Official Trade Thread -- Part XXXVII

[payitforward]

So here's my latest attempt at a competitive team this year in effort to keep Beal. This is not an easy exercise!

Trade down with Boston from 9 to get the 14 & 20.

Draft: Tyler Herro & Luka Samanic

FA: Sign Rudy Gay to MLE. Taj Gibson to BAE. Alex Caruso & Furkan Korkmaz to vet minimum

Resign: Tomas Satoransky, Thomas Bryant, Jeff Green

C Bryant / Howard / Mahinmi
F Gibson / Green / Samanic
F Gay / Brown Jr / Korkmaz
G Beal / Herro / McRae
G Satoransky / Caruso / Wall

Does this team make the playoffs in the East?

I think Gibson will get more than the BAE. He had a good year for Minny.
I'd rather buy a R2 pick & take someone w/ a future rather than bring back Green.
Would you take Bitadze over Samanic if he were available?
I have a hard time seeing Herro as the BPA at #14 -- & there is no way we can afford to pass on a better prospect.
Seems like Gay might return to SA, no?
Korkmaz is an interesting guy. He wasn't horrible this year. & he's still only 21. Philly didn't pick up his option I guess, which seems weird to me. Still, I won't be surprised if he's back in Philly next year.

But... to answer your question: I doubt it. In respect of that goal, only Gibson & Gay matter in your scenario. Samanic is not ready to be an NBA contributor, Herro is questionable. Korkmaz would have to be something Korkmaz hasn't been yet. Caruso played 500 minutes last year. What he can do in a significant role is yet to be seen, & he's 25 not a neophyte.

[The Consiglieri]

That is an interesting team. I like the addition of Gibson if we're doing a "win now" plan. That said, I really don't think a win now plan makes a lot of sense. I'm not saying blow it all up. I'm just saying we should be thinking about win in 1-3 years, not immediately. With that in mind, I still rather like the idea of keeping Jabari Parker on a 2+1 deal.

Well I find the idea that anything other than win now is acceptable to Beal to be a little farfetched despite the arguments that have been made.

Beal isn't stupid. He understands that you don't turn a 32 win team into a title contender with the #9 pick, no cap room, and John Wall missing the entire season. This is, at the very minimum a 2-year plan to get back to being a legitimate 2nd round playoff team, and probably more like a 3-year plan. You don't sign a 34-year-old Taj Gibson and a 33-year-old Rudy Gay if you're looking at a 2-3 year plan. You sign somebody young who will hopefully be even better in 2-3 years.

Also I see you keep plugging Jabari as a candidate to return. I honestly think Jabari is the worst type of vet you can have around a young team. Disengaged, moody, inconsistent from game to game, a general indifference to defense. I'd prefer a less talented vet that can set a good example and be a leader to the young guys.

You may well be right about that. I don't really know. It's certainly an issue I would want my GM to vet thoroughly before signing him. Maybe Parker isn't the right guy. But if not Parker, then I'd be looking for someone else who is young with upside. Or I'd be trying to absorb an over-the-hill vet in exchange for future picks. I wouldn't go all in on Rudy Gay and Taj Gibson, unless we're talking one-year vet minimum type deals (which is highly unlikely in Gay's case, and probably Gibson as well).

2 year plan?!?!?! Come on man. I know you listed that as the best case scenario, but it's really the no chance in hell scenario no matter what we do. This team couldn't sniff the second round but once this decade despite having far better teams with plenty of flexibility and far more talent than this team can add under any circumstance AND they had a team w/o a broke probably no longer relevant at any difference making level Wall. If people think the 2nd round is in any way possible in the next two years I'm honestly without words. And again, I understand your saying it's a best case scenario thing, but it's not, it's a total, insane, pipe dream. Three years is kind of ridiculous too. Until we dump wall, the best we're going to be is an irrelevant outsider looking up at 9-11 teams if not the entire conference (and I suspect, the latter, it certainly has the best odds of happening of any of the scenarios).

[nate33]

2 year plan?!?!?! Come on man. I know you listed that as the best case scenario, but it's really the no chance in hell scenario no matter what we do. This team couldn't sniff the second round but once this decade despite having far better teams with plenty of flexibility and far more talent than this team can add under any circumstance AND they had a team w/o a broke probably no longer relevant at any difference making level Wall.

