Official Trade Thread -- Part XL

[nate33]

From the games discussion thread:

Zion dropped 38 last night and all of his made shots from the field were in the restricted area.

I think David Griffin said something about "choosing when to go for it" being difficult.

Welp, I think there should be no confusion about it anymore. Don't waste a single year of this kids prime. Empty that draft horde this off-season and go for it.

Dark Faze makes a good point. New Orleans needs to go all in ASAP.

Beal is the best available player unless Karl Anthony Towns demands a trade. Obviously, if New Orleans lands a top 4 pick, then a Beal trade looks real interesting. But assuming they don't land a pick, what kind of package could they throw together for Beal? Their assets are:

2021 picks: NOP 1st (11th or so), CLE 2nd (35th or so), WAS 2nd (38th), DAL 2nd
2022 picks: NOP 1st, LAL 1st, CLE 2nd, NOP 2nd, UTA 2nd
2023 picks: NOP 1st (swap rights with LAL), NOP 2nd
2024 picks: NOP 1st (swap rights with MIL), LAL 1st, NOP 2nd,
2025 picks: NOP 1st, MIL 1st, NOP 2nd
2026 picks: NOP 1st (swap rights with MIL), NOP 2nd
2027 picks: NOP 1st, MIL 1st

The only pick that looks like a sure lotto pick is the Pelican's pick. However, those distant future picks from the Pelicans, Lakers and Milwaukee have some potential to be very high as the Pelicans and Lakers are dependent on superstars with injury concerns, and Milwaukee's supporting cast will be pretty old and broken down in a couple of years.

So something like Beal for:
2021 NOP late lotto pick
2023 1st (best of NOP or LAL)
2024 1st (best of NOP, MIL, LAL)
2025 1st (best of NOP or MIL)
Plus the two CLE 2nds and our own 2nd back.

We could actually get the 2022 1st instead of one of the later 1sts, but that 2022 pick looks pretty sure to be a late pick.

[NatP4]

So unless the lakers fall off a cliff, you are trading Beal for 4 picks in the teens(or lower)?

[Dat2U]

So unless the lakers fall off a cliff, you are trading Beal for 4 picks in the teens(or lower)?

Nope. Don't even consider it.

[Dark Faze]

If there aren't any good offers on the table right now, then we're better off just waiting and seeing how the situation develops. Getting a horde of bad pick swaps/exchanges will always be on the table.

[payitforward]

No one suggested trading Brad for 3-4 mid-R1 picks.

Nat said he'd rather do that than trade Brad for a guy who wasn't nearly as good & was making $20+m -- that's completely different.

In any case, what is the possible point? Isn't it obvious that if Bradley Beal were on the market the Wizards would get several competing offers. The market would give us a lot of value for him.

This is a fan board. None of this matters. The wizards are terrible. There’s not much to talk about.

Again, Jaylen Brown is 24 years old, under contract for a few more years at 24-28 million, then hits UFA. Ben Simmons is under contract forever and going to make an absurd 33-40 million a year.

I don’t care about historical context of draft slots. I obviously have players in mind for those picks. I’ll go on record for you and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will end up right. Lets say you had the 10th, 15th, and 20th picks and we go off of Tankathon’s latest mock:

10: Franz Wagner
15: Jared Butler
20: Josh Giddey

And there are PLENTY of other good options at those spots.

Those combined 3 assets will be FAR more valuable than Jaylen Brown at or Ben Simmons in the future.

You could be right, in the sense that trading Beal for those 3 specific guys would turn out great.

But, in that case we're not talking about "trading Brad Beal for 3-4 mid-R1 picks." We're talking about trading him for 3 particular players.

The difference should be obvious, Nat: even if you could get this year's #10, 15 & 20 picks in a trade for Beal (& since this is just a fan board, I invite you to come up with a creative way to do that! ), even if you could get those picks -- you could not guarantee that those guys will be there when your 3 turns come up.

In fact, even with, as you say, "PLENTY of other good options" available... you still don't really know who you're going to get -- that's just a fact, & as I say it represents the difference between trading for a pick & trading for an actual player.

Realize... I write that even though you must know my preferences! I want multiple picks every year! But, it's still better to understand reality.

Moreover, your absolute certainty about Wagner, Butler & Giddey -- what does it mean? Nothing, b/c you don't pay a price if you are wrong. Simple as that.

[nate33]

So unless the lakers fall off a cliff, you are trading Beal for 4 picks in the teens(or lower)?

