Pistons win tie-breaker, will likely pick 7th

[Pharaoh]

Of course, all of us would want to trade those picks for any of these firsts. Under the new CBA, first-rounders are only guaranteed for two years but they're protected for 4 years with team options in the last two before RFA sets in. Late first rounders are also guaranteed VERY little money--starting at $1-2m per year, going up to $3-4m in the fourth year. So the 'guaranteed money' you have to set aside for a #30 pick is a hair over $2m. No one's sweating that. Under the new CBA, first-rounders are far and away, no questions asked the best type of contract structure to have. These type of picks are more valuable than ever and absolutely no GM in their right mind wants to dump them nowadays.

There have also been many impact players drafted 20-30 the last four or so years and GMs don't think of them as throwaways. Kenneth Faried, Greivis Vasquez, Taj Gibson, Jimmy Butler, Darren Collison, etc are all making big contributions to their teams while still playing on cheap cheap rookie deals. Plus first year guys like Donatas Motiejunas and Evan Fournier who are already contributing and will be making near league minimum salaries while being key rotation guys for the next 4 years. The late first rounder is valuable.

Chicago and Denver are extremely close to the luxury tax and if they go over it the guaranteed money they pay these rookies is doubled...

do you want to guarantee a late first round pick double his money? I don't think Denver or Chicago would

[Han Solo]

I want either Burke/Shabazz at7 and I'm hoping Dumars trades up into late 1st to grab Allen Crabbe.

Crabbe will be a starting-caliber player at the very least in my opinion. That kid can play.

[Piston Pete]

If we draft Shabazz at 7 and trade back into the 1st, we'll need to take a SF.

If we draft Burke at 7 and trade back into the 1st, we could look at a SG or SF -- likely still a SF since the FA class of SFs is weak. By doing this, we turn our attention to SGs in free agency. That, or we look to trade Knight for a wing - probably the better play.

[Han Solo]

If we draft Shabazz at 7 and trade back into the 1st, we'll need to take a SF.

If we draft Burke at 7 and trade back into the 1st, we could look at a SG or SF -- likely still a SF since the FA class of SFs is weak. By doing this, we turn our attention to SGs in free agency. That, or we look to trade Knight for a wing - probably the better play.

If we could somehow get another pick in the 8-12 range for Knight - I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[Pharaoh]

I wouldn't be looking to Draft a SF late in the first round.

We have Middleton and Singler on the books - could a late first rounder in this Draft beat either of them out for a spot in the rotation?

Corey Brewer and Dorell Wright are free agents we should look at too

I'm all for acquiring a late first... but I'd go BPA regardless of need

[HotelVitale]

Chicago and Denver are extremely close to the luxury tax and if they go over it the guaranteed money they pay these rookies is doubled...
do you want to guarantee a late first round pick double his money? I don't think Denver or Chicago would

So many better ways to cut $1m than dealing a late first. Bulls can decline Rip's option, which they will, and be a few million under the cap, more than twice enough to cover the #20 pick's salary (which is $1.3m). Denver has a bunch of options to get $1.1m under the cap--Iguodala probably declines his option and resigns for less than $15m per year unless he walks altogether, or else they simply decline Julyan Stone or Anthony Randolph.

There are players projected to be available at #20 like Jeff Withey, Gorgui Dieng, Dario Saric that should be contributors real soon. You really want guys like that locked up at $1m per year.

Edit: here are the last two trades made by teams trying to get into the post lotto range. You'll notice the price is much higher than a 38 and 56 pick:
--"The Cleveland Cavaliers acquired Kelenna Azubuike and the draft rights to 17th pick Tyler Zeller from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for the draft rights to 24th pick Jared Cunningham, 33rd pick Bernard James and 34th pick Jae Crowder.
--The Philadelphia 76ers acquired the draft rights to 27th pick Arnett Moultrie from the Miami Heat in exchange for the draft rights to 45th pick Justin Hamilton and a future first-round draft pick."

[Piston Pete]

The SF guys I mentioned drafting in the mid-to-late 1st were all high ceiling guys who may not give us much immediate help.

Saric is 18/19 years old and has a TON of potential. Could be the steal of the draft 5 years from now
Giannis is also 18/19 years old and has great potential but is much more raw than Saric.
Karasev might have the lowest ceiling of the three, but his floor is higher than Giannis'

[HotelVitale]

Pete, do you have tape on the Euro guys aside from what draft express has? Love to see more.

[Piston Pete]

Pete, do you have tape on the Euro guys aside from what draft express has? Love to see more.