Once in the last decade? What team have you been watching. The Wizards made the 2nd round in 3 of the past 6 seasons

If people think the 2nd round is in any way possible in the next two years I'm honestly without words. And again, I understand your saying it's a best case scenario thing, but it's not, it's a total, insane, pipe dream. Three years is kind of ridiculous too. Until we dump wall, the best we're going to be is an irrelevant outsider looking up at 9-11 teams if not the entire conference (and I suspect, the latter, it certainly has the best odds of happening of any of the scenarios).

I disagree completely. Success in this league rests on having one first rate scorer who can score with above average efficiency. Here's a list of player-seasons over the past 3 years where the player scored 22+ points with a TS% of .575 or better while playing 70 or more games. It happened 29 times; in 26 of them, the team made the playoffs. (Only KAT's 2 seasons and Beal's season this year did not result in playoff berths).

Finding the star scorer, that's the hard part. The rest is much easier. We have the star scorer.

[The Consiglieri]

2 year plan?!?!?! Come on man. I know you listed that as the best case scenario, but it's really the no chance in hell scenario no matter what we do. This team couldn't sniff the second round but once this decade despite having far better teams with plenty of flexibility and far more talent than this team can add under any circumstance AND they had a team w/o a broke probably no longer relevant at any difference making level Wall.

Once in the last decade? What team have you been watching. The Wizards made the 2nd round in 3 of the past 6 seasons

If people think the 2nd round is in any way possible in the next two years I'm honestly without words. And again, I understand your saying it's a best case scenario thing, but it's not, it's a total, insane, pipe dream. Three years is kind of ridiculous too. Until we dump wall, the best we're going to be is an irrelevant outsider looking up at 9-11 teams if not the entire conference (and I suspect, the latter, it certainly has the best odds of happening of any of the scenarios).

I disagree completely. Success in this league rests on having one first rate scorer who can score with above average efficiency. Here's a list of player-seasons over the past 3 years where the player scored 22+ points with a TS% of .575 or better while playing 70 or more games. It happened 29 times; in 26 of them, the team made the playoffs. (Only KAT's 2 seasons and Beal's season this year did not result in playoff berths).

Finding the star scorer, that's the hard part. The rest is much easier. We have the star scorer.

Lol you got me. It just didn't stick. Not exactly memorable considering how things played out. But yeah, you got me. I blame toddler brain.

On the second part, yeah, we don't agree on any of that. Appreciate the research, but this for me is a situation where you have to be outside D.C. to see the forest for the trees. Pinning your hopes on that statistical trend doesn't really hold much for me, in no small part because how many of those situations involved a team as thoroughly hobbled as ours? Pretty much zero?

[payitforward]

Since 16 out of 30 teams do it, by definition making the playoffs doesn't even indicate you are an "average" team. It certainly doesn't qualify you as "good," & above all it doesn't indicate that your team is contending for anything. Moreover, insofar as the Western Conference has become so much better than the Eastern Conference, making the playoffs at #6-8 in the East really means nothing at all. Plus, making the playoff isn't an on/off or yes/no switch. We didn't just miss the playoffs this year, we didn't even contend for the playoffs.

13 teams won 48 or more games this year -- 43% of the league. 8 teams won from 36 to 42 games -- 27% of the league. 9 teams -- 30% of the league -- won 33 or fewer games. 3 of them had better records than the Wizards. Only the 5 weakest teams in the league had worse records than the Wizards. That's where we are -- in the bottom 20% of the NBA.

Nate points out that we have our star scorer in Brad. Can't disagree. He also suggests that we might win 35 games next year. Again, I agree; that's certainly possible. The problem is that it's not hard to go from 32 to 35 wins. What's hard is to become a good team.

As I mentioned, 43% of the league won 48 games this year.

In the last 30 years, how many times have the Wizards won 48 or more games? 1 time.
In the last 30 years, how many times have the Wizards won 25 or fewer games? 10 times.

[payitforward]

...Success in this league rests on having one first rate scorer who can score with above average efficiency. Here's a list of player-seasons over the past 3 years where the player scored 22+ points with a TS% of .575 or better while playing 70 or more games. It happened 29 times; in 26 of them, the team made the playoffs. (Only KAT's 2 seasons and Beal's season this year did not result in playoff berths).

Finding the star scorer, that's the hard part. The rest is much easier. We have the star scorer.

What's the Latin? Ceteris paribus -- "all other things being equal." & that is what a statistic like this does; it puts all other things out of the picture.

So, sure, "all other things being equal," the rest is much easier. But, in our case, other things aren't equal.

