Official Trade Thread Part XLVI

[Chuck Everett]

Yeah but that commentor is also very low IQ.

Truth hurts I guess. Just because I don't like your front office doesn't make me low IQ. Shameful post.

Nothing shameful about it. You should focus on being less sensitive. You said "these guys are so bad" but didn't explain why. What would you have done instead?

edit- I'm being a dick and for that I apologize.

Apology accepted.

[mhd]

From the Tap comments re: JV:

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/278774/Wizards-Wont-Trade-Jonas-Valanciunas-For-Late-2nd-Rounders

I hate these narratives
We got good value on gafford and we got good value on deni. Zinger didn't give us any choice. And Jones don't have a market, proof in the pooding that he signed for min.

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We got fair value for Gafford, no complaints there.

I'm still not convinced we got good value for Deni. Even if Carrington turns out to be a good pick relative to this draft class, I think it's entirely possible that he still won't be that good of a player. It was a terrible draft. Time well tell, but my opinion at the time of the trade and now, half-a-season after the trade, was that the trade returned insufficient value. I would much rather have kept Deni.

We should have traded Tyus midseason last year. Rumors were that Orlando wanted him and would have traded a couple of SRP's. Instead we got nothing. It's not a huge loss or anything. I'm not suggesting he was worth a FRP or anything, but we missed the opportunity to sell high. It was a minor mistake by the front office. Nobody's perfect. I'm not too mad about it.

The Porzingis trade was the biggest failure IMO. We had a lot more leverage but we refused to use it. Porzingis said he would opt out, but the only potential free agent suitor was Detroit. I would have called his bluff and forced Boston to include some picks before facilitating that trade. Worst case scenario is that Porzingis walked and we don't land Tyus Jones either. Best case scenario is Boston caves and coughs up at least one FRP, if not two. That's a hand I would have played.

KP was going to Utah if he wasn't traded. Ainge has ALWAYS been a big fan of his. Once Tommy was fired, KP was gone from here.

[9 and 20]

I kinda agree with the new guy/troll. Didn't love the Gaff trade. Zingus was traded for Tyus Jones who was signed for one year, who then left for nothing, and I think we could have gotten more for Deni if we kept him for another year or two.

On top of that, they traded for Poole and kept Kuz instead of sending him to Dallas last year and now Kuzma is Poozma.

They've done some good things - draft picks seem pretty good, and they hit the reset in trading Beal. But I don't love their record in making good trades.

[Frichuela]

I kinda agree with the new guy/troll. Didn't love the Gaff trade. Zingus was traded for Tyus Jones who was signed for one year, who then left for nothing, and I think we could have gotten more for Deni if we kept him for another year or two.

On top of that, they traded for Poole and kept Kuz instead of sending him to Dallas last year and now Kuzma is Poozma.

They've done some good things - draft picks seem pretty good, and they hit the reset in trading Beal. But I don't love their record in making good trades.

I think this is fair. Their vet trading record is not good. I hope they prove us wrong in this trade deadline.

On the other hand, I agree that the draft picks seem pretty good, and hopefully we'll luck into the #1 pick in the 2025 draft. 14% probability...

[payitforward]

I could not disagree more. I think the trades have been excellent overall.

1. The Beal trade was as good as it could possibly have been. Period.
2. We traded CP3 for... what we could get for him.
3. The whole kerfluffle over KP makes no sense to me. He was in control.
4. The Gafford trade was fine.
5. Yes we should certainly have moved Kuzma to Dallas!
6. I can see no problem with trading Deni. We got a solid return.

I can't imagine where any of you critics thinks we might be right now other than in the early stages of a long, multi-year rebuild of the team -- which, obviously, was & remains exactly what is needed.

[dckingsfan]

I didn't like the CP3 trade. I didn't like timing of the Deni trade, I think he will have more value in the future. I didn't like the Kuz signing and not figuring out how to move him earlier (when he had a bit of value). I didn't like the Kispert signing.

KP - meh.

The Beal trade was amazing. The Gafford trade was good. I really like that they started the rebuild in earnest. I really like that they are committed to playing the youngsters. Their drafting has been really good.