Yeah, it's not such a great package.

[nate33]

If there aren't any good offers on the table right now, then we're better off just waiting and seeing how the situation develops. Getting a horde of bad pick swaps/exchanges will always be on the table.

With Westbrook seemingly changing his style of play and taking less shots, maybe standing pat is the best option. See how this team looks with the new and improved Westbrook, a returning Thomas Bryant, a steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija, and the #9 pick in the draft.

[payitforward]

...P.S. I think you'd be surpised by how many of your fellow posters here know who Jonny Flynn is.

Zards -- I always assume that many posters here are kids (i.e. teens through late 20's ) & have short memories for NBA drafts. Those are the ones I had in mind. It wouldn't occur to me that a mature, sophisticated old coot such as yourself, with a deep knowledge of jazz history etc., would be among those unfamiliar with the footnote that Jonny Flynn has become.

He was New York's Mr. Basketball at 18, a McDonald's All-American the same year, Big East RoY as a Freshman, Big East Tournament MVP in 2009, 2d team all rookie in the NBA, & then....

Flynn turned 32 a couple of months ago, still a young guy by my reckoning (see above). He lives in Florida, but I don't know what he's up to -- something productive I hope. If he kept his money & invested wisely he ought to be doing fine.

[payitforward]

If there aren't any good offers on the table right now, then we're better off just waiting and seeing how the situation develops. Getting a horde of bad pick swaps/exchanges will always be on the table.

With Westbrook seemingly changing his style of play and taking less shots, maybe standing pat is the best option. See how this team looks with the new and improved Westbrook, a returning Thomas Bryant, a steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija, and the #9 pick in the draft.

100% asbolutely! From your keyboard to God's ears in re: "steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija!" &, after all, we could still get lucky in the ping pong ball melee!

Not to mention flavor-of-the-week Daniel Gafford! & the comeback of Garrison Mathews. The very under-rated Cassius Winston. Etc.

[NatP4]

No one suggested trading Brad for 3-4 mid-R1 picks.

Nat said he'd rather do that than trade Brad for a guy who wasn't nearly as good & was making $20+m -- that's completely different.

In any case, what is the possible point? Isn't it obvious that if Bradley Beal were on the market the Wizards would get several competing offers. The market would give us a lot of value for him.

This is a fan board. None of this matters. The wizards are terrible. There’s not much to talk about.

Again, Jaylen Brown is 24 years old, under contract for a few more years at 24-28 million, then hits UFA. Ben Simmons is under contract forever and going to make an absurd 33-40 million a year.

I don’t care about historical context of draft slots. I obviously have players in mind for those picks. I’ll go on record for you and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will end up right. Lets say you had the 10th, 15th, and 20th picks and we go off of Tankathon’s latest mock:

10: Franz Wagner
15: Jared Butler
20: Josh Giddey

And there are PLENTY of other good options at those spots.

Those combined 3 assets will be FAR more valuable than Jaylen Brown at or Ben Simmons in the future.

You could be right, in the sense that trading Beal for those 3 specific guys would turn out great.

But, in that case we're not talking about "trading Brad Beal for 3-4 mid-R1 picks." We're talking about trading him for 3 particular players.

The difference should be obvious, Nat: even if you could get this year's #10, 15 & 20 picks in a trade for Beal (& since this is just a fan board, I invite you to come up with a creative way to do that! ), even if you could get those picks -- you could not guarantee that those guys will be there when your 3 turns come up.

In fact, even with, as you say, "PLENTY of other good options" available... you still don't really know who you're going to get -- that's just a fact, & as I say it represents the difference between trading for a pick & trading for an actual player.

Realize... I write that even though you must know my preferences! I want multiple picks every year! But, it's still better to understand reality.

Moreover, your absolute certainty about Wagner, Butler & Giddey -- what does it mean? Nothing, b/c you don't pay a price if you are wrong. Simple as that.

If I’m right it means absolutely nothing.

And it’s not black and white like that. I’m still not trading for the “historical analysis of the 10th, 15th, and 20th picks”

Even if I was, I would rather throw my 3 darts at whatever it was Nate posted (8 in 30 chance over 3 drafts I believe) at good NBA players on rookie contracts, then trade my franchise star for the right to pay Jaylen Brown 24 million.

