This is a really great post that captures the economic vs. on court costs and benefits of Taj and Noah well.
I think Taj needs to show up this season and perform to have significant value. All doug may have proved is we have little of value to trade except Rose as Rose will be value or even underpaid when he is at the max.
The value of trading Deng, if you can find a taker, is that presumably the assets you get in return are $12M worth of talent, either from a borderline star player or multiple $4M-$6M journeymen. The value of keeping Taj is retaining an already good player (and likely to improve) on a bargain contract. There aren't many Taj quality players out there at Taj prices. You'll find more willing takers with less to give in return. Packaging Deng and Taj is tenable, given the pros and cons, as long as the package you get back is truly attractive. If its not, stand pat. We could do worse and if we don't get an attractive package back, its making a move to make a move and overall -- doing worse. Same is true with Noah, except even worse. Noah is still on a great contract and if we keep him we get first bite at the apple to re-sign him, even if we don't get an extension done. Why give him up for an incremental improvement? The economics are important and some fans portray the Bulls view of economics to a fault like the Bulls are run by Freemasons, Bilderbergers and the Counsel of Seven. But the ultimate goal has to be to win a championship and I do believe the Bulls org would like to win another one and are NOT a team that torpedoes itself by looking solely at bottom line without regard to what's going on on the court.
Okay, my problem with Doug's argument is that you pay a premium when you move from passable players to good players, and an even greater premium when you move from great players to star players. This is for any number of reasons including winning and fan draw. Every team needs some good players and great players if they are going to be successful. So, is it really accurate to say Taj has more trade value? I think it's an apples and oranges comparison. He may be more underpaid than Noah (certainly not more than Rose). But if you can find other similarly underpaid competent players, which you can, and you can't find other similarly underpaid young good bigs . . . I'm just saying Doug's analysis is somewhat misleading.
I thought it was a load of shit If Noah is a cornerstone for us why wouldn't he be a cornerstone / missing piece for someone else ? The suggested idea is that Noah only has a market if we're upgrading to a rebuilder , and further implies , that we would only trade with someone going into a rebuilding stage - and so therefore in this singular dimension - Taj has greater value because of how the text book says you are supposed to rebuild I mean what the fuck ? Has Neil Funk been sharing Taj's chop in an anal round robin with all the numb nuts that are in love with Taj just because he was moderately successful and he was a cheap Well a $2 hooker will still do her job but she's still a $2 hooker The poorly thought out "analysis" doesn't consider that a contender would covet Noah at ( gee wiz and gulp ) his fair market value that may put them over the top , nor does it consider that a team may not go for "rebuilding 101" and pay the differential for the superior talent and instead elect to re-tool rather than rebuild Much better way to do it for basketball reasons , and business reasons , that will ensure bums remain on seats instead of up in the air waiting for the mediocre man love from Taj just because he's cheap. Well guess fucking what ? Taj is to baskteball entertainment what Mark Knophler is to a live concert performance. Technically proficient and does his job but boring as fucking bat shit. Who are your paying public going to come and watch or subscribe to your broadcast or buy your merchandise with their boy's name on it Noah or Gibson ? Yeah that's right Who's the better talent? Yeah that's right again
That's what I meant to say. Noah being paid at fair market value is more valuable than Taj being paid under fair market value -- both in terms of wins and losses and putting fannies in seats. The end.
Agreed with the Noah support. Trades don't have to be just between two teams. Pacers just got a much better prospect, Collison, than Gibson for Troy Murphy.
In a nutshell, I think what Doug is pointing out is that you can't add enough cornerstones to make building if you start out by paying them full price. So a "rebuilding" team that takes on Noah for, say, their best player, is done rebuilding because it's capped out before it gets to start. That's hardly a controversial point, is it? Why is the first point so strange? You have to consider why teams would make a trade, no? Certainly we see ourselves as contenders, or a team trying to be a contender. So yes, Noah would have an obvious market to other contenders, but why would we trade him to a team we're competing with? And why would they trade a player of value to us? In practice, I think the pattern of trades in the NBA is very much as Doug implies. Contending teams would love to get players like Noah, sure. But they can't give up players like Noah to get players like Noah, because then they won't be contending teams again. So they don't. Instead, you see contending teams trade with teams that are deciding they can't or can no longer contend and need to change things up. It seems much more strange to say good teams will trade away the players that make them good for other players that might make them good.
I'm not sure how that supports the idea that Noah has more value than Gibson. I think it's all circumstantial to the teams involved. I mean why did the Pacers get such a good prospect for a forgettable guys like Murphy. Because Murphy had an expiring contract, that's why! Which sort of supports the notion money and contract status matters more than talent to many teams.
