Shams: Wizards trade Howard to Memphis for CJ Miles

[truwizfan4evr]

He's still a capable 3 point shooter he be fine.

[truwizfan4evr]

https://youtu.be/RgZqqkGxiuc he be an ok bench player for us.

[queridiculo]

Don't expect the 2019 Wizards to play any defense.

Perhaps if Miles come in and manages to get his shooting back on track he might net Washington another 2nd rounder at the deadline, but aside from that unrealistic scenario I'm having a really hard time understanding why the Wizards ate those $3 million when they stood a chance to save themselves some money negotiating a buy out with Howard of sorts.

[queridiculo]

If they really wanted RHJ then they should have just waived Howard. Shep obviously didn't want him. And let's face it. If Brown is (hopefully) the future at the 3, then Miles is not a bad guy to mentor him. They aren't adding another young wing who may take his minutes.

I do have to say, Miles does seem like the perfect change of pace guy for a starting five featuring RHJ though.

They still have their DPE and could make RHJ an offer if the waive Simmons.

[Eli Babak]

Perhaps if Miles come in and manages to get his shooting back on track he might net Washington another 2nd rounder at the deadline, but aside from that unrealistic scenario I'm having a really hard time understanding why the Wizards ate those $3 million when they stood a chance to save themselves some money negotiating a buy out with Howard of sorts.

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I would've preferred waiving Howard and signing RHJ or something like that, but hopefully Miles (& Sheppard) proves doubters wrong.

[WizardsWorld]

Glad to get rid of Howard but absolutely hate CJ's game. He's the definition of "chucker" who has 1 really good game out of every like 20 that he plays. Hope we can move or waive him before the year starts.

[nate33]

Not sure why people complaining about these moves and how bad our roster looks. Has everyone forgotten that we're tanking? So who cares how bad we look.

That's exactly my point in complaining. If we don't care about how the roster looks, why sacrifice $3.1M to turn Howard into Miles? Why not just cut Howard? It saves $3.1M, and if someone signs Howard for the vet minimum, we save another $2.1M

[SUPERBALLMAN]

CJ is fine for what he is, a vet role player shooter off the bench. Just glad to be rid of Howard, what a bum.

Remember Wall telling everyone about how he talked to Howard about how he needed to play for them and just focus on D and rebounding? And Howard proceeds to literally miss the entire year due to a pain in his ass.

[closg00]

Not sure why people complaining about these moves and how bad our roster looks. Has everyone forgotten that we're tanking? So who cares how bad we look.

That's exactly my point in complaining. If we don't care about how the roster looks, why sacrifice $3.1M to turn Howard into Miles? Why not just cut Howard? It saves $3.1M, and if someone signs Howard for the vet minimum, we save another $2.1M

Even if we're tanking, these moves need to make sense, it appears that Tommy got taken advantage of by another GM who knew he wanted to be rid of Dwight. I am afraid that Tommy is trying to cobble-together an Ernie-style vet team, a cheapie vet center will be the next addition.

PS. This also feeds into the narrative that Dwight is just a guy you don't want around

[payitforward]

Miles was awful with Toronto last year. He was replacement level with Memphis.

(According to PPA)

Dwight was solid to me via the eye test and at least average via PPA as well.

I don't see how this move makes us better. Handing Dwight's minutes over to Mahinmi is a big loss.

"...makes us better..." Better at what? You're thinking about how we're going to put a good team on the floor this year? Maybe "compete for the playoffs?"

I wish Tommy had been able to find someone with a role going forward, but it's not hard to see how difficult a task that would have been.

C.J. Miles isn't a good player, although he had a good season for Indiana in 2017-18.

Note that Memphis did this to save $3m, not to acquire Dwight Howard -- apparently they will either find someone else to trade him to or will just waive him & eat his salary.

[closg00]

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Anyone else cringe when they read this? "wanting someone for years" is channeling Ernie

[Dat2U]

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Anyone else cringe when they read this? "wanting someone for years" is channeling Ernie

Yes. This is the same group of guys, just Ernie is not around. Shepp just seems to be a youthful Ernie who's plugged in and ready to work. This group, Ernie included had wanted C.J. Miles for years, Eric Maynor for years, Austin Rivers for years, Dwight Howard for years, Isaiah Thomas & Ish Smith for years, etc etc...

[nate33]

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Anyone else cringe when they read this? "wanting someone for years" is channeling Ernie

Yes. This is the same group of guys, just Ernie is not around. Shepp just seems to be a youthful Ernie who's plugged in and ready to work. This group, Ernie included had wanted C.J. Miles for years, Eric Maynor for years, Austin Rivers for years, Dwight Howard for years, Isaiah Thomas & Ish Smith for years, etc etc...

