The Amazingly Suck Winger/Dawkins thread

[doclinkin]

The argument for trading Deni was to tank in 2024-25 season so we don't lose our 2025 pick. By keeping Deni, it was unlikely that we would have finished with the second-to-last record in the league in 2024-25. However, as it turned out, if we finished with a BETTER record, we very well might have ended up with a better pick.

we would have ended up with Colin Murray-Boyles or Cedric Coward instead of Tre Johnson. I'm not sure if that's even a downgrade. And as I've calculated in the past, by applying Deni's +7 on/off differential to his minutes, and applying the Pythagorean Formula, he likely would have delivered 6-8 more wins, which puts us in the #3 pick range.

If we had landed Edgecomb in that draft, my guess is that we would have abandoned the tanking strategy last year and just rolled with Edgecombe, Deni, Kyshawn, Sarr, Riley, and Champagnie.

And we still could have traded Deni then, maybe for Harper.

Imagine that

If we did not land Edgecomb, we probably would have tried to tank in 2025-26. And that would have been the time to trade Deni. He would definitely have been worth more than 2 mediocre FRP's. Tanking would have been easy without Deni,

We still would have landed AJ plus have a better stockpile of picks from the Deni trade.

You’re one of my favorite posters and I almost never disagree with your posts, because they are usually so rational.
…
But to presume that if we’d won more games, that we would have had a higher draft pick, based on how that particular lotto played out, is illogical.
…

But, I still think the move was a no brainer. It doesn’t matter what we got back for him. We didn’t trade him because we thought we’d get an even return. And honestly, Bub and AD don’t nearly approach a fair return. But, we traded him to tank. And it was the rational thing to do. It bought us more lotto balls for a shot at Flagg, but we wound up with Tre. The following year, we did actually win the lotto and took AJ.

The strategy was sound, and it worked. Statistically, was there some possibility of having as good an outcome if we didn't trade Deni, and got lucky? Sure. But we played the odds in the most statistically favorable way, and we won.

…
I’m too lazy, but if I could go back and plus 1 every one of Doc’s posts in the past few pages, I would.

We took the path that was just obviously statistically more likely to result in a successful tank and roster reset, and got an outcome that was probably better than we had any right to expect. We have more to be excited about than any time I can remember, and people are complaining about the approach. It’s irrational. Maybe you can take certain moves and say we could have done better. It’s a results oriented process. We had a winning strategy, executed it, and are far better off for all of the losing, and roster dumping of the last 3 years.

Right. You cant base arguments on ‘if’ and ‘imagine’ and then act as if that were reality. Especially in retrospect. We live in the future. The trade was made in the past. They decided to use the math in their favor. With back to back years of franchise players coming up. Against a non zero chance they lost the pick one of those years.

They trust their scouting. Trust their player development scheme. Missing out on either year of draft picks sets their strategy back by one possible star, who ends up going to competition in the Eastern Conference.

The math changes with any small variation. The fact is with a full tank strategy, a one game difference meant we slipped to six. But at least we were assured top six.

We earned that top 6 on the strength of heavy minutes by Kuzma, our year after year +/- loser. Any Deni minutes in substitution of Kuzma more than doubles the wins in that metric. In fact when you look at two-man line ups the only player that Kuzma managed a winning +/- with was Deni.

If I know this, guaranteed their analytics department knew this. Hell we had Dr Dean Oliver on the staff at the time.

The following year, despite desperate tanking by 1/4 of the teams in the league we did manage to secure the best odds. Guaranteeing a top 5 pick. In a 4 player draft. Or possibly 3 player. Or 2. We lucked out and won a franchise guy.

You can’t say ‘well if we had Deni we might have gotten (the player landed with the 7th best odds)’ and then the next year say ‘We still would’ve won AJ’. No. If you’re playing by those fictional rules we would have had a different win total.

No fair assuming we somehow kept Deni. And. Buried him behind Kuzma. And. Developed him so he broke out. But. He didn’t affect the win total. So we still lost. But. Somehow we were able to trade a player from a losing team for: the 2nd pick in the draft.

Especially given that Deni wants to win and in the past never reacted well to being buried behind worse players. Sulked. Admits his mindset and frustration got in his own way. Which, his team knows better than anybody.

Recall Deni first broke out when two things happened: Keefe took over. Kuzma got injured. Before that we saw hints in his stats. But without full run of the team he had struggled.

Often depth depresses a players trade value, it smothers their counting stats as well as giving leverage to your trading partners.

Anyway. Facts are facts. The team made a play not for a single year of odds but the cumulative odds of back to back years of tanking. At that point the probabilities stack in our favor. The strategy worked. The only way it doesn’t is if Deni’s career ends up better than AJ’s. Personally I’ll take that gamble.

[nate33]

But to presume that if we’d won more games, that we would have had a higher draft pick, based on how that particular lotto played out, is illogical. And taking that and then talking about how we’d look with Edgecomb is also a leap. And to say that we, “still would have landed AJ” is also a major assumption.

Your point is well taken that maybe the Deni trade isn’t as black and white as a lot of us say it is.

But, I still think the move was a no brainer. It doesn’t matter what we got back for him. We didn’t trade him because we thought we’d get an even return. And honestly, Bub and AD don’t nearly approach a fair return. But, we traded him to tank. And it was the rational thing to do. It bought us more lotto balls for a shot at Flagg, but we wound up with Tre. The following year, we did actually win the lotto and took AJ.

The strategy was sound, and it worked. Statistically, was there some possibility of having as good an outcome if we didn't trade Deni, and got lucky? Sure. But we played the odds in the most statistically favorable way, and we won.

