. While a GM can structure the roster to facilitate tanking, what they CANNOT do is give a directive to tank. And tanking with Deni likely requires a directive. Even the Process Sixers didn't go that far.

Also re: Deni replacing Champagnie's minutes: Sure, but he's probably not reupping when he can get actual burn somewhere else. So that's another asset gone. Even then, Deni is considerably better than Champagnie. So maybe that still buys us an extra few wins.

So are you keeping Kuzma the whole season? Even giving up a chance to get out of his deal (and everyone agrees we fleeced the Bucks)? If not, then you have Deni on the roster, 30 wing minutes to fill, and a team that we know played at a 25 win pace without Kuzma *or* Deni.

I see the idea of trying to build a tank strategy around having a fringe All-Star caliber player on the roster playing 25-30 mins a game, and it's not un-doable - the Thunder did it with SGA - but even then, the Thunder won 22 games. But you have to accept you're more likely to get screwed in the lotttery if you win more games than you'd expect.

[nate33]

Agreed, but in the other sense. Silvie is arguing that Deni is worth 12 freaking wins! If Deni is that freaking good at age 23, you don't trade him for anybody! That's superstar talent.

Not really. If Deni was 12 wins over a replacement player, then yes that is legitimate superstar level impact. But the minutes he'd be taking were considerably below replacement. He's worth a bunch of wins to the 2024-2025 Wizards because our forwards were so far below replacement that even an above replacement level forward is a huge gap in value (and Deni is actually pretty far above replacement)

Deni would replace Champagnie's minutes first, and Kispert's next.

[nate33]

You can't make all trades assuming we will get the worst possible outcome in any lottery.

The odds of falling out of a top 4 slot are fairly high because there's really no where to go but down. But the odds of dropping 3 or 4 slots from the #5 slot or the #6 slot are astronomically small.

When we had the #2 slot, there was only a 52% chance of staying in the top 4. There was a 28% chance we would fall to 5th and a 20% chance we would fall to 6th. We ended up falling to 6th, but it was not a ridiculously improbable event.

But if Deni had brought us 6 more wins, we would have been in the Philly slot as the 5th worst record. We would have had a 42% chance of moving UP to the top 4 (barely worse than our odds at the #2 slot), a 46% chance of picking 6th or 7th, only an 8.7% chance of falling to 8, and virtually no chance (0.6%) of falling to 9th. We would not have fallen to 10th.

And yet we fell. The way I see it the front office is trying to game the odds in their favor in every draft scenario. It's about maximizing every percentage point, and about using every pick they can to trade UP the draft ladder. What they have not been doing is pooh-poohing the odds and talking about acceptable risk. We were worst in the league for a reason. It was intentional. (We only slid out of that spot because Utah was truly egregious in shutting down their players. The Wiz actually attempted to tank with honor, simply playing heavy minutes to all the youth on the roster. Using the opportunity to develop them while wins are not the object).

You would have gambled on the lesser risk. But again, there's a ton of other teams in this boat race, and you don't know the weather conditions in advance. Win streaks happen. Flukes happen. As we saw with the lotto balls, improbable results are common.

This team has committed to building first through the lottery. Through the draft. They have not half-assed it but have been transparent about it and stuck to the plan. With a non-zero risk of losing our pick, this year or next year. Until that risk has passed there is no point in d,cking around.

We can speculate that somehow Deni's value would have been higher if we both held onto him AND lost all year.

We can speculate it we might have gotten a better deal despite his minutes being stifled while sharing minutes with Kuzma, Bilal, Kispert, and Sarr --whose reps at the time made it known they saw him as a forward not a center. To say nothing of trying to get value from PBJ, Vukcevic, and whatever draft pick we might have gotten with the late 1st we picked up (Kyshawn, but we didn't know it at the time).

But what is inarguable is that they have committed to improving their draft position with every tool they've had at hand. Tanking. Trading for future picks. Trading for swaps. Trading 2nd rounders to climb into the 1st round. Trading 2nd rounders to advance up the lotto.

You can say the chances are small of slipping, but one last second shot in the last game of the year caused us to stumble. The odds are better than powerball, and the fortunes are worth more. It is easy for you to say the risks are acceptable, but the difference between Wembanyama and Coulibaly are worth billions to a franchise. And the chance that you miss out entirely is simply not acceptable. They are gambling with real money, and many people's jobs. We are just risking hurt feelings and toldja-so's

No they gambled Deni's very real production and potential for a very small improvement in lottery odds - a smaller improvement than what most people inaccurately perceive - as the lottery performance of bottom 4 teams in the past 7 years demonstrates pretty clearly.