closg00 wrote:I'd have no problem trading Seraphin, simply because I don't think he'll be a contributor during his rookie contract...mainly because of lack of playing-time. We could swap him out for somebody more game-ready like Sullinger and be ahead of the game. Seraphin trade-value I suspect would be very low. (High 2nd rounder....maybe)
I can definitely see Seraphin being traded at some point, but you're misrepresenting the fundamentals to create an overly pessimistic picture. Sure, if we aggressively tried to trade him at this exact moment his value might be low as teams would assume the only reason for that position is that he's an absolute disaster of a person, but there's no reason to be pessimistic as to his trade value in general.
So why wouldn't Seraphin get playing time over the course of a four year rookie contract? To me, he's an exceptionally instinctive dirty work player who's shown huge improvements already; from the guy who came in for the Boston and Toronto games early in the season with a comic propensity for mistakes to where he's at now illustrates a very impressive learning curve for a guy who's been playing for six years or whatever. He's still mistake prone, but he naturally comprehends the blue collar aspects of the game and enjoys doing them, so I wouldn't be surprised if he worked his way at least partially into the rotation in a month or two and then had the backup-center slot locked up by next year. It's probably a fluke and almost surely won't last, but he was just the first big off the bench in Philly.
However, there is the other side of it and this is the actual reason why he could eventually be traded: he doesn't project as a starter because of limitations with his measurables/ceiling as an undersized center. He's got a great trunk, nice mobility and long arms, but he probably caps out as a 20-24 minute guy on a good team. So basically, Seraphin isn't anything like a high ceiling/low floor long-term project – he's not far from being a rotation quality player and will almost inevitably earn playing time by at least next year (unless we draft Kanter or something similar), but he might not go far beyond that unless he miraculously acquires forward skills.
As a general rule, teams at the start of a rebuild don't/shouldn't stick with rotation players they drafted for the long haul as they have better value as trade chips (i.e. trade decent prospects before they plateau). The Blazers are a cautionary tale there; aside from the injury bug, Pritchard generally drafted well but then never cashed in his chips as he envisioned all his mid/late picks being long term backups on a championship team. There's just precious little precedent for that ever working when compared with successful consolidation trades pushing teams over the top.
On the other hand, Seraphin's a center, so that's different and pushes it into something around the 50-50 range in the keep-deal debate because even rotation centers are a damn tough get on the open market (and McGee isn't a 36 minute center anyway). But for that very reason, I fully expect that Kevin's trade value will increase quite a bit with the minutes he's going to earn: a cheap and productive rotation center is the exact antidote for a lot of teams problems, both financial and basketball oriented.