Taking a risk/having a plan does not equate to “not understanding reality”

[9 and 20]

If there aren't any good offers on the table right now, then we're better off just waiting and seeing how the situation develops. Getting a horde of bad pick swaps/exchanges will always be on the table.

With Westbrook seemingly changing his style of play and taking less shots, maybe standing pat is the best option. See how this team looks with the new and improved Westbrook, a returning Thomas Bryant, a steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija, and the #9 pick in the draft.

Yeah, rather than take what Houston got for Harden, I think I'd be OK running the team mostly back. Add an MLE guy to the above returning players and a new coach and they're a fair amount better, hopefully. Maybe not the top of the conference, but a middle seed in the playoffs.

Still - if we can get a really good young player or a very high pick or two as the centerpiece in a Beal trade, that is probably the optimal outcome.

[Ruzious]

...P.S. I think you'd be surpised by how many of your fellow posters here know who Jonny Flynn is.

Zards -- I always assume that many posters here are kids (i.e. teens through late 20's ) & have short memories for NBA drafts. Those are the ones I had in mind. It wouldn't occur to me that a mature, sophisticated old coot such as yourself, with a deep knowledge of jazz history etc., would be among those unfamiliar with the footnote that Jonny Flynn has become.

He was New York's Mr. Basketball at 18, a McDonald's All-American the same year, Big East RoY as a Freshman, Big East Tournament MVP in 2009, 2d team all rookie in the NBA, & then....

Flynn turned 32 a couple of months ago, still a young guy by my reckoning (see above). He lives in Florida, but I don't know what he's up to -- something productive I hope. If he kept his money & invested wisely he ought to be doing fine.

It's a tough burden being the pick before Steph Curry. He was a high-flying athletic little guard having a solid rookie year when he developed a serious hip injury that he had surgery on, and he never got that athleticism back - kindalike when Robert Pack had a nerve injury in his leg and never was the same for the Bullets.

[DCZards]

With Westbrook seemingly changing his style of play and taking less shots, maybe standing pat is the best option. See how this team looks with the new and improved Westbrook, a returning Thomas Bryant, a steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija, and the #9 pick in the draft.

...which is what some of us have been suggesting.

But you left out maybe the most important thing...let's see how that team looks with a new coach.

[gambitx777]

I really do think this team.would be close to 500 ball if it were not for brooks

With Westbrook seemingly changing his style of play and taking less shots, maybe standing pat is the best option. See how this team looks with the new and improved Westbrook, a returning Thomas Bryant, a steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija, and the #9 pick in the draft.

...which is what some of us have been suggesting.

But you left out maybe the most important thing...let's see how that team looks with a new coach.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using RealGM mobile app

[SA37]

Spoiler:

Does there exist anywhere an actual accounting of the draft, something like an average of pts., rebounds, assists by the players at each position in the draft? So instead of pointing to individual examples of #7 picks and #15 picks, you could look at the average level of production of #7 or #15 over the past 20 years.

Not that I know of, but to give you an idea, here's the All-NBA teams last year and where guys were drafted:

A Davis (1) - Giannis (15) - Doncic (3) - Harden (3) - LeBron (1)

Jokic (41) - Leonard (15) - Lillard (6) - Paul (4) - Siakam (27)

J Butler (30) - Gobert (27) - Simmons (1) - Tatum (3) - Westbrook (4)

From this year's All-Star game:

Beal (3) - Booker (14) - Conley (4) - A Davis (1) - Durant (2) - Embiid (3) - Harden (3) - Irving (1) - Lavine (13) - Leonard (15) - Mitchell (13) - J Randle (7) - Tatum (3) - Vucevic (16) - Zion (1)

Giannis (15) - J Brown (3) - Curry (7) - Doncic (3) - P George (10) - Gobert (27) - LeBron (1) - Jokic (41) - Lillard (6) - Paul (4) - Sabonis (11) - Simmons (1)


Some things worth considering:

Utah has the best record in the league this year and their main rotation guys are: Gobert (27), O'Neale (undrafted), Bogdanovic (31), Ingles (claimed off waivers), Mitchell (13), Conley (4), and Clarkson (46th)

Miami made the Finals last year and had these rotation guys: Adebayo (14), Crowder (34), Butler (30), Robinson (undrafted), Nunn (undrafted), Olynyk (13), Herro (13), Dragic (45), Iguodala (9)

Denver's best players are Jokic (41), Murray (7), and MPJ (14)

Golden St has built a dynasty around Curry (7), Thompson (11), and Green (35)

The Clippers have built around P George (10) and K Leonard (15)

The Bucks are built around Giannis (15), Middleton (39), Lopez (10), and Holiday (17)

Toronto won a championship built around Leonard (15), Siakam (27), K Lowry (24), VanVleet (undrafted), Ibaka (24), Green (46), and Gasol (48)

Good stuff, but there's a bit of chicken and egg thing with those championship teams. It's not that it's just as easy to build with low picks as it is with high picks, it's that the single most important thing you can do to build a championship roster is to get really lucky and find an All-NBA caliber player with a late pick.

