NBA 2018-19 Thread
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Why on Earth would anyone trade for Jimmy Butler at this point?
General Soreness
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
Deer
GirlsAloudFan
Blue Crack Addict
I'll give you a million dollars if the Bucks ever win another NBA title.
I'll give you the 1971 title, though. That was an impressive team.
I'll give you the 1971 title, though. That was an impressive team.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
They might not, but this is the most exciting they've been since 2001 so I'll take it.
They're easily top 3 in the East, along with Toronto and Boston. I'd probably put them 2nd right now, with the idea that Boston will eventually kick it into gear and push Milwaukee to 3rd.
A trip to the finals is not out of the question... where they'd be 2 injuries away from a potential title.
Giannis is a year or two away from being in the conversation for best player in the league. He's probably top 5 now as it is.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
lol General Soreness is off to Philly.
I'm sure he'll do well with the young players. He always has.
How does Thibs turn down 4 first rounders and take this? And is Philly just foregoing shooting altogether is there another shoe to drop?
I'm sure he'll do well with the young players. He always has.
How does Thibs turn down 4 first rounders and take this? And is Philly just foregoing shooting altogether is there another shoe to drop?
Hewson
Blue Crack Supplier
Well Thibs got that all important 2022 2nd rounder in the deal, so he's got that going for him.
I think it's safe to declare the Bulls as the winners of the original Butler trade. And by a hefty margin.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
Well, four picks has to be over 8 years, yeah? Houston doesn’t own anyone else’s picks. God forbid they protect them, and Houston takes a tumble in a half a decade after Harden is past his prime. Then what? Waiting longer to access those picks?
NBA picks are pretty worthless. The majority of first round picks past 15 end up in China or whatever within 5 years. I’d argue that acquiring two guys who have shown they can be valuable in the NBA is a better deal, because those four first round picks would probably never have a return.
Please go explain to the 5 fans of the Brooklyn Nets about how useless NBA draft picks are.
We'll wait.
A couple more things on the draft...
1) draft picks are not useless in the NBA. But obviously you need to draft well. In a time where teams often find themselves financially hamstrung by super max contracts, good use of your draft picks is vital.
2) 2021 (or possibly 2022) is going to be, essentially, a double draft. once the one and done goes away you're going to see an influx of talent in one of those summers, potentially creating as deep a draft as we've ever seen. Stock
3) Boston is as good as they are because of how many first round draft picks they've been able to acquire. They're assets that can either be used to restock cheap talent, or to trade for established stars. Golden State, San Antonio and Toronto have used good drafting to build their teams. Same goes with Milwaukee. The Wizards and Knicks historically give their picks away.
4) Any pick in the west could potentially be a lottery pick in short order. Teams can win 45 games and miss the playoffs. The Rockets have an old core. In 2 years when Chris Paul can barely walk he'll be making 40 million per year. Their window is rapidly closing. And nobody can protect first rounders forever.
5) Thibs made the trade he did rather than the trade he could have done in order to put a better team on the floor now - because his job could be in jeopardy at season's end, and he's the coach and GM. The owner should have stepped in and taken the picks.
1) draft picks are not useless in the NBA. But obviously you need to draft well. In a time where teams often find themselves financially hamstrung by super max contracts, good use of your draft picks is vital.
2) 2021 (or possibly 2022) is going to be, essentially, a double draft. once the one and done goes away you're going to see an influx of talent in one of those summers, potentially creating as deep a draft as we've ever seen. Stock
3) Boston is as good as they are because of how many first round draft picks they've been able to acquire. They're assets that can either be used to restock cheap talent, or to trade for established stars. Golden State, San Antonio and Toronto have used good drafting to build their teams. Same goes with Milwaukee. The Wizards and Knicks historically give their picks away.
4) Any pick in the west could potentially be a lottery pick in short order. Teams can win 45 games and miss the playoffs. The Rockets have an old core. In 2 years when Chris Paul can barely walk he'll be making 40 million per year. Their window is rapidly closing. And nobody can protect first rounders forever.
