Woj: Deni to Portland for 14th pick and Brogdon

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Imagine when — if — he ever gets to a good — smart — team.

The pain of this rash and stupid trade will be even worse.

How I see it, he's a third-option on a contender if he can get his ball handling under control. He is borderline, if not, elite player at getting to the rim and the line. His three ball has definitely improved, albeit a bit streaky still. He's shown some proclivity for post moves, but doesn't get enough regular touches down there. He's a bulldog when going to the rim. Long and short, he's well rounded on offense.

Then there's defense where he looks elite often, at worst good. He can defend any position on the court save for the occasional hulk down low where his size is neutralized. Regardless, this side of the ball is where it makes him arguable he's the second best player on your team.

I press folks to watch POR games, then complain that he isn't taking enough shots; that team is full of guys trying to get theirs. Still his obvious weakness is he gets too cavalier with the ball despite his head being in the right place (trying to make the right play). He's unlikely to ever be your best guy on your squad, which is to say best offensive player (we can all agree the best player on a team is almost always the best offensive player), but he is an elite gorilla glue player, that can't get played off the floor.

I see shades that Deni is a player that is going to keep adding to his game over the next several seasons.

He was a player you want over Bub. No question. Brogdon, as I predicted, resulted in 0 return. Other things we got were not worth mor than this bird in hand given his age.

[payitforward]

Can we fly Deni back for Jewish appreciation night on the 26th?

Considering he's the only Jewish player in the NBA, it would have been good marketing to keep him.
Sabonis's wife is Jewish and he's converting, so there will be two.

Danny Wolf may be the third next season.

Almost certainly the greatest Jewish NBA player in the modern era was...

Spoiler:

Amar'e Stoudemire

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Watching the POR game, apparently Deni is averaging the most points per attempt in isolation in entire league. Brunson and Lavine were other players up there.

[payitforward]

I see shades that Deni is a player that is going to keep adding to his game over the next several seasons....

He might, of course. But, honestly, how would you or I know that? Come on.

Here's what we can -- & do -- know: so far this year Deni Avdija is playing at almost exactly the same level he established last year. Which is quite a good level, btw.

Per 40 minutes, he's scoring 1 more point than last year -- but he's doing it at a TS% that's ever so slightly off last year's pace.

Overall, the rest of his numbers as well are ever so slightly down compared to last season. Assists are a little bit up, & so are steals, while turnovers are up as well, & rebounding is just a bit down. The changes mostly reflect a slightly different role in Portland, but in the end Deni is performing almost exactly the way he did last year.

Now, obviously, basketball players aren't machines -- Deni's not going to reproduce the exact same numbers from game to game or from season to season. No player does that! But, I'd say that overall, in his fifth NBA season, he has established himself successfully, & you have a good idea what you're going to get from him.

...He was a player you want over Bub. No question....

Forgive me, but that's a ridiculous statement. We can conclude absolutely nothing about Bub Carrington compared to Deni or any other player in the league at this point. & what would give you in particular a better ability to do so than another person...?

Bub Carrington is 4.5 years younger than Deni Avdija! You can no more make a judgment of him than you could have concluded anything about Deni's eventual level of play from what he did his rookie year.

...Brogdon, as I predicted, resulted in 0 return. Other things we got were not worth more than this bird in hand given his age.

Feel free to document what particular abilities & experience would put you in a better position to understand & predict these things than, for example, Zards. Or Will Dawkins. You're a fan. You care. & you matter. & you're a H#lluva good participant here. But none of that supports making ex cathedra pronunciamentos, good buddy!

[nate33]

I see shades that Deni is a player that is going to keep adding to his game over the next several seasons....

He might, of course. But, honestly, how would you or I know that? Come on.

Here's what we can -- & do -- know: so far this year Deni Avdija is playing at almost exactly the same level he established last year. Which is quite a good level, btw.

Per 40 minutes, he's scoring 1 more point than last year -- but he's doing it at a TS% that's ever so slightly off last year's pace.

