The Trade Thread, 2016-17 (2.0)

[Gant]

Drummond is #1 in the league in defensive rating.
He is #2 in the league in rebounding per game.
He is #1 in the league in defensive rebound percentage.
He is #3 in the league in defensive win shares (I don't know what those are, but they sound like a good thing).
He is #3 in the league in total offensive rebounds.
He is 23 years old.

[SmartWentCrazy]

Due to the Poison Pill on the contract extension he just signed, Drummond is basically untradable from a salary cap perspective. The difference between his outgoing and incoming salary is too great.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Holy f*ck with the reading comprehension, it's the Brooklyn pick for Gallo, Nurkic, Chandler, Harris. The possibility is to get a ton of value instead of one superstar. There's a chance it's a top 3 pick and something materializes with Davis, Cousins, whoever, or we get a transcendent player (a point guard, neat) - or it's the seventh pick in a six player draft.

[fallguy]

Holy f*ck with the reading comprehension, it's the Brooklyn pick for Gallo, Nurkic, Chandler, Harris. The possibility is to get a ton of value instead of one superstar. There's a chance it's a top 3 pick and something materializes with Davis, Cousins, whoever, or we get a transcendent player (a point guard, neat) - or it's the seventh pick in a six player draft.

That's still a terrible trade.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Fine, but explain why. I'd say it's possible that deal, plus the follow-up trades it enables, makes us a fringe contender this year and has a 50/50 chance of leaving us better positioned than max cap space + BKN pick.

[fallguy]

Fine, but explain why. I'd say it's possible that deal, plus the follow-up trades it enables, makes us a fringe contender this year and has a 50/50 chance of leaving us better positioned than max cap space + BKN pick.

I've written it elsewhere. Boston will not use its single best asset in the pursuit of anything less than a title-team-headlining player. They will make that pick or they will ship it out for a far, far better player than anyone you want from Denver.

[Celts17Pride]

People need to stop with these trades using the 2017 Brooklyn pick. That pick has Top 3 written all over it. Unless Westbrook, Durant, A Davis, Towns, Embiid, Leonard, Giannis or Curry are coming back in the trade then Ainge isn't trading it.

And no the likes of Butler, George, Wall, Hayward, Cousins etc. (because he is a head case) are not worth trading the possible Top pick in the draft for those players.

Only a special few. really small list.

[Murta]

Here's a new name to think about as a potential trade target: Andre Drummond.

Detroit is playing terribly. They're 2-8 in their last 10, the wins oddly being against the Cavs and Mavs (and 1-7 in their last 8). If they continue on this path you could see they might be tempted to trade Drummond for the right package at draft time.

I don't know what the deal would be, but the Pistons would have to want to do this first.

Wouldn't surprise me to see some sort of Hezonja for Stanley Johnson deal. SvG reportedly likes Mario, his former agent is in Pistons' FO, both are playing terribly but have immense potential. Though, I wouldn't want to coach Hezonja-Harris-Morris trio on D, that would be a crater.
I think SvG would want to flip Reggie to get another PG, but I don't really know whom. Maybe for Dragić?

[ConstableGeneva]

Here's a new name to think about as a potential trade target: Andre Drummond.

Detroit is playing terribly. They're 2-8 in their last 10, the wins oddly being against the Cavs and Mavs (and 1-7 in their last 8). If they continue on this path you could see they might be tempted to trade Drummond for the right package at draft time.

I don't know what the deal would be, but the Pistons would have to want to do this first.

Wouldn't surprise me to see some sort of Hezonja for Stanley Johnson deal. SvG reportedly likes Mario, his former agent is in Pistons' FO, both are playing terribly but have immense potential. Though, I wouldn't want to coach Hezonja-Harris-Morris trio on D, that would be a crater.
I think SvG would want to flip Reggie to get another PG, but I don't really know whom. Maybe for Dragić?

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=jajgc8j

ORL gets Dragic, S.Johnson
DET gets Payton, Hezonja, J.Green (expiring)
MIA gets R.Jackson

Magic wins a trade for once, unless they give up additional multiple 1st rounders lol.

