Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[Jay81]

Sorry for spamming this thread. I am done. Enough about this trade. Back to the real world and the gym. We will see. I am going to do myself a favor and not revisit this thread for 24-36 hours or more.

see you at 9

[tontoz]

I went to insidehoops to see what they thought about the trade and found some good comedy. Turns out someone posted this exact trade scenario on friday. The posters there shot it down and, get this, the original poster apologized for making up a bad trade scenario.



http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... p?t=267537

[willbcocks]

The above is why our GM messed up even before considering the opportunity cost. I believe that cost is substantial because good things can happen (BOYDs or trades) if you're patient. It's happened to rebuilding teams a lot recently--Cleveland got Kyrie Irving, Chicago got Luol Deng, the Thunder got a lottery pick (and blew it), Miami got 2 superstars. I don't know what we'll get, and maybe it's only another Seraphin, or maybe it's just Jordan freaking Crawford, but the odds were it would be positive, and perhaps significantly so.

You've listed the good things that can happen when you hang on to cap space and make a trade. I'm sure you will concede that the deals you mentioned represent a tiny minority of such deals. Also, I'm sure you will recognize there are difference between Miami [they had Dwyane Wade, a very desirable climate, no state income tax] that DC lacks. The Wizards will never be able to swing the deals LA, Miami and NY make. Players seem automatically interested in playing in those cities, even when the teams in those cities are not terribly good.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It's important to expound on this point for the board. The cities that have acquired franchise altering players in free agency (or players that were thought to be so at the times the deal were consummated) over the last two decades are NYC, LA, Miami and Orlando (I'll include NY because Melo forced his way to the team with the threat that he would sign there after the season.) That's the list. Missing from that list are myriad GREAT cities/metro areas like the Bay Area, DC, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta etc. The two biggest free agent acquisitions made by the latter list of first rate cities over the last decade are Carlos Boozer and Gilbert Arenas.

Let that wash over you. In free agency in virtually every other sport, those cities are considered terrific destinations for UFA targets. In the real world, those cities are almost the complete list of fastest growing major cities/metro areas in the country. Using objective measurements like per capita affluence, again, those cities rank very highly on any list of desirable locales (with the DC met being the most affluent metro area in the country on a per capita basis.) BUT, it's important to recognize that given the uniqueness of Basketball, all of that means virtually zilch because A, from a corporate branding perspective NYC and LA are head and shoulders above any city in the country, and B, there is an EXTREME finite amount of the most important resource in basketball (truly elite players) ratcheting up the desirability of those assets virtually every time they're on the market. That reality essentially funnels elite free agents that choose to leave their respective teams behind and forgo the CBA created, built in advantages of staying with your original team to NYC or LA. Horrendous ownership is really the only thing that has prevented NYC from doing more damage on the free agent trail, but even still, they were able to lure two upper level free agents there without any semblance of stability recently.

That's not to say that cap space isn't important or that their respective markets don't give them an advantage over many cities. Those teams are far more likely to retain their major free agents it seems (Nowitski, Arenas, Pierce, Rose etc.), but the way for those aforementioned cities to build championship teams is through the draft and making smart trades to bring in championship caliber pieces, Boston of a few years ago is an extreme example, but Dallas of last year is a more realistic paradigm. You draft a star or two with one of them hopefully being a superstar, and you bring in a strong supporting cast. You need the cap space to do that, but free agency is not the way to construct a legit contender if you aren't in NY, LA or Miami (and honestly, Miami's appearance on the list has just as much to do with secondary matters, i.e Wade already being there and Riley's imprimatur.)

Note that you are quoting my post where I point our precisely three other teams, including 2 smaller market teams, that got lottery picks (one getting a superstar, one an all-star, and one a bust) as the direct result of of getting BOYD players in free agency.

[Jay81]

its amazing how ernie does all the bad transactions we talk about on the board for him not to do

Dont trade for Okafor and Ariza without getting a 1st round pick
dont draft Oley Pecherov
Dont draft Jan Vesley
Dont extended Andray Blatche.....
Take Stephan Curry or Ricky Rubio--He trades the pick for Mike Miller
...etc

[willbcocks]

I've read several pages that we've ruined our chance at other BOYD deals. Is that really true? For this year, the answer is yes. But for next, we are in the exact same position that we are now as, Ariza and Oak will both be expiring deals the year after. So essentially, the trade makes us stand pat for this year, which from my understanding most on this board would have preferred us to do.

