Poll/Discussion: Would you trade Middleton for the Nets Pick?

[LuessiT]

You trade Middleton for a pick and you set the Bucks timeline back 2-3 years and run the risk he doesn't pan out.

I don't think the Bucks are built to handle a setback like that.

Trading Jabari for the Nets pick would be a very different discussion though.

That's the whole idea behind the trade imo. We should try to set our timeline back after Jabari's injury if our goal is to build a championship teamso this sort of trade is exactly what we should do. I don't like the value that much though.

Giannis is becoming a Superstar (with a capital S) NOW, not in 2-3 years. I'm feeling pretty certain he wants to start to taste real success and not wait.

Yeah I don't really care what Giannis wants. I mean I care only as much as it makes him resign here after his current deal, which seems like a very easy task. So I'd be fine trading Middleton for asset(s) that exceed his value and make sense.

[Nowak008]

I think you underestimate what an impact PG can do for a team even as a first or second year player. Remember TJ Ford?

Yes, but there's a huge gap from adding that talent to our current team and sacrificing Middleton for him.

I do agree the right PG can make a big impact

I'm still of the belief that Brogdon IS going to be that point guard. Reason? I feel he can play off of Giannis better and Giannis is going to be the playmaker.

What happened to the board? Do we now not want to have Point Giannis?

Take a look at the top 4 teams from each conference -
Cavs
Boston
Wizards
Toronto
GS
Spurs
Rockets
Clips

What do they have in common? They all have a point guard playing in the all star game. (Spurs don't count ) You need to have a elite level PG to win in this league right now.

[humanrefutation]

If we trade Middleton for the "#1" pick now then we will have 2 top 5 picks by the end of the season. The Nets pick and our own, as long we trade Monroe as well of course.

I don't think we'd lose enough to have a Top 5 worst record even if we traded Middleton and Monroe and ran out the youngins for the rest of the season. We already have 25 wins. We'd have to go something like 2-25 down the stretch to even get into the convo for having one of the top 5 worst records. Unless we shut down Giannis and play Henson at point guard, I can't see that happening.

We are only 5 losses out the 5th worst record in the league. We just went 2-12 in a 14 game span over the last month or so. We still have a road trip coming up where we play 6 straight games on the west coast. We can definitely get into top 5 if we trade Middleton and Monroe.

Nah, man. First of all, many of the teams ahead of us in the race to the bottom will start tanking hard, too. And then there's the reality that it is fairly rare that a team with more than 25 wins ends up with a Top 5 worst record, and even rarer if you go up to 27 wins. We have 25 right now. 2-25 might not be enough.

[coolhandluke121]

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. You can make an assumption that if I went back to a larger number years within a sample size that you were comfortable with, I'd finally find a sample size that reached your 50/50 likelihood of success. But you'd be wrong on that (and I think you know that to be true).

You could argue that "drafts go in cycles," but how large are those cycles, exactly? And what kind of predictive value is there in making a claim like that when there is no rhyme or reason to predicting at what point the cycle will direct in your favor? When it's more likely you'll end up with a draft where 1 of the 5 guys is great than it is that 3 or 4 of the guys will be great?

I even went did a 30 year look back, and there's absolutely no way it's 50/50 that you'll get a player better than Middleton at his peak in the top 5. I generously counted around 50 players that were better than Mids, and that's 33% of all Top 5 picks. Even if I went even more generous, there's absolutely no way it's 50%. Then again, you might have a more favorable impression of Nikoloz Tskitishvili than I do.

Anyone who wants to disagree can look here, for themselves: http://www.nba.com/history/draft/all-time-lottery-draft-picks/

No, that's not how the law of large numbers work. Including more relevant data without cherry-picking would not trend toward more skewed results. It's sticking to the last 10 years with no coherent argument for doing so that's skewed.

