Woj: Deni to Portland for 14th pick and Brogdon

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Lebron, Tatum, Butler, Kawhi, Wagner, Cam Johnson, Bridges, Barnes, Derozen, J. Johnson, are all alot better or debatably better than he his.

Over the past 58 games, since March 12th, Deni has averaged 21, 8.5 and 4.5 per 36 minutes. He has done so while being a top quarter percentile defender and posting a TS% of .624.

He has been better than every guy you mentioned except Lebron, Tatum, Butler and possibly Wagner.

where would he go in a redraft of the 2020 picks? Probably 6th or 7th. He's not getting picked over Edwards, Hali, Ball or Maxey, and its really debatable if he goes over Bane or Vassel. Is that an elite player that sets an organization back a decade if that trade him? Let's be real.

2020 was a strong draft. I'd still take him over Ball and Vassell without hesitation. Ball never plays and Vassell has regressed. I'd probably take Deni over Maxey too given his two-way versatility, though others might disagree. Look at how awful Philly is with Maxey as the main guy. I have Deni in the same tier as Bane. Only Edwards and Haliburton are indisputably better.

Wagner is the only one his age.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

If we'd kept Deni, I think we'd be sitting at about 25 wins right now.

Can't have everything.

With respect to this type of thinking. If the Wizards had started Jonas (or Holmes) instead of Sarr there would be the same outcome. If you are trying to tank you will tank. I mean, we played Bub 2155 minutes. I would say that they could easily have slid into one of the bottom 4 teams again.

So yeah, thinking they could have had both Deni the 14% shot at the top pick.

Guess we will get to agree to disagree on this one.

You may be right, come to think of it. Here's my thinking overall:

1. Facilitating a total rebuild was (rightly) the focus of the new FO.
2. The 2025 draft seems to offer a chance to acquire a "generational" player. Thus, the deeper the tank in '24-25 the better.
3. Deni Avdija, as a good & improving player, presented at least some level of threat to the depth of that tank.*
4. We moved Deni for a sizable set of assets: 2 R1 picks, 2 R2 picks, & a quality veteran.

My conclusion is that based on the above, there is a reasonable basis for the trade we made.

Moreover, Deni has has actually upped his level of production to a meaningful degree. I.e. he is producing at a level beyond what a reasonable person would have predicted based on his history -- even given his improvement in '23-24. &, accordingly, based almost exclusively on adding Deni, Portland has gone from 21 wins last season to 32 wins with 7 games left -- i.e. likely a 35-win season. That's a 67% improvement in win total.

This admirable jump inevitably makes the trade looks less advantageous to the Wizards than it would look absent the jump. Duh. But, to my knowledge, no one explicitly predicted a jump of this kind.**

OTOH, it also seems to imply that, had we retained Deni, we would likely have experienced more or less the same 67% jump -- i.e. that right now we might well have @26 wins rather than 16. Our tank would have been significantly affected. We would have almost no chance of walking away from the '25 draft with Flag or Harper. We would be more likely to end as the 7th or 8th worst team (with Portland, NO, Utah, Charlotte, Philly, Brooklyn & maybe Toronto all worse than we).

Reasonable minds can disagree, of course, but to me the above scenario provides a rational basis for the trade of Deni Avdija.


* We can of course discuss what the level of threat might have been, but if one doesn't accept the premise in general there's no discussion possible of this transaction.

**If you did predict a jump of the kind Deni has made in '24-25, good for you. I must have missed it: please provide a link to the post in which you explicitly claimed it would happen.

I don't think Deni would have made a leap without the trade.

I have no logic behind this assertion.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Yeah, probably, I thought so at the time, tend to think even moreso now, I do think if we end up landing the 1st or 2nd this year, it will have been worth it, but I definitely felt at the time he should've been traded for '25 or a '26 first of a bad team, and another future first at minimum. Not happy w/what they got, but I still definitely think it could be worth it in time, but it will require luck in the lottery to be so (I absolutely believe if he had stayed we would currently have at best, the third best lottery odds, maybe 4th: 2 wins away from being tied with Charlote, 5 away from the Pelicans). One interesting detail I will freely admit discovering is that we have only two close losses, total, this season, which is rather odd. We tend to get our ---es thoroughly kicked, or win, and those two losses were in OT (at least as of a week ago).

