Official Trade Thread -- Part XXXVIII

[DCZards]

You may well be right. OTOH, in 2014-15, the first year GSW won the title, over 53% of their season minutes were played by guys they had drafted. We've never come anywhere near that %. Their 4 guys w/ the highest number of minutes that year were all drafted by GS -- Curry, Thompson, Barnes & Green. This year, 12 of the players on the Celtics are with their first team. Wizards? 5 players.

I mentioned GSW in my opening paragraph as one of the 2-3 contending teams that were built through the draft. But there are not many other examples. Yes, Milwaukee has Giannis, but Middleton, Bledsoe and Lopez were drafted by other teams. As for Boston, two of their top players (Kemba & Haywood) were free agents who started their careers elsewhere. And several of those 12 players you mention are marginal NBA players at best...and will likely have little to do with the Celtics becoming title contenders.

If on the other hand, what you have is a 30 year old player coming off a serious injury who has a super-max contract for the next 3 years but was not a real superstar even at his best, you might as well forget about winning a title. Add a second guy who is also outstanding but not a true superstar yet earns a max salary...? Not happening.

Could I be wrong? Of course! But I'd like to see a counter-example from the past, & I can't come up with one.

I believe there’s a new and improved culture within the Zards organization that we’re already seeing/experiencing. All I’m expecting is for the Wall-Beal led team (along with the development of Brown, Bryant, Rui, Bonga, the 2020 lottery pick, etc.) to take the Zards back to respectability at which point DC could become an appealing destination for a quality free agent or two.

Of course, salaries will be a factor...but don't rule out Ted L. being willing to pay the luxury tax if it means the Zards can field a contending team.

[payitforward]

Again... you may be right. But... once you put in the premise that we will be good b/c we'll be willing to outspend other teams... well, I'm sure you see the problem!

All the same -- may it be so!

[payitforward]

Orlando has signed Gary Clark to a 10-day contract.

Productive player....

[nate33]

Ben Simmons makes so much sense on the Wizards.

Simmons with Bertāns, Mathews, Bryant, Wagner, Brown Jr., McRae, and even Hachimura? He’s MADE for a team like that.

Give Philly: Beal and Wall and take back Simmons and whatever else is needed to make the salaries work.

Beal and Wall are ideal partners for Embiid and Harris and Horford and Richardson et. al.

It would make sense to me as well... just that there isn't a trade that works... You can't keep Harris, Horford, Embiid and add Wall and Beal.

Agreed.

Any talk of trading Wall is going to have to wait until after he is healthy. And even then, he is only movable if he is pretty darn close to the guy he was before the injury.

[nate33]

Looks to me the best trade option for Wall would involve the Knicks. #1 they don't have the smartest front office. #2 they really want to add a star player. #3 they don't seem to have a whole lot going on at PG. #4 They can afford him.

Wall to the Knicks is a possibility in the Summer of 2021 after the Knicks strike out in free agency again. It's not going to happen before that. Wall will need to prove he is healthy and 95% of his former self first.

[nate33]

But a healthy Wall, Bryant, Rui, top 6 pick, plus 2021 unprotected pick for Simmons and Horford would save them money and be hard to match.

Man, that would be glorious for us! But I just don't see the Sixers trading Simmons for Wall (a negative value contract) and future prospects. If they trade Simmons, they're going to want win now pieces.

I just don't see how we get Simmons without giving up Beal.

I'd trade Beal for Simmons straight up, and then figure it out after that. I think we'd be stuck with a not-ideal Wall and Simmons combination for a while until Wall because movable in a year or two (after showing he is healthy and as that bad contract gets shorter). But fortunately, Bertans, Brown, Bryant, Wagner and Mathews would all fit nicely alongside Simmons. Hachimura is a question mark. If he can develop a 3-pointer in the offseason, he'd be fine. If he can't, than it might make sense to trade him.