Can find the most on Saric as he's been dominating European youth (U16, U18, U19) tournaments for years. He's a supreme talent who's being seriously under-rated, IMO.

Giannis is fairly new to basketball, so he's still pretty raw. He plays in a lower-competition Greek league, so there's not much footage of him, at least not that I could find. Great size and athletic ability. Rw, but has tons of "potential"

Karasev is basically just a good all-around player with a nice shot with range.

[Pharaoh]

Chicago and Denver are extremely close to the luxury tax and if they go over it the guaranteed money they pay these rookies is doubled...
do you want to guarantee a late first round pick double his money? I don't think Denver or Chicago would

So many better ways to cut $1m than dealing a late first. Bulls can decline Rip's option, which they will, and be a few million under the cap, more than twice enough to cover the #20 pick's salary (which is $1.3m). Denver has a bunch of options to get $1.1m under the cap--Iguodala probably declines his option and resigns for less than $15m per year unless he walks altogether, or else they simply decline Julyan Stone or Anthony Randolph.

Yes, there are plenty of ways to get under the luxury tax... but I'm assuming we can get a late first rounder from a team over the threshold... a team that can't get under it

In that situation do those teams want to pay double for a late first in this Draft? It depends on how each team views the talent available in the late first round

There are players projected to be available at #20 like Jeff Withey, Gorgui Dieng, Dario Saric that should be contributors real soon. You really want guys like that locked up at $1m per year.

YYes, those kind of players are why I would like to see us try and trade into the late first round. Granted other teams would see the potential in the same group of players.... but again it's a payroll driven trade, not talent level

Edit: here are the last two trades made by teams trying to get into the post lotto range. You'll notice the price is much higher than a 38 and 56 pick:
--"The Cleveland Cavaliers acquired Kelenna Azubuike and the draft rights to 17th pick Tyler Zeller from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for the draft rights to 24th pick Jared Cunningham, 33rd pick Bernard James and 34th pick Jae Crowder.

In that scenario the 17th pick and a scrub is acquired for the 24th pick and 2 early 2nds... completely different scenario since I was talking about a team over the tax threshold that wants to trade out of the first round entirely

--The Philadelphia 76ers acquired the draft rights to 27th pick Arnett Moultrie from the Miami Heat in exchange for the draft rights to 45th pick Justin Hamilton and a future first-round draft pick."

I believe this is much closer to what I was talking about

The Heat gave up a late first due to tax considerations (IMO) for a mid 2nd and a future first... what is the protection on that Philly pick?

http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/ ... s/detailed

2014 first round draft pick to Miami
Philadelphia's own 2014 1st round pick to Miami (Top-14 Protected in the 2014 NBA Draft and top-14 protected in the 2015 Draft) If Miami has not yet received a first round pick by 2015, then they will receive Philadelphia's own 2015 and 2016 second round picks. [Miami-Philadelphia, 06/28/2012

So it's far more likely that Miami ends up getting 3 second round picks for #27...

Which is what I said: we should be looking to do a deal like that!

[HotelVitale]

Yes, there are plenty of ways to get under the luxury tax... but I'm assuming we can get a late first rounder from a team over the threshold... a team that can't get under it...In that situation do those teams want to pay double for a late first in this Draft? It depends on how each team views the talent available in the late first round.

Think about the investment in a late first like this: your team is betting that the player you choose becomes a valuable contributor. Ideally, they quickly become a rotation regular or solid starter, someone on par with someone who makes say $6-8m per year (all the guys I listed below--Faried, Gr Vasquez, Taj Gibson, etc would get at least that on the open market). Maybe a quarter or a fifth of players taken in that range become that, but if you get one of them you're saving between $5-7m per year. Most other players in that range become guys who fall somewhere in the spectrum of decent role players to end-of-the-bench guys; if you get a guy at the top end of that, a useful 7th or 8th man, for $1-2m per year, that's still saving you a bunch of money (say $3-5m) over getting some similar contributor with your MLE.

There are two kickers that make the choice even simpler:
First, in the NBA the league minimum salary is $500,000 (and that's only for rookies--otherwise the minimum is $800k-$1.3m). So even if you want to sign the cheapest possible player you can only save about $800k per year by dealing your 20-30 pick. And almost by definition, a rookie who wasn't drafted and whom no other teams are bidding on will be a worse prospect than a guy available between 20-30. So dealing away a late first essentially means saving at most $800k--or $1.6 if doubled under the tax--in exchange for not betting on the 20% chance you save $5-7m by getting an above-average NBA contributor and another say 40% chance that you save $2-4m by getting an okay role player.
Second, you can now cut the pick loose after two years if you think ou were flat out wrong about the player's ability to contribute at this level (like Portland will probably do with Nolan Smith this year). Or if you have no other choice to get under the cap or the tax. To make things even easier, you can usually just deal the player for a future second rounder or something, since another team will often want to take a flier on a young 1st rounder who still has another couple years on his rookie deal.