Landing the first or second pick this year has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not this was a good trade, period. This zombie logic has got to die. You could have still tanked with Deni on the roster. Would they have maybe had to get a bit more creative, sit him out for some games, etc.? Sure. But if you can't figure that piece of the puzzle out, while still holding onto a major young talent, you don't deserve to be running an NBA franchise.

It's not gonna die. If Deni is on the roster, the team is going to be more efficent, period, if he's this good, approaching all star level good, is he going to flip a game or two or three in a scenario where we are fighting tooth and nail with the Jazz and Charlotte and even New Orleans for positioning this year, and next. YES. It does, and when I talk top 2, that's half the payoff, the other half, is the band between 1-5.

I think the reason to have kept Deni was his efficiency on his contract given his youth.

I would rather have seen the Wizards use a money ball approach to building the roster. Deni could have been an advantageous player when the Wizards pursued future free agents.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

**If you did predict a jump of the kind Deni has made in '24-25, good for you. I must have missed it: please provide a link to the post in which you explicitly claimed it would happen.[/size]

I predicted that Deni would at least maintain the production he showed throughout the second half of the season, which was a consistent 19, 9 and 4 on a .600 TS% per 36. And I thought an incremental improvement was reasonably likely given his age and work ethic. I thought All-Star was a legitimate possibility and I compared him to Jaylen Brown, Scottie Barnes and Banchero.

We really need to take a moment and appreciate what Deni has done in the final third of the season. He isn't just a rock solid player, he has produced like an All-Star.

Since February 8th, Deni has averaged 19.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists on a .604 TS%. The team was just -1.2 per 100 possessions in those minutes, so Deni had this talentless roster playing like a 37-win team while he was on the floor.

Compare that production to three other All-Stars this season:
Player A: 19.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 6.1 assists, .566 TS%
Player B: 22.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, .545 TS%
Player C: 23.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, .580 TS%
Avdija: 19.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists, .604 TS%

Of those 3 All-Stars and Deni, who would you take?

Spoiler:

Player A is Scottie Barnes
Player B is Paulo Banchero
Player C is Jaylen Brown

I'm no longer sure what Deni's ceiling is. It's not like there's any reason to think he has plateaued. Can he keep getting better as a ball handler and decision maker and reduce those turnovers? What if he develops a more reliable step-back 3? Right now, teams can only deal with him by giving him space and shading his right hand, but if he starts hitting step-back 3's, there won't be much of an answer for him.

So Wizards

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Derik Queen just signed a sponsorship with DAIRY QUEEN and yall are talkin about Danny Avdija??? DERIK "DAIRY QUEEN" QUEEN

[Benjammin]

What if the Wizards get Flagg and Deni ends up being better than him? The only rationale for the deal in my mind was to supercharge the tank but I'm truly happy for him.

Sent from my Pixel 9 Pro XL using Tapatalk

[gambitx777]

Derik Queen just signed a sponsorship with DAIRY QUEEN and yall are talkin about Danny Avdija??? DERIK "DAIRY QUEEN" QUEEN

Transfered wow that's crazy to layloa of all places. This kid was gonna beat. Lotto pick this year. I hope that doesn't **** him.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

[payitforward]

This thread has jumped the shark!

[AFM]

Derik Queen just signed a sponsorship with DAIRY QUEEN and yall are talkin about Danny Avdija??? DERIK "DAIRY QUEEN" QUEEN

Transfered wow that's crazy to layloa of all places. This kid was gonna beat. Lotto pick this year. I hope that doesn't **** him.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

Man you scared me. That was an April fools Instagram post

[gambitx777]

Transfered wow that's crazy to layloa of all places. This kid was gonna beat. Lotto pick this year. I hope that doesn't **** him.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

Man you scared me. That was an April fools Instagram post

I work night shift lol I say it after midnight and like the time stamp wasn't like before midnight must have been a repost lol that's the only one that got me lol

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

[bsilver]

I good defensive team maybe? We could put a gameplan in for a player and it wouldn’t exactly work either.

I'd like to see a team attempt to take that away from him? This goes with the assumption they haven't. Breaking news, he's really good at it and it's hard to stop. That's why there's been several comparisons as him being a "Baby Lebron" in that capacity. He's also a 37% three point shooter over the past two seasons so you have to respect his shot. This year he's upped his volume considerably from deep too, so there's not even the low usage from three argument to be made anymore. He's also become one of the best guys in the league at drawing fouls. You make it seem like he's some guy that has never been scouted, a bit disingenuous there.