[Homerclease]

People need to stop with these trades using the 2017 Brooklyn pick. That pick has Top 3 written all over it. Unless Westbrook, Durant, A Davis, Towns, Embiid, Leonard, Giannis or Curry are coming back in the trade then Ainge isn't trading it.

And no the likes of Butler, George, Wall, Hayward, Cousins etc. (because he is a head case) are not worth trading the possible Top pick in the draft for those players.

Only a special few. really small list.

I agree with this although I'd include Paul George in that higher tier, guy is legit

[cl2117]

Fine, but explain why. I'd say it's possible that deal, plus the follow-up trades it enables, makes us a fringe contender this year and has a 50/50 chance of leaving us better positioned than max cap space + BKN pick.

We have a ton of value, what we need is a star. It doesn't make sense to trade our single best chance at getting a star, either via the draft or via trade, and end up with a "ton of value". We'd then be back in this thread trying to figure out how we could recombine those players to get a star, which will be much more difficult than trading a top pick in a top-heavy/loaded draft.

If anything we need to consolidate our assets not divide them. I'd like to see us end up making a trade where we have to add to that BKN 2017 pick to a get a player of a much much higher caliber than anyone who would be coming back in that Denver deal.

Now if you weren't talking about the BKN picks and instead were talking about some combo of our 2018/19 picks (our own plus LAC and MEM) plus guys like Olynyk and Rozier to get just a few of those Nuggets players you mentioned, that's something I could get on board with.

Nurkic is a great target for us and I'd be interested in listening to what it would cost to get Gallo or Faried added on (Faried less so due to the contract, but I think he could be dumped for cap space if need be in the summer). But the BKN picks and Brown should be off the table for that kind of trade. Those are reserved for guys who are elite level talents, which none of the players you mentioned from Denver are.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Fine, but explain why. I'd say it's possible that deal, plus the follow-up trades it enables, makes us a fringe contender this year and has a 50/50 chance of leaving us better positioned than max cap space + BKN pick.

I've written it elsewhere. Boston will not use its single best asset in the pursuit of anything less than a title-team-headlining player. They will make that pick or they will ship it out for a far, far better player than anyone you want from Denver.

Yeah, ideally either we draft a future star -Fultz, Ball, Jackson, Tatum, whoever comes out of the college season and pre-draft looking legit, and is available - or trade the pick in a package for a title-team-headlining player.

That's exactly the conventional wisdom I'm trying to put on the table to look over again. You can just restate it, but that doesn't actually dismiss the counter argument that we might be better off with a trade like the one I just suggested.

One question: who's the title-team-headlining player we're going to trade for?

Butler? Davis? Cousins? Carmelo? Paul George? Jabari? There aren't a lot of those guys, and they're "sticky" - George, Jabari and Butler will probably be in the mix this summer.

Do you want to trade Jaylen, Smart, and both BKN picks for Paul George? That's going to be the asking price.

My hypothetical deal still keeps us in the mix for George, Butler, etc. - we still have Smart and Brown and Rozier and the BKN '18 to package.

Maybe Indiana decides that if George wants out, Gallo and Bradley for George, and Monta's money, is a good deal. Maybe Chicago decides Crowder/Chandler/BKN 18 gives them plenty of value to stay competitive.

Then we've got:

IT/Rozier
Butler/Harris/Monta
George/Jaylen
Horford/Olynyk/Yabu
Nurkic/Zizic

Concerns with current strategy:

It assumes teams want cap space, draft picks, and/or blue-chip young players, whose value is connected to cap space and cost effectiveness.

That's sort of true, but-

1. Cap space isn't what it used to be.

Everyone has it, or can get it. Maximum contracts are 4-5 years, players like Rondo and Wade are willing to sign 1-2 year deals to play themselves into a bigger payday, and so right now even a team like Washington isn't remotely stuck, even with money sunk in Mahinmi and Gortat, and probably Porter next. They're stuck with Beal, but as long as there's plenty of breathing room in the league, there are very few truly "bad", untradeable contracts. John Henson's is the only one springing to mind.