I don't think it's illogical. People just had a hard time actually comprehending the nature of the lottery and how it truly distorts the framework that more losses translate into a higher pick. They just couldn't internalize the math beyond "being bad is good". The reality is that the worst team almost never gets the top pick in the lottery. At the time of the Deni trade, 8 of the last 18 top 3 picks came from teams who were not bottom 3 teams. Ultimately, the cost of finishing with a 5th or 6th worst record rather than a bottom 3 just wasn't as great as the perception. People overrated the value of tanking down to bottom 3 instead of being content with tanking into the 4-6 range.

I looked at the roster in 2024, even with Deni on it, and concluded they couldn't possibly finish better than a bottom 6. I was okay with that. I didn't see very much value in tanking harder than that. I was certainly open to a Deni trade, but I refused to consider the tanking aspect as "value" in a Deni trade. I expected to get a fair return independent of the tanking. And 2 FRP's was not enough. I would have held out for more. Period. That's the logic I applied at the time.

All the retconning of how things could have turned out was not part of my thought process at the time. It was merely justification for why my thought process was indeed the correct one. Obviously, we can't know for sure if we could have dealt Deni for a better return in Summer 2025 (like for Harper), but I think it was likely.

And taking this FO as a whole, we’ve drafted extremely well,have developed players well, have gotten off of bad contracts, and have made shrewd trades that have loaded us with extra draft assets moving forward. We have a team that’s super deep, with young guys that look like they could be all stars and a number one pick that looks like he could be all NBA. Who is going to start, and who is going to close out, and who is going to get minutes, is a constant topic of conversation, because we’ve built such a young, deep roster.

The complaining is crazy. I’d checked out on the team long ago because after the Wall/Beal teams flamed out, and we refused to tank, it looked like we wouldn’t have a chance of being relevant in any kind of reasonable time frame.

And now we are. We are young, deep, talented, have tons of draft assets moving forward, and it’s not crazy to talk about ways that we could mold this roster into a championship team. In my entire life, that hasn’t really been a conversation with this team.

I’m too lazy, but if I could go back and plus 1 every one of Doc’s posts in the past few pages, I would.

We took the path that was just obviously statistically more likely to result in a successful tank and roster reset, and got an outcome that was probably better than we had any right to expect. We have more to be excited about than any time I can remember, and people are complaining about the approach. It’s irrational. Maybe you can take certain moves and say we could have done better. It’s a results oriented process. We had a winning strategy, executed it, and are far better off for all of the losing, and roster dumping of the last 3 years.

I agree that Winger/Dawkins have been good, and I'm not complaining much. But I do think they made a mistake on the Deni trade.

[payitforward]

That leaves the Deni trade -- when you come down to it, that's the only transaction any of the critics relies on. Of course, if we hadn't traded Deni we wouldn't have ... Alex Sarr. Maybe we'd have gotten Rob Dillingham? Or Nikola Topic? Tijduane Salaun? Cody Williams?

Oh, & driven by Deni, our '24-25 record wouldn't have gotten us Tre Johnson in the next draft either: would you rather have Noa Essengue or Carter Bryant instead?

Nor, of course, could we have drafted AJ Dybantsa this year.

Your timing is wrong.

We landed the #2 pick in the 2024 draft while Deni was still on the roster. We traded Deni for the #14 pick AFTER the lottery drawing took place. So we absolutely would have had Deni, Bilal, Sarr and Kyshawn if we never traded Deni.....

Ooops... just noticed this correction -- right you are! Thanks....

In the end, the whole Deni trade comes down to a single incontrovertible fact: if we'd known what Deni would do as a player in '24-5, we would not have traded him when we did. Doh... No one would have.

At the very least we would have waited a year to trade him. That would no doubt have given us a lower '25 pick, but it would have been worth it.

[dckingsfan]

That leaves the Deni trade -- when you come down to it, that's the only transaction any of the critics relies on. Of course, if we hadn't traded Deni we wouldn't have ... Alex Sarr. Maybe we'd have gotten Rob Dillingham? Or Nikola Topic? Tijduane Salaun? Cody Williams?

Oh, & driven by Deni, our '24-25 record wouldn't have gotten us Tre Johnson in the next draft either: would you rather have Noa Essengue or Carter Bryant instead?

Nor, of course, could we have drafted AJ Dybantsa this year.

Your timing is wrong.

We landed the #2 pick in the 2024 draft while Deni was still on the roster. We traded Deni for the #14 pick AFTER the lottery drawing took place. So we absolutely would have had Deni, Bilal, Sarr and Kyshawn if we never traded Deni.....

Ooops... just noticed this correction -- right you are! Thanks....

In the end, the whole Deni trade comes down to a single incontrovertible fact: if we'd known what Deni would do as a player in '24-5, we would not have traded him when we did. Doh... No one would have.

At the very least we would have waited a year to trade him. That would no doubt have given us a lower '25 pick, but it would have been worth it.

To me - it is if we had seen that Deni was breaking out as player in '23-'24.

Anyway denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

[payitforward]

Your timing is wrong.

We landed the #2 pick in the 2024 draft while Deni was still on the roster. We traded Deni for the #14 pick AFTER the lottery drawing took place. So we absolutely would have had Deni, Bilal, Sarr and Kyshawn if we never traded Deni.....

Ooops... just noticed this correction -- right you are! Thanks....

In the end, the whole Deni trade comes down to a single incontrovertible fact: if we'd known what Deni would do as a player in '24-5, we would not have traded him when we did. Doh... No one would have.

At the very least we would have waited a year to trade him. That would no doubt have given us a lower '25 pick, but it would have been worth it.