Good article. Pretty clear that Denver isn't really in a state where Noah would be valuable. Goes along with the notion that you either want to be a legit "win now" team (which Denver would not be if they traded melo for deng/noah) or a rebuilding one (stay lean, get high draft picks). Stay out of the miserable NBA middle. That's a terrible place to be. Noah at big bucks isn't that attractive to a rebuilding team. It might be true that Gibson plus a first are our most tradeable assets for a team looking to dump a star and enter rebuilding mode. Also kinda sad, since that does not seem to be a very attractive package.
Mike, you seem to be mixing two issues. Whether Noah is more likely to be traded than Gibson? (Can we all agree that this is no?) And whether Noah has more value than Gibson. (Can we all agree that this is yes?) Doug's post was only about value, not a liklihood of a trade happening: It always depends on the circumstance, and on how teams have evaluated talent. But I disagree with the idea that a rebuilding team wouldn't want Noah. He's a young big that can be the face of a franchise and rile up a fan base. Who wouldn't want that? That's good on every team, regardless of where they are in the standings. None of the floated salaries make Noah a signing that would cripple a franchise's cap flexibility.
All values are relative, and especially to circumstance. Who wouldn't want Noah? Well, it's not that anyone wouldn't "want" Noah to some degree, the question is how much they'd want Noah relative to another possibility. I walked through the idea of Noah to Denver. I'd guess if you asked them, they would prefer Noah to Taj, but their particular circumstance makes it much less of a no-brainer than the pure talent would indicate. The only workable trade the Nuggets and Bulls could do is Deng/Noah or Deng/Taj/JJ for Melo. Obviously, the Noah option makes them better, but it puts them at roughly $65M with Billups/Lawson/Deng/Nene/Noah. The more or less obvious move to complete a "retooling" would be to trade Billups and get under the cap, but doing that only gets them to $50M. So not much room to work with. And you've still got the problem of Nene and Noah being close substitutes. The Gibson option leaves them at $56M (b/c you're not paying Noah), and then if they go on to trade Billups, they've gotten themselves down to $41M or so, and can do more. And while Gibson is less talented than Noah, the end product of what the Nuggets can put on the court isn't that much worse because they've already got that Noah like center. ------------------ How about we flip it around? I know it's a somewhat separate issue as to whether we'd consider trading Noah, but you can't evaluate what the other team would want without knowing what other team we're talking about. What players would we at least consider for a second trading Noah for? I mean, I think it's pretty clear from my "hell no" a few days ago that I think he should be off the table in most any circumstance. I suppose I'd gladly trade him for Kevin Durant, but anyway, the point is, what are the target players and teams we're talking about here? If you're talking about Melo and trading with Denver, it's not obvious that Noah make more sense for them in the grand scheme of things. What other guys are even worth discussing, and what are those teams wanting? My point would just be that the absolute difference in talent becomes secondary to the comparative differences in teams. That's why people trade, both in real life and in the NBA.
Simple question: what team, with a player we'd want, and with a player we'd actually contemplate giving up Noah to get (not even saying you actually have to do pull the trigger on it), would only part with that player if given Noah, and not if offered Gibson? In the Melo example, I don't think Noah vs. Gibson would be determinate. I think what matters is how vociferously Melo wants a trade. If he pushes his way out, the Nuggets will ultimately swallow their bitter pill and live with a pennies on the dollar trade. Because pennies is better than nothing. I suppose there are cases where a team is building and not capped out (I'd guess the Kings or Thunder might consider a deal of Noah for Tyreke Evans or James Harden but not a deal for Taj Gibson and picks), but I guess to me it's sort of irrelevant because those aren't the sort of trades the Bulls seem to be contemplating, and I'm not sure they're the sort of deal a contending team should be contemplating. Call it conflating two separate things if you want, but in the context of what the Bulls would probably be looking for - a big time player in an uneven trade, a cheap asset has advantages over an expensive one.
From a pure basketball standpoint, Noah is clearly worth more than Taj. I mean, the Bulls would accept less in trade for Taj. From a CBA standpoint, the ideal players are superstars on rookie contracts, preferably late 1st round or even 2nd round picks. Considering both, you have to pay what the player CAN earn under the CBA if you want the player. You can settle for Taj, who's a LOT less than Noah on the court, or you can pay and have the much better player. The two don't play the same position, which needs to be considered as well. If you need a C, you want Noah and not Taj. If you want a PF, you probably still want Noah since he can play PF and C.