More good than bad.

[dckingsfan]

Bummed that we couldn't have got in the latest Phx trade. Holmes & Bagley were just a bit too expensive.

[chrbal]

Why would they need a pic for his contract. They are trying to win games KHJ makes sense on that team. He only has one more year so it gives them a treadable contract next year. SF is a weak spot for them so is shooting. No he's not what he was when he was 24 but he could get back there. All they trade is the corpse of THJ. KHj is only 26. He isn't a negative asset.

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The “corpse” is shooting 38 from 3 with like 5.5 attempts per game. Huerter is shooting 31 in about the same attempts per game.

Kevin is younger, but not that much different from Tim (discounting the three point struggles, one of the things he’s supposed to be good at). All this to eat up $18 million next season. I’m not saying it’s going to be a first round pick, but there’s got to be compensation for taking on that contract.

I don’t see Kevin as being worth the cost, without compensation

Kevin is on a down year but he only has one more year left on his deal. He's a career solid 3 pt shooter and he's in a slump he's 26 he's not a negative asset. Id say neutral at worst

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Fair enough, I just don’t see the point for Detroit. Hardaway, albeit older, is starting for a Detroit team that is starting to click. Why mess with that? I could see Wendell Moore Jr for Trey Lyles if the Pistons can’t get a better 4 and decide to just add one

[gambitx777]

From the Tap comments re: JV:

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/278774/Wizards-Wont-Trade-Jonas-Valanciunas-For-Late-2nd-Rounders

I hate these narratives
We got good value on gafford and we got good value on deni. Zinger didn't give us any choice. And Jones don't have a market, proof in the pooding that he signed for min.

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We got fair value for Gafford, no complaints there.

I'm still not convinced we got good value for Deni. Even if Carrington turns out to be a good pick relative to this draft class, I think it's entirely possible that he still won't be that good of a player. It was a terrible draft. Time well tell, but my opinion at the time of the trade and now, half-a-season after the trade, was that the trade returned insufficient value. I would much rather have kept Deni.

We should have traded Tyus midseason last year. Rumors were that Orlando wanted him and would have traded a couple of SRP's. Instead we got nothing. It's not a huge loss or anything. I'm not suggesting he was worth a FRP or anything, but we missed the opportunity to sell high. It was a minor mistake by the front office. Nobody's perfect. I'm not too mad about it.

The Porzingis trade was the biggest failure IMO. We had a lot more leverage but we refused to use it. Porzingis said he would opt out, but the only potential free agent suitor was Detroit. I would have called his bluff and forced Boston to include some picks before facilitating that trade. Worst case scenario is that Porzingis walked and we don't land Tyus Jones either. Best case scenario is Boston caves and coughs up at least one FRP, if not two. That's a hand I would have played.

Sure I agree we should have taken seconds for Jones. A bundle of seconds can always net you a late first on draft night.

But zinger could have just laid his dick on the table and said trade me or I opt out and so help me god I'll take a vet min to go to Boston I swear.

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[mhd]

I hate these narratives
We got good value on gafford and we got good value on deni. Zinger didn't give us any choice. And Jones don't have a market, proof in the pooding that he signed for min.

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We got fair value for Gafford, no complaints there.

I'm still not convinced we got good value for Deni. Even if Carrington turns out to be a good pick relative to this draft class, I think it's entirely possible that he still won't be that good of a player. It was a terrible draft. Time well tell, but my opinion at the time of the trade and now, half-a-season after the trade, was that the trade returned insufficient value. I would much rather have kept Deni.

We should have traded Tyus midseason last year. Rumors were that Orlando wanted him and would have traded a couple of SRP's. Instead we got nothing. It's not a huge loss or anything. I'm not suggesting he was worth a FRP or anything, but we missed the opportunity to sell high. It was a minor mistake by the front office. Nobody's perfect. I'm not too mad about it.

The Porzingis trade was the biggest failure IMO. We had a lot more leverage but we refused to use it. Porzingis said he would opt out, but the only potential free agent suitor was Detroit. I would have called his bluff and forced Boston to include some picks before facilitating that trade. Worst case scenario is that Porzingis walked and we don't land Tyus Jones either. Best case scenario is Boston caves and coughs up at least one FRP, if not two. That's a hand I would have played.

