The Give and Go: Trading Draft Picks

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The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Paul: We spent the entirety of our last podcast thinking of fake trades, in the hopes that it would rub off on some NBA general managers. Since then we’ve seen two actual trades involving the Minnesota Timberwolves, as they sent Mo Williams and Troy Daniels to Charlotte for Gary Neal and a future second-round pick and then traded a lottery-protected first for Atlanta’s Adreian Payne.

What do you think of Minnesota’s strategy of selling veterans for draft picks, while simultaneously trading picks for young talent already in the NBA? Is this a strategy that other, rebuilding teams should adopt - most notably the Boston Celtics, with tons of future draft considerations and a couple of solid veterans on the roster? Is it kind of genius to trade draft picks down the line for discounted talent today, or counter-productive for teams that are years away from contention?

How about for a young team with years of lottery experience, like the Charlotte Hornets? Is the risk of trading draft picks mitigated by their proximity to the playoffs?

Chris: Mitchell, you basically called it with the Mo Williams to Charlotte trade. And now the Suns have lost six of their last seven. Could the Goran Dragic-to-Boston deal be in play in two weeks when the Thunder are 3 games up on them...? (Paul's note: Apparently.) 

**Mitchell splashes a cup of water in Chris’s face**

Thanks, Mitchell. I got a little excited there for a second.

Ok, what were you saying? Oh yes, rebuilding teams trading veteran pieces for draft picks. My cop out answer is… it depends. It all depends on the situation, right? For Minnesota, with LaVine waiting in the wings and Rubio coming back from injury, Mo Williams is probably the most expendable of all their veterans (I’m looking at you, Kevin Martin and Nikola Pekovic).  

And for Charlotte, they essentially give up nothing (I’m sorry, I don’t count Gary Neal as anything) for two players that could each be the best long-range shooter on their current roster. Considering Charlotte is the worst 3-point shooting team in the league and have been starting Brian Roberts at point guard while Kemba is out, this was a no-brainer.

But I completely glossed over the second-round pick in this deal. I think the core of what you’re getting at is how valuable are draft picks? How can a rebuilding team like the Timberwolves justify giving up a first-round pick when they just dumped a veteran for a second? Well, that’s the thing with draft picks in the NBA these days. Their value is all over the place. This is because of a combination of factors:

• Protections on first-round picks are insanely complicated.
• Some first-round picks are so heavily protected that they end up actually being two second-round picks.
• Second-round picks are a complete crapshoot....
• Unless they are very high-second-round picks...
• Unless the draft is shallow in which case, late-first-round picks are about as big a crapshoot as second-round picks.

See. This gets confusing. The value of a pick is completely dependent on context. No two first-round picks are equal in today’s NBA. Unless of course the pick is completely unprotected, which basically never happens (THANK YOU SO MUCH, BILLY KING. DID YOU GET THE VALENTINES DAY CARD I SENT YOU?).

So, if you are a rebuilding team, should you be hoarding picks? Or moving them in opportune moments (like to steal a rookie with a first-round pedigree from a team that is openly looking to create a roster spot for Ray Allen)? There is no right or wrong here.  

Draft picks have value. There’s no doubt of that. They are basically the only way to get an NBA Star on a cost-controlled contract. But they are a gamble, in all cases; from the first pick to the 60th. You never know what you’re going to get. So, NBA front offices should not be too nervous to move them if necessary.

You hear that, Danny Ainge? What are your thoughts, Mitchell?

Paul: There are so many documented ways to rebuild in the NBA that there really isn’t a particular blueprint to success. There have been Spurs models and Thunder models and Daryl Morey models, but the only commonalities are to nail any lottery picks, don’t sign bad contracts, and find talent at a bargain (i.e. second-round picks, 10-day contracts, or international free agents). The quicker method is probably to bottom out and nail a high-lottery pick on a once-in-a-generation athlete (i.e.: Duncan, LeBron, or Durant), but the “stack assets” strategy is equally effective, if a bit meandering. Both scenarios require tons of patience and luck, while losing is generally pretty easy and usually well-deserved.

I wonder, at a certain point, how much influence a GM’s personal philosophies factor into their strategies and how much is determined by external forces, like ownership, job security, fan expectations, etc. Few GM’s have the luxury of remaining employed while suffering through setbacks in their long-term planning, which is why Sam Hinkie’s reign with the Philadelphia 76ers has been so interesting (and controversial). His case-study of rebuilding is an extreme example, one where draft picks are gold and cap space is a means to acquiring more draft picks, and losing seasons are to be expected to increase the value of their own draft picks.