[nate33]

PIF, I believe all of us want to see a title contender in DC…and not just a respectable, playoff-bound team. But here’s the thing: I think your concept of building a team primarily through the draft and young players is not the only way to build a contender. In fact, I’d suggest that it’s the exception (GS, Philly & Milwaukee come to mind) rather than the rule.

When I look around the NBA I see a Toronto team that won a championship by renting Kawhi for a year; a Laker team that has become an instant contender by adding Lebron and AD the last two years; and a Houston team that hopes to win a ‘ship on the backs of two former OKC players.

Two years ago, heck even last year, the Clippers weren’t even in shouting distance of contending for a title. Well, a year later and they are one of the top 3-4 teams in the NBA thanks to the addition of Kawhi and PG13.

Bottom line is that with a little luck an NBA team can go from zero to 60 pretty quickly.

I see building a good team over the next couple of years and then enticing another all-star to join Wall & Beal in DC as a much more plausible path to the Zards becoming a contender...sooner rather than later.

If the Zards can put a winning team on the court and the franchise shows it has truly turned a corner with Tommy and our beefed-up front office, then I can easily see a top player or two seriously considering a high-profile, basketball loving town like DC a realistic destination.

You may well be right. OTOH, in 2014-15, the first year GSW won the title, over 53% of their season minutes were played by guys they had drafted. We've never come anywhere near that %. Their 4 guys w/ the highest number of minutes that year were all drafted by GS -- Curry, Thompson, Barnes & Green. This year, 12 of the players on the Celtics are with their first team. Wizards? 5 players.

But, here is what I think is the key point: in a sports league with a salary cap, it seems obvious that you can only be really good by having a significant number of minutes played by guys who are better than you would expect someone at their salary level to be.

Overall, there are only 2 categories of players of whom that's true:

1) real superstars (ala LeBron, Michael, Giannis, Kawhi) -- it's true of them, b/c maximum salaries make it true.
2) guys on rookie contracts (or, less often, on 2d contracts negotiated before they showed their real peak potentials).

If on the other hand, what you have is a 30 year old player coming off a serious injury who has a super-max contract for the next 3 years but was not a real superstar even at his best, you might as well forget about winning a title. Add a second guy who is also outstanding but not a true superstar yet earns a max salary...? Not happening.

Could I be wrong? Of course! But I'd like to see a counter-example from the past, & I can't come up with one.

Edit: & that's why I can see us becoming respectable again in the Wall/Beal era, a team like we were for a stretch of 3 out of 4 years starting in 2013-14, but that's it.

PIF's conclusion is pretty much inescapable. The Wall/Beal combo can't win a title, except perhaps if they somehow manage to land a 3rd superstar who is a legit, better-than-max-salary superstar, or if they land a superstar-from-Day-1 rookie like Doncic or Tim Duncan. And the odds of either happening are close to zero.

That said, I don't think Beal absolutely must be moved. He is a $30M player earning $30M. Not a bargain, but not a salary liability either. The problem is Wall who is a $20M player (when healthy) earning $40M. The other issue is that Beal might slowly drift away from being a fair value contract to a slightly bad contract if his next contract pays him $40M while he plateaus or declines as a player.

[payitforward]

Given that you need "a significant number of minutes played by guys who are better than you would expect someone at their salary level to be" in order to be a really good team, here's an implication one might not have thought of: Avoid trading for guys you think are undervalued if they're expiring.

Bertans is a case in point. Next year, the market is going to pay him what he's worth. If we match such an offer & re-sign him, then he stops being someone who gives us a competitive advantage.

Edit: In fact, this point directly addresses something Zards wrote:

...When I look around the NBA I see a Toronto team that won a championship by renting Kawhi for a year....

They signed Kawhi, but they couldn't keep him -- for just the reason I mention above. He made $23+m the (expiring) year he played in Toronto. There was no way they were going to be able to keep him. Now... they didn't trade for him, they didn't give anything up. & they did win a title! So... great move on their part.

&, they did go @$12m over the tax to do it. So this looks to validate Zards' point. But, it doesn't. Why?