Are we talking about players that are clearly better than Khris here? Because yeah, you could make a strong case that it's under 30% if the criteria is that nearly everyone would say the player is better than Khris, but there are many more players who people will be split on. Considering the age, contract, and injury complications associated with Khris compared to a rookie, it would be really silly for virtual ties to break in favor of Khris, as opposed to the draft pick. If anything, it should break the other way by a significant margin, because those factors are very real. It may not be pleasant to be pessimistic about Khris's injury and weight, but it would be prudent. Can't stick our heads in the sand like we did with Jabari.

There's no predictive value in saying the draft goes in cycles and predicting the ups and downs long-term. That's not the point at all. I'm not some total pompous hack when it comes to statistics and probability. You need a solid theory to back up your choice to restrict your analysis to the last 10 years. You don't have one. The idea that the draft is more of a crapshoot now because of youth is easily refuted by the fact that the youngest players are often the best and the period where high schoolers were prominent was one of the best 10-year stretches ever. The idea that the game is different doesn't even have face validity.

You're literally restricting it to one of the worst periods of drafting in the last 40 years, and the only reason to do so is to fit an agenda of diminishing the expected value of a top-4 pick.

[ampd]

Yes, but there's a huge gap from adding that talent to our current team and sacrificing Middleton for him.

I do agree the right PG can make a big impact

I'm still of the belief that Brogdon IS going to be that point guard. Reason? I feel he can play off of Giannis better and Giannis is going to be the playmaker.

What happened to the board? Do we now not want to have Point Giannis?

Take a look at the top 4 teams from each conference -
Cavs
Boston
Wizards
Toronto
GS
Spurs
Rockets
Clips

What do they have in common? They all have a point guard playing in the all star game. (Spurs don't count ) You need to have a elite level PG to win in this league right now.

That's not even true.

The Spurs don't have a PG in the all star game (and Manu and Tony Parker and no longer anywhere near elite), and while Harden is a guard and the primary ball handler, Beverley defends PGs on the Rockets. The Cavs have Lebron and would still be the best team in the east with Malcolm Brogdon as their PG, just like the Heat were the best team in the NBA for years with Mario Chalmers as their PG.

This whole argument would have more weight if these elite PGs were similar style players, but we're talking about guys who are as different as CP3, Isaiah Thomas, Harden, Lowry, and Curry.

[blazza18]

Comes down to whether you really think Giannis/Middleton is a good enough one two bunch to be a title contender. I love Middleton but I think I'd like a chance at another superstar over him.

[msiris]

Middleton is not even an all star. Number one pick? Tough call. I would do it looking for another stud.

[humanrefutation]

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. You can make an assumption that if I went back to a larger number years within a sample size that you were comfortable with, I'd finally find a sample size that reached your 50/50 likelihood of success. But you'd be wrong on that (and I think you know that to be true).

You could argue that "drafts go in cycles," but how large are those cycles, exactly? And what kind of predictive value is there in making a claim like that when there is no rhyme or reason to predicting at what point the cycle will direct in your favor? When it's more likely you'll end up with a draft where 1 of the 5 guys is great than it is that 3 or 4 of the guys will be great?

I even went did a 30 year look back, and there's absolutely no way it's 50/50 that you'll get a player better than Middleton at his peak in the top 5. I generously counted around 50 players that were better than Mids, and that's 33% of all Top 5 picks. Even if I went even more generous, there's absolutely no way it's 50%. Then again, you might have a more favorable impression of Nikoloz Tskitishvili than I do.

Anyone who wants to disagree can look here, for themselves: http://www.nba.com/history/draft/all-time-lottery-draft-picks/

No, that's not how the law of large numbers work. Including more relevant data without cherry-picking would not trend toward more skewed results. It's sticking to the last 10 years with no coherent argument for doing so that's skewed.

Are we talking about players that are clearly better than Khris here? Because yeah, you could make a strong case that it's under 30% if the criteria is that nearly everyone would say the player is better than Khris, but there are many more players who people will be split on. Considering the age, contract, and injury complications associated with Khris compared to a rookie, it would be really silly for virtual ties to break in favor of Khris, as opposed to the draft pick. If anything, it should break the other way by a significant margin, because those factors are very real. It may not be pleasant to be pessimistic about Khris's injury and weight, but it would be prudent. Can't stick our heads in the sand like we did with Jabari.