Sure I agree we should have taken seconds for Jones. A bundle of seconds can always net you a late first on draft night.

But zinger could have just laid his dick on the table and said trade me or I opt out and so help me god I'll take a vet min to go to Boston I swear.

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KP was going to Utah in FA if we didn't do the trade. We had zero leverage once Tommy was fired.

[9 and 20]

KP was going to Utah in FA if we didn't do the trade. We had zero leverage once Tommy was fired.

Maybe this is true, or even assuming it's true and all you can get is one year of Tyus Jones, why not then trade Tyus Jones for something instead of lose him for nothing?

Same-ish thing with Gaff/Kuz. Dallas apparently wanted Kuz at one point. Looking back, they should have traded Kuz to Dallas for one late first round pick trade Gaff to Dallas for that same first round pick. Then you could either keep Gaff as a guy who wouldn't make your eyes bleed and was signed for a few years or trade him for something else. Now, we don't have Gaff and we're stuck with Chubby Kuz.

In total, it's tough to not be disappointed in that trade record.

[gambitx777]

So I heard a guy the other day talk about how we could assist a team like the bucks

So they don't have a lot of assets
But they need to get under the second apron so they can do something

We are 10 mill under the tax and we have 12 mill TPE.

So we take pat connigton for let's say the one second they have the rights to Hugo Besson a 23 year old french guard, and they can add us onto a couple of the pick swaps they have going out. They can do that where like team A has the rights to swap their pick with the Milwaukee pic then the wizards have the right to swap if they don't or what ever.

Then they can aggregate and make a move for Jimmy, lavine or beal.

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[nate33]

We got fair value for Gafford, no complaints there.

I'm still not convinced we got good value for Deni. Even if Carrington turns out to be a good pick relative to this draft class, I think it's entirely possible that he still won't be that good of a player. It was a terrible draft. Time well tell, but my opinion at the time of the trade and now, half-a-season after the trade, was that the trade returned insufficient value. I would much rather have kept Deni.

We should have traded Tyus midseason last year. Rumors were that Orlando wanted him and would have traded a couple of SRP's. Instead we got nothing. It's not a huge loss or anything. I'm not suggesting he was worth a FRP or anything, but we missed the opportunity to sell high. It was a minor mistake by the front office. Nobody's perfect. I'm not too mad about it.

The Porzingis trade was the biggest failure IMO. We had a lot more leverage but we refused to use it. Porzingis said he would opt out, but the only potential free agent suitor was Detroit. I would have called his bluff and forced Boston to include some picks before facilitating that trade. Worst case scenario is that Porzingis walked and we don't land Tyus Jones either. Best case scenario is Boston caves and coughs up at least one FRP, if not two. That's a hand I would have played.

Sure I agree we should have taken seconds for Jones. A bundle of seconds can always net you a late first on draft night.

But zinger could have just laid his dick on the table and said trade me or I opt out and so help me god I'll take a vet min to go to Boston I swear.

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KP was going to Utah in FA if we didn't do the trade. We had zero leverage once Tommy was fired.

It's not really about Utah versus Detroit. It's about whether Boston would have blinked if we demanded that they throw in an extra FRP. Boston really wanted Porzingis.

All that we really got out of the trade was Tyus Jones, who was basically worthless to our long term plans. So I would have bet Tyus Jones that Boston would have blinked and thrown in a FRP to land Porzingis. If I had proved to be wrong, so be it. Tyus had little impact anyway. We could have just rolled with Jared Butler.

[payitforward]

I didn't like the CP3 trade....

Are you suggesting that you would have kept him? If not, do you really think we turned down better offers...?
GS kept him for the season then lost him as an unrestricted FA. Would you like us to have done that?

I didn't like timing of the Deni trade, I think he will have more value in the future....

But... but... but... except for Brogdon, every asset we got in the trade also "will have more value in the future!"

... I didn't like the Kuz signing and not figuring out how to move him earlier...

