Official Trade Thread - Part XXIV

[Ruzious]

SAC's ridiculous with the PF spot, I could see them coming off Patterson. Why not Hill though?

I don't trust Jordan Hill's numbers given the extremely low minutes played. He's also 2 years older.

Patterson is a true "stretch four" that would spread the floor for Wall, plus he has that Kentucky connection, which may make it easier to lure Cousins to DC next summer as a free agent. A year from now, I'd be very pleased with the following lineup:

PG Wall/Maynor
SG Beal/Webster
SF Webster/Porter
PF Patterson/Nene
C Cousins/Nene

I'd also rather have Patterson than Hill, but I'd be fine with getting Hill. He can play center in this era of the NBA - and he's a helluva rebounder. And he's an improving impressive big athlete who works hard. Basically, he can be a young Okafor. And he's an expiring contract - which means flexibility (as is Patterson). Something like Ariza and Seraphin for Hill and Blake would work. Maybe sneak in a future draft pick - Lakers could stink in the future.

[LyricalRico]

Ariza+Vesely to Sacto for Hayes+Patterson+Jimmer?

We get Patterson plus a shooter in Jimmer, and Hayes has been effective in the past at a small-ball C that just rebounds and mixes it up in the paint. Taking on the extra year of Hayes means we won't have to re-sign Okafor.

[dckingsfan]

Ariza+Vesely to Sacto for Hayes+Patterson+Jimmer?

We get Patterson plus a shooter in Jimmer, and Hayes has been effective in the past at a small-ball C that just rebounds and mixes it up in the paint. Taking on the extra year of Hayes means we won't have to re-sign Okafor.

I hope we do resign Okafor

[hands11]

SAC would be stupid to let him go. He's actually on of the better pieces I would keep from that hog pog of parts.

They don't have cap issues.

They should get a nice pick in a projected to be good draft.

2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4zBTmHzy8I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhfP-6FYb2U

2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=752pe1XdahI

2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERmpkxeFU5s

Pre Draft Interview. Smart young man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCFGCd_PM20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBU_iEe1RF0

Draft Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMP2cCbLmbE

Two smooth dudes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdPsgXLmPq4

Man, SAC really needs to bring in some talented vets to help build a culture. They could use a dose of what the Wizards did by adding Trevor A, Nene, Okafor and Webster. Maybe Carl Landry can help some there. But I don't think that's enough. I don't think Okafor would be enough by himself but he could help but its a little of a wash because Pattern looks like someone to keep long term.

Seems like they have some pieces, but it doesn't seem like the pieces add up to a team.

[payitforward]

Patterson had quite a good rookie year w/ the Rockets -- especially offensive rebounding and scoring efficiency. Then he had a terrible 2d year. He's come back some, and in particular he's developed a 3pt shot.

Overall, I'd say Booker has been a little better than Patterson so far. Their numbers were almost identical as rookies, then Patterson got lost and Booker got injured.

Obviously, if Trevor can't stay on the court for long w/o going down for some reason, then it doesn't so much matter that he plays well when he plays. And, in Patterson's case, if he's really got a 3-pointer and he can pick up his rebounding at least to where it was as a rookie, he has the brighter future. He's also a little younger.

I wouldn't give up much for him, but I'd be happy to have him and see if he can develop this year. Then either sign him or don't extend a qualifying offer.

[LyricalRico]

Ariza+Vesely to Sacto for Hayes+Patterson+Jimmer?

We get Patterson plus a shooter in Jimmer, and Hayes has been effective in the past at a small-ball C that just rebounds and mixes it up in the paint. Taking on the extra year of Hayes means we won't have to re-sign Okafor.

I hope we do resign Okafor

I also can see Okafor sticking around for a while in certain circumstances. But in this specific scenario, assuming Patterson progresses to being a reliable starter, we'd be moving Nene back to C. At that point, retaining Okafor on a multi-year deal above the MLE (which is likely IMO if he's effective this year) for 15+ mpg probably doesn't make sense. Having a guy like Hayes on a short term sub-MLE contract would be the more attractive option IMO for this specific scenario.

Of course, if it turns out that an Okafor/Nene starting frontcourt works well for an entire season, by all means re-sign the man!

[Nivek]

The problem with re-signing Okafor is that any realistic/reasonable deal will sop up the team's cap room. They could still do sign & trades, but then they'd almost certainly have to give up something from their core. Unless, of course they pick up the options on Vesely and Singleton, though it's difficult to imagine a scenario where another team would sign & trade a star to the Wizards and take back Vesely and/or Singleton.

[dckingsfan]

Ariza+Vesely to Sacto for Hayes+Patterson+Jimmer?