Overall, the rest of his numbers as well are ever so slightly down compared to last season. Assists are a little bit up, & so are steals, while turnovers are up as well, & rebounding is just a bit down. The changes mostly reflect a slightly different role in Portland, but in the end Deni is performing almost exactly the way he did last year.

It's reasonable to expect some growing pains while adapting to a new team. Deni was flat out terrible in his first 11 games. Since then, he has been a bit better in Portland than he was in his best year here. Over his last 43 games, his per 36 numbers are:

19.5 points
7.7 rebounds
4.3 assists
1.2 steals
0.5 blocks
3.1 turnovers
3.0 fouls
.617 TS%
.342 3P%

That's basically 20, 8 and 4 on a TS% north of .600 while guarding 1 through 4.

I'm still mad we traded him and no one will convince me that it was a good deal.

[doclinkin]

I'm still mad we traded him and no one will convince me that it was a good deal.

Bub Carrington. Hopefully some day Bub Carrington will be the guy who convinces you.

[bsilver]

Can we fly Deni back for Jewish appreciation night on the 26th?

Considering he's the only Jewish player in the NBA, it would have been good marketing to keep him.
Sabonis's wife is Jewish and he's converting, so there will be two.

Danny Wolf may be the third next season.

Almost certainly the greatest Jewish NBA player in the modern era was...

Spoiler:

Amar'e Stoudemire

Forgot about your choice. I was thinking Dolphin Schayes. (I know it’s Dolph, but loved the auto-correct). My “modern era” goes back aways.

I was saddened recently to hear that Hubie Brown has announced his last game at the age of 91. Loved to hear his voice and analysis. I thought he was Jewish. That’s why I mentioned him, but was mixing him up with Larry Brown.

[The Consiglieri]

As always, just mad at the return. Not at the deal. Having him here would have upped our win total, and it was also empty calories as we were guaranteed to be getting nothing out of the advantage of his cheap contract in at minimum 2 and possibly 3 of those 4 seasons.

As always, I just thought we deserved more than the 14th pick in a crap draft, another pick a million years from now, and a broke down player we could probably only flip for a 2nd. Not enough return, period, but the trading him idea? That, to me, was fine, and I said as much months before it happened (assuming that the most likely player to be traded other than Kuzma, was Deni). We needed to rip the roster apart for young prospects and high draft picks. What bothered me is that I fully expected to get a top 10 pick in '24, '25 or '26 for it, and to get purely speculative, complimentary at best assets for a guy who was cost controlled through 4 years, and basically a 3rd best guy on a lot of good teams? That's just not enough value back to me.

But the reasoning behind it for me was fine, just the value we pulled wasn't, to me anyway. Deni's gonna be expensive as hell and 27 or 28 by the time we might be .500, it didn't make a ton of sense to retain him, it just felt like they traded him too soon and for too little, I would have traded him at this deadline or in summer '25, we almost certainly would have gotten more, and certainly access to much better prospects than a mid 1st in '24.

[payitforward]

It's reasonable to expect some growing pains while adapting to a new team. Deni was flat out terrible in his first 11 games. Since then, he has been a bit better in Portland than he was in his best year here....

Agreed.
OTOH, Deni was also better in the 2d half of last season than in the first. So that would seem the most important basis of comparison. Still, the most important fact is that he's matured into an extremely good player!

...I'm still mad we traded him and no one will convince me that it was a good deal.

&, you may turn out to be right -- of course!

But I'm sure you will agree (or at least I hope you will !) that no meaningful conclusion can be drawn until we know how the assets we got in the trade work out.

& we will find that out, since it seems obvious we'll be following Deni closely for the next few years! In this thread!

Is that odd? Yeah, I'd say so. But so what?

[closg00]

I'm still mad we traded him and no one will convince me that it was a good deal.

Bub Carrington. Hopefully some day Bub Carrington will be the guy who convinces you.

If Bub continues to avoid the paint and live around the perimeter (mostly), then the trade wasn't worth it, there are versatile guards up and down the board in every draft, we will most-likely have to draft a PG.

[doclinkin]

I'm still mad we traded him and no one will convince me that it was a good deal.

Bub Carrington. Hopefully some day Bub Carrington will be the guy who convinces you.