There's new excuses to why Deni is doing what he's doing each time a log into this discussion. Pretty interesting that some see so hell bent on embracing the obvious. That is, he's a damn good player.

It's almost like you ignored the first half of the sentence, "he's a beast at getting downhill." I've looked at all of his made buckets the past 10 games, teams are still not forcing him off his right hand nor is there help sitting when he has the ball. He's making the 3 pt shot definitely that's great.

I think Deni is a solid 3rd option. I don't think it's disingenuous to want to see him perform against great defenses before crowning him anything more. We'll see in the playoffs if they make it. Kinda funny this stretch still has the Blazers under .500 the past month, you'd think it was amounting to more winning.

3rd option doesn’t describe his impact on a game, since it really only applies to a half court offense. His strengths include defense and rebounding. Draymond Green was probably a 5th option and an all star. Bill Russell was a 5th option on the great Celtic teams.
Demi also takes many potential half court situations and makes them into fast breaks.
I know there are arguments in favor of the trade, but I hated it and still do. I’ve watched almost all of Wizards games over the last 10 years, but this year barely at all. It’s just bad basketball.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

I'd like to see a team attempt to take that away from him? This goes with the assumption they haven't. Breaking news, he's really good at it and it's hard to stop. That's why there's been several comparisons as him being a "Baby Lebron" in that capacity. He's also a 37% three point shooter over the past two seasons so you have to respect his shot. This year he's upped his volume considerably from deep too, so there's not even the low usage from three argument to be made anymore. He's also become one of the best guys in the league at drawing fouls. You make it seem like he's some guy that has never been scouted, a bit disingenuous there.

There's new excuses to why Deni is doing what he's doing each time a log into this discussion. Pretty interesting that some see so hell bent on embracing the obvious. That is, he's a damn good player.

It's almost like you ignored the first half of the sentence, "he's a beast at getting downhill." I've looked at all of his made buckets the past 10 games, teams are still not forcing him off his right hand nor is there help sitting when he has the ball. He's making the 3 pt shot definitely that's great.

I think Deni is a solid 3rd option. I don't think it's disingenuous to want to see him perform against great defenses before crowning him anything more. We'll see in the playoffs if they make it. Kinda funny this stretch still has the Blazers under .500 the past month, you'd think it was amounting to more winning.

3rd option doesn’t describe his impact on a game, since it really only applies to a half court offense. His strengths include defense and rebounding. Draymond Green was probably a 5th option and an all star. Bill Russell was a 5th option on the great Celtic teams.
Demi also takes many potential half court situations and makes them into fast breaks.
I know there are arguments in favor of the trade, but I hated it and still do. I’ve watched almost all of Wizards games over the last 10 years, but this year barely at all. It’s just bad basketball.

Agreed. His defensive impact seems to be an after thought these days when that's what he made his bones on.

[AFM]

It's almost like you ignored the first half of the sentence, "he's a beast at getting downhill." I've looked at all of his made buckets the past 10 games, teams are still not forcing him off his right hand nor is there help sitting when he has the ball. He's making the 3 pt shot definitely that's great.

I think Deni is a solid 3rd option. I don't think it's disingenuous to want to see him perform against great defenses before crowning him anything more. We'll see in the playoffs if they make it. Kinda funny this stretch still has the Blazers under .500 the past month, you'd think it was amounting to more winning.

3rd option doesn’t describe his impact on a game, since it really only applies to a half court offense. His strengths include defense and rebounding. Draymond Green was probably a 5th option and an all star. Bill Russell was a 5th option on the great Celtic teams.
Demi also takes many potential half court situations and makes them into fast breaks.
I know there are arguments in favor of the trade, but I hated it and still do. I’ve watched almost all of Wizards games over the last 10 years, but this year barely at all. It’s just bad basketball.

Agreed. His defensive impact seems to be an after thought these days when that's what he made his bones on.

Hey bud, you were right and I was wrong!

(I think this is what maturation looks like )

[The Consiglieri]

Landing the first or second pick this year has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not this was a good trade, period. This zombie logic has got to die. You could have still tanked with Deni on the roster. Would they have maybe had to get a bit more creative, sit him out for some games, etc.? Sure. But if you can't figure that piece of the puzzle out, while still holding onto a major young talent, you don't deserve to be running an NBA franchise.