As to the Kuz signing hm, if your hypothesis is that we could have traded him to Dallas for a R1 pick, how can the signing itself have been bad?

As to the Dallas deal, have you considered the following hypothesis: we had the deal w/ Dallas, then Kuz said he would exercise his salary kicker, then Dallas said, 'in that case we'll have to lower our offer'??

I'd be willing to bet that's more or less how it went down.
Still, I agree that as it turned out it would have been better to trade him.

I didn't like the Kispert signing....

You would have let him walk???? Can't see that.

...The Beal trade was amazing. The Gafford trade was good. I really like that they started the rebuild in earnest. I really like that they are committed to playing the youngsters. Their drafting has been really good.

More good than bad.

Obviously, it would have been better to trade Kuz than to wait & look for a slightly better deal. But that's mostly because of how much his play & his value have slipped. I didn't anticipate that happening, & neither did you, I am sure!

Other than that I can't find anything to critique in any of their moves.

Doesn't mean they have all worked out perfectly. Or that they all will. I just can't see any better alternatives.

[dckingsfan]

Spoiler:

I didn't like the CP3 trade....

Are you suggesting that you would have kept him? If not, do you really think we turned down better offers...?
GS kept him for the season then lost him as an unrestricted FA. Would you like us to have done that?

I didn't like timing of the Deni trade, I think he will have more value in the future....

But... but... but... except for Brogdon, every asset we got in the trade also "will have more value in the future!"

... I didn't like the Kuz signing and not figuring out how to move him earlier...

As to the Kuz signing hm, if your hypothesis is that we could have traded him to Dallas for a R1 pick, how can the signing itself have been bad?

As to the Dallas deal, have you considered the following hypothesis: we had the deal w/ Dallas, then Kuz said he would exercise his salary kicker, then Dallas said, 'in that case we'll have to lower our offer'??

I'd be willing to bet that's more or less how it went down.
Still, I agree that as it turned out it would have been better to trade him.

I didn't like the Kispert signing....

You would have let him walk???? Can't see that.

...The Beal trade was amazing. The Gafford trade was good. I really like that they started the rebuild in earnest. I really like that they are committed to playing the youngsters. Their drafting has been really good.

More good than bad.

Obviously, it would have been better to trade Kuz than to wait & look for a slightly better deal. But that's mostly because of how much his play & his value have slipped. I didn't anticipate that happening, & neither did you, I am sure!

Other than that I can't find anything to critique in any of their moves.

Doesn't mean they have all worked out perfectly. Or that they all will. I just can't see any better alternatives.

Just giving my opinions (like those previously). All good that we get to agree to disagree.

[The Consiglieri]

I kinda agree with the new guy/troll. Didn't love the Gaff trade. Zingus was traded for Tyus Jones who was signed for one year, who then left for nothing, and I think we could have gotten more for Deni if we kept him for another year or two.

On top of that, they traded for Poole and kept Kuz instead of sending him to Dallas last year and now Kuzma is Poozma.

They've done some good things - draft picks seem pretty good, and they hit the reset in trading Beal. But I don't love their record in making good trades.

In an odd way, in losing Sheppard, and getting these guys, so far, we traded doing quality trades (Sheppard actually had a decent to good history with that) for much better drafting, where Sheppard ranged from below average to total ---.

The one way in which I don't necessairly agree w/my own depiction of things is that we don't really honestly know yet how much value we will end up extracting from moving on from Gafford and getting George and the other whatev's that came with that, and while I didn't like the Deni trade at the time, I did predict that Deni could easily be traded between '24 and '26 because the value of him and his contract was negative, and neutral for us respectively (he was going to hurt the tank and the only way we were gonna build anything was via the tank, and the contract value was far more important for a contending or reloading team, rather than a tanking team (which is why I find it odd that the blazers of all teams traded for him, but I guess they're trying to reload rather than tank). When you consider that, Gafford and Deni left the building essentially because we planned on ripping things up from the roots and using draft capital and the trades to help facilitate rock bottom seasons and resulting draft lottery positioning in '24 and '25 and '26 from the trades. To make the trades worthwhile we'd need to both tank effectively, and either win the lottery, or select brilliantly after losing in it.