When Ainge was one of the GMs to recognize the value of expiring contracts, this was before we'd been through a couple of rounds of amnesty, when some teams were in cap hell, especially from overspending. On a couple of occasions (Cleveland taking Baron Davis' money, I think), you could get a lotto pick just for absorbing salary. There isn't any cap hell right now.

2. Rebuilding isn't what it used to be.

There was a kind of script teams were supposed to follow- a star would be unhappy and demand a trade, or a player would leave in free agency, or be too expensive to keep, and then the team would dutifully tear itself down, or trade the dollar player for three quarters, while other GMs flocked to the carcass. Garnett, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Chris Paul, Carmelo, Harden, Kevin Love all switched teams that way.

But look at some more recent, post-Love examples:

Aldridge leaves Portland, they keep Lillard, bet on McCollum's improvement and load up on role players.
Chicago slips to the middle of the standings, and instead of trading Butler, they sign Rondo and Wade.
Houston loses Dwight, and that bet on a championship duo, like TMac/Yao, so they reload around Harden, as a point guard, instead of trading him.
Memphis, with an aging core, on the edge of the playoffs, does the same thing Dallas tried and gives big money to a still mostly unproven Chandler Parsons.
Sacramento has wasted years in the lottery with Cousins but keeps signing guys like Lawson, Afflalo, Belinelli and Koufos to bail out the sinking ship.
And Oklahoma City lost Durant, thought about trading Westbrook to Boston, and then gave him a giant extension.

It's very possible we have a kind of faux parity in the league right now, and a GM like Presti, Bird or Divac might start to think a BKN pick and/or Brown or Smart is a nice return for their star, and a head start in rebuilding.

It's also possible Presti thinks he can sign Gay, Hayward, Milsapp or even Griffin in the summer, and can put Payne on the Reggie Jackson development plan; and that Bird can calm down PG by reminding him Myles Turner is going to be a star.

There are a lot of teams like us who can convince themselves they're a move or a signing away.

So I'm not inclined to think the strategy we have is the perfect one - play out the string, work the phones on draft night, and send flowers to Hayward and Griffin at midnight.

It may work, it's a swing for the fences, but there are other moves that could work, too. Like, if Orlando offers Aaron Gordon for Avery Bradley I have a tough, tough time saying no. If Denver caves and offers Gallo/Nurkic for Amir/Jerebko/Olynyk/Young I have a tough time saying no.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Fine, but explain why. I'd say it's possible that deal, plus the follow-up trades it enables, makes us a fringe contender this year and has a 50/50 chance of leaving us better positioned than max cap space + BKN pick.

We have a ton of value, what we need is a star. It doesn't make sense to trade our single best chance at getting a star, either via the draft or via trade, and end up with a "ton of value". We'd then be back in this thread trying to figure out how we could recombine those players to get a star, which will be much more difficult than trading a top pick in a top-heavy/loaded draft.

If anything we need to consolidate our assets not divide them. I'd like to see us end up making a trade where we have to add to that BKN 2017 pick to a get a player of a much much higher caliber than anyone who would be coming back in that Denver deal.

Now if you weren't talking about the BKN picks and instead were talking about some combo of our 2018/19 picks (our own plus LAC and MEM) plus guys like Olynyk and Rozier to get just a few of those Nuggets players you mentioned, that's something I could get on board with.

Nurkic is a great target for us and I'd be interested in listening to what it would cost to get Gallo or Faried added on (Faried less so due to the contract, but I think he could be dumped for cap space if need be in the summer). But the BKN picks and Brown should be off the table for that kind of trade. Those are reserved for guys who are elite level talents, which none of the players you mentioned from Denver are.

Gallo is at least an IT-level scorer, Nurkic has the potential to make a major impact on defense and on the boards, like Noel, Chandler, peak Roy Hibbert, etc. Wilson Chandler is a nice, nice role player around Crowder's level. Harris is a mini Avery Bradley. It's close to the package Denver got for Carmelo, ironically.

I'm actually worried the value of whoever we target will be inflated because we have Smart, Rozier, Jaylen, BKN 17 and BKN 18, and teams will ask for all of the above.

That Denver trade more accurately "prices" the pick (as an example), so that we have more good players on good contracts to mix and match in trades for stars. And I think we'd actually be closer to trading for George, Butler, Cousins with that renovated roster.