We get Patterson plus a shooter in Jimmer, and Hayes has been effective in the past at a small-ball C that just rebounds and mixes it up in the paint. Taking on the extra year of Hayes means we won't have to re-sign Okafor.

I hope we do resign Okafor

I also can see Okafor sticking around for a while in certain circumstances. But in this specific scenario, assuming Patterson progresses to being a reliable starter, we'd be moving Nene back to C. At that point, retaining Okafor on a multi-year deal above the MLE (which is likely IMO if he's effective this year) for 15+ mpg probably doesn't make sense. Having a guy like Hayes on a short term sub-MLE contract would be the more attractive option IMO for this specific scenario.

Of course, if it turns out that an Okafor/Nene starting frontcourt works well for an entire season, by all means re-sign the man!

Yep, good point, he would be a very expensive backup (and EG doesn't exactly underpay his FAs) - I guess I was envisioning a center rotation of Nene (24)/Okafor (24) - I don't think that you want to play Nene much more than that per game.

But if someone comes along and really wants to pay Okafor - we are going to lose him.

[nate33]

I don't mind resigning Okafor, even if it's to the tune of $10M a year, so long as it's only for a 2-year deal. The idea would be to remain a competent ball club for the next two seasons, hopefully winning 42-48 games a year, and then have Nene and Okafor come off the books at the same time in 2016. I figure some big name free agents would be interesting in joining a 45-win team built around Wall and Beal - both of whom would be entering the prime of their careers.

My first choice would be to sign someone younger and better - like Cousins or Monroe. But assuming we fail in that attempt, I'd take Okafor on a 2-year deal as a consolation prize, and bide our time until 2016.

[payitforward]

The problem with re-signing Okafor is that any realistic/reasonable deal will sop up the team's cap room. They could still do sign & trades, but then they'd almost certainly have to give up something from their core. Unless, of course they pick up the options on Vesely and Singleton, though it's difficult to imagine a scenario where another team would sign & trade a star to the Wizards and take back Vesely and/or Singleton.

Rough calculation tells me we'll have @ $46m guaranteed to 7 players next year -- Nene, Wall, Beal, Porter, Webster, Maynor and Rice (assuming Rice is guaranteed for '14-15 and that Maynor picks up his option). If Booker stays healthy, lets imagine we either give him his qualifying offer or extend him -- taking us to $50m for 8 players.*

We'll also have our R1 pick and, maybe, our R2 pick, so make it @ $55m for 10 guys. And lets be optimistic and say that Temple has a good year and is retained for $1m+

That puts us pretty close to the cap with 11 guys, and we're missing two of our most productive players from '12-13 -- and we don't have room to re-sign them. It's hard for me to see the way forward that gets out of "average" (if we're even there).

Now, that's just one scenario. Maybe we trade Okariza for highly productive young players before the deadline and we just live w/ being over the cap next year. Or maybe Ted finally looks the real situation in the eye and gets a new FO in place, and we rebuild again?

* Note: this would mean we hadn't picked up options on Singleton or Vesely and weren't even extending a qualifying offer to Seraphin. The sum of these decisions is to admit to failure (in 3 years, 5 bad round 1 players we picked or traded for and nothing out of round 2). For that reason, I don't believe Ernie will have the guts to make these calls. GMs help each other dump their junk, and one of his cronies will likely swap failures w/ him. I.e. we'll be even more squeezed than the above.

[Nivek]

Yeah, I went through the major possibilities over at the blog a couple weeks ago. Their potential cap space ranges from nothing to near max depending on whether they're willing to decline options on Singleton and Vesely (Oct. 31 deadline), and then depending on what they want to do with the expiring contracts: Okafor, Ariza, Booker and Seraphin.

They could maximize cap space by renouncing all of them.

If they were to decline the options on Vesely and Singleton, renounce Seraphin, Booker and Ariza and re-sign Okafor for $8 million, they'd have $6.7 million in cap space BEFORE accounting for the salary their first round pick would command. Assume that's about $2 million (heck, assume it's basically anything over $1 million) and the team would have MLE money to spend.

[jivelikenice]

I would only re-sign Okafor if we strike out on other FA targets. At that point, then I would also revisit S&T possibilities for guys like Ilyasova/ Thad Young.

A lot of what to do with Okafor also depends on what Seraphin does. Is he going to be the totally lost player he was last year or will an offseason of hard work get him back on track like he was at the end of yr 2?

[Dat2U]

I still don't understand the desire regarding resigning a 30 yr old (will be 32 by the time he plays under a new contract) when an obvious upgrade will be needed at the position.

Okafor is a fine role player, but he plays a position that's dominated by productive guys and he's near the bottom of starting Cs in the league in terms of productivity. As a reserve, Okafor would be fine. As a starter, he's plays solid defense but brings very little to the table offensively. Resigning him to start shouldn't even be a consideration. Okafor is a stop gap, not a long term option.