We are dealing with the legacy of the Ted & Ernie show. We have a $171m payable to John Wall. We have dealt 3 out of our 6 next draft picks. &, aside from our star scorer, we have exactly 1 other potentially meaningful player under contract -- Troy Brown.

Re-sign Sato & Bryant, & it's 4. Come out of the draft with a useful player, & it's 5 (but, of course there's no guarantee that we will get someone useful from the draft, & there's a strong likelihood that whoever it is won't be useful his first year). Retain Dekker, & there's #6 -- a reliable bench player.

Which puts us at @$110-112m (figuring Sato/Bryant @ $15m, Dekker for whatever, & including Wall/Mahinmi/Howard) for actually 9 guys (of whom 1 won't play at all, & 2 will play minimal minutes if at all). We aren't improved from last year. In fact, since Wall actually played pretty well for part of the season, we're worse.

Now what? Keep McRae, Tarik whatshisname, & bring back Green? That's 12. We're still worse than last year. Sign a MLE FA & one more vet minimum or a BAE guy, & we hit 14 & are under the tax. Can we add a 15th guy if needed? Must be a way...

If the MLE & BAE guys are end of career types, we've mortgaged our future again. Lets not do that, & I can't see a new GM w/ a long chain doing it. Still, there's some chance we find someone who's under-rated & young.

How any of this fits under your "the rest is easy" banner, I don't know! Hope I'm wrong. The following year does get a little easier, but only a little: $41m to John.

[nate33]

...Success in this league rests on having one first rate scorer who can score with above average efficiency. Here's a list of player-seasons over the past 3 years where the player scored 22+ points with a TS% of .575 or better while playing 70 or more games. It happened 29 times; in 26 of them, the team made the playoffs. (Only KAT's 2 seasons and Beal's season this year did not result in playoff berths).

Finding the star scorer, that's the hard part. The rest is much easier. We have the star scorer.

What's the Latin? Ceteris paribus -- "all other things being equal." & that is what a statistic like this does; it puts all other things out of the picture.

So, sure, "all other things being equal," the rest is much easier. But, in our case, other things aren't equal.

We are dealing with the legacy of the Ted & Ernie show. We have a $171m payable to John Wall. We have dealt 3 out of our 6 next draft picks. &, aside from our star scorer, we have exactly 1 other potentially meaningful player under contract -- Troy Brown.

Re-sign Sato & Bryant, & it's 4. Come out of the draft with a useful player, & it's 5 (but, of course there's no guarantee that we will get someone useful from the draft, & there's a strong likelihood that whoever it is won't be useful his first year). Retain Dekker, & there's #6 -- a reliable bench player.

Which puts us at @$110-112m (figuring Sato/Bryant @ $15m, Dekker for whatever, & including Wall/Mahinmi/Howard) for actually 9 guys (of whom 1 won't play at all, & 2 will play minimal minutes if at all). We aren't improved from last year. In fact, since Wall actually played pretty well for part of the season, we're worse.

Now what? Keep McRae, Tarik whatshisname, & bring back Green? That's 12. We're still worse than last year. Sign a MLE FA & one more vet minimum or a BAE guy, & we hit 14 & are under the tax. Can we add a 15th guy if needed? Must be a way...

If the MLE & BAE guys are end of career types, we've mortgaged our future again. Lets not do that, & I can't see a new GM w/ a long chain doing it. Still, there's some chance we find someone who's under-rated & young.

How any of this fits under your "the rest is easy" banner, I don't know! Hope I'm wrong. The following year does get a little easier, but only a little: $41m to John.

Like you said, we can get to 5 good players plus a good bench player for $110M. We can get one more good player with the MLE. That's 7 players under the luxtax threshold. That's not good enough to be a good team, but it might be good enough to be a step above awful - maybe 35-40 wins. Over the course of next season, we develop our #9 pick and hope that he is a good player by 2020-21. And in 2020-21, we will also get John Wall back; and if we is 95% of what he once was, he's still a pretty good player.

So that's 9 good players in just 14 months. 9 good players is enough to field a good team, and in the meantime, we watch a mediocre but not awful team play, and Ted gets to fill his arena. That's better than the alternative of trading Beal, sucking for 3 or 4 years and then hoping that whatever the Beal trade brought back ends up being as good as Beal.