To me - it is if we had seen that Deni was breaking out as player in '23-'24.

Anyway denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Fair enough, I guess -- tho we likely did see he was breaking out -- we wouldn't gotten the return we did based on his first 2 1/3 seasons.

In the end... would we give back to Portland the value they gave us in order to get Deni back? Of course we would! That suffices to conclude that the trade didn't work out well.

It would be nice if we could find a way to move on from discussing the trade. Definitively, I mean.

[bsilver]

The argument for trading Deni was to tank in 2024-25 season so we don't lose our 2025 pick. By keeping Deni, it was unlikely that we would have finished with the second-to-last record in the league in 2024-25. However, as it turned out, if we finished with a BETTER record, we very well might have ended up with a better pick.

we would have ended up with Colin Murray-Boyles or Cedric Coward instead of Tre Johnson. I'm not sure if that's even a downgrade. And as I've calculated in the past, by applying Deni's +7 on/off differential to his minutes, and applying the Pythagorean Formula, he likely would have delivered 6-8 more wins, which puts us in the #3 pick range.

If we had landed Edgecomb in that draft, my guess is that we would have abandoned the tanking strategy last year and just rolled with Edgecombe, Deni, Kyshawn, Sarr, Riley, and Champagnie.

And we still could have traded Deni then, maybe for Harper.

Imagine that

If we did not land Edgecomb, we probably would have tried to tank in 2025-26. And that would have been the time to trade Deni. He would definitely have been worth more than 2 mediocre FRP's. Tanking would have been easy without Deni,

We still would have landed AJ plus have a better stockpile of picks from the Deni trade.

You’re one of my favorite posters and I almost never disagree with your posts, because they are usually so rational.
…
But to presume that if we’d won more games, that we would have had a higher draft pick, based on how that particular lotto played out, is illogical.
…

But, I still think the move was a no brainer. It doesn’t matter what we got back for him. We didn’t trade him because we thought we’d get an even return. And honestly, Bub and AD don’t nearly approach a fair return. But, we traded him to tank. And it was the rational thing to do. It bought us more lotto balls for a shot at Flagg, but we wound up with Tre. The following year, we did actually win the lotto and took AJ.

The strategy was sound, and it worked. Statistically, was there some possibility of having as good an outcome if we didn't trade Deni, and got lucky? Sure. But we played the odds in the most statistically favorable way, and we won.

…
I’m too lazy, but if I could go back and plus 1 every one of Doc’s posts in the past few pages, I would.

We took the path that was just obviously statistically more likely to result in a successful tank and roster reset, and got an outcome that was probably better than we had any right to expect. We have more to be excited about than any time I can remember, and people are complaining about the approach. It’s irrational. Maybe you can take certain moves and say we could have done better. It’s a results oriented process. We had a winning strategy, executed it, and are far better off for all of the losing, and roster dumping of the last 3 years.

Right. You cant base arguments on ‘if’ and ‘imagine’ and then act as if that were reality. Especially in retrospect. We live in the future. The trade was made in the past. They decided to use the math in their favor. With back to back years of franchise players coming up. Against a non zero chance they lost the pick one of those years.

They trust their scouting. Trust their player development scheme. Missing out on either year of draft picks sets their strategy back by one possible star, who ends up going to competition in the Eastern Conference.

The math changes with any small variation. The fact is with a full tank strategy, a one game difference meant we slipped to six. But at least we were assured top six.

We earned that top 6 on the strength of heavy minutes by Kuzma, our year after year +/- loser. Any Deni minutes in substitution of Kuzma more than doubles the wins in that metric. In fact when you look at two-man line ups the only player that Kuzma managed a winning +/- with was Deni.

If I know this, guaranteed their analytics department knew this. Hell we had Dr Dean Oliver on the staff at the time.

The following year, despite desperate tanking by 1/4 of the teams in the league we did manage to secure the best odds. Guaranteeing a top 5 pick. In a 4 player draft. Or possibly 3 player. Or 2. We lucked out and won a franchise guy.

You can’t say ‘well if we had Deni we might have gotten (the player landed with the 7th best odds)’ and then the next year say ‘We still would’ve won AJ’. No. If you’re playing by those fictional rules we would have had a different win total.

No fair assuming we somehow kept Deni. And. Buried him behind Kuzma. And. Developed him so he broke out. But. He didn’t affect the win total. So we still lost. But. Somehow we were able to trade a player from a losing team for: the 2nd pick in the draft.

Especially given that Deni wants to win and in the past never reacted well to being buried behind worse players. Sulked. Admits his mindset and frustration got in his own way. Which, his team knows better than anybody.

Recall Deni first broke out when two things happened: Keefe took over. Kuzma got injured. Before that we saw hints in his stats. But without full run of the team he had struggled.

Often depth depresses a players trade value, it smothers their counting stats as well as giving leverage to your trading partners.

Anyway. Facts are facts. The team made a play not for a single year of odds but the cumulative odds of back to back years of tanking. At that point the probabilities stack in our favor. The strategy worked. The only way it doesn’t is if Deni’s career ends up better than AJ’s. Personally I’ll take that gamble.

"Anyway. Facts are facts. The team made a play not for a single year of odds but the cumulative odds of back to back years of tanking. At that point the probabilities stack in our favor. The strategy worked. The only way it doesn’t is if Deni’s career ends up better than AJ’s. Personally I’ll take that gamble."