It's not gonna die. If Deni is on the roster, the team is going to be more efficent, period, if he's this good, approaching all star level good, is he going to flip a game or two or three in a scenario where we are fighting tooth and nail with the Jazz and Charlotte and even New Orleans for positioning this year, and next. YES. It does, and when I talk top 2, that's half the payoff, the other half, is the band between 1-5.

I think the reason to have kept Deni was his efficiency on his contract given his youth.

I would rather have seen the Wizards use a money ball approach to building the roster. Deni could have been an advantageous player when the Wizards pursued future free agents.

I don't see any chance of that happening whatsoever, and I don't think Deni would have demonstrably changed the trajectory very much this way or that. Portland was a team that was trying to tank too, but butchered their version of it (maybe they were just trying to retool) and for a team that traded away its best pieces, its not surprising that Deni, in an unquestioned role as if not the best player (going into the season) one of the best two or three is producing. He's good AND efficient. Might even become great given time, but again, with him we were gonna suck, as we are without him. I don't know how impressive his future is going to be, I do know his presence is quite good, but it wasn't gonna transform what was and is a moribund roster.

But what we needed were superstars, plural, and to get them, we needed to be well and truly horrible. I do think there's evidence that if we'd kept Deni, we wouldn't have been that much better, only 3 of our 59 losses were by 5 or fewer points, or a product of OT. This team has habitually been smashed, or thoroughly beaten at minimum in 56 of 59 of its losses, so what does Deni change there? Maybe 3 wins, or 4, maybe 5 tops? That would shift us potentially to 1.03 to 1.05 going into the lottery, and potential outcomes that include 1.06-1.08 or 1.09 as possibilities (depending upon how many extra wins he got us compared to Portland for instance), which is a colossal tier drop in perceived talent from what is viewed as the Big Four.

I've seen the Wizards do the moneyball/retool/denial strategy of rebuild since 1989, and it's built ---- all. I don't remotely believe in it. It's just denialism to me. The fact that 56 of our 59 losses were by more than 5, and 49 of 59 were by double digits illustrates quite clearly that even if Utah is tied with us in wins they aren't remotely as bad, as a team, as we were. This team was epic level horrible this year, and moneyball with Deni wasn't gonna fix ----. It needed to bottom out completely, rebuild with youth, and with top 5 picks in '25 and '26's loaded drafts PERIOD and even that might not do it (which is why I have always asterisked the '26-'27 season as a potential season of 50+ losses too).

i get that you love Queen so you don't mind dropping in slotting, and that you (and I too) love(d) Deni, but neither of those players was changing the bottom line. We needed to land mega stars in 2 of the next 3 drafts, and avoid the who the hell knows zone of the draft (which this year seems to start at 5 or 6, and next year, maybe later considering it appears deeper in mega studs and generalized elite depth). If we had just floated off in dreams that we hit a random mega star in the 6-12 zone or whatever, and kept Deni, it would have been more of what we've already had to swallow since the 1980's, a ceiling of 42-45 wins and an expected total 3 out of every 4 years of 20-35 wins, and I don't know about you but I am more than completely sick of competing for 7-10 seeds for decades on end. I'd swallow 10 62 loss+ seasons in a row if it meant we were genuinely trying to build a 50+ game winner for the first time since Jimmy Carter was president. The whining and crying, and Ted supposedly unable to handle this possibility is more than enough to justify ---- canning him as an owner like Snyder. How the hell to DC fans see what happened with Jayden in the fall and still not understand this?!?! This draft hosts 2-4 players that are transformative for sure in terms of perceived potential ceiling as prospects, next year's what, 3-5. Suck it the ---- up people. Jebus!

[nate33]

I do think there's evidence that if we'd kept Deni, we wouldn't have been that much better, only 3 of our 59 losses were by 5 or fewer points, or a product of OT. This team has habitually been smashed, or thoroughly beaten at minimum in 56 of 59 of its losses, so what does Deni change there? Maybe 3 wins, or 4, maybe 5 tops?

Good stuff here. 5 more wins still has us in the third-worst or fourth-worst position, tied with New Orleans. Our odds of landing the top 4 pick would have been unchanged, or, at worst, just marginally lower.