If Bub continues to avoid the paint and live around the perimeter (mostly), then the trade wasn't worth it, there are versatile guards up and down the board in every draft, we will most-likely have to draft a PG.

Kidding me? Give the rookie a minute to adjust. He's playing better than Rookie Deni. Most first year players hit the rookie wall late in the season. Bub has been getting better throughout a truly rough season. Even better later.

Since his season low of 12 minutes against Charlotte Bub has been tearing things up. His first game after that low point he put up a 16/4r/10a/1s with only 1 turnover, starting a string of consecutive double digit games ending with a 18/8r/5a/2s/1b game against the Pacers. That low point in Charlotte was during a stretch when Kuz was back from various injuries and gunning for an exit. Chemistry issues, time split with Brogdon, the team showcasing veterans for trade.

You got to like the resilience of a kid who did not sulk after his worst game but came back with his first double double. And you can look all you like for another point guard but you won't find many who post a ~3:1 assist to TO ratio as a teenager. He's hitting a 3pt% of .474 in February. You'd take any guard who hits over 40% of their 3's.

Yeah we want him to score more on the inside. Because aside from a bad November when he hit 63% at the FT stripe, he's hitting over 90% from the line. But a kid who improves during the season is the sort of player who will make big jumps in the offseason when he has practice time to work on his game.

And now he has Smart and Middleton to pick ideas from. Smart in particular basically said he had barely put his stuff in his locker before Bub and Kyshawn were in his ear asking for insights and tips. You think Smart won't teach him low post work? Smart was teaching Zack Edey. He can damn sure teach a 6'5" guard how to score over a smaller player. And push him in the weight room to stack muscle on his frame.

Not worried about Bub. You want a player to double down on the things they do well, improve them and groove them til they are reliable, before you ask them to add brand new skills. Play the game that got you to the league. When you get consistent and comfortable with that, then you can add new skills. But let the rookie learn the ropes before you worry about asking him to add things he has never done before.

[DCZards]

Bub Carrington. Hopefully some day Bub Carrington will be the guy who convinces you.

If Bub continues to avoid the paint and live around the perimeter (mostly), then the trade wasn't worth it, there are versatile guards up and down the board in every draft, we will most-likely have to draft a PG.

Kidding me? Give the rookie a minute to adjust. He's playing better than Rookie Deni. Most first year players hit the rookie wall late in the season. Bub has been getting better throughout a truly rough season. Even better later.

Since his season low of 12 minutes against Charlotte Bub has been tearing things up. His first game after that low point he put up a 16/4r/10a/1s with only 1 turnover, starting a string of consecutive double digit games ending with a 18/8r/5a/2s/1b game against the Pacers. That low point in Charlotte was during a stretch when Kuz was back from various injuries and gunning for an exit. Chemistry issues, time split with Brogdon, the team showcasing veterans for trade.

You got to like the resilience of a kid who did not sulk after his worst game but came back with his first double double. And you can look all you like for another point guard but you won't find many who post a ~3:1 assist to TO ratio. He's hitting a 3pt% of .474 in February. You'd take any guard who hits over 40% of their 3's.

Yeah we want him to score more on the inside. Because aside from a bad November when he hit 63% at the FT stripe, he's hitting over 90% from the line. But a kid who improves during the season is the sort of player who will make big jumps in the offseason when he has practice time to work on his game.

And now he has Smart and Middleton to pick ideas from. Smart in particular basically said he had barely put his stuff in his locker before Bub and Kyshawn were in his ear asking for insights and tips. You think Smart won't teach him low post work? Smart was teaching Zack Edey. He can damn sure teach a 6'5" guard how to score over a smaller player. And push him in the weight room to stack muscle on his frame.

Not worried about Bub. You want a player to double down on the things they do well, improve them and groove them til they are reliable, before you ask them to add brand new skills. Play the game that got you to the league. When you get consistent and comfortable with that, then you can add new skills. But let the rookie learn the ropes before you worry about asking him to add things he has never done before.

doc runs the voodoo down. (A nod to Miles Davis.)

