Official Trade Thread - Part XLII

[nate33]

Harris is owed $77m for the next 2 years, Bertans $33m. Bertans' contract features an additional year at $16m, but it's not guaranteed.

That last year is guaranteed for at least $5M.

But you may have a point that the negative value of Harris' deal is so much worse than the negative value of Bertans' deal that we are owed more compensation in the transaction.

If we do acquire Simmons, why would we flip him? ...I guess we'd be committing to a rebuild, right?

I could go either way on this. Like you, I think Simmons is underrated and I would like to have him going forward. But the problem is, Simmons might be just good enough to keep us out of the top of the lottery, making it damn near impossible to find another star to pair with him. If we could get a good return of picks/prospects, I'd have to consider it, if only to allow us to tank out the rest of the year and land another high pick.

[nate33]

Why trade Beal and kuzma for Ben? Who’s going to score?

We would flip Ben for picks/prospects, tank and rebuild.

Isn’t kuzma a prospect?
And other than Portland what team sees Ben worth more than Beal?

I think almost any sub-.500 team would value Ben over Beal because he is younger and under contract. Beal will depart any crappy franchise in free agency.

[nate33]

Deni and Kuzma should be borderline untradeable,

Why would you consider Kuzma untradeable?

He is 26 years old so he's not going to get all that much better than he is right now.

And the guy he is right now isn't anything special. He's a fine rotation caliber player who could start for plenty of teams, but it's not like he is elite at either end of the court. He's a 5th starter/6th man on most decent teams.

I'm not hating. Kuzma has been solid for us, a pleasant surprise. But let's not overrate him here.

[payitforward]

What exactly do you expect to get in return for Simmons + Harris?

It really doesn't make sense to me to bundle the two but if you told me this happened and to guess the return, I would say it's to Sacramento for Fox/Barnes/Hield.

That would be a pretty good haul, but I don't know if Sacramento would do it. It sounds like they consider Fox for Simmons to be pretty fair as a straight up trade, so I'm not seeing them incorporate a Barnes + Hield for Harris component, but maybe I'm wrong.

Fox, Barnes & Hield would not be a good return for Ben Simmons alone. Barnes is a pretty good player, a slightly above average starter. Hield is a below average NBA wing on his career, & he's been way worse than that the last 3 years. Fox had a couple of good seasons but that's the best you can say for him. He's a terrible player right now & has been for a while.

Those 3 guys are 3 of the 4 top minutes players on Sac'to. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if they were really good, Sac'to might have a better record than it does?

This discussion is getting weird.

[GutUNC]

Shouldn't including Harris with Simmons bring the price down?

Maybe they will take our collection of (overpaid, to varying degrees) role players for those two - Dinwiddie, Bertans, Kuzma, Harrell, etc. - for Harris and Simmons.

The answer to your first question is yes and the second question is helllllllllllllllllllll no.

In any case it's irrelevant, as that would leave us with 3 guys (Beal, Simmons, Harris) at $115m.

Not to mention that in any case it's proving hard to trade Simmons. How does it get easier if you package in any extraordinarily expensive, extraordinarily over-paid additional player?

Answer: it doesn't.

....do you realize that I'm agreeing with you? Because it seems like you don't.

[GutUNC]

It really doesn't make sense to me to bundle the two but if you told me this happened and to guess the return, I would say it's to Sacramento for Fox/Barnes/Hield.

That would be a pretty good haul, but I don't know if Sacramento would do it. It sounds like they consider Fox for Simmons to be pretty fair as a straight up trade, so I'm not seeing them incorporate a Barnes + Hield for Harris component, but maybe I'm wrong.

Fox, Barnes & Hield would not be a good return for Ben Simmons alone. Barnes is a pretty good player, a slightly above average starter. Hield is a below average NBA wing on his career, & he's been way worse than that the last 3 years. Fox had a couple of good seasons but that's the best you can say for him. He's a terrible player right now & has been for a while.

Those 3 guys are 3 of the 4 top minutes players on Sac'to. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if they were really good, Sac'to might have a better record than it does?

This discussion is getting weird.

Never said I'd be happy with the return, just that it's really the only one I can think of that would make any logical sense in terms of salary and roster fit.

[payitforward]

We would flip Ben for picks/prospects, tank and rebuild.

Isn’t kuzma a prospect?
And other than Portland what team sees Ben worth more than Beal?

I think almost any sub-.500 team would value Ben over Beal because he is younger and under contract. Beal will depart any crappy franchise in free agency.