Sadly, I have to agree. Sheppard is a harder-working version of EG who possibly values 2nd round picks a bit more, but other than that, it feels like the same old same old.

To be fair, the "harder working" part is a significant upgrade. Sheppard really does comb through the G-League and the undrafted rookie ranks to try and find guys.

[payitforward]

Miles is a 14-year vet whose production declined significantly 2 years ago and then fell off a cliff last year. He's done as a useful NBA player.

As far as on-the-court contribution, this trade is kinda meaningless. We traded an overpaid big man who can no longer play for an overpaid swing man who can no longer play.

We made this trade for off-the-court reasons. We wanted Howard out of the locker room and Miles in it. I can't say whether Miles' "leadership" and the absence of Howard's is worth the $3.1M in extra salary. I'm not in a position to know.

But typically, teams pay to get $3.1M off of their cap. They either pay cash or a 2nd round pick. It's kind of disappointing that we absorbed that $3.1M differential and got nothing for it. Just a few months ago, didn't we pay a 2nd round pick to turn Morris' $8.6M contract into Wesley Johnson's $6.1M deal?

I'm starting to wonder about Sheppard. At first, he looked great - trying to squeeze value out of every asset we had. Now, he's just giving away value.

He was going to trade Howard for any expiring he can get. He probably didn't have any better options.

They would have been better off just releasing Howard but that may not have been an option under Ted.

Lets not expect Tommy Sheppard to produce miracles! We were going to get nothing for Dwight Howard. In fact, given that it's been common knowledge that we didn't intend to open the season with Dwight on the roster, I'm sure Tommy talked to every GM about getting something for him.

Suppose we'd just done nothing. Kept Howard & simply made it clear that it was just an unavoidable cost of one of Ernie's mistakes. You do have to pay for every mistake you make. No exceptions. No one would blame Tommy -- we'd place the blame on Ernie, where it belongs. & if we'd simply cut him & eaten the salary, the response would have been the same. No blame on Tommy; all the responsibility remains where it should -- on the head of Ernie Grunfeld.

Instead, in effect, we got Miles for the $3.1m salary delta. Miles wasn't worth his $8.7m salary, but he might be worth $3.1m. & if he plays as well as he did for Indiana in 2017-18 he'll be a huge bargain at that price.

In short, Ernie is still responsible for the bad part of this deal -- the sunk cost of Dwight. Tommy made a move to recoup some of that sunk cost.

Now, nate... I love the idea of getting a R2 pick back along w/ Miles. But, R2 picks seem to sell for @ $3m these days. That deal would have been equivalent to paying Memphis $3m for a R2 pick, & then getting Miles straight up for Howard with Memphis sending $3m in cash to pay the salary delta. If you or I were the Memphis GM, neither of us would do that deal!

Put another way, we could have eaten Dwight's contract & signed a wing for $3.1m. The result would be equivalent to the move we did make.

But... where do we find that $3.1m wing. If we trade something for him, then by definition the deal is worse than the one we made. If we sign him as an unrestricted FA, it's the equivalent of this deal. I can't name a UFA wing better than Miles who is available for $3m/1 year; am I missing someone?

[nate33]

Miles is a 14-year vet whose production declined significantly 2 years ago and then fell off a cliff last year. He's done as a useful NBA player.

As far as on-the-court contribution, this trade is kinda meaningless. We traded an overpaid big man who can no longer play for an overpaid swing man who can no longer play.

We made this trade for off-the-court reasons. We wanted Howard out of the locker room and Miles in it. I can't say whether Miles' "leadership" and the absence of Howard's is worth the $3.1M in extra salary. I'm not in a position to know.

But typically, teams pay to get $3.1M off of their cap. They either pay cash or a 2nd round pick. It's kind of disappointing that we absorbed that $3.1M differential and got nothing for it. Just a few months ago, didn't we pay a 2nd round pick to turn Morris' $8.6M contract into Wesley Johnson's $6.1M deal?

I'm starting to wonder about Sheppard. At first, he looked great - trying to squeeze value out of every asset we had. Now, he's just giving away value.

He was going to trade Howard for any expiring he can get. He probably didn't have any better options.

They would have been better off just releasing Howard but that may not have been an option under Ted.

Lets not expect Tommy Sheppard to produce miracles! We were going to get nothing for Dwight Howard. In fact, given that it's been common knowledge that we didn't intend to open the season with Dwight on the roster, I'm sure Tommy talked to every GM about getting something for him.