Facts maybe facts, but odds are definitely odds.
Odds of getting #1 are 14.3% If 2 drafts, then 26.5%. If 3 drafts, then 37%. If 4 drafts, then 46%.
You need to go 5 drafts to even have a 50% chance of getting a #1 pick.
Then, there's a chance of a weak draft or making a bad choice. I seem to remember Risacher was your #1 pick in the 2024 draft.
So, if you can have an all-star now of Deni's caliber vs the less 50% chance you'd have a better player in 5 years, would you make that gamble?

[dckingsfan]

Ooops... just noticed this correction -- right you are! Thanks....

In the end, the whole Deni trade comes down to a single incontrovertible fact: if we'd known what Deni would do as a player in '24-5, we would not have traded him when we did. Doh... No one would have.

At the very least we would have waited a year to trade him. That would no doubt have given us a lower '25 pick, but it would have been worth it.

To me - it is if we had seen that Deni was breaking out as player in '23-'24.

Anyway denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Fair enough, I guess -- tho we likely did see he was breaking out -- we wouldn't gotten the return we did based on his first 2 1/3 seasons.

In the end... would we give back to Portland the value they gave us in order to get Deni back? Of course we would! That suffices to conclude that the trade didn't work out well.

It would be nice if we could find a way to move on from discussing the trade. Definitively, I mean.

Yeah, maybe some are still in the various stages? Might be quite some time until everyone can move on. And this is part of the notion of "what would you do as a real GM?"

From Deni's point of view - if he wasn't in Portland, he isn't in a car crash. Funny how changes ripple through everything.

If Deni is still on the team - we probably don't need Trae? Or we trade Deni for another of the very nice '26 picks

[anselmheifer76]

But to presume that if we’d won more games, that we would have had a higher draft pick, based on how that particular lotto played out, is illogical. And taking that and then talking about how we’d look with Edgecomb is also a leap. And to say that we, “still would have landed AJ” is also a major assumption.

Your point is well taken that maybe the Deni trade isn’t as black and white as a lot of us say it is.

But, I still think the move was a no brainer. It doesn’t matter what we got back for him. We didn’t trade him because we thought we’d get an even return. And honestly, Bub and AD don’t nearly approach a fair return. But, we traded him to tank. And it was the rational thing to do. It bought us more lotto balls for a shot at Flagg, but we wound up with Tre. The following year, we did actually win the lotto and took AJ.

The strategy was sound, and it worked. Statistically, was there some possibility of having as good an outcome if we didn't trade Deni, and got lucky? Sure. But we played the odds in the most statistically favorable way, and we won.

I don't think it's illogical. People just had a hard time actually comprehending the nature of the lottery and how it truly distorts the framework that more losses translate into a higher pick. They just couldn't internalize the math beyond "being bad is good". The reality is that the worst team almost never gets the top pick in the lottery. At the time of the Deni trade, 8 of the last 18 top 3 picks came from teams who were not bottom 3 teams. Ultimately, the cost of finishing with a 5th or 6th worst record rather than a bottom 3 just wasn't as great as the perception. People overrated the value of tanking down to bottom 3 instead of being content with tanking into the 4-6 range.

I looked at the roster in 2024, even with Deni on it, and concluded they couldn't possibly finish better than a bottom 6. I was okay with that. I didn't see very much value in tanking harder than that. I was certainly open to a Deni trade, but I refused to consider the tanking aspect as "value" in a Deni trade. I expected to get a fair return independent of the tanking. And 2 FRP's was not enough. I would have held out for more. Period. That's the logic I applied at the time.

All the retconning of how things could have turned out was not part of my thought process at the time. It was merely justification for why my thought process was indeed the correct one. Obviously, we can't know for sure if we could have dealt Deni for a better return in Summer 2025 (like for Harper), but I think it was likely.

And taking this FO as a whole, we’ve drafted extremely well,have developed players well, have gotten off of bad contracts, and have made shrewd trades that have loaded us with extra draft assets moving forward. We have a team that’s super deep, with young guys that look like they could be all stars and a number one pick that looks like he could be all NBA. Who is going to start, and who is going to close out, and who is going to get minutes, is a constant topic of conversation, because we’ve built such a young, deep roster.

The complaining is crazy. I’d checked out on the team long ago because after the Wall/Beal teams flamed out, and we refused to tank, it looked like we wouldn’t have a chance of being relevant in any kind of reasonable time frame.

And now we are. We are young, deep, talented, have tons of draft assets moving forward, and it’s not crazy to talk about ways that we could mold this roster into a championship team. In my entire life, that hasn’t really been a conversation with this team.

I’m too lazy, but if I could go back and plus 1 every one of Doc’s posts in the past few pages, I would.

We took the path that was just obviously statistically more likely to result in a successful tank and roster reset, and got an outcome that was probably better than we had any right to expect. We have more to be excited about than any time I can remember, and people are complaining about the approach. It’s irrational. Maybe you can take certain moves and say we could have done better. It’s a results oriented process. We had a winning strategy, executed it, and are far better off for all of the losing, and roster dumping of the last 3 years.

I agree that Winger/Dawkins have been good, and I'm not complaining much. But I do think they made a mistake on the Deni trade.

Finishing with a worse record though does increase your statistical likelihood of winning the lotto. And this actually did come to fruition because we won the 1st overall pick.

But that’s not the only thing that finishing with a worse record does. Perhaps just as importantly, it limits how far you can fall. We literally could have lost our 2026 pick entirely if we were too good.

I don’t know, saying that we still would have gotten AJ just seems silly, since it was already unlikely and it would have been an entirely different roll of the dice. Even if all it did was force a different roll, there’s an 86% chance that your AJ statement isn’t true. Minimum.

I’m not taking those odds.