Then there is the fact -- the utterly obvious, no-question-about-it fact -- that Ben Simmons is a much much better player than Bradley Beal.

I like Brad a lot. He is a terrific player -- despite the fact that he's having a down year this year; I'm not counting that. But, he isn't in a class with Ben Simmons. & it's not close.

Guys who score a lot of points, like Brad, are always rated higher than they should be. Guys whose games are unusual, like Ben, are always underrated. Guys who bring a whole lot of value defensively, again like Ben, never get full credit for what that's worth in wins.

If you don't want Ben, it can only be because you think he'll be a problem child. That's a perfectly good reason to think twice, & it brings down his value to some degree. I wouldn't trade for him AT ALL w/o serious behind the scenes conversations with him & his agent that gave me confidence in his commitment to play & play in a committed way.

But, when he plays he's tremendous. He was better as a rookie than Brad has ever been. Much much better.

[payitforward]

That would be a pretty good haul, but I don't know if Sacramento would do it. It sounds like they consider Fox for Simmons to be pretty fair as a straight up trade, so I'm not seeing them incorporate a Barnes + Hield for Harris component, but maybe I'm wrong.

Fox, Barnes & Hield would not be a good return for Ben Simmons alone. Barnes is a pretty good player, a slightly above average starter. Hield is a below average NBA wing on his career, & he's been way worse than that the last 3 years. Fox had a couple of good seasons but that's the best you can say for him. He's a terrible player right now & has been for a while.

Those 3 guys are 3 of the 4 top minutes players on Sac'to. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if they were really good, Sac'to might have a better record than it does?

This discussion is getting weird.

Never said I'd be happy with the return, just that it's really the only one I can think of that would make any logical sense in terms of salary and roster fit.

Sure. For that matter, adding Harris doesn't particularly warrant increasing the return. Not at that salary.

All the same, adding those 3 guys to the Sixers, & giving them minutes, will make the team worse not better. Hence, if I'm Morey I don't make the trade.

Ditto if I'm Tommy Sheppard & have traded Beal for Simmons: I'm not flipping him to Sac'to so I can pay $71m to Fox/Hield/Barnes next year.

[GutUNC]

Fox, Barnes & Hield would not be a good return for Ben Simmons alone. Barnes is a pretty good player, a slightly above average starter. Hield is a below average NBA wing on his career, & he's been way worse than that the last 3 years. Fox had a couple of good seasons but that's the best you can say for him. He's a terrible player right now & has been for a while.

Those 3 guys are 3 of the 4 top minutes players on Sac'to. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if they were really good, Sac'to might have a better record than it does?

This discussion is getting weird.

Never said I'd be happy with the return, just that it's really the only one I can think of that would make any logical sense in terms of salary and roster fit.

Sure. For that matter, adding Harris doesn't particularly warrant increasing the return. Not at that salary.

All the same, adding those 3 guys to the Sixers, & giving them minutes, will make the team worse not better. Hence, if I'm Morey I don't make the trade.

Ditto if I'm Tommy Sheppard & have traded Beal for Simmons: I'm not flipping him to Sac'to so I can pay $71m to Fox/Hield/Barnes next year.

It absolutely WOULD NOT increase the return - no argument at all.

[FAH1223]

Read on Twitter

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Odd that Wiretap says Philly wants to include Harris in a Simmons trade - as they think that will help them get a better player in return. Given how over-paid Harris is, I don't see that happening. But going along with it, Beal, Kuzma, and Bertans for Simmons and Harris works in the Trade Checker. Philly adds in their 2023 1st. I recall Harris being very supportive of Simmons, fwiw.

1 million * you do that trade.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Odd that Wiretap says Philly wants to include Harris in a Simmons trade - as they think that will help them get a better player in return. Given how over-paid Harris is, I don't see that happening. But going along with it, Beal, Kuzma, and Bertans for Simmons and Harris works in the Trade Checker. Philly adds in their 2023 1st. I recall Harris being very supportive of Simmons, fwiw.

Yeah, it significantly reduces the universe of teams who could possibly meet their asking price.

Your trade works fine. Throw in a Harrell for Drummond swap to get the salaries to match evenly and keep us out of the luxtax. If we flipped Simmons to Sacramento for Haliburton, picks and filler, we'd be in good shape. Harris would be a bit of a cap albatross, but he's not a bad player, and his contract is shorter than Bertans'.