Suppose we'd just done nothing. Kept Howard & simply made it clear that it was just an unavoidable cost of one of Ernie's mistakes. You do have to pay for every mistake you make. No exceptions. No one would blame Tommy -- we'd place the blame on Ernie, where it belongs. & if we'd simply cut him & eaten the salary, the response would have been the same. No blame on Tommy; all the responsibility remains where it should -- on the head of Ernie Grunfeld.

Instead, in effect, we got Miles for the $3.1m salary delta. Miles wasn't worth his $8.7m salary, but he might be worth $3.1m. & if he plays as well as he did for Indiana in 2017-18 he'll be a huge bargain at that price.

In short, Ernie is still responsible for the bad part of this deal -- the sunk cost of Dwight. Tommy made a move to recoup some of that sunk cost.

Now, nate... I love the idea of getting a R2 pick back along w/ Miles. But, R2 picks seem to sell for @ $3m these days. That deal would have been equivalent to paying Memphis $3m for a R2 pick, & then getting Miles straight up for Howard with Memphis sending $3m in cash to pay the salary delta. If you or I were the Memphis GM, neither of us would do that deal!

Put another way, we could have eaten Dwight's contract & signed a wing for $3.1m. The result would be equivalent to the move we did make.

But... where do we find that $3.1m wing. If we trade something for him, then by definition the deal is worse than the one we made. If we sign him as an unrestricted FA, it's the equivalent of this deal. I can't name a UFA wing better than Miles who is available for $3m/1 year; am I missing someone?

I get your argument, but Miles isn't worth the $3.1M salary delta. He's worthless. The guy is done. I'd rather just have Sam Dekker.

[WallToWall]

As a trade asset Miles > Howard. As the season goes, Howard will be back on injured reserve and worthless to us. Miles, on the other hand, has a better chance of being healthy, and could become part of a trade asset. Additionally, if he isn't traded, then he will be able to provide spot minutes in a position of need.

I dont think Shep is done with offseasons moves yet. I will wait to judge, but overall it is a positive step.

Sent from my SM-G965U using RealGM mobile app

[nate33]

As a trade asset Miles > Howard. As the season goes, Howard will be back on injured reserve and worthless to us. Miles, on the other hand, has a better chance of being healthy, and could become part of a trade asset. Additionally, if he isn't traded, then he will be able to provide spot minutes in a position of need.

I dont think Shep is done with offseasons moves yet. I will wait to judge, but overall it is a positive step.

Sent from my SM-G965U using RealGM mobile app

That's an interesting point. If Miles gets back to being the Miles of Toronto, then a team in need of shooting might be willing to trade an expiring contract and a 2nd to add him.

The problem is, I think the chances are really small that he has a bounce back year like that. Typically, when shooters decline, the decline is sudden and permanent. Miles shot just 33% from 3-point range last year (down from 41% two years before that in Indy). He can't defend a lamp post.

[Dat2U]

G I. Smith ... I. Thomas ... Ju. Robinson .. J. Wall
G B. Beal ... J. McRae ... T. Phillip
F T. Brown Jr ... C.J. Miles ... Je. Jones ... I. Bonga
F R. Hachimura ... A. Schofield
C T. Bryant ... M. Wagner ... I. Mahinmi

I assume they'll add at least another PF.

But this roster looks non-competitive to me.

The PG situation is a total mess. Arguably worst in the league. We got an NDBL roster on the bench. Hachimura probably isn't ready for starter minutes at PF. Wagner is toast at backup C.

[Mojo Amok]

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Anyone else cringe when they read this? "wanting someone for years" is channeling Ernie

The big question is, does our depth at Small Forward now take us off of Josh Childress' list of preferred destinations? Is it time to move on?

[DCZards]

G I. Smith ... I. Thomas ... Ju. Robinson .. J. Wall
G B. Beal ... J. McRae ... T. Phillip
F T. Brown Jr ... C.J. Miles ... Je. Jones ... I. Bonga
F R. Hachimura ... A. Schofield
C T. Bryant ... M. Wagner ... I. Mahinmi

I assume they'll add at least another PF.

But this roster looks non-competitive to me.

The PG situation is a total mess. Arguably worst in the league. We got an NDBL roster on the bench. Hachimura probably isn't ready for starter minutes at PF. Wagner is toast at backup C.

Don't disagree with your conclusion that the Zards look non-competitive. But isn't this what many of us wanted and/or expected--a very down year while the team develops youngsters like Brown, Bryant, Hachimura and Schofield...and Wall gets healthy.

The Zards have gotten a lot younger, will almost certainly have a lottery pick next season, now have several second picks and still have a young, all-NBA caliber player as a leader on and off the court. Might not be a full rebuild but it's close.

Of course, I'm hoping that the Zards sign an experienced defensive-minded SF and/or an experienced above average rebounder. (PIF believes we already have that guy in Jones. I hope he's right.)