There's no predictive value in saying the draft goes in cycles and predicting the ups and downs long-term. That's not the point at all. I'm not some total pompous hack when it comes to statistics and probability. You need a solid theory to back up your choice to restrict your analysis to the last 10 years. You don't have one. The idea that the draft is more of a crapshoot now because of youth is easily refuted by the fact that the youngest players are often the best and the period where high schoolers were prominent was one of the best 10-year stretches ever. The idea that the game is different doesn't even have face validity.

You're literally restricting it to one of the worst periods of drafting in the last 40 years, and the only reason to do so is to fit an agenda of diminishing the expected value of a top-4 pick.

I picked 10 years because it seemed like a reasonable sample size - it wasn't meant to serve an agenda because I didn't have one when I began my review. However, it is laughable to claim that the league hasn't changed in some meaningful ways over the last decade or so. The league has developed into valuing shooting and spacing more than it has valued plodding big men. The rules have been changed to better favor pace and space. It's obvious to anyone who's watched the sport. But I didn't factor those changes into my analysis - I made a player-versus-player comparison.

But the telling point is that when I adopted your own suggested 30-year sample size, I still didn't get anywhere close to 50%. I generously counted 50 guys that were better, or arguably better, than my specification of "peak" Mids (peak meaning that Middleton will reproduce his production from last season with some slight development in his prime). That's only 33%.

That only proves the point I established. You exclaim that a 10 year sample size isn't good enough. You say 30 years would show 50/50. I adopt your sample size and conclude that 50/50 is absurd. You're not willing to actually refute it, so you go back to the 10 year sample size argument because you think that reflects on you better...but it doesn't.

[ampd]

Middleton is not even an all star. Number one pick? Tough call. I would do it looking for another stud.

We wouldn't be doing it for the #1 pick, we'd be doing it for most likely a 25% chance at the #1 pick. Our highest single % chance (36%) would be to get the 4th pick.

IMO there is zero chance Boston would do this after they knew for certain they were picking #1.

[Chapter29]

But you need a core 3 IMO to compete for a title. We have a Core of 2 right now of course.

Trading Khris for a draft pick doesn't give us a core 3, it gives us a core of 1.

That draft pick could maybe develop into a core of 2. Which is still not a core of 3.

If you really want to Ultra tank, trade Giannis for both of the Nets picks the Celtics have and whatever other future assets you can get, and get what you can for Khris and Monroe. Then we can be the 76ers.

It makes no sense to me to try to halfway tank with a superstar already on the roster when there are 10+ teams in the NBA whose FO could put together 50+ win 2nd round+ teams with the 2 best players we already have.

I understand. But the thought is that Mids is a #3 in that core and we'd get a #1 or #2.

I also agree with your 2nd point. I don't want to tank at all and very likely wouldn't trade Middleton. I feel like we have some good talent and like both Brogdon and Maker for the future. Our issues are probably less due to top tier talent and more due to poor coaching and poor team building so far. Mirza and Plumlee didn't work out at all IMO and Delly is looking more and more like a backup to me. Given Brodgon, an expensive and redundant backup. I like Snell, Monroe and Beasley as complimentary talent.

This team was playing well several weeks back. Middleton is a better player than Parker. When he returns to form we should be a better team and just need to get back to playing as a group (heck 3 straight to start that off). We can make the playoffs, win maybe a couple of games and make Giannis and the fans happy. Then go to offseason and fix what isn't right and take the next step. I look forward to the offseason development of Brogdon and Maker. We can be players in FA. We can draft another talent at 15 or whatever.

It will be interesting what we do tradewise or not this next week.