5) Thibs made the trade he did rather than the trade he could have done in order to put a better team on the floor now - because his job could be in jeopardy at season's end, and he's the coach and GM. The owner should have stepped in and taken the picks.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
Give me a day or two on this one, migraine.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
Since you were willing to wait on behalf of the exclusive club of Brooklyn Nets fans (they thank you), I was already in the midst of web scraping other sports data from the web, so I just had to do a few tweaks to make it work for this. So this didn't take me too long .
Take this as not condescending to your basketball knowledge, but just an interesting set of charts I made.
Ok so I went and scraped draft data and ran some numbers on a per-pick basis. i.e., how valuable is the first pick versus the last pick, and every pick in between? My assumption in modelling is that there should be an exponential decay from top to bottom, mostly because the NBA drafts more players than are worthy for the NBA., and most players don't last out (and to compliment that, a share of undrafted players make it in their place). I scraped 2005 to 2017, because that's all basketball-reference.com had uniform tables for and I wasn't about spending more than an hour or so on this.
Off the bat, I took a look at games played .
That's a graph of all games played at that pick position since 2005. This is clearly linear, and my best guess as to why is because bad players are more likely to be given a chance if their pick was higher.
Similarly, minutes played holds the same trend. Apologies for not making that linear - it appears to be.
Things get a little more interesting when you start to digest the numbers at the position. That's a look at the total rebounds per pick. Again, this is all players at any single number, so all the first overalls combined, then the second overalls, etc. So it's important to maybe not look at an individual point, but the trend line itself, because you're talking n=12 data points. So one awful player or one amazing player can totally ruin the numbers at one spot.
None of this is really any shocking surprise. Top 10 picks are usually better players. Something to pay attention to, though, is how scattered the values get after around 10 or 15. Aside from that outlier at 21 (who was picked at 21? Rajon Rondo, and he's a a dramatic outlier for assists). If you remove him from the equation, you sort of have a flat-lined scatter from 10 to 30.
So this is a bit more in depth here. Those two charts show the median player as a data point , with the red bars representing the 75th and 25th percentile on the first chart, and the 95th and 5th percentile from top to bottom on the second chart. So you can translate that into conversion rates. 75% and 95% of players picked at those positions will score less than the top of those bars, respectively. Obviously that's Jimmy Butler being *exceptional* for the position he was picked at, because he's *above* the 95th percentile at 30.
Last but not least, VORP per pick at 25-median-75 for the percentiles. This is quite literally saying 'somewhere after pick #10, your pick has a 50% chance of being ~absolutely worthless~.
Point to be made here... 4 first round picks, even if not protected... you'll likely get two average NBA contributing players.
What did they get? Two average NBA contributing players, a relatively worthless player, *and a relatively worthless 2nd round pick*.
1st Rounder A: Converts - Covington
1st Rounder B: Converts - Saric
1st Rounder C: Fails - Bayless
1st Rounder D: Fails - a 2nd round pick
They definitely got fleeced, but I'm not seeing how 4 likely bad1st round picks over like 8 years is any more enticing of an offer.
Take this as not condescending to your basketball knowledge, but just an interesting set of charts I made.
Ok so I went and scraped draft data and ran some numbers on a per-pick basis. i.e., how valuable is the first pick versus the last pick, and every pick in between? My assumption in modelling is that there should be an exponential decay from top to bottom, mostly because the NBA drafts more players than are worthy for the NBA., and most players don't last out (and to compliment that, a share of undrafted players make it in their place). I scraped 2005 to 2017, because that's all basketball-reference.com had uniform tables for and I wasn't about spending more than an hour or so on this.
Off the bat, I took a look at games played .
That's a graph of all games played at that pick position since 2005. This is clearly linear, and my best guess as to why is because bad players are more likely to be given a chance if their pick was higher.
Similarly, minutes played holds the same trend. Apologies for not making that linear - it appears to be.
Things get a little more interesting when you start to digest the numbers at the position. That's a look at the total rebounds per pick. Again, this is all players at any single number, so all the first overalls combined, then the second overalls, etc. So it's important to maybe not look at an individual point, but the trend line itself, because you're talking n=12 data points. So one awful player or one amazing player can totally ruin the numbers at one spot.