[Kanyewest]

It seems hard to compare Deni and Bub's rookie seasons given the how different the Wizards roster was. It was harder to get minutes and Brooks weren't concerned about developing the young players but rather making a playoff spot (and even at times his decision to play 3 to 4 guard lineups was a bit odd at times). Even so, Deni played 23 minutes per game and was a great defender- his offense at times was inconsistent such as finishing at the rim although he was shooting the 3 better than he did when he was in Europe. He did suffer a season ending injury, would have been good for his development to play some playoff basketball.

[closg00]

Bub Carrington. Hopefully some day Bub Carrington will be the guy who convinces you.

If Bub continues to avoid the paint and live around the perimeter (mostly), then the trade wasn't worth it, there are versatile guards up and down the board in every draft, we will most-likely have to draft a PG.

Kidding me? Give the rookie a minute to adjust. He's playing better than Rookie Deni. Most first year players hit the rookie wall late in the season. Bub has been getting better throughout a truly rough season. Even better later.

Since his season low of 12 minutes against Charlotte Bub has been tearing things up. His first game after that low point he put up a 16/4r/10a/1s with only 1 turnover, starting a string of consecutive double digit games ending with a 18/8r/5a/2s/1b game against the Pacers. That low point in Charlotte was during a stretch when Kuz was back from various injuries and gunning for an exit. Chemistry issues, time split with Brogdon, the team showcasing veterans for trade.

You got to like the resilience of a kid who did not sulk after his worst game but came back with his first double double. And you can look all you like for another point guard but you won't find many who post a ~3:1 assist to TO ratio as a teenager. He's hitting a 3pt% of .474 in February. You'd take any guard who hits over 40% of their 3's.

Yeah we want him to score more on the inside. Because aside from a bad November when he hit 63% at the FT stripe, he's hitting over 90% from the line. But a kid who improves during the season is the sort of player who will make big jumps in the offseason when he has practice time to work on his game.

And now he has Smart and Middleton to pick ideas from. Smart in particular basically said he had barely put his stuff in his locker before Bub and Kyshawn were in his ear asking for insights and tips. You think Smart won't teach him low post work? Smart was teaching Zack Edey. He can damn sure teach a 6'5" guard how to score over a smaller player. And push him in the weight room to stack muscle on his frame.

Not worried about Bub. You want a player to double down on the things they do well, improve them and groove them til they are reliable, before you ask them to add brand new skills. Play the game that got you to the league. When you get consistent and comfortable with that, then you can add new skills. But let the rookie learn the ropes before you worry about asking him to add things he has never done before.

I have no problem with Bub and allowing him to grow as a player, but to be clear, in the NBA he is a guard who kinda plays PG IMO, he hasn't demonstrated a skillset that I would have parted with Deni for, even if he improves in all of the areas of his game that he has shown. If Bub looked like a candidate to be our franchise PG of the future, I would have no problem at all.

[doclinkin]

It seems hard to compare Deni and Bub's rookie seasons given the how different the Wizards roster was. It was harder to get minutes and Brooks weren't concerned about developing the young players but rather making a playoff spot (and even at times his decision to play 3 to 4 guard lineups was a bit odd at times). Even so, Deni played 23 minutes per game and was a great defender- his offense at times was inconsistent such as finishing at the rim although he was shooting the 3 better than he did when he was in Europe. He did suffer a season ending injury, would have been good for his development to play some playoff basketball.

It's still a more fair comparison than rookie Bub and veteran Deni.

Deni as a rookie showed flashes. That's all. He was quick with the ball for a forward, and made a few smart passes, played defense better than expected. He couldn't shoot from 3, couldn't finish, couldn't go left and was timid despite Westbrook gassing him up and telling him to attack. Forcefeeding him the ball. That all tended to be true his first few years in the league even after Westbrook left. To the extent that he lost minutes to Rui and Kuzma. Players who were worse defenders, less skilled players. People revise their memories of their frustration with Deni's passive performance on the offensive side of the ball. Deni didn't average more than 3 free throws a game until his 4th year. Shot a below average % from 3 until then, shot worse than he did in college. DIdn't become Turbo until after Rui was traded to ensure PT for him.