[coolhandluke121]

I picked 10 years because it seemed like a reasonable sample size - it wasn't meant to serve an agenda because I didn't have one when I began my review. However, it is laughable to claim that the league hasn't changed in some meaningful ways over the last decade or so. The league has developed into valuing shooting and spacing more than it has valued plodding big men. The rules have been changed to better favor pace and space. It's obvious to anyone who's watched the sport. But I didn't factor those changes into my analysis - I made a player-versus-player comparison.

But the telling point is that when I adopted your own suggested 30-year sample size, I still didn't get anywhere close to 50%. I generously counted 50 guys that were better, or arguably better, than my specification of "peak" Mids (peak meaning that Middleton will reproduce his production from last season with some slight development in his prime). That's only 33%.

That only proves the point I established. You exclaim that a 10 year sample size isn't good enough. You say 30 years would show 50/50. I adopt your sample size and conclude that 50/50 is absurd. You're not willing to actually refute it, so you go back to the 10 year sample size argument because you think that reflects on you better...but it doesn't.

You don't know what "face validity" even means. Why would changes in the league diminish the value of top-5 picks? The league has always changed. The people drafting are aware of those changes and are taking them into account. It's not even a logical explanation for why the last 10 years is more representative of the value of top-5 picks, and therefore it has no face validity. It's just a spurious association.

So the last 30 years is roughly the same as the last 10? You didn't show your player-for-player analysis, but clearly that's the issue here. Are you ignoring guys like Baron Davis, Deron Williams, and Steve Francis, who were all-nba caliber players before injuries and other issues? How about valuable defensive bigs like Brand or Chandler?

I go to bat for Khris all the time when people call him a 3rd-banana, and I said countless times during the Jabari debates that Khris was and always would be the better player of the two. But there are tons of good players who have gone in the top-5, and quite a few superstars, which Khris is not.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this is a good draft. If you want to restrict your data to 10 drafts, it should probably be the last 10 drafts that were regarded as good ones before the fact. Some of them lived up to the hype and some didn't, but there's at least some basis for projection and all drafts are not created remotely equal.

[humanrefutation]

I picked 10 years because it seemed like a reasonable sample size - it wasn't meant to serve an agenda because I didn't have one when I began my review. However, it is laughable to claim that the league hasn't changed in some meaningful ways over the last decade or so. The league has developed into valuing shooting and spacing more than it has valued plodding big men. The rules have been changed to better favor pace and space. It's obvious to anyone who's watched the sport. But I didn't factor those changes into my analysis - I made a player-versus-player comparison.

But the telling point is that when I adopted your own suggested 30-year sample size, I still didn't get anywhere close to 50%. I generously counted 50 guys that were better, or arguably better, than my specification of "peak" Mids (peak meaning that Middleton will reproduce his production from last season with some slight development in his prime). That's only 33%.

That only proves the point I established. You exclaim that a 10 year sample size isn't good enough. You say 30 years would show 50/50. I adopt your sample size and conclude that 50/50 is absurd. You're not willing to actually refute it, so you go back to the 10 year sample size argument because you think that reflects on you better...but it doesn't.

You don't know what "face validity" even means. Why would changes in the league diminish the value of top-5 picks? The league has always changed. The people drafting are aware of those changes and are taking them into account. It's not even a logical explanation for why the last 10 years is more representative of the value of top-5 picks, and therefore it has no face validity. It's just a spurious association.

So the last 30 years is roughly the same as the last 10? You didn't show your player-for-player analysis, but clearly that's the issue here. Are you ignoring guys like Baron Davis, Deron Williams, and Steve Francis, who were all-nba caliber players before injuries and other issues? How about valuable defensive bigs like Brand or Chandler?

I go to bat for Khris all the time when people call him a 3rd-banana, and I said countless times during the Jabari debates that Khris was and always would be the better player of the two. But there are tons of good players who have gone in the top-5, and quite a few superstars, which Khris is not.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this is a good draft. If you want to restrict your data to 10 drafts, it should probably be the last 10 drafts that were regarded as good ones before the fact. Some of them lived up to the hype and some didn't, but there's at least some basis for projection and all drafts are not created remotely equal.