[Dat2U]

I would only re-sign Okafor if we strike out on other FA targets. At that point, then I would also revisit S&T possibilities for guys like Ilyasova/ Thad Young.

A lot of what to do with Okafor also depends on what Seraphin does. Is he going to be the totally lost player he was last year or will an offseason of hard work get him back on track like he was at the end of yr 2?

It shouldn't. I don't see Seraphin starting for any team with serious aspirations. Even if he became the player he was very briefly over the 2nd half of the 2011-12 season, he'd still only be a good backup.

[LyricalRico]

My first choice would be to sign someone younger and better - like Cousins or Monroe. But assuming we fail in that attempt, I'd take Okafor on a 2-year deal as a consolation prize, and bide our time until 2016.

Not sure about Cousins, but I definitely would like to go after Monroe. And you're right that keeping a 45+ win team together is certainly a viable consolation prize.

I guess the rub is that we'll have to renounce Okafor to make a max offer for Monroe, meaning that if we strike out on Monroe we'll be signing Okafor with cap space instead of Bird Rights and that could limit some other options (especially since we'll also have to renounce the MLE to make the aforementioned max offer). Unless I'm wrong on that.

[Nivek]

My first choice would be to sign someone younger and better - like Cousins or Monroe. But assuming we fail in that attempt, I'd take Okafor on a 2-year deal as a consolation prize, and bide our time until 2016.

Not sure about Cousins, but I definitely would like to go after Monroe. And you're right that keeping a 45+ win team together is certainly a viable consolation prize.

I guess the rub is that we'll have to renounce Okafor to make a max offer for Monroe, meaning that if we strike out on Monroe we'll be signing Okafor with cap space instead of Bird Rights and that could limit some other options (especially since we'll also have to renounce the MLE to make the aforementioned max offer). Unless I'm wrong on that.

Yeah, you're mostly wrong.

The Wizards would have to renounce Okafor (and everyone else, including the MLE) to make a significant offer to Monroe, but they could reverse the renounce (sounds like an old Woody Herman tune) if Detroit matched. Because the league requires cap holds for free agents, the Bird rights vs. cap space thing is irrelevant. Okafor occupies cap space until the team renounces him. As a free agent, he'll count against the cap for the 10-year maximum until they renounce him or re-sign him for less.

[LyricalRico]

^ Ah, I wasn't aware of the ability to "reverse" the renouncing of a free agent. Is that new under the latest CBA? Would the same apply to the MLE, you can un-renounce it if you don't use your cap space?

I guess I was going off the assumption that once you renounce a player or an exception, you can't get it back. If we don't renounce any players or exceptions, we can use the MLE and still exceed the cap to re-sign Okafor, Ariza, etc. Whereas if we've renounced those possibilities, we'd have to fit everything within only the space we had under the cap and could no longer exceed the cap since we'd renounced our right to do so.

At least that was my previous understanding.

[Nivek]

^ Ah, I wasn't aware of the ability to "reverse" the renouncing of a free agent. Is that new under the latest CBA? Would the same apply to the MLE, you can un-renounce it if you don't use your cap space?

ONLY when a team is making an offer to a restricted free agent. For an unrestricted free agent, the new team doesn't have to renounce anyone until the player signs. In other words, they don't have to renounce guys to create cap room to make an offer. This was also part of the previous CBA.

I guess I was going off the assumption that once you renounce a player or an exception, you can't get it back. If we don't renounce any players or exceptions, we can use the MLE and still exceed the cap to re-sign Okafor, Ariza, etc. Whereas if we've renounced those possibilities, we'd have to fit everything within only the space we had under the cap and could no longer exceed the cap since we'd renounced our right to do so.

At least that was my previous understanding.

Either way, the team has to make things fit within the cap rules. A few CBAs ago, teams could circumvent the cap by ordering the transactions. Under the old rules, the Wizards could have used cap room to sign say Greg Monroe, and then re-signed Okafor and Ariza for as much as they wanted using Bird rights. That's not possible anymore because of the cap holds.

[payitforward]

I guess I might be averse to announce I'd reversed my renounce unless it were too diverse to denounce but not too perverse to pronounce.

What would make you think Detroit won't give Monroe a max contract? They've got tons of cap flexibility -- or so it seems on a quick look -- and since I *know* Kev will improve our knowledge a quick look is all I need.

[Nivek]

Quick look of my own, and I agree that Detroit looks to have a lot of flexibility. Villanueva and Stuckey are on expiring deals. Don't see why they'd want either guy back. They need some backcourt help, but they should have sufficient cap room to sign a max free agent and re-sign Monroe. I guess they could have an issue three years from now when Drummond is due for an extension, but I don't think that should be a major concern for them now.