Toronto had a bunch of players who were paid less than the productivity they added. Without that, they don't win.

Pascal Siakam, Fred Van Vleet, Patrick McCaw & O.G. Anunoby -- all very productive players! -- combined to make @$12m. Not to mention that Kawhi Leonard, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka & Danny Green combined to make less than Wall/Beal will next year.

Yet Toronto was still way into tax territory.

Point? Toronto's success was entirely due to their having a bunch of players who were paid less than their productivity would have warranted. Above all Leonard & Siakam.

Our salary structure wouldn't allow us to add someone like Kawhi. That's why it is so important to draft well -- that's how you get Siakam.

[bsilver]

The 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks won the championship with a different model. No superstars and no relevant rookies. The best players were Nowitzki and 37 year old Jason Kidd. They were a veteran unselfish team.

Both Wall and Beal are too ball dominant to fit that model. Beal is playing selfishly lately and Wall, in his prime was a willing passer, but the team still didn't get a lot of assists.

A Wall/Beal team has shown it doesn't have anywhere near championship potential. Trade Beal while he's at max value. I had proposed a trade based on Beal for Knicks 3rd pick (Barrett). Barrett has had a slow start on a dysfunctional team, but I still think he'll be as good as Beal. There should be other trades available.

[payitforward]

The 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks won the championship with a different model. No superstars and no relevant rookies. The best players were Nowitzki and 37 year old Jason Kidd. They were a veteran unselfish team.

Both Wall and Beal are too ball dominant to fit that model. Beal is playing selfishly lately and Wall, in his prime was a willing passer, but the team still didn't get a lot of assists.

A Wall/Beal team has shown it doesn't have anywhere near championship potential. Trade Beal while he's at max value. I had proposed a trade based on Beal for Knicks 3rd pick (Barrett). Barrett has had a slow start on a dysfunctional team, but I still think he'll be as good as Beal. There should be other trades available.

Yes, the Mavs are "the exception that proves the rule."

Barrett may become an outstanding NBA player, but it's a long shot. OTOH, Beal would have brought that pick and more (maybe their next year #1 & 2?). With all that plus #3 pick & the #9 pick, we'd likely have been able to make trades to do the entire rebuild in a few hours!!

[nate33]

Given that you need "a significant number of minutes played by guys who are better than you would expect someone at their salary level to be" in order to be a really good team, here's an implication one might not have thought of: Avoid trading for guys you think are undervalued if they're expiring.

Bertans is a case in point. Next year, the market is going to pay him what he's worth. If we match such an offer & re-sign him, then he stops being someone who gives us a competitive advantage.

It's not quite that easy. In today's NBA with shorter contracts, nobody stays on a below-market-value for long (except super-duper stars like Lebron and Giannis). You can't just churn through every player when his contract expires and field a team consisting solely of draft picks on cheap rookie-scale deals. At some point, you need to have a few veterans on post-rookie contracts to maintain some semblance of professionalism. Ideally, those veterans you do have are still on pretty good value contracts, but they're unlikely to be great contracts.

Bertans is a guy who I think is likely to be undervalued by the league this offseason. First, because I'm not sure teams really do appreciate how important his floor stretching is, and I think they all assume he's a wretched defender when he's merely and modestly below-average defender. And secondly, there isn't much free agency money available, and even fewer teams willing to extend a contract that lasts beyond 2021. So, under that dynamic, I think retaining Bertans is worth consideration.

[DCZards]

Given that you need "a significant number of minutes played by guys who are better than you would expect someone at their salary level to be" in order to be a really good team, here's an implication one might not have thought of: Avoid trading for guys you think are undervalued if they're expiring.

Bertans is a case in point. Next year, the market is going to pay him what he's worth. If we match such an offer & re-sign him, then he stops being someone who gives us a competitive advantage.

Edit: In fact, this point directly addresses something Zards wrote:

...When I look around the NBA I see a Toronto team that won a championship by renting Kawhi for a year....