[doclinkin]

"Anyway. Facts are facts. The team made a play not for a single year of odds but the cumulative odds of back to back years of tanking. At that point the probabilities stack in our favor. The strategy worked. The only way it doesn’t is if Deni’s career ends up better than AJ’s. Personally I’ll take that gamble."

Facts maybe facts, but odds are definitely odds.
Odds of getting #1 are 14.3% If 2 drafts, then 26.5%. If 3 drafts, then 37%. If 4 drafts, then 46%.
You need to go 5 drafts to even have a 50% chance of getting a #1 pick.
Then, there's a chance of a weak draft or making a bad choice. I seem to remember Risacher was your #1 pick in the 2024 draft.
So, if you can have an all-star now of Deni's caliber vs the less 50% chance you'd have a better player in 5 years, would you make that gamble?

Wrong on Risacher. I liked him early then cooled on him as he played poorly. By draft night I wanted a trade down for Castle + Edey, but failing that I would’ve taken Castle.

Wrong also on the odds. There was a sure franchise player in Flagg, but Ace and Harper had been on everyone’s radar for a while.

Likewise in this draft AJ and Boozer were 2 big names people had been tracking since their freshman year, plus a late comer in DP.

In these two drafts your odds of getting a franchise guy was well better than 50/50 after 2 years. If the scouts were right. So far our scouts have been pretty solid in picking winners.

And sure, you’d rather have Deni than Ace Bailey, looks like. But Nate is talking about how he would’ve traded Deni for Harper. Pretty sure that’s also true of DP maybe Boozer.

Thing is. We didn’t have to. We struck out on year one and fell back as far as probability allowed. Then we hit on the 2nd one. The math worked. We probably would have been as happy to hit #2 both years. Or any combination of top 3 picks both years.

We would not have been as happy to only catch a top 7-9 pick of whatever position but miss out on AJ entirely by trying the gamble that Indy did in thinking they could tank hard enough that the odds might reward them.

The front office committed to the strategy and it worked. Period. They didn’t halfass it. You never know how many teams would be tanking. Whose star would blow out their knee. They took no chances, or rather did not allow New York to take our chances.

Hell we had to sit Justin Fn Champagnie. Committed the roster to zero rebounding. Somehow we would sit Deni for 2 years and he’d never sulk or whine about it? He’d break out by magic without being given the featuring star role that Billups and Splitter gave him?

We drafted Kyshawn in the same role as Deni, the same draft we lost him. That kid already shows earlier signs of being a more complete player. In large part because he was given all of Deni’s minutes. We replaced the kid instantly. If we kept Deni there’s a solid chance neither develops in good time, since they’re warring with each other for minutes. Which does not improve Deni’s trade value.

Since then those two 2nd round picks turned into Anthony Freakin Davis. And yet to come: We still have another 1RP in a new lotto environment, in the hands of a front office that has found us absolute gems outside the lotto.

Deni is fine. A nice player. He’s not a franchise guy. We needed as many chances at getting a franchise guy as we could get in these drafts. Looks like we got one. The front office played the game the right way. Crazy to me that people are still talking about sour grapes when we are all ready to sip the sweet sweet wine instead.

Be happy wiz fans. Yeah we lost a good player. But the gamble paid off. It’s weird at this point to still ache for that kid. I don’t rightly get it. Smh.

[payitforward]

Nate estimates that if we'd kept Deni, we'd have won 7 more games in '24-25. Now, given that Portland went from 21 wins the previous year to 36 wins that year, with Deni being the only significant addition, I'd say he was worth more than 7 of those 15 extra wins.

But, even sticking with nate's calculus, you'd have to conclude that we'd have won 25 games or more in '24-25 -- w/ Deni on the team. Hence, in the '25 draft, sitting more or less in the spot Brooklyn wound up occupying, let's say we'd have taken Egor Demin.

Portland won 42 games in '25-26. So... would we have jumped that much? Nah, but it doesn't matter. anything over 26 wins & goodbye our '26 Round 1 pick.

The Knicks, not the Wizards, would be looking at Anicet Dybantsa as their prized rookie.

Guess what? Winger & Dawkins were NOT taking chances on that happening.
Which is why we were willing to trade Deni Avdija for two R1 picks, 2 R2 picks & a player.

Oh, & didn't Doc make the point that we turned the pair of R2 picks into Anthony Davis? So... let's see... we'd have Deni Avdija & Egor Demin -- & we'd also have whomever we took w/ our '26 R2 pick (somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s: say Baba Miller or Otega Oweh??)-- but we wouldn't have AJ Dybantsa, we wouldn't have Tre Johnson, we wouldn't have Bub Carrington, & we wouldn't have Anthony Davis.

Now... if you're thinking about argueing w/ this, don't. You can dream any unlikely scenario you want, but the truth is simple: keep Deni & lose everything we got b/c we traded him.

[nate33]

Nate estimates that if we'd kept Deni, we'd have won 7 more games in '24-25. Now, given that Portland went from 21 wins the previous year to 36 wins that year, with Deni being the only significant addition, I'd say he was worth more than 7 of those 15 extra wins.

But, even sticking with nate's calculus, you'd have to conclude that we'd have won 25 games or more in '24-25 -- w/ Deni on the team. Hence, in the '25 draft, sitting more or less in the spot Brooklyn wound up occupying, let's say we'd have taken Egor Demin.

Portland won 42 games in '25-26. So... would we have jumped that much? Nah, let's say instead that we'd have wound up with... I don't know... say 35 wins. Goodbye our '26 Round 1 pick. The Knicks, not the Wizards, would be looking at Anicet Dybantsa as their prized rookie.

