Moderators: nate33, montestewart, LyricalRico
CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:Through and through fleecing of epic proportions.
https://ripcityproject.com/portland-trail-blazers-clearly-fleeced-wizards-deni-avdija-trade
I remember this one on Wizards of Awes after the trade:
https://wizofawes.com/posts/washington-wizards-fleeced-deni-avdija-trade-portland-trail-blazers-saddiq-bey-signing-free-agency
dckingsfan wrote:CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:Through and through fleecing of epic proportions.
https://ripcityproject.com/portland-trail-blazers-clearly-fleeced-wizards-deni-avdija-trade
I remember this one on Wizards of Awes after the trade:
https://wizofawes.com/posts/washington-wizards-fleeced-deni-avdija-trade-portland-trail-blazers-saddiq-bey-signing-free-agency
nate33 wrote:dckingsfan wrote:CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:Through and through fleecing of epic proportions.
https://ripcityproject.com/portland-trail-blazers-clearly-fleeced-wizards-deni-avdija-trade
I remember this one on Wizards of Awes after the trade:
https://wizofawes.com/posts/washington-wizards-fleeced-deni-avdija-trade-portland-trail-blazers-saddiq-bey-signing-free-agency
payitforward wrote:No one can deny it: Deni took a mammoth jump this year & is one of the best young players in the league -- young enough, in fact, that he may well get even better. Given his contract, which makes him an unbelievable bargain in the league, it's no longer possible to suggest that, based on player value, we made a good trade. Not even if we nab a star with one of the picks we got in the trade.
At the same time, no one, not even Deni's strongest supporters, ever predicted Deni's mammoth '24-25 jump. We all saw that he improved in '23-24, to be sure, & we all hoped he would continue to improve. But, no one saw him becoming an offensive force in the way he has! No one.
But, there's more to it than that. I.e. there was also criticism of Will for faiing to trade Kuz to Dallas in the '23-24 season. Suppose for a moment, that he'd made that trade but had kept Deni. Where would we be now?
I think we might well have won 30+ games in '24-25.
After all, we were 9-17 in our last 26 games without Kuz this season -- that's a 28-win season right there, before we start to think about what Deni would have added -- Deni, who drove Portland to 11 more wins in '24-25 than they'd managed the year before. But, hey, we were in the "deconstruction" phase of a total rebuild. We didn't want to win ANY more games than we did.
IOW, trading Deni was a sacrificial move to put us firmly & inexorably on the path of a total rebuild.
Think about it: surely, no one can doubt that we *knew* trading deni for (almost entirel) future assets would make us a worse team in '24-5 (& longer, for that matter). But, we wanted to be worse. The last thing we wanted was to be mediocre.
We wanted to lose big time. That decision had been made. Firmly. Be as bad as possible, collect all the draft capital we possibly could, & put our aims & ambitions way out into the future.
So, there's the rationale for trading Deni. & for taking back assets that (w/ the exception of an expiring vet salary required to create a legal trade) were all related to the complete rebuild we'd started.
Make sense?
nate33 wrote:payitforward wrote:No one can deny it: Deni took a mammoth jump this year & is one of the best young players in the league -- young enough, in fact, that he may well get even better. Given his contract, which makes him an unbelievable bargain in the league, it's no longer possible to suggest that, based on player value, we made a good trade. Not even if we nab a star with one of the picks we got in the trade.
At the same time, no one, not even Deni's strongest supporters, ever predicted Deni's mammoth '24-25 jump. We all saw that he improved in '23-24, to be sure, & we all hoped he would continue to improve. But, no one saw him becoming an offensive force in the way he has! No one.
But, there's more to it than that. I.e. there was also criticism of Will for faiing to trade Kuz to Dallas in the '23-24 season. Suppose for a moment, that he'd made that trade but had kept Deni. Where would we be now?
I think we might well have won 30+ games in '24-25.
After all, we were 9-17 in our last 26 games without Kuz this season -- that's a 28-win season right there, before we start to think about what Deni would have added -- Deni, who drove Portland to 11 more wins in '24-25 than they'd managed the year before. But, hey, we were in the "deconstruction" phase of a total rebuild. We didn't want to win ANY more games than we did.
IOW, trading Deni was a sacrificial move to put us firmly & inexorably on the path of a total rebuild.
Think about it: surely, no one can doubt that we *knew* trading deni for (almost entirel) future assets would make us a worse team in '24-5 (& longer, for that matter). But, we wanted to be worse. The last thing we wanted was to be mediocre.
We wanted to lose big time. That decision had been made. Firmly. Be as bad as possible, collect all the draft capital we possibly could, & put our aims & ambitions way out into the future.
So, there's the rationale for trading Deni. & for taking back assets that (w/ the exception of an expiring vet salary required to create a legal trade) were all related to the complete rebuild we'd started.