They signed Kawhi, but they couldn't keep him -- for just the reason I mention above. He made $23+m the (expiring) year he played in Toronto. There was no way they were going to be able to keep him. Now... they didn't trade for him, they didn't give anything up. & they did win a title! So... great move on their part.

PIF, you're wrong on two points here. They DID trade for Leonard. They gave up DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 first round pick for Kawhi and Danny Green. (I assume you forgot that.) And Toronto tried very hard to keep Leonard. They were clearly willing to pay the lux tax, if necessary, to keep Kawhi. So it's wrong to say "they couldn't keep him." He simply chose LAC over the Raptors.

[pcbothwel]

The 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks won the championship with a different model. No superstars and no relevant rookies. The best players were Nowitzki and 37 year old Jason Kidd. They were a veteran unselfish team.

Both Wall and Beal are too ball dominant to fit that model. Beal is playing selfishly lately and Wall, in his prime was a willing passer, but the team still didn't get a lot of assists.

A Wall/Beal team has shown it doesn't have anywhere near championship potential. Trade Beal while he's at max value. I had proposed a trade based on Beal for Knicks 3rd pick (Barrett). Barrett has had a slow start on a dysfunctional team, but I still think he'll be as good as Beal. There should be other trades available.

Yes, the Mavs are "the exception that proves the rule."

Barrett may become an outstanding NBA player, but it's a long shot. OTOH, Beal would have brought that pick and more (maybe their next year #1 & 2?). With all that plus #3 pick & the #9 pick, we'd likely have been able to make trades to do the entire rebuild in a few hours!!

While I generally agree with your assessment, Im not counting this group out yet.
"Wall & Beal have proved they CANT win" is true on the surface, but ignores changes/maturation that would make them a better pair along with a more dynamic team.

1) Wall & Beal: I think the first iteration of this duo failed for many reasons, 1 of which could very well be they simply aren’t good enough. But here is my take.
- Beal is actually the Alpha and always should have been. He is the work horse that sets the tone in practice, the weight room, and lifestyle choices. With his improvements and Wall sidelined…its finally happened
- Wall was made to be a savior when he simply wasn’t ready or capable. A trash GM and organization put too much on him and surrounded him with poor fits both in skill set and personality.
- The organization is in a very different place. The team now works hard and has fun. Ego’s have been mostly flushed out and there is a semblance of balance and no longer asking John and Brad to make up for organizational mistakes
- Like the organization, Wall and Beal are also in a different place in both their careers and the skill set the modern NBA requires from their guards. All of this hinges on Wall being able to reform his playing style.


2) Current Support: I think we saw enough from Rui to be moderately optimistic about his future and we can shelve that discussion until we see more.
But make no mistake about folks, Troy Brown Jr is a legit piece on a contender. PIF and I have been sounding this alarm since last year, but when you look at his skill set and age, its hard to argue that he wont be a top 6-7 player in what appears to be a REALLY good 2018 class. Iggy 2.0.
Thomas Bryant is clearly a starting caliber Center who does all the things you need from a Big at this age. Size/Length, Work ethic, skilled shooter, Runs the court, decent IQ…. His defensive issues are mostly based in youth. Young bigs have a lot of pressure these days and it takes time.

3) 2020 pick: If you take out the "Generational" talents from each draft (Blake, Wall, Zion, Ja, Kyrie, AD, KAT, etc.) along with late round steals (Butler, Jokic, Middleton, Gobert etc). Here is a list of players taken in the lotto over the last 10 years (2009 - 2018 drafts) that could easily be the type of player that would make us contenders with our current roster (From oldest to most recent)…
- 2009: Harden (3), Curry (7), Derozan (9)
- 2010: Cousins (5), PG13 (10)
- 2011: Kemba (9), Klay (11), Kawhi (15)
- 2012: Beal (3), Lillard (6)
- 2013: Dipo (2), CJ (10), Giannis (15)
- 2014: Embiid (3)
- 2015: Porzingis (4), Booker (13)
- 2016: Brown (3), Ingram (2), Sabonis (11)
- 2017: Tatum (3), Fox (5), Isaac (6), Mitchell (13), Bam (14)
- 2018: Doncic (3), Jackson (4), Young (5), Carter (7), SGA (11)

To me, that shows that there will be about 3 players picked in the lotto that will be AS caliber players or better. Assuming we pick in the 6-8 range, there will be 1-2 for sure. And that doesn’t include the sleepers like Brandon Clarke who get picked later.
This actually goes to your point about “Strong” vs “Weak” drafts being mostly garbage and the talent is always there.