Guess what? Winger & Dawkins were NOt taking chances on that happening.
Which is why we were willing to trade Deni Avdija for two R1 picks, 2 R2 picks & a player.

Oh, & didn't Doc make the point that we turned the pair of R2 picks into Anthony Davis? So... let's see... we'd have Deni Avdija & Egor Demin -- & we'd also have whomever we took w/ our '26 R2 pick (somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s)-- but we wouldn't have AJ Dybantsa, we wouldn't have Tre Johnson, we wouldn't have Bub Carrington, & we wouldn't have Anthony Davis.

Now... if you're thinking about argueing w/ this, don't. You can dream any unlikely scenario you want, but the truth is simple: keep Deni & lose everything we got b/c we traded him.

7 more wins would’ve made us the 5th-to-last team. In that lottery, the 5th-to-last team was Philadelphia, and they ended up with the #3 pick, VJ Edgecombe.

[payitforward]

Let me make it simpler -- instead of AJ Dybantsa, Tre Johnson, Anthony Davis, & Bub Carrington, we'd have Deni Avdija, Egor Demin, & Baba Miller.

Happy? Got a better '26/R2 candidate than Baba Miller? Sure, make it whoever you liked best around #40 in the '26 draft.

[payitforward]

Nate estimates that if we'd kept Deni, we'd have won 7 more games in '24-25. Now, given that Portland went from 21 wins the previous year to 36 wins that year, with Deni being the only significant addition, I'd say he was worth more than 7 of those 15 extra wins.

But, even sticking with nate's calculus, you'd have to conclude that we'd have won 25 games or more in '24-25 -- w/ Deni on the team. Hence, in the '25 draft, sitting more or less in the spot Brooklyn wound up occupying, let's say we'd have taken Egor Demin.

Portland won 42 games in '25-26. So... would we have jumped that much? Nah, let's say instead that we'd have wound up with... I don't know... say 35 wins. Goodbye our '26 Round 1 pick. The Knicks, not the Wizards, would be looking at Anicet Dybantsa as their prized rookie.

Guess what? Winger & Dawkins were NOt taking chances on that happening.
Which is why we were willing to trade Deni Avdija for two R1 picks, 2 R2 picks & a player.

Oh, & didn't Doc make the point that we turned the pair of R2 picks into Anthony Davis? So... let's see... we'd have Deni Avdija & Egor Demin -- & we'd also have whomever we took w/ our '26 R2 pick (somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s)-- but we wouldn't have AJ Dybantsa, we wouldn't have Tre Johnson, we wouldn't have Bub Carrington, & we wouldn't have Anthony Davis.

Now... if you're thinking about argueing w/ this, don't. You can dream any unlikely scenario you want, but the truth is simple: keep Deni & lose everything we got b/c we traded him.

7 more wins would’ve made us the 5th-to-last team. In that lottery, the 5th-to-last team was Philadelphia, and they ended up with the #3 pick, VJ Edgecombe.

Irrelevant, as you know perfectly well. We weren't calculating odds in the '25 draft. We were strategizing for the '26 draft. We were NOT going to take a chance on losing our '26 R1 pick.

But, even using your hopeful retort: would you trade Dybantsa, Johnson, AD, & the R1 pick still coming to us in return for Edgecombe, the #39 pick in the '26 draft & maintaining the R2 pick we still owe the Knicks? &, above all, are you skeptical that these were the variables which figured into the thinking of our FO in trading Deni?

None of this affects the fact that Deni is an absolutely outstanding NBA player, & any team would be thrilled to have him. It was a lot to give up.

But, this is the long game we were playing all the same.

[dckingsfan]

Nate estimates that if we'd kept Deni, we'd have won 7 more games in '24-25. Now, given that Portland went from 21 wins the previous year to 36 wins that year, with Deni being the only significant addition, I'd say he was worth more than 7 of those 15 extra wins.

But, even sticking with nate's calculus, you'd have to conclude that we'd have won 25 games or more in '24-25 -- w/ Deni on the team. Hence, in the '25 draft, sitting more or less in the spot Brooklyn wound up occupying, let's say we'd have taken Egor Demin.

Portland won 42 games in '25-26. So... would we have jumped that much? Nah, let's say instead that we'd have wound up with... I don't know... say 35 wins. Goodbye our '26 Round 1 pick. The Knicks, not the Wizards, would be looking at Anicet Dybantsa as their prized rookie.

Guess what? Winger & Dawkins were NOt taking chances on that happening.
Which is why we were willing to trade Deni Avdija for two R1 picks, 2 R2 picks & a player.

Oh, & didn't Doc make the point that we turned the pair of R2 picks into Anthony Davis? So... let's see... we'd have Deni Avdija & Egor Demin -- & we'd also have whomever we took w/ our '26 R2 pick (somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s)-- but we wouldn't have AJ Dybantsa, we wouldn't have Tre Johnson, we wouldn't have Bub Carrington, & we wouldn't have Anthony Davis.

Now... if you're thinking about argueing w/ this, don't. You can dream any unlikely scenario you want, but the truth is simple: keep Deni & lose everything we got b/c we traded him.

7 more wins would’ve made us the 5th-to-last team. In that lottery, the 5th-to-last team was Philadelphia, and they ended up with the #3 pick, VJ Edgecombe.

Irrelevant, as you know perfectly well. We weren't calculating odds in the '25 draft. We were strategizing for the '26 draft. We were NOT going to take a chance on losing our '26 R1 pick.