[AFM]

I do think there's evidence that if we'd kept Deni, we wouldn't have been that much better, only 3 of our 59 losses were by 5 or fewer points, or a product of OT. This team has habitually been smashed, or thoroughly beaten at minimum in 56 of 59 of its losses, so what does Deni change there? Maybe 3 wins, or 4, maybe 5 tops?

Good stuff here. 5 more wins still has us in the third-worst or fourth-worst position, tied with New Orleans. Our odds of landing the top 4 pick would have been unchanged, or, at worst, just marginally lower.

Agreed--what about next year though? Do we just hold the pick loss? I don't think Sarr Deni + our first this year is competing for anything.

[dckingsfan]

I do think there's evidence that if we'd kept Deni, we wouldn't have been that much better, only 3 of our 59 losses were by 5 or fewer points, or a product of OT. This team has habitually been smashed, or thoroughly beaten at minimum in 56 of 59 of its losses, so what does Deni change there? Maybe 3 wins, or 4, maybe 5 tops?

Good stuff here. 5 more wins still has us in the third-worst or fourth-worst position, tied with New Orleans. Our odds of landing the top 4 pick would have been unchanged, or, at worst, just marginally lower.

Agreed--what about next year though? Do we just hold the pick loss? I don't think Sarr Deni + our first this year is competing for anything.

That would depend on who we draft this year, right? If we were to land the first or second pick... well then.

If we don't, we let Keefe tank us hard again going for a bottom 4 pick. What is clear to me is that if a coach wants to tank, he can and will - especially if he has the backing from the FO.

[prime1time]

I do think there's evidence that if we'd kept Deni, we wouldn't have been that much better, only 3 of our 59 losses were by 5 or fewer points, or a product of OT. This team has habitually been smashed, or thoroughly beaten at minimum in 56 of 59 of its losses, so what does Deni change there? Maybe 3 wins, or 4, maybe 5 tops?

Good stuff here. 5 more wins still has us in the third-worst or fourth-worst position, tied with New Orleans. Our odds of landing the top 4 pick would have been unchanged, or, at worst, just marginally lower.

Yes, our chances at landing a top 4 pick marginally decrease, but the chances of dropping out of the top 5 or 6 increase drastically.

[payitforward]

I do think there's evidence that if we'd kept Deni, we wouldn't have been that much better, only 3 of our 59 losses were by 5 or fewer points, or a product of OT. This team has habitually been smashed, or thoroughly beaten at minimum in 56 of 59 of its losses, so what does Deni change there? Maybe 3 wins, or 4, maybe 5 tops?

Good stuff here. 5 more wins still has us in the third-worst or fourth-worst position, tied with New Orleans. Our odds of landing the top 4 pick would have been unchanged, or, at worst, just marginally lower.

Special pleading.

But so what? Deni is having a terrific year, a breakout year. Any team would want him on their roster.

That said, no matter how good he is, he might still have been traded! Anybody can be traded. It's just that a guy putting up the numbers Deni is posting this year would bring even more than the 5 assets we got in the deal.

In that sense, nate was absolutely correct that he should have brought more than Cam Johnson: he's certainly waaay outplayed Johnson this year!! Plus he is almost 5 years younger than Cam.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have traded. & I'm sure we looked for the best deal we could get.

But here's the bottom line:

1. In '23-24 Portland was minus 9 points per game to the league. The Wizards were minus 9.3 points.
Pretty close between the 2 teams.

2. This year, Portland is minus 3.4 points per game to the league. The Wizards are minus 12.3 points.
Not close at all.

Trading for Deni demonstrated that Portland was already trying to get better. Which they did: they went from 21 wins to (likely) 36 wins. That's a HUGE jump! & Deni's play is the single most significant factor powering that jump. I have zero doubt that his play alone has accounted for @8 of those 15 extra wins.

That's NOT the direction we were trying to go. Period. Nor should it have been. We didn't want to win 50% more games this year than last. We wanted to win fewer games. We wanted a chance at the top pick in 2025 (with Harper or Bailey as the consolation prize) and at another such talent in '25-26. With Deni playing at the level he's set for himself... no chance whatever!

IOW, retaining Deni would have been a mistake. He's too good already -- & he's just now entering his prime. Deni Avdija is pretty likely to get even better.

[dckingsfan]

If you want to tank, you will tank. Just play him the same number of minutes as Jonas or Holmes and you would get the same results.

Portland didn't try to tank. The Wizards were shameless in their tanking.