Make sense?
I absolutely predicted Deni's jump because it was basically the same numbers he put up for the final 30 games of his last Wizards' season plus a incremental and totally predictable improvement in 3-point shooting.
And I don't think we would have won 30+ games, but it's possible that we might have won 25. And winning 25 would have put us in Philly's slot and landed us the #3 pick. (Which is another point I was making. The lottery odds are way too flat to spend too much effort tanking.)
nate33 wrote:payitforward wrote:No one can deny it: Deni took a mammoth jump this year & is one of the best young players in the league -- young enough, in fact, that he may well get even better. Given his contract, which makes him an unbelievable bargain in the league, it's no longer possible to suggest that, based on player value, we made a good trade. Not even if we nab a star with one of the picks we got in the trade.
At the same time, no one, not even Deni's strongest supporters, ever predicted Deni's mammoth '24-25 jump. We all saw that he improved in '23-24, to be sure, & we all hoped he would continue to improve. But, no one saw him becoming an offensive force in the way he has! No one.
But, there's more to it than that. I.e. there was also criticism of Will for faiing to trade Kuz to Dallas in the '23-24 season. Suppose for a moment, that he'd made that trade but had kept Deni. Where would we be now?
I think we might well have won 30+ games in '24-25.
After all, we were 9-17 in our last 26 games without Kuz this season -- that's a 28-win season right there, before we start to think about what Deni would have added -- Deni, who drove Portland to 11 more wins in '24-25 than they'd managed the year before. But, hey, we were in the "deconstruction" phase of a total rebuild. We didn't want to win ANY more games than we did.
IOW, trading Deni was a sacrificial move to put us firmly & inexorably on the path of a total rebuild.
Think about it: surely, no one can doubt that we *knew* trading deni for (almost entirel) future assets would make us a worse team in '24-5 (& longer, for that matter). But, we wanted to be worse. The last thing we wanted was to be mediocre.
We wanted to lose big time. That decision had been made. Firmly. Be as bad as possible, collect all the draft capital we possibly could, & put our aims & ambitions way out into the future.
So, there's the rationale for trading Deni. & for taking back assets that (w/ the exception of an expiring vet salary required to create a legal trade) were all related to the complete rebuild we'd started.
Make sense?
I absolutely predicted Deni's jump because it was basically the same numbers he put up for the final 30 games of his last Wizards' season plus a incremental and totally predictable improvement in 3-point shooting.
And I don't think we would have won 30+ games, but it's possible that we might have won 25. And winning 25 would have put us in Philly's slot and landed us the #3 pick. (Which is another point I was making. The lottery odds are way too flat to spend too much effort tanking.)
payitforward wrote:nate33 wrote:payitforward wrote:No one can deny it: Deni took a mammoth jump this year & is one of the best young players in the league -- young enough, in fact, that he may well get even better. Given his contract, which makes him an unbelievable bargain in the league, it's no longer possible to suggest that, based on player value, we made a good trade. Not even if we nab a star with one of the picks we got in the trade.
At the same time, no one, not even Deni's strongest supporters, ever predicted Deni's mammoth '24-25 jump. We all saw that he improved in '23-24, to be sure, & we all hoped he would continue to improve. But, no one saw him becoming an offensive force in the way he has! No one.
But, there's more to it than that. I.e. there was also criticism of Will for faiing to trade Kuz to Dallas in the '23-24 season. Suppose for a moment, that he'd made that trade but had kept Deni. Where would we be now?
I think we might well have won 30+ games in '24-25.
After all, we were 9-17 in our last 26 games without Kuz this season -- that's a 28-win season right there, before we start to think about what Deni would have added -- Deni, who drove Portland to 11 more wins in '24-25 than they'd managed the year before. But, hey, we were in the "deconstruction" phase of a total rebuild. We didn't want to win ANY more games than we did.
IOW, trading Deni was a sacrificial move to put us firmly & inexorably on the path of a total rebuild.
Think about it: surely, no one can doubt that we *knew* trading deni for (almost entirel) future assets would make us a worse team in '24-5 (& longer, for that matter). But, we wanted to be worse. The last thing we wanted was to be mediocre.
We wanted to lose big time. That decision had been made. Firmly. Be as bad as possible, collect all the draft capital we possibly could, & put our aims & ambitions way out into the future.
So, there's the rationale for trading Deni. & for taking back assets that (w/ the exception of an expiring vet salary required to create a legal trade) were all related to the complete rebuild we'd started.
Make sense?
I absolutely predicted Deni's jump because it was basically the same numbers he put up for the final 30 games of his last Wizards' season plus a incremental and totally predictable improvement in 3-point shooting.
