Trae Young, Come on DOWN

[9 and 20]

I hope not Dort. Not sure I could bring myself to root for that dude.

It's cool that Will and company have known and stayed in touch with Trae. Seems like they value the player and relationships more generally. But - I think they also value flexibility and I remember some noise around the time of the trade about the intent to let next year play out before talking extension possibilities. I think most guys start to show at least some signs of decline in their late 20s and Trae is just about there. Hopefully Dawkins is careful about offering up an extension.

[closg00]

I hope not Dort. Not sure I could bring myself to root for that dude.

It's cool that Will and company have known and stayed in touch with Trae. Seems like they value the player and relationships more generally. But - I think they also value flexibility and I remember some noise around the time of the trade about the intent to let next year play out before talking extension possibilities. I think most guys start to show at least some signs of decline in their late 20s and Trae is just about there. Hopefully Dawkins is careful about offering up an extension.

Dirty Dort

[doclinkin]

I hope not Dort. Not sure I could bring myself to root for that dude.

It's cool that Will and company have known and stayed in touch with Trae. Seems like they value the player and relationships more generally. But - I think they also value flexibility and I remember some noise around the time of the trade about the intent to let next year play out before talking extension possibilities. I think most guys start to show at least some signs of decline in their late 20s and Trae is just about there. Hopefully Dawkins is careful about offering up an extension.

Posted in another thread but more relevant here:

My only concern is we went from an ethical tank to a blatant one, with Trae sitting out. Or at least it appears blatant. Bad karma for the lotto. The good karma last year did nothing for us though so who knows.

I don’t think so. Trae is legitimately injured. Has been playing through it and his performance dropped off. Sitting him is a smart move regardless of the tank. You want to see if you just sneakily stole an all-star or if he’s done done.

We are building a reputation as a team that fixes broke careers. Or at least can make veterans look good and get them to their next team. Poole. Smart. CJ. Bey. Marvin. All were devalued then came here as a rehab stint.

It’s a known thing that a hobbled Trae is not the player he used to be. We can afford to sit him, where the Hawks are trying to win. But if he comes back next year fired up and feisty then we made a good trade. He has admitted he was playing through pain.

The only way it looks unethical is if we play him late season and he blazes and then we throw a blanket over him. Until then it’s plausible we sit him until he’s a billion percent healthy. That’s ethical. Looking out for the player and protecting them against themselves.

Adding:

I expect they let him play out the option. If they do extend him before then it’s only because their medical team thinks his injury issues are eminently fixable and the FO thinks we can get him at a steal while he’s looking for security and to be valued. Declining contract with team options etc.

Statistically age 27 is NBA prime. Usually lasts to age 30 before it drops off. Difference is Trae Young is a chihuahua out there.

[nate33]

This OKC FO that we have here has known Trae since he was about 10years old.....
They did not trade for him to be let go or traded again, UNLESS we secured a superior option, and I don't know if they're looking in that direction right now.....

While everyone is worried about rings and playoffs, our guys need to learn how to play team professional basketball....
None of them truly know how to do this....
So while it sounds good, to plug and play this player and that player, this is not 2k....
We got Trae to orchestrate not be the centerpiece IMHO....
But if we want to make some noise soon, we're going to need a couple of seasons playing high level ball to get there....
Trae can be the catalyst for this...
He's imperfect I get that, but offense can aide defense....

Get used to it, he's not going anywhere so I think these scenarios are as out there as sitting CJ on the bench to tank.....
It's just some things you don't do when you are trying to build a reputation as a destination players would want to come to....

I believe from this offseason forward they are going to try and build the team up from it's shortcomings at PF, and will look to get some more defenders in here...
I'd not be surprised if they went after either Hartenstein or Dort or both......

They didn’t sacrifice any assets to acquire Trae so there’s no reason to assume they are hell bent on keeping him for the long term.

This is a tryout. Maybe it will work out and he will be extended and run PG for us for the remainder of his prime. But maybe it won’t work out, in which case we can let him go in Summer 2027.

I agree with you that management appears poised to start trying to compete next season. And Trae and a veteran big will be a part of that, for the 2026/27 season at least. I think everybody acknowledges this. I’m not sure who you are arguing with.

[dobrojim]

So in 5 years or so, will there be a huge difference
between the players picked 2-7? I don't hear much
about Ace but Harper, VJ and KK and I'll throw in
Fears all are giving indications they could be very
good possibly sooner rather than later.

Edit - should have put this in draft thread.