This is because, by picking late, you are already a good team in the first place and you are adding All-NBA talent to an existing good team. Also, late picks are really cheap salary-wise, so you are likely to have an opportunity to another All-Star caliber talent via free agency.

The 6 best picks in the last 10 years relative to draft position were Giannis, Jokic, Gobert, Draymond, Kawhi and Butler. All but Butler either won a championship with the team that drafted them or are current contenders with the team that drafted them.

Unfortunately, I don't really think there is a strategy to getting lucky with late picks. There's maybe one non-lotto future All-NBA player in every other draft. So there's about a 2% chance that you pick it. Even if you trade lotto picks for multiple late picks, I don't think you are increasing your odds much. Better to pick in the top 5 where you have a roughly 15% of landing an All-NBA player.

I think what it illustrates is 1) drafting is an inexact science and 2) seemingly undesireable/low-value mid-to-late 1st round picks can be help you create a competitive team.

Even if you manage to get a franchise-changing talent, the most likely scenario is your team is awful; the challenge then becomes putting together a team that will keep that player with your organization. Many organizations Cleveland (LeBron and Kyrie), Orlando (Shaq and Penny), Minnesota (KG), New Orleans (A Davis), or even the Wizards (Wall/Beal) are examples of that.

Of course, teams miss big time with high picks. Some of the more egregious were Chicago in 2001 (Eddy Curry 2/Tyson Chandler 4), Minnesota in 2009 (Rubio 5 and Flynn 6...and Curry 7 to Golden St.), Memphis 2009 (Hasheem Thabeet 2....Harden 3 to OKC), or Cleveland in 2013 & 2014 (Bennett 1...Oladipo 2 and Wiggins 1...Embiid 3rd), and in 2018 Phoenix (Ayton) and Sacramento (Bagley) passed on Doncic.

You're absolutely right that you maximize your chances by picking higher, but I think it is good to have some perspective of where really good guys have been selected -- and even guys get passed on by every team, don't get drafted, and eventually become really productive players.

[Frichuela]

I really do think this team.would be close to 500 ball if it were not for brooks

With Westbrook seemingly changing his style of play and taking less shots, maybe standing pat is the best option. See how this team looks with the new and improved Westbrook, a returning Thomas Bryant, a steadily improving Hachimura and Avdija, and the #9 pick in the draft.

...which is what some of us have been suggesting.

But you left out maybe the most important thing...let's see how that team looks with a new coach.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using RealGM mobile app

I highly suspect that would be the case. See the Knicks after they got their new coach this year.

[Dark Faze]

The real question is whether or not the FO thinks another #7, #8 type of pick would be worth keeping over using it to improve the teams chances. David Aldridge said the team would be hunting for a third star, hard to imagine how said player could be acquired without a trade.

Thing that scares me is the first name the FO was linked to was Markannen.

[Ruzious]

Could we package the pick and either Rui or Avdija for an up and comer like DeAndre Hunter or Michael Porter Jr? Are there any similar type targets?

[tontoz]

The real question is whether or not the FO thinks another #7, #8 type of pick would be worth keeping over using it to improve the teams chances. David Aldridge said the team would be hunting for a third star, hard to imagine how said player could be acquired without a trade.

Thing that scares me is the first name the FO was linked to was Markannen.

[nate33]

Could we package the pick and either Rui or Avdija for an up and comer like DeAndre Hunter or Michael Porter Jr? Are there any similar type targets?

One guy that comes to mind is Jerami Grant. Detroit would presumably be willing to trade the better current player for better future prospects. Not sure I would do it, but it meets the construct you propose.

I wonder if San Antonio would trade any of their wings for Hachimura or Avdija. They're loaded with PGs, SGs, and SFs, but don't really have a decent young PF on the roster. Would something like Avdija for Vassell make sense for both teams?