And I don't think we would have won 30+ games, but it's possible that we might have won 25. And winning 25 would have put us in Philly's slot and landed us the #3 pick. (Which is another point I was making. The lottery odds are way too flat to spend too much effort tanking.)
I don't think your first point is altogether accurate, nate, but it's hardly worth getting into it, doing the research, given that it might aggravate the existing level of tension around this trade.
Keep in mind, however, that my suggestion was in two parts -- if we'd moved Kuz at the previous deadline & also kept Deni.
In any case, it's obvious that Deni has developed into an absolutely outstanding NBA player that any team would want to have on its roster -- the Wiz included!
FarBeyondDriven wrote:the trade was and is completely understandable upon reflection. New leadership always wants "their guys" And new leadership, especially in small markets faced with a rebuild (finally!) want as many swings in the draft as possible. Fans love home-grown talent and Avdija represented the sole reason for excitement for your team so you grew attached to him. Sadly, this trade has upset so many of you that now many seemingly aren't allowing themselves to get excited about all the good young talent acquired since. From calling Sarr a bust, to calling for a PG to be drafted despite already having two promising ones in the stable and overall general apathy. Rookie Bub was better than rookie Deni but you won't hear of it. Heck, rookie Bub is better than 3rd year Deni. Plus you have more picks to use? All these decades needing a total rebuild and you finally get it and you guys sound miserable despite having arguably the best young talent and promising situation in the league. It's baffling.
FarBeyondDriven wrote:the trade was and is completely understandable upon reflection. New leadership always wants "their guys" And new leadership, especially in small markets faced with a rebuild (finally!) want as many swings in the draft as possible. Fans love home-grown talent and Avdija represented the sole reason for excitement for your team so you grew attached to him. Sadly, this trade has upset so many of you that now many seemingly aren't allowing themselves to get excited about all the good young talent acquired since. From calling Sarr a bust, to calling for a PG to be drafted despite already having two promising ones in the stable and overall general apathy. Rookie Bub was better than rookie Deni but you won't hear of it. Heck, rookie Bub is better than 3rd year Deni. Plus you have more picks to use? All these decades needing a total rebuild and you finally get it and you guys sound miserable despite having arguably the best young talent and promising situation in the league. It's baffling.
leswizards wrote:Deni was never that good for the Wizards, and only has had 1 good season for a bad Portland team. As good as it was, he still wasn’t good enough to carry a team. That means he still needs to improve to become elite. Until then, people are simply crying over not having their preferred role player on the Wizards.
Bub shot 55.3% for fg under 3 feet and from 10 to 16 feet. He shot 46.2% for 2pa over 16 feet. Unfortunately, he shot 35.3 for fg between 3 and 10 feet.
Bub was a slightly below average 3 point shooter, but he was a better 3 point shooter when excluding the corner 3s.
Put this all together, and Bub wasn’t that far from being an elite efficient offensive player. He just needs to work on his 3s, and work on getting the ball out his hands when he is between 3 and 10 feet. If he makes those improvements, he will make people forget about Deni.
nate33 wrote:I don't think it's particularly informative to compare the rookie seasons of Carrington and Deni. They're different players, at different positions, on a team with different goals. Rookie Deni played with Beal and Westbrook for a team with playoff aspirations. Bub is playing on a tanking team willing to start three or four rookies at times.
Also, Deni was a late bloomer who was pretty bad on offense for his first 3 seasons until breaking out big time in his 4th year. Lots of players were better as rookies than Deni but weren't better as 4th year players than Deni.
nate33 wrote:I am by no means writing Bub off, but I'm not particularly convinced by the argument that rookie Bub being statistically better than rookie Deni is proof that veteran Bub will pan out better than veteran Deni.
I don't agree with the argument because rookie Deni was already very good at certain intrinsic NBA qualities (size, strength, speed, defensive reflexes, basketball IQ) that are difficult or impossible to improve. His weaknesses (shooting, left hand, offensive aggressiveness) were things that generally improve if you work at it. It was easy to imagine him having a very high ceiling if his shot improved. It's still not out of the realm of possibility that Deni peaks as a fringe all star player.
Bub is sort of the opposite. He is an average NBA athlete and he lacks innate explosion or shiftiness. And he's not really going to get much better at that. The things one generally improves upon (shooting, ball-handling) he is already good at, which suggests that there's less room for significant improvement. That doesn't mean he can't be a quality starter, but I think it's highly doubtful that he pans out as an All-Star or fringe All-Star. I'm not hating. There's nothing wrong with a quality starter, or even a quality rotation player - particularly in this lousy draft. I'm just saying I think his ceiling is lower than rookie Deni even though his rookie stats are better.
CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:payitforward wrote:nate33 wrote:I absolutely predicted Deni's jump because it was basically the same numbers he put up for the final 30 games of his last Wizards' season plus a incremental and totally predictable improvement in 3-point shooting.