I actually like this idea although I think you can do better and I think you might be selling kuzma a little bit short

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Why trade Beal and kuzma for Ben? Who’s going to score?

Whoever attempts the most shots.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Deni and Kuzma should be borderline untradeable,
Why trade beal? We jus now got back one of starting players from last year we’ve haven’t played with a full strength team yet and we’re still competing better than expected…
I want to see Beal and kuzma with Bryant and Harrell on the floor

You know what Young fella you might be speaking the most wisdom after all. I want to see that myself

[Ruzious]

That would be a pretty good haul, but I don't know if Sacramento would do it. It sounds like they consider Fox for Simmons to be pretty fair as a straight up trade, so I'm not seeing them incorporate a Barnes + Hield for Harris component, but maybe I'm wrong.

Fox, Barnes & Hield would not be a good return for Ben Simmons alone. Barnes is a pretty good player, a slightly above average starter. Hield is a below average NBA wing on his career, & he's been way worse than that the last 3 years. Fox had a couple of good seasons but that's the best you can say for him. He's a terrible player right now & has been for a while.

Those 3 guys are 3 of the 4 top minutes players on Sac'to. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if they were really good, Sac'to might have a better record than it does?

This discussion is getting weird.

Never said I'd be happy with the return, just that it's really the only one I can think of that would make any logical sense in terms of salary and roster fit.

I think the trade we'd try to set up with Sac getting Simmons and Philly getting Beal would have us getting Haliburton, Thompson (expire), Bagley (expire), Len (cut) and Sacto's first round pick. If we can also get a Philly FRP, so much the better.

Then see if we can get anything for Kuz, Trez, and KCP. Tear it down and build it back up around Hali, Deni, Rui, Gafford, Bryant, Kispert, the Wash & Sacto lotto picks, and a young free agent who costs a bit more than the MLE (someone like Sexton or Simons?).

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Deni and Kuzma should be borderline untradeable,

Why would you consider Kuzma untradeable?

He is 26 years old so he's not going to get all that much better than he is right now.

And the guy he is right now isn't anything special. He's a fine rotation caliber player who could start for plenty of teams, but it's not like he is elite at either end of the court. He's a 5th starter/6th man on most decent teams.

I'm not hating. Kuzma has been solid for us, a pleasant surprise. But let's not overrate him here.

The dude just had a 20-20 game and he already has a championship ring. At the very least he's a damn good glue guy. He is a good sixth man that can score and rebound. He's capable of playing four positions as far as I'm concerned.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Isn’t kuzma a prospect?
And other than Portland what team sees Ben worth more than Beal?

I think almost any sub-.500 team would value Ben over Beal because he is younger and under contract. Beal will depart any crappy franchise in free agency.

Then there is the fact -- the utterly obvious, no-question-about-it fact -- that Ben Simmons is a much much better player than Bradley Beal.

I like Brad a lot. He is a terrific player -- despite the fact that he's having a down year this year; I'm not counting that. But, he isn't in a class with Ben Simmons. & it's not close.

Guys who score a lot of points, like Brad, are always rated higher than they should be. Guys whose games are unusual, like Ben, are always underrated. Guys who bring a whole lot of value defensively, again like Ben, never get full credit for what that's worth in wins.

If you don't want Ben, it can only be because you think he'll be a problem child. That's a perfectly good reason to think twice, & it brings down his value to some degree. I wouldn't trade for him AT ALL w/o serious behind the scenes conversations with him & his agent that gave me confidence in his commitment to play & play in a committed way.

But, when he plays he's tremendous. He was better as a rookie than Brad has ever been. Much much better.

Preach!

[deneem4]

We would flip Ben for picks/prospects, tank and rebuild.

Isn’t kuzma a prospect?
And other than Portland what team sees Ben worth more than Beal?

I think almost any sub-.500 team would value Ben over Beal because he is younger and under contract. Beal will depart any crappy franchise in free agency.

No, any sub -500 team will look at what philly going through and unless you have a Damian Lillard caliber player to keep happy, you would want a 30 mil a year player to do anything the team needs. Which Ben apparently wont
And We are a crappy franchise and guess who still suits up every night

[deneem4]

Why trade Beal and kuzma for Ben? Who’s going to score?

Whoever attempts the most shots.

Ben doesn’t take shots

[deneem4]

We can trade Beal for the next #1 pick,
Trade the rest of our team for young players and more picks
5 years later we’ll hope we have enough talent to compete
Or we’ll end up like okc, (dinwidde)Brooklyn, Boston, (no butler)philly, etc