It was Hinkie’s trade of Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans for two first-round picks that jump-started his own rebuild, and expedited the Pels’ rebuild under Dell Demps. Demps’s strategy has been to trade three first-round picks for Holiday and Omer Asik, and surround Anthony Davis with veteran talent in his formative NBA years. An 87-year old owner in Tom Benson might have influenced the decision to eschew draft picks for proven talent, and the trades haven’t come back to necessarily kill the Pelicans so far, as their picks resulted in the sixth pick in 2013 (Nerlens Noel), #10 in the 2014 Draft (Elfrid Payton), and a likely late-lottery pick this summer, with the Pellies on the fringes of the Western Conference playoffs and above-.500. Noel and Elfrid running with The Unibrow is nice to dream on, but Jrue and Omer are better players now. Considering Demps’s last lottery pick - in 2013 at #10, after taking Davis with the first-overall pick - was the since-traded Austin Rivers, trading out of the last couple of lotteries at least reduced the bust potential for the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Timberwolves haven’t necessarily adopted that Pelicans strategy here, in trading for Adreian Payne. Their future first will be lottery-protected until 2020, where the pick will turn into two seconds in 2020 and 2021. They’ll get a look at Adreian Payne, the 15th pick in the 2014 Draft, and give him opportunities to develop as their stretch-four next to Gorgui Dieng in their future frontcourt. Payne will be under contract for the next three and a half seasons with the Timberwolves before he hits restricted free agency in 2018, and adds another super-athletic younger piece to a team that already plays Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, Dieng, Anthony Bennett, and Shabazz Muhammad. If that group matures and makes the playoffs it’ll cost the team a first-rounder, but they’ll have five years to be bad before it turns into two seconds. It’s protected enough to minimize the risk, but the question then turns to Adreian Payne and his development to justify trading a potential first-round pick.

I personally prefer the trade from Atlanta’s perspective, as any time a team with championship aspirations can trade ancillary parts for future first-round picks, it seems to go a lot better than teams that do the opposite (ask Miami this summer when they convey their pick to Cleveland from the LeBron sign-and-trade). Is Danny Ferry still in charge? If not then Mike Budenholzer is responsible, and I would trust him to trust his coaches to weigh the risk/reward with losing Payne, given their (limited) time working with him. Atlanta’s simply not able to devote time or in-game minutes to a young player who isn’t as familiar with the playbook as other, more experienced players, so they’ll trade him to a team that does, in exchange for a non-lottery first-round pick over the next five years or two good second-round picks well down the line. Considering the Hawks will probably get a (late-) lottery pick this summer in a swap with the Brooklyn Nets, losing their 2014 first-round pick won’t sting as much.

The Charlotte Hornets trading a 2019 second-round pick (from the Heat, in the Shabazz Napier trade-up this past draft) and Gary Neal to the Timberwolves for Mo Williams and Troy Daniels is another nice win/win trade for either side. Like you said, the Hornets need shooting and when I made up a Mo trade last week I included Bismack Biyombo instead of Gary Neal, who was maybe their only pure shooter on the roster at the time. I tried to couch it by qualifying the threat of trading Biyombo to be a non-starter for head coach Steve Clifford, but instead he’ll replace his only shooter with two new shooters who are better equipped to handle the basketball. The Hornets needed a stop-gap while Kemba Walker heals from his knee surgery and both “Mo Gotti” and Daniels can help at point guard and with the team’s shooting woes (29th in true shooting percentage).

Let’s see how many other veterans the Timberwolves can unload in the next week before the trade deadline. Kevin Martin’s got $14 million left over the next two seasons, Thaddeus Young has a player option next year for just under $10 million, and Nikola Pekovic has three years and $36 million left on his contract after this season, and traditional rebuilding philosophy would dictate Flip Saunders to clear all significant salary commitments (maybe even including Anthony Bennett’s $5.8 million next season?) and turn starting spots over to the prospects he’s collected. But with the presumed expansion of the salary cap in the coming seasons, Minnesota could just as well keep the vets around to help win games and teach the kids how to play in the league.

That’s the fun of rebuilding situations in the NBA: the unpredictability and uniqueness of each organization and rebuild cycle. Whether it’s trading draft picks or stockpiling as many as possible, it depends on the context and culture and coaching to hit on any opportunities or to develop talent through other avenues. Whichever blueprint or strategy works is the one that happens to work for each particular organization at that time, and sometimes luck and circumstance plays a larger role in escaping lottery-poverty than shrewd transactions or long-term planning.