Here posters are killing Bub for not attacking the lane. On a team that is dead last in outside shooting. Where's the space to get free? Deni had the Fatvian Laser shooting 40% from 3 on over 7 shots a game. Bradley Beal shooting meh but on high volume, teams had to guard him outside. Garrsion Matthews and Raul Neto put up solid 3fg%'s. Teams had to double Westbrook. There would have been space for Deni to do better if he was confident to take advantage of it. But he was a young kid adjusting to the league.

Come up with all the excuses you want for Deni, reasons why he didn't seize the starting job until Rui was traded, reasons why he couldn't shoot or finish because his minutes were limited by playing next to better players. Just don't forget he was consistently benched no matter how good his defense was. And he would take himself out of the rotation by falling into a sulk at times. Getting frustrated by refs or coaching rotations etc and disappear. That is the Deni you are comparing to Bub. Not the guy who -- admirably-- worked hard and became a better player. 4th year Deni took a massive jump, after his extension was signed. After he was working with this developmental crew.

But at least recognize it took patience for Deni to develop.

And extend that same patience. Bub is doing well. Despite playing heavy minutes this year he hasn't hit a rookie wall. He faces his challenge well. He plays better as a starter than he does off the bench. He never sulks on court. Rebounds big for a guard. Never turns the ball over. Somehow has a Ast/TO ratio that is highly positive despite having zero finishers on the team, inside or out. Has added range to his outside shot. And when he played a season low minutes he followed it up with a string of his best games. All while a half year younger than Deni was.

But somehow posters doubt him because he is shooting from outside. Unlike Deni he is shooting _better_ than he did before the NBA. Give the kid credit for a thing he is doing well, don't kill him for it. He's shooting 60% in that long midrange from 10-16 feet. And 45% from 16'-3pt range. The most inefficient shot in the game for most players -- but he makes teams pay for letting him take it. Yeah you want him to be a 3 level scorer and live at the FT line. Still, he has added one level over the course of half a season. Long range shooting. Wait and see if he can add more. Before you cry into your beer that a 5th year player is better than a rookie teenager.

[payitforward]

Well done, doc....

[TGW]

I also agree with whoever said that the idea of trading Deni wasn't a bad, it's just that they got about 60 cents to the dollar IMO. Personally, I am not overly impressed with Carrington (he has a nice jumpshot and a good demeanor and not much else), they got nothing for Brogdon, and a mediocre pick 5 years from now.

Anyway you slice it, it's still a **** trade to me.

[DCZards]

I also agree with whoever said that the idea of trading Deni wasn't a bad, it's just that they got about 60 cents to the dollar IMO. Personally, I am not overly impressed with Carrington (he has a nice jumpshot and a good demeanor and not much else), they got nothing for Brogdon, and a mediocre pick 5 years from now.

Anyway you slice it, it's still a **** trade to me.

The Zards FO won’t wait 4 yrs to use that 2029 pick. Don’t be surprised to see them use it in the next two yrs either for a FRP or to move up in the draft.

This new regime is playing chess not checkers.

[DCZards]

But at least recognize it took patience for Deni to develop.

And extend that same patience. Bub is doing well. Despite playing heavy minutes this year he hasn't hit a rookie wall. He faces his challenge well. He plays better as a starter than he does off the bench. He never sulks on court. Rebounds big for a guard. Never turns the ball over. Somehow has a Ast/TO ratio that is highly positive despite having zero finishers on the team, inside or out. Has added range to his outside shot. And when he played a season low minutes he followed it up with a string of his best games. All while a half year younger than Deni was.

That AST/TO ratio is special for a 19yr old rookie PG. And Bub is already tracking to be a much better 3pt shooter than Deni.

BTW, I’ll be there on Wednesday applauding Deni when he returns to Cap One for the first time.

[AFM]

Remind me not to check this thread Wednesday night. I'm sure Deni is gonna have 80 points including a between the legs 360 tomahawk dunk at the buzzer for the win then COSC will call me A Fukin Moron again and TGW will tell me I'm Always Fellating Myself