Comparing the deals - Reality vs Mythological

I was watching @BonesJones and @hoopsjock and they were asking their chat to explain why the current haul is better than the Miami deal. Not just the rumored deal, but the "godfather" deal.

I'm going to do that.

So, for the purposes of science, let's assume that Miami offered the absolute best deal they possibly could.

Mythical trade
Herro to a third team
Martin to the Suns as part of the Ayton trade
Jovic
Jaquez
2024 pick (they'd have to work something out with OKC)
2028 pick
2030 pick
Swaps in 2025/2027/2029

First problem, they still need to clear about $6 million to add Dame's $45.6 million, so someone else would have to go out with Herro to that third team. Maybe Robinson. Maybe Lowry. That's A LOT of players going out to keep up with the actual trade.

Second problem, this assumes that OKC is willing to change protections on their 2025 pick.

Third problem, no rumors ever truly surfaced about what kind of value Herro could actually fetch on the open market, but just for the sake of this argument, let's say it's a FRP and filler to match Herro's $27 million and Lowry or Robinson.

The Blazers end up with four picks, three swaps, Jovic, Jaquez, Ayton, Camara. MAYBE they get another young player from the four team.

Reality trade
Blazers sent out:
Dame
Nurk
Little
Keon

Blazers received:
Ayton
Brogdon
Williams
Camara
2024 Golden State pick
2029 Bucks pick
2029 Celtics pick
2028 Bucks swap
2030 Bucks swap

Malcolm Brogdon
I think Brogdon is going to be moved, but here is his resume from last season.
6'5 combo guard
2022-2023 6th man of the year
15 ppg, 3.7 assists, 4.2 rebounds, 44% from three, 18 PER, decent defender.

Robert Williams
6'9 25 year old center.
Averaged 8 ppg and 8 rebounds as well as 1.4 blocks last season in only 23 minutes per game.

Deandre Ayton
25 year old 6'11 center.
Former first overall pick.
Averaged 18 ppg, 10 rebounds, 20 PER last season.

Comparing the assets
We will take Ayton out of this because it's possible that Ayton is acquired in both scenarios.

Brogdon/Williams vs Jovic and Jaquez. Again, I think there's a very good chance that Brogdon gets moved, but if he doesn't, he's a nice backup who can play both guard positions. This isn't super helpful because we have Scoot/Sharpe/Simons. With that said, this allows Portland to move Simons at some point with a steady veteran who just won 6th man of the year. Cronin can choose between Simons and Brogdon at the deadline if he wants to move one of them. Brogdon is cheaper.

Williams is a beast if he can stay healthy. He's the perfect backup to Ayton. This would be the most depth at center this team has had in a very long time. I wouldn't be surprised if he's traded, but the reports from Woj is that we want to keep him. He's young but he has health issues.

The main point of contention is that Williams at the very least can step into the rotation right away this season. I'm not convinced that Jovic or Jaquez would have sniffed the rotation. Jovic still looks very raw and fits a similar role as Murray. Jaquez is a more immediate impact player, but at best he seems to project out as a role player. A rotation guy. That's not bad, but I'm not losing sleep over him. If Williams can stay healthy, he's better than either player and arguably better than both of them combined. Brogdon and Williams can step in and play right away. That's not the case with Jovic and Jaquez.

But, as I said, I think it's possible that Brogdon will be gone.

The draft picks
Let's stack em up and see how they compare.

• 2024 GSW first vs 2024 Miami first. Maybe I'm crazy but I think there's a much better chance that the Warriors have a mediocre season in 2023-2024 than the Heat would have with Dame. I'd give the advantage to the GSW pick.
• 2029 Milwaukee pick vs 2028 Miami pick - this has been covered pretty extensively since the Dame trade broke, but the Bucks are getting older and they have no future. All their picks are spoken for. Their core is all over 30 years old with the exception of Giannis, who is almost 29. Milwaukee is not a free agent destination. I would put the odds on Milwaukee being bad in 2029 as being much much higher than Miami in 2028. The Milwaukee pick, to me, is clearly better.
• 2029 Boston pick vs 2030 Miami pick - this is a tossup. Neither pick is that great. BUT I still maintain that Miami has a better chance of staying relevant. Too many players have said that they would never go to Boston, and Jaylen Brown has already voiced some displeasure. Their core is young, but I could see them falling apart in the next six years. I'll say equal value though.

Then we have the swaps - honestly I would rather have the two Milwaukee swaps in 2028 and 2030 over the 2025/2027/2029 swaps from Miami for the same reasons that I listed when comparing the two unprotected picks. I think Milwaukee has a higher chance of being bad in the next five or six years.

So what's left? There's the potential pick that Portland would get from Herro. This one is hard to evaluate without knowing exactly what team would have gotten involved, but with there still being a strong possibility that Brogdon gets moved for a pick, and really no concrete rumors about what kind of value Herro has on the market, I'm going to say that this is a wash currently. We'll see what happens with Brogdon.