Cap space is almost always better than expiring contracts, because the team that receives a TPE in exchange for an overpaid player is on the hook for nothing, whereas that team will still have to pay the player with the expiring contract. Shard is the (extreme) example of this: he had huge negative value despite being an expiring contract.

The only situation where expirings are better is if they are productive players who aren't overpaid--then a team might prefer taking these players to capspace before the playoffs. The problem here is that both players we received are overpaid, and most decent BOYD deals aren't coming from playoff teams, as they don't have high picks that would be enticing.

The players we got could be useful to a playoff team, so there is some hope next year, but from a BOYD perspective, we would have been better off with the space.

[DCZards]

I'm curious about how much his role in NO may have played a part in his shooting and shot selection. To me, he seems perfectly capable of making the corner 3. It's possible he tried to do to much after getting that contract from Houston. Bottom line, i think he's a huge upgrade to Singleton as a 3 nd D SF who can run the floor.

A writer who covers the Hornets said essentially the same thing about Ariza's shooting in blog posted many, many pages ago. The writer noted that Ariza's shot selection improved significantly in the latter part of last season as a result of a change in his role with NO.

So his shot selection improved but his shooting accuracy didn't. Wonderful

Actually, his shooting accuracy did improve.

[jivelikenice]

We could have addressed rebounding AND the SF position by simply drafting MKG. He's going to rebound like a monster at the SF position and my guess is he'll step in and outperform Trevor Ariza from day one.

And that would not have cost $42 million dollars.

Than how would we have addressed shooting guard?

[jivelikenice]

I'll also note that this trade would make a lot more sense if Beal is the pick AND there's another move in the works.

I would be stunned of another move wasn't made draft day involving a forward on the roster.

[Dat2U]

2) The language that Ted/EG use are the language of losers. While I am ok with using trades rather than free agency to take on smaller salary commitments (over time), I don't like how open they are in saying "well we don't think anyone would have voluntarily taken our money." Contrast that to the new Warriors owners who were aggressive in trying to trade for Dwight Howard even though he said he wouldn't sign an extension. The Warriors owners message was "that's ok, we think you are going to love it here and we're going to win big and we'd love the opportunity to change your mind.". The fact that free agents have such a low opinion of DC is exactly why Grunfeld should have been fired, not anything to do with his basketball moves.

And coming from Leonsis, that really disappointed me. As successful as he's been in business, you'd think he'd understand that you can't go into a situation thinking you can't compete against your fellow competitiors. You've already lost with that mindset.

Look at the Clips. They were the poster child for failure for decades until this past season. They took an aggressive approach. Even made a pitch for LeBron two years back. Then they stayed aggressive the following year and was able to pull off the deal for Paul. Instant legitimacy.

[willbcocks]

Honestly at the end of the day, do we or should we care that we helped NOLA or did them a huge favor? Neither the Wizards or the Hornets are going to win an NBA Championship within the next 5-10 years. It's not like this trade propelled the Hornets to top 5 in the NBA.

That's not the point, the point is that we took on their two poison pills, two massive, crippling issues that were afflictions for their team, and they gave us NOTHING for it. NOTHING.

Oh sure, you can say, yes we did, we got a mediocre big, and a sub mediocre 3, but that's not something, that's a net negative, their contracts and presence are a sag on the team, not an asset, a massive net negative.

If you take on someone's poison pill you're supposed to get something for you trouble. All we got was the knowledge that we didnt pay Rashard Lewis for not playing for us. In other words, nothing of value, just philosophical peace of mind for cheap skates, and a net negative for the youth movement and development of our kids and massive disruption of team chemistry.