[tontoz]

So in 5 years or so, will there be a huge difference
between the players picked 2-7? I don't hear much
about Ace but Harper, VJ and KK and I'll throw in
Fears all are giving indications they could be very
good possibly sooner rather than later.

Edit - should have put this in draft thread.

Harper has a TS of 49%. He's been struggling. VJ is having the same issue he had a Baylor, struggling to finish inside in spite of his athleticism. He is shooting 46% on 2s. Good defender and rebounder though. Kon has obviously been rolling but I think he is the only guy drafted top 10 with a higher TS than Tre.

[DCZards]

Harper may be struggling but he’s the #2 pick in any redraft. Kid has that SGA/Cade ability to get to the rim—or any other spot on the floor—and score or draw a foul.

Wemby, Harper, and Castle are going to be a BIG problem for the rest of the NBA in 2-3 years.

[dobrojim]

So in 5 years or so, will there be a huge difference
between the players picked 2-7? I don't hear much
about Ace but Harper, VJ and KK and I'll throw in
Fears all are giving indications they could be very
good possibly sooner rather than later.

Edit - should have put this in draft thread.

Harper has a TS of 49%. He's been struggling. VJ is having the same issue he had a Baylor, struggling to finish inside in spite of his athleticism. He is shooting 46% on 2s. Good defender and rebounder though. Kon has obviously been rolling but I think he is the only guy drafted top 10 with a higher TS than Tre.

Thanks for that summary.

[The Consiglieri]

The more I think about it, the more I understand why they did this. I think one underrated aspect of this trade is how hard it would have been to get up to the minimum salary threshold of 90% of the cap. If you don't reach the cap floor, they fine you the difference in your team salary and the minimum salary threshold, while ALSO excluding you from the luxtax distribution.

Prior to this trade, our projected payroll next year was just $66M plus our draft picks. Add $10M for the #3 pick and $3M for our #30 pick and it's up to $79M for a roster of 12 guys (Kispert, Sarr, Bilal, Tre, Cam, Bub, Riley, AJ, Kyshawn, Champagnie, #3, #30). Let's say we combined all of our late SRP's into one higher SRP and added a 13th guy on a vet minimum, so that's 13 guys for $81M.

The minimum salary threshold is $149.4M

We would have needed to acquire at least $68M in salary, but we would have only 2 roster spots to do it. (Though I suppose we could cut somebody like AJ.) It would have been genuinely hard to spend that money while also maintaining flexibility going forward. We could have thrown a max contract at somebody like Duren, but that probably would have been matched. Then what? Sign somebody like Mitchell Robinson and Quentin Grimes, sure. But that's probably only $40M combined and now we're out of roster spots. There's still $28M to go.

By doing this Trae Young thing, we resolve the problem in the short term. Our salary total of guys under contract is roughly $115M (counting draft picks). We will only need to spend $34M more to get to the minimum, which means we can still go sign a cost-effective free agent or two without going out of our way to waste money. And then, in 2027, Trae comes off the books and maybe there's a better free agency market to use our cap room.

Great points Nate. The salary floor issue is something important. Trading for Trae makes the situation more manageable financially.

Feels like, and maybe there's another one I can't think of, but it definitely feels like the objectives of the trade were:

1. Offloading McCallum who was really hurting the tank.
2. Reaching the salary floor going forward which would have required a likely worse trade option if we didn't do this.
3. Addressing PG with a sound option if we end up unable to address PG, or disinterested in addressing it when the lottery, the combine and workouts determine our most likely draft outcomes positionally (there's basically what, 1-2 PG's, maybe 2-3 PG/Combo Guards available in the top 7, one is projected to go 1.01 or 1.02 in Peterson, 1 is all over the place in Brown whose slipped this past month, and Flemings, otherwise the zone we're picking features 2+ Wings, and 2-3 bigs (depending upon if you are buying in on the Quaintance rise).

Sometimes we talk ourselves into trades because it's simply too difficult to stay negative and cynical consistently, sometimes we begin to see the rationale behind it more clearly after the emotional frustration is gone, and sometimes we're just wrong and we can see why down the line. I tend to think this one is largely a #2, and it's understandable. We simply didn't know and still kinda don't know, how they want to deal with Trae the second half of this season. Is he out the full season? Will he be out for all but 10-20 games? How will he impact the tank? Does he make his teammates better, or does he make the overall performance worse due to the chucking piece and especially the god awful defense? What is this accomplishing long term if there are no picks coming our way etc.....It's a trade that's very hard to figure until the season is over, and we see the lottery, there is no win now anything value from it, nor any win later guaranteed in it, which is why it's so hard to evaluate, at least to me.