We don't know and we won't know for a couple of years whether we successfully executed this. But the process needs to be looked at in terms of objectives, and not simply: good player gone, less good player coming in.

They are trying to juggle multiple objectives here including tanking, landing prime draft capital, maximizing asset value, and landing building block players while avoiding adding more stink to the franchise when they attempt to begin signing key building block FA's circa '27 or '28. It's A LOT.

From that perspective, while the trades have all been relatively underwhelming in return, I'm not sure we could have gotten more except for Kuzma (not trading him at the time, I viewed as idiotic, and said as much, and while I respected the counterargument (his contract would become more valuable over time, likely giving us a better return), I didn't agree with it because in my cost benefit analysis, the risk of a net negative return from injury, age impacted poorer play was worse than the positive of holding onto the contract for an incrementally better offer (and I flat out didnt expect it to be substantially better, the contract would get cheaper, but Kuzma, even at his best was a known commodity, not some guy that might play his way to being worthy of a top 10 pick in a good draft, or a pile of firsts and seconds or whatever).

I'm not in favor of giving them a pass, I just think that while I hated a move and a non-move (Deni didn't go for enough value for me, and we didn't move Kuzma) and I thought the Gafford deal was a bit light (i expected a better pick than 24th or whatever in a crap draft), and it's disappointing we basically gifted the Celtics a key piece for nothing, I also think these are mostly chairs on the titanic situations. Unless we hit on a super star in the 15-30 zone, which happens but is pure randomness historically, and highly unlikely, what's going to dictate our fortunes going forward is who we landed from the '25, '26 classes in particular, and how much positive we got from merely complimentary players in '23 and '24. The Deni piece was the only piece I believed we could move for top 10 draft capital in a good draft which is why I was pissed we got like the 12th pick in a crappy draft and speculative crap for him, I wanted something more coherently valuable than what we received, basically a virtually guaranteed lottery pick in '25 or '26 for him, and another 1st further down the line (or at worst, from '24), I did not want a late lottery 1st in a draft with meh prospects, and then another pick a million years from now.

However, as said before, the sad reality here, is this build will work because one of two things happens: We land the top pick in '25 or '26 or a top 2 pick in '25 and the top pick in '26, and get superstars, or we get ----'ed as we normally do by the lottery in good years, and land mega studs who were improperly evaluated or just better than expected (SGA, Giannis, Halliburton, even Doncic etc). What happened in terms of returns for Gafford, or Porzingis, while annoying, had at best like a 5% chance of playing any kind of key role in whether this '23-'27 plan works or not.

And for the most important objectives, ripping the roots out, tanking, and drafting reasonably well: well, I think they've done a solid to good job of that: Bilal was the right pick, Sarr was probably the right pick, Bub was probably the right pick and we are locking into to a tier of 1 for the top 3 lottery ball odds, which is critically important both for the '25 pick, and even for the '26 pick (they did such a good job tanking the past 18 months that we are highly unlikely to convey, for now, our '26 1st which would be a disaster).

[payitforward]

A well thought out post from my man, the Consig!

Places where I disagree:

1. doesn't matter whether it was 14th (not 12th) in this draft -- not if your evaluation of Bub Carrington is high & turns out to be accurate.

2. We didn't gift Porzingis to anyone: he decided to leave. Period. Any other view fails on inspection.

3. Getting a R1 pick for Gaff was good, not meh, not "light."

4. So far this year Deni is playing at virtually exactly the level he played at last year. Somewhat above average for his position. That's good.

5. OTOH, the return we got -- Bub & Brogdon plus a R1 pick & 2 R2 picks -- was more than adequate for the level of good player Deni is.

6. Of course he could take a big jump. Anything's possible, but Deni's in his 5th year in the NBA: another big jump would be an uncommon occurrence. Could happen. Then again, it "could happen" that one of the R2 picks we got could become an all-star.

Not how you figure something like this trade. In either direction.

[gambitx777]

I would say the only mistake in the zinger trade was not trading Jones at the dead line to parlay the value.

