Official Trade Thread Part XLVII

[nate33]

They're gonna cycle through these dudes. First domino will probably be Hartenstein, I mean for all we know he may go back on a cheaper deal. Dort could be traded to a team into cap space (Wizards?). But it wouldn't shock me if Hartenstein, Dort and Caruso are all on other teams soon.

I think they will probably try and keep at least one of Dort/Caruso. Wallace and Ajay can take on more defensive responsibility, but they lack Dort/Caruso's ability to guard bigger players.

Maybe you are right in that the move is to trade Caruso into someone's cap space.

[payitforward]

How do they do it?
Dort - undrafted
Wiggins - pick #57
Joe - #49 pick by philly. signed off the waiver wire by okc.

not to mention Caruso - undrafted (tho, in his case, they had to give Josh Giddy to acquire him)
& Hartenstein a former R2 pick whom they signed as an unrestricted FA.
edit: and now Ajay Mitchell, a R2 pick in a weak draft, who's playing 30 minutes a game in his 2d year & looks like he'll be a high level nba starter for the next decade!

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

How do they do it?
Dort - undrafted
Wiggins - pick #57
Joe - #49 pick by philly. signed off the waiver wire by okc.

not to mention Caruso - undrafted (tho, in his case, they had to give Josh Giddy to acquire him)
& Hartenstein a former R2 pick whom they signed as an unrestricted FA.
edit: and now Ajay Mitchell, a R2 pick in a weak draft, who's playing 30 minutes a game in his 2d year & looks like he'll be a high level nba starter for the next decade!

I liked Aaron Wiggins a lot. I am not surprised he succeeded.

[payitforward]

He's got a .603 career TS%. Averaging 21 points per 40 minutes this year. Terrific

[mhd]

Random trade idea:

Wiz trade Middleton+two 2026 2nds (we currently have 4) for Murray who is potentially out until very late into the season rehabbing a knee injury. We have no one who can reliably run PG. Even if we did draft Peterson/Brown, we'd still want a vet PG to help ease the burden. NO has Fears who is their future PG anyways and will get the vast majority of minutes. Their current FO did not trade for Murray. We'd still have roughly 60-70 million in cap space this off-season even after the trade.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Random trade idea:

Wiz trade Middleton+two 2026 2nds (we currently have 4) for Murray who is potentially out until very late into the season rehabbing a knee injury. We have no one who can reliably run PG. Even if we did draft Peterson/Brown, we'd still want a vet PG to help ease the burden. NO has Fears who is their future PG anyways and will get the vast majority of minutes. Their current FO did not trade for Murray. We'd still have roughly 60-70 million in cap space this off-season even after the trade.

I like it a lot, but why would New Orleans do this?

The Pelicans have Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, and Saddiq Bey, each playing SF. Do the Pels immediately waive Middleton?

[nate33]

Random trade idea:

Wiz trade Middleton+two 2026 2nds (we currently have 4) for Murray who is potentially out until very late into the season rehabbing a knee injury. We have no one who can reliably run PG. Even if we did draft Peterson/Brown, we'd still want a vet PG to help ease the burden. NO has Fears who is their future PG anyways and will get the vast majority of minutes. Their current FO did not trade for Murray. We'd still have roughly 60-70 million in cap space this off-season even after the trade.

Interesting idea.

We definitely need to acquire at least one contract to soak up some of that cap room we have to spend. I'm not sure Murray is an asset at his price though. The guy posted a TS% of .494 last year and a TS% of .527 over the course of his career. If anything, I would expect New Orleans to pay us to take him off their hands. Unfortunately, after looking at their cap sheet, I see that New Orleans will be about $4M under the luxtax next year with their whole roster in place, so I don't know if they are under enough financial duress to give up an asset to move a contract.

Ultimately, I think I'd continue to shop elsewhere to see if we can buy a bad contract and get an asset in return. Nothing real obvious is there right now, but there could be injuries that change incentives. If nothing pans out, I think we are better off just being buyers in free agency than we would be trading for Murray. Heck, maybe we can just buy Murray (or an under-contract vet similar to him) for pure cap space in the offseason from the right team. Maybe someone needs to shed a salary to facilitate a Giannis trade or something.

[willbcocks]

OKC has 4 first round picks in this draft. They don't even have room for all those players on their roster, not to mention they are trying to win now. What about trading one of our future picks (protected of course) for one of their picks in this draft?

Its wild. They are so loaded with picks AND players that they cant even trade the picks for players but just picks in future years. The fact that we couldnt send Deni to them for a haul is beyond my comprehension.

Even if the Utah (2026) & SAS (2027) picks do NOT convey, they will have 8 1st over the next 3 drafts. That said, they only have their picks from 2029+... so I could see the Portland 2029 1st being of interest to them.
Getting that LAC pick for the Portland pick and a nominal talent swap looks fair.

I spent some time looking at their cap sheet.

They will definitely have to let Hartenstein go (he has a team option), and it's going to be tough for them to keep Dort if they have to sign all of those FRPs (Dort also has a team option). It'll be interesting to see how they play it. I always thought Dort was integral to their team identity, but maybe with the emergence of Ajay Mitchell and the continued improvement of Cason Wallace, they no longer need Dort.

What they really need is to consolidate a lot of their pick assets into one really good, really cheap player who fits their ethos as a defender and ball mover. Preferably someone with size who can help on the glass, and someone who is the same age as their core. Words can't describe how perfect Deni would be for them. A core 4 of Shae, JDub, Deni and Chet surrounded by a legion of really good defenders and secondary scorers (Wallace, Caruso, Ajay, Joe, Wiggins, Jaylin Williams, Hartenstein) is unbeatable.

I was one of the biggest and earliest proponents of trading Deni, mainly because I was hoping OKC would think this way and give us a haul of picks. I was disappointed, not that we traded him, but that we didn't get enough, and specifically that we didnt' cash in from OKC. In retrospect, it still probably would have looked bad, as I didn't anticipate him becoming an all-nba level player.