[Celts17Pride]

All stats are for 36 minutes

Paul George 17 shots per game .447 FG, .379 3PT, .928 FT, 22.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.3 apg
Jae Crowder 11 shots per game .480 FG, .412 3PT, .870 FT, 14.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 2.7 apg

Jimmy Butler 17 shots per game .453 FG, .336 3PT, .887 FT, 24.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 4.2 apg
Avery Bradley 16 shots per game .481 FG, .406 3PT, .746 FT, 18.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 2.4 apg

Are George and Butler better than Bradley and Crowder? Answer: YES
Are George or Butler worth giving up Jaylen Brown and both 2017,2018 Brooklyn 1st rounders? Answer: NO

[Andrew McCeltic]

You do have to look at context, though. We're at peak Bradley/Crowder, on a well-constructed team where they don't have to go it alone or fight Wade/Rondo for the ball. Straight swap them and Avery and Jae would shoot lower percentages in Chicago and Indiana, Butler and George higher here.

[SmartWentCrazy]

All stats are for 36 minutes

Paul George 17 shots per game .447 FG, .379 3PT, .928 FT, 22.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.3 apg
Jae Crowder 11 shots per game .480 FG, .412 3PT, .870 FT, 14.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 2.7 apg

Jimmy Butler 17 shots per game .453 FG, .336 3PT, .887 FT, 24.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 4.2 apg
Avery Bradley 16 shots per game .481 FG, .406 3PT, .746 FT, 18.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 2.4 apg

Are George and Butler better than Bradley and Crowder? Answer: YES
Are George or Butler worth giving up Jaylen Brown and both 2017,2018 Brooklyn 1st rounders? Answer: NO

Is anyone advocating trading all three? I love Butler, but even I'm not there.

Also:

FTA per 36

Avery: 1.8
Jae: 2.4
PG: 4.6
Butler: 9.0

Presented for no other reason other than that I think Butler is underrated (i.e. Those who say he's not a top 15 player, irrespective of his trade value in relation to our picks).

[Celts17Pride]

You do have to look at context, though. We're at peak Bradley/Crowder, on a well-constructed team where they don't have to go it alone or fight Wade/Rondo for the ball. Straight swap them and Avery and Jae would shoot lower percentages in Chicago and Indiana, Butler and George higher here.

You can make a strong argument George is past his peak.

[Andrew McCeltic]

But yeah that's my concern, that the way our assets are structured we might overpay for an upgrade, if we have a player worth 65 cents and a pick worth 80, and trade them both for a player worth a dollar.

[Celts17Pride]

All stats are for 36 minutes

Paul George 17 shots per game .447 FG, .379 3PT, .928 FT, 22.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.3 apg
Jae Crowder 11 shots per game .480 FG, .412 3PT, .870 FT, 14.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 2.7 apg

Jimmy Butler 17 shots per game .453 FG, .336 3PT, .887 FT, 24.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 4.2 apg
Avery Bradley 16 shots per game .481 FG, .406 3PT, .746 FT, 18.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 2.4 apg

Are George and Butler better than Bradley and Crowder? Answer: YES
Are George or Butler worth giving up Jaylen Brown and both 2017,2018 Brooklyn 1st rounders? Answer: NO

Is anyone advocating trading all three? I love Butler, but even I'm not there.

Also:

FTA per 36

Avery: 1.8
Jae: 2.4
PG: 4.6
Butler: 9.0

Presented for no other reason other than that I think Butler is underrated (i.e. Those who say he's not a top 15 player, irrespective of his trade value in relation to our picks).

How much is Butler more than Bradley? Brown, 2017 Brk 1st? Too much in my opinion.

Any deal for either needs to be centered around Brown, 2018 Brooklyn pick or (Bradley or Crowder) and 2018 Brk pick and fillers. Anything else is an overpay.

[Andrew McCeltic]

There's also the risk that we become too sentimentally attached to our players, when they're winning, when they mesh well, when Brad has everyone selfless and motivated, when Bradley's been here for years.

Bradley took a step up this year I've never seen a player take, this far into his career, and he might have another one or two left in him. But Butler is a better player.