None of this is really any shocking surprise. Top 10 picks are usually better players. Something to pay attention to, though, is how scattered the values get after around 10 or 15. Aside from that outlier at 21 (who was picked at 21? Rajon Rondo, and he's a a dramatic outlier for assists). If you remove him from the equation, you sort of have a flat-lined scatter from 10 to 30.
So this is a bit more in depth here. Those two charts show the median player as a data point , with the red bars representing the 75th and 25th percentile on the first chart, and the 95th and 5th percentile from top to bottom on the second chart. So you can translate that into conversion rates. 75% and 95% of players picked at those positions will score less than the top of those bars, respectively. Obviously that's Jimmy Butler being *exceptional* for the position he was picked at, because he's *above* the 95th percentile at 30.
Last but not least, VORP per pick at 25-median-75 for the percentiles. This is quite literally saying 'somewhere after pick #10, your pick has a 50% chance of being ~absolutely worthless~.
Point to be made here... 4 first round picks, even if not protected... you'll likely get two average NBA contributing players.
What did they get? Two average NBA contributing players, a relatively worthless player, *and a relatively worthless 2nd round pick*.
1st Rounder A: Converts - Covington
1st Rounder B: Converts - Saric
1st Rounder C: Fails - Bayless
1st Rounder D: Fails - a 2nd round pick
They definitely got fleeced, but I'm not seeing how 4 likely bad1st round picks over like 8 years is any more enticing of an offer.
I feel I owe a longer response, but don't have time. I will - it just may take a few days as it's a crazy busy week for anything more than short responses.
That said... You're missing a few pieces in your eval.
Houston was so sending at least one player. Minnesota was holding out for Eric Gordon - and if things got desperate for Houston (they're already making roster changes - bye, Melo) they probably could have gotten him. But maybe not.
And yes, obviously there is always inherent risk involved in drafting players. You never know who's going to be a dog, this going to get injured, among a number of other potential downfalls. You also don't know when the 15th pick in the draft will turn into Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Klay Thompson; or a 2nd rounder into Draymond Green.
Regardless... Minnesota has some roster changes due. Specifically in regards to Andrew Wiggins. They're in the West, and they just had to trade one of what they thought was a key piece.
Let's say there's a player they see on draft night next year at 7 that they really want. Does Wiggins and Saric move them up to the 7? No chance. Does Wiggins and the 15? Maybe. It at least gets them closer.
Draft picks have value beyond the potential drafted player.
I'll respond more in full when I have more time.
That said... You're missing a few pieces in your eval.
Houston was so sending at least one player. Minnesota was holding out for Eric Gordon - and if things got desperate for Houston (they're already making roster changes - bye, Melo) they probably could have gotten him. But maybe not.
And yes, obviously there is always inherent risk involved in drafting players. You never know who's going to be a dog, this going to get injured, among a number of other potential downfalls. You also don't know when the 15th pick in the draft will turn into Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Klay Thompson; or a 2nd rounder into Draymond Green.
Regardless... Minnesota has some roster changes due. Specifically in regards to Andrew Wiggins. They're in the West, and they just had to trade one of what they thought was a key piece.
Let's say there's a player they see on draft night next year at 7 that they really want. Does Wiggins and Saric move them up to the 7? No chance. Does Wiggins and the 15? Maybe. It at least gets them closer.
Draft picks have value beyond the potential drafted player.
I'll respond more in full when I have more time.
Hewson
Blue Crack Supplier
It obviously all depends on where those picks land. And that is the great unknown. The assumption would be next year's would be late 1st round and therefore not very valuable, (of course Houston would currently be in the lottery, but one wouldn't expect that to last) but the 2021 and especially 2023 & 2025 picks could be good picks depending of course on protections.