[Ruzious]

...Success in this league rests on having one first rate scorer who can score with above average efficiency. Here's a list of player-seasons over the past 3 years where the player scored 22+ points with a TS% of .575 or better while playing 70 or more games. It happened 29 times; in 26 of them, the team made the playoffs. (Only KAT's 2 seasons and Beal's season this year did not result in playoff berths).

Finding the star scorer, that's the hard part. The rest is much easier. We have the star scorer.

What's the Latin? Ceteris paribus -- "all other things being equal." & that is what a statistic like this does; it puts all other things out of the picture.

So, sure, "all other things being equal," the rest is much easier. But, in our case, other things aren't equal.

We are dealing with the legacy of the Ted & Ernie show. We have a $171m payable to John Wall. We have dealt 3 out of our 6 next draft picks. &, aside from our star scorer, we have exactly 1 other potentially meaningful player under contract -- Troy Brown.

Re-sign Sato & Bryant, & it's 4. Come out of the draft with a useful player, & it's 5 (but, of course there's no guarantee that we will get someone useful from the draft, & there's a strong likelihood that whoever it is won't be useful his first year). Retain Dekker, & there's #6 -- a reliable bench player.

Which puts us at @$110-112m (figuring Sato/Bryant @ $15m, Dekker for whatever, & including Wall/Mahinmi/Howard) for actually 9 guys (of whom 1 won't play at all, & 2 will play minimal minutes if at all). We aren't improved from last year. In fact, since Wall actually played pretty well for part of the season, we're worse.

Now what? Keep McRae, Tarik whatshisname, & bring back Green? That's 12. We're still worse than last year. Sign a MLE FA & one more vet minimum or a BAE guy, & we hit 14 & are under the tax. Can we add a 15th guy if needed? Must be a way...

If the MLE & BAE guys are end of career types, we've mortgaged our future again. Lets not do that, & I can't see a new GM w/ a long chain doing it. Still, there's some chance we find someone who's under-rated & young.

How any of this fits under your "the rest is easy" banner, I don't know! Hope I'm wrong. The following year does get a little easier, but only a little: $41m to John.

Like you said, we can get to 5 good players plus a good bench player for $110M. We can get one more good player with the MLE. That's 7 players under the luxtax threshold. That's not good enough to be a good team, but it might be good enough to be a step above awful - maybe 35-40 wins. Over the course of next season, we develop our #9 pick and hope that he is a good player by 2020-21. And in 2020-21, we will also get John Wall back; and if we is 95% of what he once was, he's still a pretty good player.

So that's 9 good players in just 14 months. 9 good players is enough to field a good team, and in the meantime, we watch a mediocre but not awful team play, and Ted gets to fill his arena. That's better than the alternative of trading Beal, sucking for 3 or 4 years and then hoping that whatever the Beal trade brought back ends up being as good as Beal.

The odds of Wall becoming 95% as good as he was in his prime are tiny - considering he was a player who was so dependent on his speed, athleticism and explosiveness. And we already saw the blueprint for this when Arenas came back. I mean... I can take a small hope and stretch it, but this is so unlikely to work... the answer's no. Keeping Beal for another 2 seasons is just shooting for mediocrity and not even achieving it. And then, he either leaves or signs a super-max, and then we're paying 2 guards 90 mil a year.

[payitforward]

Actually, the whole thing is moot. B/c Ted will be unable to hire a GM, the Washington Wizards will take the season off.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Which haul for Beal do you all find most enticing? Which, if any, seem realistic?

Package 1: Ingram, Kuzma, #4 (Garland)
Package 2: Robinson, future unprotected 1st, Smith, #3 (Barrett)
Package 3: Tatum, #14 (Clarke), #20 (Jerome)

[pcbothwel]

Which haul for Beal do you all find most enticing? Which, if any, seem realistic?

Package 1: Ingram, Kuzma, #4 (Garland)
Package 2: Robinson, future unprotected 1st, Smith, #3 (Barrett)
Package 3: Tatum, #14 (Clarke), #20 (Jerome)

In order... 3, 2, 1. But only 2 & 1 are realistic. Boston wont make that trade if Kyrie walks, and I dont see Kyrie trying to stay with a Beal acquisition.

Package 2 is better than 1 by a long shot. Robinson is the best prospect of the 4, and 3 is a better pick than 4.

Also, If our FO truly loves Barrett then I guess I could live with it... But I wouldn't hesitate to auction that pick off for a killer package.
Draft Barrett and watch as the draft unfolds.

[TGW]

Which haul for Beal do you all find most enticing? Which, if any, seem realistic?