But I also agree with Nate, most of the time these trades have looked like multi-tiered methods to address numerous problem in numerous layers, even the ill fated Deni trade, which was poor on its face, but definitely had a long view justification that was understandable, this is even more understandable, especially when you consider his injury issues which may allow us to tank more effectively without the question of how an active version of him impacts performance, and you consider the issue of addressing PG as a way to raise the level of play when for now, the PG's in this draft are currently valued at slot 1-2, and in the slot 5-7 area. If we land 3-4, do we trade down to address PG, or just draft best player available, and if we go best guy available, how in hell do we solve PG with a genuinely talented asset in the near term once the tanking probably ends next fall? This trade answers all of these questions either now, or in June, so I get it, it's just frustrating when you flip assets like these, and don't get clarity with the flip, we don't know exactly what this accomplishes, if anything beyond salary filler, and we won't really get any idea of how until at least March in terms of tank and at least late June in terms of long term planning and direction.

[The Consiglieri]

It seems like most people on this board seem to think that the Wizards will trade Young within the next year. Although that is a possibility, I think it is more likely that they re-sign him. I find it hard to believe that Young would want to come here without some sort of under-the-table handshake on an extension. I would say there is about a 75% chance they will resign him, although I would rather them not.

It all depends upon the lottery, combine and workouts. If we land pick #1, as long as Peterson's medicals check out, Trae is gone. If we land a pick around slots 5-7, he may also be gone, as for now, 2 of the top 3 assets projected in that zone are PG's. If we land a pick in slots 2-4, it's hard to see us trading him or letting him go as for now we'd probably draft a Wing, or a Big.

5-7 is really the area where we'd have no idea what direction we'd be going as Wilson, Quaintance, Brown, and Flemings are all slotting around that area, especially if Brown gets healthy and starts hitting 3's.

In the end, it has almost nothing to do with Young himself, and everything to do with the lottery and how the rest of the college basketball season, and the evaluation process goes. We'd have been complete morons to give him a total handshake agreement a la Kuzma (you'd think we'd have learned).

And I imagine with Trade, he likes the idea of FA, and he likes the idea of Washington if that's how things play out.

But it's immaterial, if we receive karmic justice and land the #1 pick, he's gone, and if we have a pick in the mid zone of the top 10, odds are we have a hard decision to make with multiple PG's likely to be slotted in that zone.

[pcbothwel]

I feel extremely confident that we will not extend Trae before 2027 FA. MAYBE if he extends for a lower deal that retains our Max FA slot, but I doubt it. I think Winger/Dawkins goal is to prove to the league that we are an up-and-coming team (Play-in for 26/27) with elite prospects and a TON of money and market potential.
Again, Jokic, Giannis, Donovan Mitchell, Trae, AD, KAT, Herro, Hartenstein, Cam Johnson, etc.

[The Consiglieri]

I could see the tank proceeding involuntarily if things like Young not working out, bad lottery luck, or injuries (ie Young missing even more time). But yeah could also see a big increase in wins if the development of the young guys continue.

This is actually what I see happening. This is not a good team, and we lack a big 2 or big 3. This is a horrible team with 1 promising high ceiling player, and a lot of complimentary pieces 4-5-6, but not 1-2 or 3. As such, unless we get a grand slam from the lottery that is also an impact player immediately (sometimes these guys take time to develop, sometimes they are hurt, and both of those are more likely than instant impact mega star) whether we want to tank or not, we are going to play like a 20-35 win team, with 35, unlikely. So it will present an interesting connundrum by the trade deadline in '17, when we are likely to be probably around 15-35 to 20-32ish at best....otoh, again, the '27 class is supposed to suck, so regardless of how well we're playing, there isn't a huge anything, for now anyway, to try to deliberately suck for. Instead, the most likely scenario for me, is that we end up around 25-57 to 27-55 if we get screwed in the lottery, and 30-52 to 35-47 if we get lucky.

So tank or no tank, it's not like we're gonna be great, hopefully like in '24, we're able to extract value out of a class that was/is perceived as largely awful going in. If we can, we may end up with, if we're lucky, two stud players and a good complimentary group, or hopefully at worst, 1 stud and a great complimentary group. Time will tell. But yeah, I think we're sucking in '26-'27 no matter what happened, just not really deliberately sucking as we were '23-'26.