In essence, The Celtics trade with the Nets turned aging Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry into Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Kyrie Irving ( a few other assets of course sent with the final Nets pick to Cleveland for Irving). Plus they have Sacto's first rounder this year courtesy of dealing #1 to Philly in 2017 for #3 (and we know how well that worked out in the draft for Philly)
Now Nets ownership was stupid for not protecting the picks and Celts ended up with a #3 overall, a #1 overall and a trade chip that ended up the #8 overall over the past 3 years (Celts in addition to getting Nets 2014, 16 and 18 first rounders also got right to swap with Nets in 2017 if they wanted and that ended up #1).
Obviously Houston would not have been as stupid as Prokhorov and dealt all those picks unprotected, so Minnesota wouldn't likely have landed the type of haul Boston did, but likely it would have been a better haul than Covington & Saric (rest of that trade is useless filler), but they would have to wait for it, and Townes and Wiggins are entering their primes now.
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LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
Since there’s more to be said I’ll wait and just comment on one thing.
I disagree here. I get what you mean - you never know when you’ll win the lotto but you won’t win the lotto if you’re not buying a ticket. Sure. The odds of the 15th pick being Kawhi or the odds of getting Klay Thompson were part of the terms and conditions before you bought the ticket. The odds were pretty well prescribed.
And more often than not, much like a lottery ticket, the hope of winning is far more appreciated than its true value.
I’m not anti-drafting. It’s essential to building a team. I’m just anti-trading-value-for-picks. Picks are rarely, if ever, worth the value of proven talent.
I disagree here. I get what you mean - you never know when you’ll win the lotto but you won’t win the lotto if you’re not buying a ticket. Sure. The odds of the 15th pick being Kawhi or the odds of getting Klay Thompson were part of the terms and conditions before you bought the ticket. The odds were pretty well prescribed.
And more often than not, much like a lottery ticket, the hope of winning is far more appreciated than its true value.
I’m not anti-drafting. It’s essential to building a team. I’m just anti-trading-value-for-picks. Picks are rarely, if ever, worth the value of proven talent.
The odds of getting a rotation player or higher with a draft pick are a wee bit higher than winning the mega millions.
But I'll wait again until I have more time - I would point to Hewson's example as a good starting point.
But I'll wait again until I have more time - I would point to Hewson's example as a good starting point.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
Oh c’mon, you know I know that.
And as far as heeeeson’s post, all my prior posts worked under the assumption that either all or the latter two of four picks would be protected (because I don’t think anyone is that stupid, but clearly examples prove otherwise). But I entirely disagree that you’re going to necessarily get a better haul than what they got from those main two players. As a probability, that’s just not true and the numbers show that.
And as far as heeeeson’s post, all my prior posts worked under the assumption that either all or the latter two of four picks would be protected (because I don’t think anyone is that stupid, but clearly examples prove otherwise). But I entirely disagree that you’re going to necessarily get a better haul than what they got from those main two players. As a probability, that’s just not true and the numbers show that.
i mean come on.
Hewson
Blue Crack Supplier
How do you not take Gordon, Nene and 2 1st rounders over Covington and Brad Pitt's twin brother?
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
The Rockets offer is even worse than I thought. Why the hell would Minnesota want a 35 year old Nene? Even Gordon is 30. That would have been desperation in the fashion that you described earlier over “trying not to get fired.”
Personally I would have opted for the New Orleans offer, just for the unprotected pick from a team that isn’t very good.
Personally I would have opted for the New Orleans offer, just for the unprotected pick from a team that isn’t very good.
There's a fatal flaw in your analysis. Something that you're missing that you simply can not miss when deciding what/who has more value.
You're missing the money.
A 4 year vet with a PER around 15/16 is less valuable than a rookie capable of putting up the same, or even slightly worse, numbers. The 4 year player is at the end of their rookie scale contract and is about to demand a significantly higher pay rate. And that first extension will only be for 3 seasons, and then the player will hit free agency and demand even more of they are of a certain level.
A rookie has 4 years plus 3 on the first extension. You're getting cheaper labor over a longer period of time.
In a league that features both a salary cap and a luxary tax you can not judge value without including cost - both current and projected.