But, even using your hopeful retort: would you trade Dybantsa, Johnson, AD, & the R1 pick still coming to us in return for Edgecombe, the #39 pick in the '26 draft & maintaining the R2 pick we still owe the Knicks? &, above all, are you skeptical that these were the variables which figured into the thinking of our FO in trading Deni?

None of this affects the fact that Deni is an absolutely outstanding NBA player, & any team would be thrilled to have him. It was a lot to give up.

But, this is the long game we were playing all the same.

Trae and AD are not the long game, IMO.

[anselmheifer76]

Nate estimates that if we'd kept Deni, we'd have won 7 more games in '24-25. Now, given that Portland went from 21 wins the previous year to 36 wins that year, with Deni being the only significant addition, I'd say he was worth more than 7 of those 15 extra wins.

But, even sticking with nate's calculus, you'd have to conclude that we'd have won 25 games or more in '24-25 -- w/ Deni on the team. Hence, in the '25 draft, sitting more or less in the spot Brooklyn wound up occupying, let's say we'd have taken Egor Demin.

Portland won 42 games in '25-26. So... would we have jumped that much? Nah, let's say instead that we'd have wound up with... I don't know... say 35 wins. Goodbye our '26 Round 1 pick. The Knicks, not the Wizards, would be looking at Anicet Dybantsa as their prized rookie.

Guess what? Winger & Dawkins were NOt taking chances on that happening.
Which is why we were willing to trade Deni Avdija for two R1 picks, 2 R2 picks & a player.

Oh, & didn't Doc make the point that we turned the pair of R2 picks into Anthony Davis? So... let's see... we'd have Deni Avdija & Egor Demin -- & we'd also have whomever we took w/ our '26 R2 pick (somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s)-- but we wouldn't have AJ Dybantsa, we wouldn't have Tre Johnson, we wouldn't have Bub Carrington, & we wouldn't have Anthony Davis.

Now... if you're thinking about argueing w/ this, don't. You can dream any unlikely scenario you want, but the truth is simple: keep Deni & lose everything we got b/c we traded him.

7 more wins would’ve made us the 5th-to-last team. In that lottery, the 5th-to-last team was Philadelphia, and they ended up with the #3 pick, VJ Edgecombe.

That doesn’t mean WE would have moved up. We might have moved down.

This is all silly.

We COULD have kept Deni and then won the lotto and taken Flagg one year and then AJ the next. Somehow. Maybe. Wouldn’t that be great? To have Deni and Flagg and AJ?

You keep talking about scenarios that are not statistically likely.

We tore down the team because it was the path that was most statistically likely to give us the most successful rebuild. And we lost a good player. And that’s part of rebuilding.

And the plan worked. Nate, didn’t you just post in another thread that our best starting lineup might be one without AJ on the floor? Think about that. We just lucked into the number 1 overall pick. A guy that scored the 3rd most points of any freshman in NCAA history, that is super sized for position, and has elite, elite athleticism. And our team is now deep and talented enough that you think that maybe our best starting lineup doesn’t feature him?

The plan worked. Period. Before the Deni decision, and after. And regardless of what COULD have happened, it was less likely to happen if we didn’t dump Deni and go all in on the tank.

[anselmheifer76]

7 more wins would’ve made us the 5th-to-last team. In that lottery, the 5th-to-last team was Philadelphia, and they ended up with the #3 pick, VJ Edgecombe.

Irrelevant, as you know perfectly well. We weren't calculating odds in the '25 draft. We were strategizing for the '26 draft. We were NOT going to take a chance on losing our '26 R1 pick.

But, even using your hopeful retort: would you trade Dybantsa, Johnson, AD, & the R1 pick still coming to us in return for Edgecombe, the #39 pick in the '26 draft & maintaining the R2 pick we still owe the Knicks? &, above all, are you skeptical that these were the variables which figured into the thinking of our FO in trading Deni?

None of this affects the fact that Deni is an absolutely outstanding NBA player, & any team would be thrilled to have him. It was a lot to give up.

But, this is the long game we were playing all the same.

Trae and AD are not the long game, IMO.

Trae is signed for 4 years and is here to help our young core develop.

We are flipping AD for long term assets. There’s just no way that isn’t going to happen. And if I’m wrong, and we extend him, I’ll own it and change my opinion of the FO.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Nate estimates that if we'd kept Deni, we'd have won 7 more games in '24-25. Now, given that Portland went from 21 wins the previous year to 36 wins that year, with Deni being the only significant addition, I'd say he was worth more than 7 of those 15 extra wins.

But, even sticking with nate's calculus, you'd have to conclude that we'd have won 25 games or more in '24-25 -- w/ Deni on the team. Hence, in the '25 draft, sitting more or less in the spot Brooklyn wound up occupying, let's say we'd have taken Egor Demin.

Portland won 42 games in '25-26. So... would we have jumped that much? Nah, let's say instead that we'd have wound up with... I don't know... say 35 wins. Goodbye our '26 Round 1 pick. The Knicks, not the Wizards, would be looking at Anicet Dybantsa as their prized rookie.

Guess what? Winger & Dawkins were NOt taking chances on that happening.
Which is why we were willing to trade Deni Avdija for two R1 picks, 2 R2 picks & a player.

Oh, & didn't Doc make the point that we turned the pair of R2 picks into Anthony Davis? So... let's see... we'd have Deni Avdija & Egor Demin -- & we'd also have whomever we took w/ our '26 R2 pick (somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s)-- but we wouldn't have AJ Dybantsa, we wouldn't have Tre Johnson, we wouldn't have Bub Carrington, & we wouldn't have Anthony Davis.

Now... if you're thinking about argueing w/ this, don't. You can dream any unlikely scenario you want, but the truth is simple: keep Deni & lose everything we got b/c we traded him.