[prime1time]

I feel extremely confident that we will not extend Trae before 2027 FA. MAYBE if he extends for a lower deal that retains our Max FA slot, but I doubt it. I think Winger/Dawkins goal is to prove to the league that we are an up-and-coming team (Play-in for 26/27) with elite prospects and a TON of money and market potential.
Again, Jokic, Giannis, Donovan Mitchell, Trae, AD, KAT, Herro, Hartenstein, Cam Johnson, etc.

It's tough to say tbh. I think the Kyrie deal at 39 million is a good barometer. Trae Young at a team friendly deal makes sense imo but I think a lot depends on the vibes he gives off to the organization and how the young guys play around him. If he meshes well then it's a no brainer. But if he sees us as a interim stopping point and wants to go somewhere else then no. Trae needs to play off ball some, bring the young guys along, and commit to playing hard on the defensive side of the ball. I watched a good video where PJ Tucker was talking about what a #1 option needs to do defensively.

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Young needs to box out, he needs to know the coverages and do to the little things. He's not a good defender but he needs to care about defense.

[closg00]

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[pcbothwel]

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I love it.. If you break down our remaining schedule (44 games) into two groups with and without Trae its work out perfect.
From now until the first week of March (Without Trae) we have a TON of winnable games. LAC, Kings X2, Charlotte X 2, Bucks, Nets X2, Pacers X2, Hawks X2, Jazz, and NOP... We NEED to lose most of those.

But if you look at the last ~20 games when Trae MIGHT return, we only have the Nets and Jazz as teams we MIGHT be better than. Otherwise, its a ton of Detroit, GSW, Lakers, Miami, 76ers, Cavs, NYK, etc.
The Kings and Jazz have an easier schedule which should help

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I could see the tank proceeding involuntarily if things like Young not working out, bad lottery luck, or injuries (ie Young missing even more time). But yeah could also see a big increase in wins if the development of the young guys continue.

This is actually what I see happening. This is not a good team, and we lack a big 2 or big 3. This is a horrible team with 1 promising high ceiling player, and a lot of complimentary pieces 4-5-6, but not 1-2 or 3. As such, unless we get a grand slam from the lottery that is also an impact player immediately (sometimes these guys take time to develop, sometimes they are hurt, and both of those are more likely than instant impact mega star) whether we want to tank or not, we are going to play like a 20-35 win team, with 35, unlikely. So it will present an interesting connundrum by the trade deadline in '17, when we are likely to be probably around 15-35 to 20-32ish at best....otoh, again, the '27 class is supposed to suck, so regardless of how well we're playing, there isn't a huge anything, for now anyway, to try to deliberately suck for. Instead, the most likely scenario for me, is that we end up around 25-57 to 27-55 if we get screwed in the lottery, and 30-52 to 35-47 if we get lucky.

So tank or no tank, it's not like we're gonna be great, hopefully like in '24, we're able to extract value out of a class that was/is perceived as largely awful going in. If we can, we may end up with, if we're lucky, two stud players and a good complimentary group, or hopefully at worst, 1 stud and a great complimentary group. Time will tell. But yeah, I think we're sucking in '26-'27 no matter what happened, just not really deliberately sucking as we were '23-'26.

We went 7-5 after the 5-23 start. When Keefe isn't tanking, at full strength this team is better than 20-35 win squad.

There are 5 to 7 improving players on this team. Trae Young will not make them worse. They will not lose the pick with the way they're tanking.

Next season I expect nothing less than 41 wins and a playoff spot.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

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I love it.. If you break down our remaining schedule (44 games) into two groups with and without Trae its work out perfect.
From now until the first week of March (Without Trae) we have a TON of winnable games. LAC, Kings X2, Charlotte X 2, Bucks, Nets X2, Pacers X2, Hawks X2, Jazz, and NOP... We NEED to lose most of those.

But if you look at the last ~20 games when Trae MIGHT return, we only have the Nets and Jazz as teams we MIGHT be better than. Otherwise, its a ton of Detroit, GSW, Lakers, Miami, 76ers, Cavs, NYK, etc.
The Kings and Jazz have an easier schedule which should help

Trae is totally on board with the tank. The Wizards are playing this right.

[Northwest Roddy]

I think when CJ hit that game winner against the Bucks, they knew they had to trade him sooner rather than later. That was the final straw.

We are going to be fun to watch next year with Trae and Dybantsa or Wilson. A fun regular season team for the first time in a long time.

[gambitx777]

I would take the last 15 games to experiment


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[nate33]

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