There's also much less risk involved with a low cost rookie, who doesn't really do anything to your cap number vs a vet. If Minnesota decides to resign Covington to, say, 4 years 18 million - and he plateaus - that's dead money. The contract is untradable. It has a negative impact on everything the franchise does from that point out - since they can't trade the deal and can't sign any significant upgrades due to the cap.
If a rookie fails to pan out, there is a very small financial hit to the franchise as their cap number is so small.
You can not judge value without including contract.
There is no secret that the teams that have won the most games over this current CBA - San Antonio, Golden State, Toronto, Boston - are terrific at finding great value in the draft. It allows them to make the other moves needed to remain in contention.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
I don’t think it’s ‘fatal’ per say. That’s a solid half of a reason why I was calling Houston’s offer worse than I thought. Old players who are making bank with no room for growth, versus Saric as a youngster and Covington who might cost them.
Money goes both ways. Jimmy Butler would cost money. They unloaded that in the trade. It’s ok to bring money back in such a case.
Money goes both ways. Jimmy Butler would cost money. They unloaded that in the trade. It’s ok to bring money back in such a case.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
And again, you’re really coming at this as though I’m defending any offer that considered as “good.” They were in a shit position so they got shit offers. Surprise.
Four first round picks, given NBA rules and the assumption that far future picks are protected, is an awful offer. That’s apparently not even what the offer was.
Four first round picks, given NBA rules and the assumption that far future picks are protected, is an awful offer. That’s apparently not even what the offer was.
Neither Nene nor Gordon are making "bank"
Nene is on the vet's minimum and was likely only added to make salaries match. Gordon and Covington have similar deals, only Gordon's runs out after next season where as Covington's runs through 2022. Covington is also 27 and likely has hit his peak, as has Gordon.
Saric is still on his rookie deal, but he's an old rookie since he was stashed overseas for two years. Minnesota will have to significantly increase his salary after next season to keep him long-term. It's not inconceivable that he'd get a deal along the lines of the deal Otto Porter got.
So with Houston's deal you get two first round picks, and by 2020 all of that money is off the books - giving you great flexibility.
With the deal they got, if they want to keep Saric long term, by 2020 they're going to be on the hook for around $30 million from this trade, give or take, which is about a quarter of the salary cap.
This means they'll be paying KAT, Wiggins, Saric and Covington in the range of 90 to 100 million dollars in 2020. Toss in Dieng's 17 mill per year and the team is not only capped out, but is in the luxury tax. And with no room to improve and little ability to trade any of these contracts.
They now have a capped out team spending 2 for 1 on the dollar in tax, that is at best a 4 or 5 seed in the west.
So yea - not looking at the money involved, both current and potential, is a fatal flaw in any argument over the value of an asset.
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LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
Ok mind blown. You’re saying the money coming in from Houston isn’t a lot, and then you’re saying it all comes off the books in 2020 so that gives you flexibility. Which one? Veterans minimum plus a plus player in his prime add up to relatively the cost of Jimmy Butler’s money they sent away.
What good is having “flexibility” when young players still have value? In two years, you can let Nene retire and let Gordon leave the team. Or you can be stuck with a problem of “is it worth to retain this talent that is not yet dried up?” Better problem to have. The whole point is to keep talent, not get rid of it.
Sure, they might be on the hook for $30 million if they want to keep Saric. If they go Houston, they’re currently on the hook for some $15 million for a bunch of money they’re spending with the likely intent of letting it walk. So... spend less than $10 million and choose whether or not to buy in, or be on the hook for $15 million with no real long term purpose at all?
What good is having “flexibility” when young players still have value? In two years, you can let Nene retire and let Gordon leave the team. Or you can be stuck with a problem of “is it worth to retain this talent that is not yet dried up?” Better problem to have. The whole point is to keep talent, not get rid of it.
Sure, they might be on the hook for $30 million if they want to keep Saric. If they go Houston, they’re currently on the hook for some $15 million for a bunch of money they’re spending with the likely intent of letting it walk. So... spend less than $10 million and choose whether or not to buy in, or be on the hook for $15 million with no real long term purpose at all?
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
This conversation needs to be settled on the basketball court.
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