Point is, if points 1) and 2) both work out to some degree, point 3) simply states we don’t need a generational #1 overall pick to take the leap. Curry, PG13, Kawhi, Lillard, Giannis, Booker, Mitchell, etc. are available almost every year and its up to TS to find it this year.

Haliburton, Anthony, Hayes, Mannion, Okoro, Hampton, etc… Most of these guys will be available to us, and we have to find them.
Im willing to go to the 2021 deadline or even the following summer to see if all 3 lineup.

[JWizmentality]

But a healthy Wall, Bryant, Rui, top 6 pick, plus 2021 unprotected pick for Simmons and Horford would save them money and be hard to match.

Man, that would be glorious for us! But I just don't see the Sixers trading Simmons for Wall (a negative value contract) and future prospects. If they trade Simmons, they're going to want win now pieces.

I just don't see how we get Simmons without giving up Beal.

I'd trade Beal for Simmons straight up, and then figure it out after that. I think we'd be stuck with a not-ideal Wall and Simmons combination for a while until Wall because movable in a year or two (after showing he is healthy and as that bad contract gets shorter). But fortunately, Bertans, Brown, Bryant, Wagner and Mathews would all fit nicely alongside Simmons. Hachimura is a question mark. If he can develop a 3-pointer in the offseason, he'd be fine. If he can't, than it might make sense to trade him.

This team's and board's inexplicable obsession with players that can do it all but the most basic thing...shoot the damn ball.

[Ruzious]

But a healthy Wall, Bryant, Rui, top 6 pick, plus 2021 unprotected pick for Simmons and Horford would save them money and be hard to match.

Man, that would be glorious for us! But I just don't see the Sixers trading Simmons for Wall (a negative value contract) and future prospects. If they trade Simmons, they're going to want win now pieces.

I just don't see how we get Simmons without giving up Beal.

I'd trade Beal for Simmons straight up, and then figure it out after that. I think we'd be stuck with a not-ideal Wall and Simmons combination for a while until Wall because movable in a year or two (after showing he is healthy and as that bad contract gets shorter). But fortunately, Bertans, Brown, Bryant, Wagner and Mathews would all fit nicely alongside Simmons. Hachimura is a question mark. If he can develop a 3-pointer in the offseason, he'd be fine. If he can't, than it might make sense to trade him.

This team's and board's inexplicable obsession with players that can do it all but the most basic thing...shoot the damn ball.

You mean like Giannis until this season? Simmons' shooting has been basically the same as Giannis' first 6 seasons.

[payitforward]

Given that you need "a significant number of minutes played by guys who are better than you would expect someone at their salary level to be" in order to be a really good team, here's an implication one might not have thought of: Avoid trading for guys you think are undervalued if they're expiring.

Bertans is a case in point. Next year, the market is going to pay him what he's worth. If we match such an offer & re-sign him, then he stops being someone who gives us a competitive advantage.

It's not quite that easy. In today's NBA with shorter contracts, nobody stays on a below-market-value for long (except super-duper stars like Lebron and Giannis). You can't just churn through every player when his contract expires and field a team consisting solely of draft picks on cheap rookie-scale deals. At some point, you need to have a few veterans on post-rookie contracts to maintain some semblance of professionalism. Ideally, those veterans you do have are still on pretty good value contracts, but they're unlikely to be great contracts.