You're ignoring what I'm actually saying in order to make a disingenuous argument. I never said the last 10 years have demonstrated that Top 5 picks have diminished value. And obviously that's true because I adopted your 30 year sample size and reached the same conclusion. So, cut out that strawman bullsh**.

If you're not going to take the time to actually refute my analysis, and instead rely on lazy generalizations and misleading characterizations, then there is no point in discussing this further. You have no credibility and I'm not going to be baited any further.

[SKG]

Id throw some cash in there also for that pick

[coolhandluke121]

You're ignoring what I'm actually saying in order to make a disingenuous argument. I never said the last 10 years have demonstrated that Top 5 picks have diminished value. And obviously that's true because I adopted your 30 year sample size and reached the same conclusion. So, cut out that strawman bullsh**.

If you're not going to take the time to actually refute my analysis, and instead rely on lazy generalizations and misleading characterizations, then there is no point in discussing this further. You have no credibility and I'm not going to be baited any further.

I made a list of good players drafted in the top-5 going back to the mid-80's in the Jabari trade thread and I'm too lazy to find it, let alone do the whole thing again. But I don't need to share it again to know that the last 10 years have had an unusually low success rate in the top-5. It was blatantly obvious from the list. You must be ruling out a lot of really good players who had short peaks due to injuries or other issues if you would only trade Khris for 30% of top-5 prospects over the last 30 years though. Lots of really good players come and go. It's home team bias to think Khris (or Jabari) is worth more than a likely top-3 pick in a good draft.

[ampd]

We are so consistently bad as a franchise that we end up having this same stupid conversation every year

And still some of you think Hammond is doing a good job.

Top 5 picks are good, but really top 2 picks are where you need to be if you want a superstar. The top 2 picks have a much, much higher chance of being a franchise player than #3-5, and you never have a higher than 46% chance of your own pick being in the top 2 no matter how bad you are during the regular season.

[buckbeer]

Voted No. The last season and the in last game has shown why Middleton is so valuable to the Bucks. He's a elite shooter and a very good playmaker and defender. To me, Khris is currently more valuable than Jabari because he provides a more complete game on defense and playmaking. If we had Jabari instead of Khris in that last game at Nets, we would probably have lost that game.

Khris is another guy who can lead the Bucks and play the point like Giannis. With Khris playing 30 mins per game down the stretch, we could see the Bucks go on a winning streak and make the playoffs. Plus Khris is relatively young at 25 and on a great contract heading into his prime years. Middleton is one of the vital players for the Bucks on the championship quest.

[Chuck Diesel]

Moral killer for everyone else on the team. No thanks.

[AussieBuck]

Middleton is not even an all star. Number one pick? Tough call. I would do it looking for another stud.

If his health isn't an issue he's a better player than some all stars. I wouldn't trade him for non #1 pick if the medical staff felt he was good. Dude has the kind of game that could play for years, he'll be like a more skilled Dudley when he gets older if his body holds up.

[MikeIsGood]

THIS is a good discussion. This is tough. I'd do it, but it's hard. You could bust, and Midds is worth a lot, so it's a big asset removed. But if he wasn't a big asset, we wouldn't be able to get a pick like this (which I don't think we could anyways, but it's close maybe). Last year this wouldn't be a question - No - but this year's draft class is loaded. I'll take my chances with any of Fultz, Ball, or Smith. I'd roll with any of them alongside Brogdon in the lineup, and let him play backup PG with Snell coming off the bench at $10M a pop (other thread).

Yeah, I'd do it. Might regret it, but if we 'hit' it could be championship.

[MilHammer]

I would do it. I think Khris is a great player, but I'm not sure he pushes the needle to championship contender status. We need a second star, and I think if you have a chance at Fultz, you gotta take it. There's the chance the pick drops in stock, or the guy busts, but I think thats the risk you have to take if you want to escape the bubble.