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[payitforward]

Yes, that mistake is obvious -- if we could have gotten a R2 pick for him we should have done so.

But, keep in mind that he might have told them "I'd like to come back next year," & then he changed his mind. Just saying... we don't know what goes on behind the scenes!

[doclinkin]

nate --
we couldn't have "forced Boston to include some picks," although we might have pressured them to do so. In fact... we may have tried to do that. Yet, we may well have had concrete indications, knowledge even, that KP was going to leave no matter what.

In any situation, it's possible to imagine an alternative outcome, but that doesn't mean it was actually available. In this case, your hypothesis requires KP & his agent to have been bluffing. "They said they were going to opt out, but they didn't really mean it."

TBH I doubt that kind of thing happens much. Everyone wants a good deal, obviously, but I doubt there's a whole lot of out and out lying going on. These guys have to deal with one another every day. If you get a rep as a liar, it makes that difficult. Not to mention makes it more difficult to get the next gig.

I'm not stating any absolutes here. This is a discussion not an argument, & I have no more concrete info than you -- just relying on my experience.

Three outcomes were possible:
1. Make the trade as is, and get Tyus Jones back (on a one-year contract)
2. Refuse the trade as proposed and demand we get back a FRP. Boston tells us to pound sand. We don't get Tyus Jones. Porzingis moves to Detroit.
3. Refuse the trade as proposed and demand we get back a FRP. Boston agrees.

I'm saying that I'd go for Outcome #3. And if the end result was that we ended up with Outcome #2 instead of Outcome #1, I'd have slept easily at night, knowing that I went for the best deal. (Also, Porzingis going to Detroit would have eliminated them as a tank competitor last year.)

You're forgetting I think that the initial trade would have netted us a FRP. The threeway we had set with Boston was that they ship Malcolm Brogdon to the Clippers, we send them Zinger, and the Clippers send us the 30th pick in the 2023 draft. That trade fell through at the midnight hour over medical questions about Malcom Brogdon.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37896151/three-team-trade-send-kristaps-porzingis-celtics-falls-through
https://www.nba.com/news/kristaps-porzingis-trade-celtics-3-team-deal

In the scramble to get the next deal done before the witching hour, when Porzinigs would have opted out and tested the market, we patched together the Griz deal in which Boston shipped Marcus Smart to the Grizz, we landed Tyus and also ended up with Gallinari and Mike Muscala.

Okay we got nothing for Tyus. We did however end up getting something for Gallinari and Muscala. We shipped them to Detroit for Marvin Bagley and two 2nd round picks. Those 2RPs were used, if I recall it right, to move up to get George, and as the sign and trade that netted us Valanciunas. Gallo and Moose are no longer in the league.

So for a guy who could have opted out and landed us bupkus, we first flipped him for 2 guys that earned us nothing but a higher lotto position, but sold those two to land a promising young talent in a tall wing with guard skills, a veteran center to model low post play for our young front court, and the low cost tryout of a former #2 pick.

Not a negligible return for a last second save. Especially given the crunch of deadlines that Free Agent year, and the fact that the Front Office was new to the job.

Looking at former execs we have had here, and other GMs around the league, we could have done much worse. Ernie used to bring in vets on their final year in order to benefit from the extra effort they'd give to sell out for their next contract. And we would routinely lose them for nothing. Difference is he would trade draft picks and future assets to acquire them. So far it looks like Winger and Dawkins instead routinely collect future assets, and use those to climb to a higher draft position.

I'm by no means saying this group is beyond critique. My draft choices have differed from theirs, and I too was salty at first that we traded Deni. But it is clear they have a method and a mission and they have been bold in pursuing it. I personally think the jury is out on whether they are any good, in large part because they have set the clock on a 5 year plan, not looking for instant return. My only thing on criticism of them is that as far as I'm concerned I'm waiting until after the 2026 draft when they will have dug out from under the Westrbrook/Wall trade that they inherited. At that point they own all their own decisions. Until then they have to lose or else miss out on their best possible hope for the future: a franchise changing pick at the top of the lotto.