Package 1: Ingram, Kuzma, #4 (Garland)
Package 2: Robinson, future unprotected 1st, Smith, #3 (Barrett)
Package 3: Tatum, #14 (Clarke), #20 (Jerome)

The Knicks one by far.

I would also move Barrett for more picks. I would see if Hawks would do Huerter, 8, 10.

[nate33]

Assuming Bryant is resigned, the team will be overloaded with redundant centers eating up $30M of the cap, which has already been savaged by Wall's $38M cap hit.

Would it be possible to trade Mahinmi's expiring $15.4M contract for an overpaid but halfway useful guard or wing with a similar expiring contract? Obviously, with Mahinmi being totally useless and the player we receive in return being somewhat useful, we would have to throw a little extra in the transaction. I'm thinking we absorb a slightly bigger contract and/or include some cash.

Looking around the league, there are a handful of expiring contracts that cost more than Mahinmi, but happen to belong to a half-decent guard or forward:

Evan Turner $18.6M
Kent Bazemore $19.2M
Allen Crabbe $18.5M
Tyler Johnson $19.2M

A straight up trade of Mahinmi for any of those guys would work under the Trade Checker. In all cases, we get back a more useful player, and the other team saves $3-4M in salary. I think Portland (Turner) in particular might be interested because they have a huge payroll and may be looking to trim some luxtax payments. Brooklyn (Crabbe) might have interest if they're trying to free up a second max salary slot.

On the other hand, we would be sacrificing $3-4M in luxtax flexibility just to make our team incrementally better for just the next season. Should be spend any assets on next year, or should we be focused exclusively on 2 years down the road and beyond?

[NYG]

If Beal is All-NBA, what is ownerships tolerance for Beal and Wall both having super MAX deals?

[dckingsfan]

Which haul for Beal do you all find most enticing? Which, if any, seem realistic?

Package 1: Ingram, Kuzma, #4 (Garland)
Package 2: Robinson, future unprotected 1st, Smith, #3 (Barrett)
Package 3: Tatum, #14 (Clarke), #20 (Jerome)

In order... 3, 2, 1. But only 2 & 1 are realistic. Boston wont make that trade if Kyrie walks, and I dont see Kyrie trying to stay with a Beal acquisition.

Package 2 is better than 1 by a long shot. Robinson is the best prospect of the 4, and 3 is a better pick than 4.

Also, If our FO truly loves Barrett then I guess I could live with it... But I wouldn't hesitate to auction that pick off for a killer package.
Draft Barrett and watch as the draft unfolds.

Agreed on Package #2. I also think that a Robinson/Bryant FC could be very solid. As Nate pointed out, scoring would be an issue.

Under contract
Robinson, Smith, Brown, #3, #9
Then FA resignings
Bryant, Sato, Dekker
Useless but on the roster for trades later?
Mahimini, Howard
Returns the following year
Wall
2020 First pick
2 x 2021 First round picks

[nate33]

If Beal is All-NBA, what is ownerships tolerance for Beal and Wall both having super MAX deals?

I think they'll pay it if necessary and go into the luxtax. The overlap will only be for 2 years. And maybe Wall's contract will be movable as it gets shorter.

If they're unwilling to pay both, then trading Beal should be a top priority. His trade value will start dropping after the Trade Deadline next year.

[Dark Faze]

Kemba made it as expected--we dodged a bullet for now. Every chance Brad makes it next year. I can't imagine he's very happy atm though.

With Kemba making it though...gotta wonder if they'd entertain a Wall for Kemba deal. We probably don't have enough assets to make it worth their while though.

[truwizfan4evr]

Kemba made it as expected--we dodged a bullet for now. Every chance Brad makes it next year. I can't imagine he's very happy atm though.

With Kemba making it though...gotta wonder if they'd entertain a Wall for Kemba deal. We probably don't have enough assets to make it worth their while though.

Why would either team trade for two aging overppaid players?

[nate33]

The only Wall trade that is even remotely plausible right now would be Wall for Wiggins. And frankly, I don't think it's all that plausible. Wall has to come back and prove that he can play before anyone trades for him.

[pcbothwel]

The only Wall trade that is even remotely plausible right now would be Wall for Wiggins. And frankly, I don't think it's all that plausible. Wall has to come back and prove that he can play before anyone trades for him.

A hobbled Wall is better than Wiggins... I understand wanting to save money, but does 10M extra really do anything when you consider the downgrade in talent and culture.