[HotelVitale]

In that scenario the 17th pick and a scrub is acquired for the 24th pick and 2 early 2nds... completely different scenario since I was talking about a team over the tax threshold that wants to trade out of the first round entirely

So you're imagining a scenario in which a team doesn't care about talent at all and trades a first for two seconds...just to immediately cut both players they drafted? They'd have to pay the 2nd rounders otherwise, and they can't save much money doing that instead of signing the guaranteed first. It'd be wiser to just sell the pick--the league-mandated price used to be around $3.2m--but every GM regards that as a stupid stupid move nowadays. (Thank you, Robert Sarver.)

So it's far more likely that Miami ends up getting 3 second round picks for #27...

You'd have to assume that, when they made the trade, the 76ers thought they'd be giving up a first. They'd made the playoffs 4 of the last 5 seasons and had every reason to think they would be in them in 2014 or 2015, considering the young talent that had (and have). Hence they should have expected that, given this protection, they'd be giving up a first down the line. The Bynum trade and injury jeopardizes this, but no one could have predicted those things at the time. And even if Philly is really bad in 2014 and 2015, those second rounders would be in the 30-45 range. hence in the very worst situation they're getting three #45 picks, still a more valuable package than the two not great picks we'd be offering.

PS: we should let this one die, gotta be a boring debate for other posters! I'd be excited if we managed to move up into the later first, but I just think that it's common knowledge for NBA GMs that these picks are excellent things to have within the knew CBA.

[Pharaoh]

The 2011 CBA instituted major changes to the luxury tax regime. The dollar-for-dollar tax provisions of the previous CBA remain in effect through the 2012–13 season. Starting in 2013–14, the tax changes to an incremental system. Tax will be assessed at different levels based on the amount that a team is over the luxury tax threshold. The scheme is not cumulative—each level of tax applies only to amounts over that level's threshold. For example, a team that is $8 million over the tax threshold will pay $1.50 for each of its first $5 million over the tax threshold, and $1.75 per dollar for the remaining $3 million. In addition, "repeat offenders", subject to additional penalties, are defined as teams that paid tax in four of the five previous seasons.

You make great points HotelVitale... I was merely looking at the repeat tax and wondering if a team towards the end of the first round might decide to part with their first rounder instead of paying that player and then paying his salary plus more

Like you said, they can dump him after 2 years if he's a bust or trade him to a team who is willing to take a flier.... I thought we could be the team taking a flier on a late first in the "weak" 2013 Draft and save some team from paying any tax dollars on this pick in the process

[Warspite]

we own 38 and 56...

would anyone want to trade those 2nds for:

Chicago's #20... the have tax issues and they might not really want to add guaranteed money to the payroll

Minnesota's #26... will they want to add 2 more rookies to their team (they also picked 9th atm)?

Denver's #27... do they want to add guaranteed salary to the payroll?

Would anyone want to trade #7, #38 + #56 to Phoenix for #4 and #30?

Noel and McLemore off the board at #4 but we'd land 1 of Porter, Bennett, Olapido, Bazz

And at 30 we could add Lorenzo Brown or Nate Wolters

Would Phoneix be willing to do that? They drop 3 spots in the Lotto but don't have to pay guaranteed money to #30, instead getting 2 second rounders that they can do with as they please

No Suns wont do that deal. Pistons would have to offer a future 1st. 26 or 27 will most likely be traded and could be had for those picks.

HotelV makes some great points. I still belive though that those GMs would trade the pick for a future pick or in a Affallo to Denver type trade. Thus we would be drafting for somone and then taking on a bad contract later.

[Piston Pete]

Wondering if we could do #7 to OKC for #12 and Lamb? Or 12, 29, and Lamb?

At #7, OKC could target a guy like Len.

[BadMofoPimp]

Wondering if we could do #7 to OKC for #12 and Lamb? Or 12, 29, and Lamb?

At #7, OKC could target a guy like Len.

I would do this if Shabazz is taken by the 8th pick of which I predicted Pistons would draft 8th.