Bertans is a guy who I think is likely to be undervalued by the league this offseason. First, because I'm not sure teams really do appreciate how important his floor stretching is, and I think they all assume he's a wretched defender when he's merely and modestly below-average defender. And secondly, there isn't much free agency money available, and even fewer teams willing to extend a contract that lasts beyond 2021. So, under that dynamic, I think retaining Bertans is worth consideration.

Both your points are good, Ruz -- with the obvious exception to your first point being rookie contracts & the less obvious exception being the fact that many maybe most second contracts are still below market value -- sometimes way below: Steph's 2d contract was for 4 years/$44m! Harden's was 3 years @$15m/year. In fact, I just did some random checks, & it's definitely most. The exceptions tend to be guys taken #1 or very near to that.

Your second point -- about Bertans -- doesn't affect my overall argument. If Bertans is undervalued this Summer, then of course we should keep him. After all, my main point was that a team needs guys who are better than they are paid for! But, in most cases, what markets do, precisely, is that they determine what things are worth.

In any case, of course "retaining Bertans is worth consideration." Even at market value, assuming we can afford that. No team is going to get a lot of unervalued players! It's just that you need some number of them if you are to have any hope to be a good team.

[nbakid123]

We should trade wall and Beal together

[nate33]

We should trade wall and Beal together

Why reduce Beal's trade value by attaching Wall to him?

[Illmatic12]

Man, that would be glorious for us! But I just don't see the Sixers trading Simmons for Wall (a negative value contract) and future prospects. If they trade Simmons, they're going to want win now pieces.

I just don't see how we get Simmons without giving up Beal.

I'd trade Beal for Simmons straight up, and then figure it out after that. I think we'd be stuck with a not-ideal Wall and Simmons combination for a while until Wall because movable in a year or two (after showing he is healthy and as that bad contract gets shorter). But fortunately, Bertans, Brown, Bryant, Wagner and Mathews would all fit nicely alongside Simmons. Hachimura is a question mark. If he can develop a 3-pointer in the offseason, he'd be fine. If he can't, than it might make sense to trade him.

This team's and board's inexplicable obsession with players that can do it all but the most basic thing...shoot the damn ball.

You mean like Giannis until this season? Simmons' shooting has been basically the same as Giannis' first 6 seasons.

I just don’t see the endgame in trading Beal for Simmons.

If the Wizards are moving Beal it’s because the team around him isn’t good enough to win. Well if the supporting cast isn’t good enough for Beal, it won’t be for Simmons either. He’s not carrying your team to title contention without another superstar teammate - but he makes your floor too high to tank for that superstar in the draft. Star FAs aren’t flocking to DC in free agency ,either.

Beal holds a lot of value to our franchise and league at large, cashing that in to build a Ben Simmons-led treadmill team instead of swinging for the fences would be disappointing. The stacked 2021 draft class has potential stars like Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley who’ve dominated older competition in front of scouts. The 2022 draft class is the double draft featuring a record number of 5-star prospects. If Wash do eventually field offers for Beal , in any deal they should be seeking unprotected picks from both the 2021 and 2022 drafts , along with cost-controlled young players.

[nate33]

Beal holds a lot of value to our franchise and league at large, cashing that in to build a Ben Simmons-led treadmill team instead of swinging for the fences would be disappointing. The stacked 2021 draft class has potential stars like Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley who’ve dominated older competition in front of scouts. The 2022 draft class is the double draft featuring a record number of 5-star prospects. If Wash do eventually field offers for Beal , in any deal they should be seeking unprotected picks from both the 2021 and 2022 drafts , along with cost-controlled young players.

In theory, I would love to trade Beal for a couple of unprotected 2021 and/or 2022 picks from a team likely to be in the lottery then. But that's just the problem. No team that wants Beal projects to be in the lottery in 2021 and/or 2022.

Since landing a couple of shots at the lottery doesn't seem likely, I think the next best thing is to land a 23-year-old All-Star and former #1 overall pick who happens to be in a lousy situation with lousy coaching and therefore has potential to improve dramatically in the right environment.