Nearly as bad, it's already pretty clear that the presence of two scrubs that will be gone in less than 2 years will have a major impact on who we take at slot 3, the 2nd most valuable draft pick we'll have between 2002 and 2016 or later and the 2nd most valuable asset for our rebuild. Nice to know the head honchos are not only stupid enough to make this trade, they're even tupid enough to let it dictate the decision we make with the last immnsely valuable asset we have to build with going forward. Hell, now they're saying Barnes is in play. We truly are Clippers East, unfortunately, we're much, much worse these days, as even the Clippers eventually figured it out. Welcome to Milwaukee Buckland folks, I hope we enjoy the ride.

Pure idiocy.

Living in the Philippines now, the analogy I made was buying things at a local market.

Take for example, a belt marked 10 US dollars. In the states I would have bought the belt if I needed it and thought it ok value. In the Philippines, if I can't negotiate the price down to 3 dollars, I'm letting myself be ripped off, as this is a negotiation.

This is the situation we found ourselves in. The belt wasn't even a good value at the list price, and we just paid that without negotiating it down.

[closg00]

I went to insidehoops to see what they thought about the trade and found some good comedy. Turns out someone posted this exact trade scenario on friday. The posters there shot it down and, get this, the original poster apologized for making up a bad trade scenario.



http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... p?t=267537

Hilarious, those poor posters don't know who our GM is.

[Dat2U]

We could have addressed rebounding AND the SF position by simply drafting MKG. He's going to rebound like a monster at the SF position and my guess is he'll step in and outperform Trevor Ariza from day one.

And that would not have cost $42 million dollars.

Than how would we have addressed shooting guard?

Um, maybe with the $42 million we wouldn't have to spend on Okafor or Ariza?

[MJG]

Here's what I want to know. What changed? What happened to the patient rebuild? You can legitimize the Nene trade as a stand alone move, but tying up $70 million in 3 veteran players (two of which are merely serviceable) was not the plan that Leonsis had promised we'd take.

I guess the OKC plan has been trashed and Ernie has sold Teddy on his own plan.

I think EG's interpretation of the OKC plan is to make a bunch of moves that can best be summed up as "Eh, that was OK I guess, I'd give it about a C."

[jivelikenice]

CCJ, I find it hilarious that I'm a McGee hater because i wasn't impressed w/ the Lakers series and I wouldn't give him anywhere near $10mm per (Frankly I wouldn't offer him more than $6-$7 mm per and even then I may regret it.) I don't get why if you criticize someone who hasn't accomplished ANYTHING you're called a hater. McGee is inconsistent. What he did v. the Lakers was what he did here. He'd have a good game and would follow it up with 2 bad ones. I'll bet you that in less than a yr, the team that signs him long-term will end up regretting it.

[Ruzious]

So because you don't want to pay $14 mil to make someone go away, you pay $42 mil instead over two years instead?

What kind of math is that?

Yeah, and remember they saved a pile of money by trading for Lewis. Jay's not the only one who's used that logic today, so I feel like the Robot on Lost in Space saying "Does not compute! Does not compute! Danger Will Robinson!"

Flail your arms around in circles, I can take a pic, and we'll have the Boulez coat of arms.

LOL, glad somebody remembers that show. I'll have to modernize it - Danger, Ernie Grunfeld! Danger, Ernie Grunfeld! He does not compute! This trade sucks! Self-destruct!"

[montestewart]

Sorry for spamming this thread. I am done. Enough about this trade. Back to the real world and the gym. We will see. I am going to do myself a favor and not revisit this thread for 24-36 hours or more.

see you at 9

I thought the same thing, right down to 9. Yikes!

[montestewart]

I'll also note that this trade would make a lot more sense if Beal is the pick AND there's another move in the works.

I would be stunned of another move wasn't made draft day involving a forward on the roster.

Would you be "I take back everything I said" stunned, or "think fast, I gotta rationalize this" stunned? Does resigning or not resigning James Singleton count? In that case you're covered.

[dangermouse]

At least it gave us something else to talk about for a couple of days instead of the 3rd pick in the draft over and over.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Maybe Stern will invalidate this trade.

[tontoz]

Actually, his shooting accuracy did improve.

His EFG percentage "improved" to 45.4 from 45.1. Sorry but i don't consider that statistically significant.