And I don't think we would have won 30+ games, but it's possible that we might have won 25. And winning 25 would have put us in Philly's slot and landed us the #3 pick. (Which is another point I was making. The lottery odds are way too flat to spend too much effort tanking.)
I don't think your first point is altogether accurate, nate, but it's hardly worth getting into it, doing the research, given that it might aggravate the existing level of tension around this trade.
Keep in mind, however, that my suggestion was in two parts -- if we'd moved Kuz at the previous deadline & also kept Deni.
In any case, it's obvious that Deni has developed into an absolutely outstanding NBA player that any team would want to have on its roster -- the Wiz included!
Just fascinating to watch the goal post move on this trade once again by a leading advocate for the trade.
I'm calling complete and utter BS on the fact that "no one, not even Deni's strongest supporters, ever predicted his mammoth jump in 24-25". Complete horse sh*t. There's a reason why the anger was so visceral among a staunch group on this board over trading a player with his skill set, his age, his contract, his size, completeness of game, etc. As nate had pointed to, he balled out the second half of his last season in DC, when he was finally given a consistent 30+ mpg and not pulled by WUJ for the smallest of mistakes or asked to sit in the corner and just shoot threes. That ball out was still with him having to defer to Poole and Kuzma ball hoarding and shot jacking to boot. He was on rosters except for that last seasons that were constantly making ill-fated attempts to make the 10th seed while failing to strive to develop him or give him opportunities for development. There were some of us that saw that and were disheartened by this. Game threads bare this out from those seasons, I know for a fact I used to complain about 5 or 6 comments a game of what the hell they were doing with a kid that was oozing potential.
This new logical fallacy of an argument that you somehow had to explicitly say that he was going to take a mammoth jump is a distraction from you not being able to admit you were dead on wrong, and trying to save face for Dawkins and Co. Hello! The anger over the trade was because there were some that were able to deduce that he was primed for a breakout given the pivot away from desperate attempts at play-ins, that saw him as a building block of the franchise given even with a longish rebuild he'd just be entering his prime when the roster was ready to compete. Deni was basically the same player at the end of his last season in DC as he was last year that he was on POR, POR was just smart enough to realize after a couple months that the caliber of player they had while Washington once again, even under new management, failed miserably at doing this. Even when Deni excelled at the second half of his last season, he still had to to defer to Kuzma and Poole shoot jacking and ball hoarding as previously mentioned, another failure at player management and development of this franchise.
The excuses some are making for management throwing away a player that is "an absolutely outstanding player that any team would want to have on it's roster - the Wiz included" is truly entering the Alice in Wonderland territory.
NatP4 wrote:leswizards wrote:Deni was never that good for the Wizards, and only has had 1 good season for a bad Portland team. As good as it was, he still wasn’t good enough to carry a team. That means he still needs to improve to become elite. Until then, people are simply crying over not having their preferred role player on the Wizards.
Bub shot 55.3% for fg under 3 feet and from 10 to 16 feet. He shot 46.2% for 2pa over 16 feet. Unfortunately, he shot 35.3 for fg between 3 and 10 feet.
Bub was a slightly below average 3 point shooter, but he was a better 3 point shooter when excluding the corner 3s.
Put this all together, and Bub wasn’t that far from being an elite efficient offensive player. He just needs to work on his 3s, and work on getting the ball out his hands when he is between 3 and 10 feet. If he makes those improvements, he will make people forget about Deni.
That’s a good point. If you take away Deni’s good seasons and ignore all of Carrington’s missed shots and pretend he’s an “elite efficient offensive player”, the trade really doesn’t look so bad!
leswizards wrote:NatP4 wrote:leswizards wrote:Deni was never that good for the Wizards, and only has had 1 good season for a bad Portland team. As good as it was, he still wasn’t good enough to carry a team. That means he still needs to improve to become elite. Until then, people are simply crying over not having their preferred role player on the Wizards.
Bub shot 55.3% for fg under 3 feet and from 10 to 16 feet. He shot 46.2% for 2pa over 16 feet. Unfortunately, he shot 35.3 for fg between 3 and 10 feet.
Bub was a slightly below average 3 point shooter, but he was a better 3 point shooter when excluding the corner 3s.
Put this all together, and Bub wasn’t that far from being an elite efficient offensive player. He just needs to work on his 3s, and work on getting the ball out his hands when he is between 3 and 10 feet. If he makes those improvements, he will make people forget about Deni.
That’s a good point. If you take away Deni’s good seasons and ignore all of Carrington’s missed shots and pretend he’s an “elite efficient offensive player”, the trade really doesn’t look so bad!
That’s a fallacy of a straw man.
Let me guess, you are white and or Jewish? Otherwise you probably wouldn’t be so obsessed with such a marginal player.