7 more wins would’ve made us the 5th-to-last team. In that lottery, the 5th-to-last team was Philadelphia, and they ended up with the #3 pick, VJ Edgecombe.

Irrelevant, as you know perfectly well. We weren't calculating odds in the '25 draft. We were strategizing for the '26 draft. We were NOT going to take a chance on losing our '26 R1 pick.

But, even using your hopeful retort: would you trade Dybantsa, Johnson, AD, & the R1 pick still coming to us in return for Edgecombe, the #39 pick in the '26 draft & maintaining the R2 pick we still owe the Knicks? &, above all, are you skeptical that these were the variables which figured into the thinking of our FO in trading Deni?

None of this affects the fact that Deni is an absolutely outstanding NBA player, & any team would be thrilled to have him. It was a lot to give up.

But, this is the long game we were playing all the same.

It is in no way, "irrelevant." The mistake the front office made from the get go is that they didn't understand the odds, not well enough. As nate pointed to, this has turned into some simplistic exercise in how to view the odds, zero nuance just this lazy "greater odds" argument that completely discounts the value of a Deni. No one is debating losing more games means getting slightly better odds, what some are debating is how much are you willing to give up for those slightly better odds, that recent history shows, said odds haven't born a lot of fruit given that the lottery odds have been relatively flattened for some time now.

This secondary argument about how many more wins POR has had with Deni is, however, irrelevant. That team, was and is, trying to do something different from what the Wizards front office is. Whether that's the right thing or not is also irrelevant and has nothing to do with the value of Deni as a player as some have tried to do. It still shocks me, that in one hand the vast majority of the board are willing to crown the front office as savants, but at the same time are seemingly willing to admit that they didn't trust them to tank well enough so Deni's caliber couldn't be undercut by a really terrible team (and if they did believe that, why did they trade him for a garbage return, with the crown jewel of said garbage trade being a fringe lottery pick in one of the weakest drafts in memory). Again this team has been terrible, comparing it's roster to even what POR has had or currently has (this isn't a future assessment but a what has happened since the trade assessment) is silly, they've had a clearly better roster. Great roster, no, I'm certainly not claiming that, but better rosters at those points in time, abso-freaking-lutely. It's not surprising with an swiss army knife player like Deni brought the best of all that together, again on a team trying to win.

Deni, or anyone else wasn't going to make a huge difference here, the team was already purposefully stacking the deck to not let that happen. I know some like to point to some big wins this team had last season or how seemingly they were close in others that really could have impacted the W/L record with a Deni on the team, but that neglects to take into account that the Wizards were a joke team, that was going to always slide some Ws in on teams (3-pt variance evens out the field).

Fact is front office got cute, arrogant, and insecure (didn't want the best player on the roster to be from the other guys), and simply blew it. That said, I think all this side talk about the front office jettisoning Deni to better the tank has always been a distraction and a disingenuous cop out to justify a gigantic whiff. It was what evolved from the cope, was never the original narrative until Deni shrugged off getting traded to another team and balled out.

[doclinkin]

If you like AJ over Deni, then the front office understood the odds exactly right. The rest is speculative fiction. Alternate reality.

Feel free to think the Wiz did it all by accident. But seems pretty clear to wiz fans that we have a brighter future than the Deni Beal Kuzma Porzingis team they inherited. The ownership is developing a good reputation league wide. Certainly better than Deni fans’ adopted Trailglazers and their new penny pinching ownership.

As the Wiz improve, at some point the most bitter of Deni fans may only find sanctuary in hoping for Wizards losses. I have serious doubts the Glazers can make it work with three point guards and taking the ball out of Avdijas hands. Unconvinced he repeats as an Allstar under a new coach and lower usage.

Personally I’m happy cheering for Kyshawn George in the same role. With better 3 pt shooting. And no whining to referees. I blame Beal for modeling that behavior to Deni. Glad he seems to have grown out of it. But Key never bitched in these tank seasons. Just found a way to grow his game and fix his weaknesses.

Frankly I was happy with only one thing with the Deni trade at first: we lost a number of ‘fans’ whose only interest seemed to be to blame everyone else for Deni’s struggles. Mostly those single player fans moved on with their boy. Seems to me that even those with dual loyalties who disliked the trade are at least coming around to the idea that the front office has made it work. That the team is building something good. They’re ready to enjoy the games again.

It’s only a couple left who still stick around despite their sour feelings. The rest of Wizfandom seems pretty fired up about the direction of this team and our personnel from the last guy on the bench all the way up to Winger and Dawkins.

Though people still harbor distrust of Teddy and his boy for trying to pull a fast one and slide to Virginia.

[DCZards]

And the plan worked. Nate, didn’t you just post in another thread that our best starting lineup might be one without AJ on the floor? Think about that. We just lucked into the number 1 overall pick. A guy that scored the 3rd most points of any freshman in NCAA history, that is super sized for position, and has elite, elite athleticism. And our team is now deep and talented enough that you think that maybe our best starting lineup doesn’t feature him?

That really is the amazing part, isn't it? In a few short years, the Zards have gone from a series of rosters that were lucky to win 35 games to what is widely considered one of the best young cores in the association, bolstered by a veteran and NBA champ who is one of the best bigs in the game--on both ends of the court--and a PG who has consistently been among the top playmakers and passers in the NBA.

That's the Zards current situation...all of the woulda, coulda, shoulda in this thread is just noise at this point.

[dobrojim]

It took them a couple of years to make it so but I think things are looking better than they have in loooong time.

Rome wasn't built in a day.