nate33 wrote:This is a great point.
Any GM can occasionally find bargains in free agency because it's a relatively illiquid market. Sometimes, guys just get overlooked and if he happens to fit a need, you can pick him up late in free agency at a low cost. Martell Webster is a good example.
The difficult part is to know when to sell an overvalued player. San Antonio and Daryl Morey of Houston do this very well. They are foresighted enough to know when they won't be able to afford a guy and they sell them high. George Hill is a great example.
Morey found Rafer Alston from the scrap heap, he played pretty well but then Morey traded him to a desperate Orlando team who needs a PG after Jameer Nelson got hurt. Morey gets Kyle Lowry in return as part of a 3-way trade. At the time, Lowry is a backup in Memphis. Lowry plays very well in Houston but Morey trades him to Toronto after a couple of years for a future lottery pick. He is able to do so because he recently acquired Goran Dragic by trading the overrated Aaron Brooks for him. Morey eventually uses that Toronto pick as the centerpiece for James Harden. Basically, Morey turned Rafer Alston and the #26 pick (used to draft Brooks) into James Harden. What's notable is that, in each case, the trade was PG for PG. He wasn't making trades for basketball reasons to try to get the right balance in the lineup. He was simply recognizing value disparities and making trades to capitalize on them.
The only time EG has done this that I recall is with Hinrich. He liked Hinrich at the time and had no compelling desire to trade him, but he did so because the value in return was so good. In all other cases, EG only makes trades out of weakness because he has to.
You're absolutely right about Morey's player value/perception prowess. It's remarkable. Not many GMs are capable of such foresight and asset management. I wish Grunfeld was, but I can't even be upset that he isn't, because the reality is probably at least 25 of the current GMs aren't either.
It's an easy concept to wrap your head around, at least in theory. But the actual execution of it is incredibly difficult. It's easy to say "give Ariza some solid minutes to let him maximize his value, then trade him away for younger, more promising options." But it's not as easy as you'd think to correctly identify WHEN players have maximized their value. It's an inexact science, but because of the serious implications, you have to try and be as precise as possible.
It seems like the Wizards (and I say Wizards, because I don't blame this solely on Grunfeld, as even most of us fans are just as guilty) have issues executing this basic sell high/buy low strategy. As I brought up in my last post, signing Webster last summer was a huge success as a buy low candidate, and we should try and replicate it in the future. But aside from that, nothing we've done in the last few years really comes to mind.
I think this team and fan base have an issue, in that many of us are quick to criticize when a player isn't living up to the hype, but then when a player actually starts improving and playing better, we forget that a month earlier we were advocating showcasing that player to maximize his value and then try and sell high, and all of a sudden we love that player and consider him a solid fixture in our core going forward. Basically, when one of our players is playing well, whether we expected him to or not, we tend to believe that what we're seeing is legitimate, and not the result of a lucky streak. To make matters worse, we often assume that if a player is playing well lately, that he not only is as good as he's been playing during that stretch, but that he is rapidly developing and has considerably more room to grow and will likely fulfill his potential in the future. We're a very optimistic fan base, despite all of the hatred for Ernie. "When we're healthy," right guys?
We get attached to any of our players that are playing well. It makes sense. We haven't had much success as a franchise in the last few years. There hasn't been a lot of talent on our roster. So when we finally look like we stumbled upon a productive player, we feel like we can't afford to lose him.
Seriously, think about our entire roster and how people on this board perceive their value to the team going forward. For the most part, a player is either a core part of our team and is nearly untouchable, or he's absolutely terrible and has no value to us and we can't wait to get rid of him for pennies on the dollar. We're a very "all or nothing" fan base, in this regard.
It's like we don't understand that you have to give up something of value in order to get something of value in return. We'd be happy to trade away the likes of Vesely, Singleton, Seraphin, etc. for whatever pile of garbage another team offers, but trade away the 3rd pick or Beal? Blasphemy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm probably just as guilty. I love Beal and think he's going to be great, so of course I don't want to trade him. But you have to realize that we're not going to acquire anyone who's actually GOOD in a trade unless we give up something of value. Otherwise, we're destined for more trades for unwanted veterans for our trash.
Lastly, I will add that we've improved as a collective group in this regard lately. I know plenty of us like Okafor, Ariza, and Nene, but at the same time, we recognize that they're not untouchable and we'd move them for the right deal. However, all three of them are likely past their peak, some more than others, even if they're still productive, and that means teams aren't really lining up to trade away their younger talented assets for them.