Conclusion
I believe that the actual deal that Portland made is superior to even the godfather deal that could have possibly been put on the table from Miami. The picks are better quality, Williams is better when healthy than Jovic and Jaquez, and there is still a strong chance that other assets are incoming from a move with Brogdon.

Love to hear thoughts though.

 

Miami didn’t offer close to that though. We all know that. Had they, Joe probably would have taken it to placate Dame. Or not. I’m sure Miami tampered, and that would preclude me from working with them had I been Joe.

 

Nope. They did not. But for the benefit of anyone who wants to compare this mythical Miami godfather deal, I still think we beat it.

 

It was moreso a conversation between people who said Miami's best offer was terrible. Not that Miami offered it.

 

Interesting analysis. I largely agree. And there's no way Miami could have or would have done that deal. They wanted Lillard for $0.50 on the dollar.

 

Really well done. Best case scenario is a 1st for Herro so that'd be four. Who knows how good it'd be.

I agree with some of this though, here's what I disagree with:
2029 Milwaukee pick vs 2028 Miami pick - I would rather have Milwaukee's 2029 1st, but not by much. Everything you said for Milwaukee applies to Miami in the same situation except for the free agent destination part (which is why I'd prefer Milwaukee, but I'm not sure Miami would've been able to rebound with free agents at that point. If not for free agency, Miami's pick would be more likely to be better IMO because they don't have a superstar in his 20s (Dame/Jimmy are 33/34).
2029 Boston pick vs 2030 Miami pick - I'd much rather have Miami's pick. They have no assets left and would've had two stars of 33 and 34 years of age. Compared to Boston, who has some of their picks left, who has a 25-year-old Tatum and a 26-year-old Brown locked up on long-term contracts. Even if Miami signs free agents, it'd be hard to bring guys in that way that are of the caliber of Brown/Tatum
Robert Williams value to this roster - I don't like his fit with Ayton and I think Ayton should be given more responsibility than last year where he played 30 minutes per game. That doesn't leave much of a role for Robert Williams and I think it'd be better for Portland to flip him. He'd be the best backup C in the league and he's great, I just think he has more value another team where he starts than he does to us as a backup to Ayton. I wasn't concerned with filling backup spots with no starting spot to grow into as part of a Dame trade.

For those reasons, I think it's comparable, which is fine. Cronin has done a good job getting value out of a team not-named Miami, and who knows if Miami was giving up that deal. This conversation is more-so a point for people who acted like Miami's best potential offer was terrible, because I think the result is comparable yet the reaction is completely different. But this is a small subset of people.

 

I think the weird wild card when comparing the Celtics pick and the Heat pick is that some stars have recently come out and said they would never go to Boston because of racism. Not sure how much sway that really has.

Also the rumors that Brown was/is unhappy. Will he want out in a year when he can be traded? Not sure. But I agree, if the picks aren’t a wash I’d give a slight advantage to Miami.

I also agree that I’d probably just move both Brogdon and Williams.

 

Those 2 guys are so deep into their hate of Cronin that they can’t see clearly. They will nitpick any move Cronin makes. I mean they were nitpicking that we didn’t get our 2nd round pick from Milwaukee back.

 

I did a live version of this post

 

Picks wise, I think it is a wash, assuming they made the full offer. I prefer the Bucks 1sts to the Heat 1sts, but I can understand why someone would think the Heat have just as big of a likelihood of being bad as I think the Bucks will have.

What it came down to for me was, are Jovic or Jaquez likely to ever be better players than Grant. If not, why are we wasting our time? Camara will be seeing just as much time as Jaquez or Jovic this season, which isn’t many, and TL is at least a proven commodity that we can take our time on.

Between Ant, Scoot, Shae, Grant, DA, and TL, we are guaranteed these guys for the next three seasons if we want all of them still here by then. Jovic and Jaquez are as unknown as Kris or Walker imo.

 

why would anybody try and gauge the actual trade against some bullshit hypothetical Miami trade every single poster here knows Pat Riley would have never offered?

 

I think that, after his performance in the playoffs, miami most likely thought of Martin as part of their core. No way they were going to trade him. I don't think they ever intended on trading Jaquez. And there is absolutely no report that they were trying to free up their 2024 pick. Not disagreeing with Nate at all because I think he probably agrees with what I just said, just saying that in reality, this was not even close.

 

For the fun!

 

yeah, I get it...and I know the genesis of the debate

but you know, Milwaukee could have traded two unprotected 1st's and one unprotected swap...and a bunch of 2nd's; and cash; and the Suns could have sent Portland some picks too; and cash. So the actual Dame trade wasn't as good as it could have been in the alternate reality of make-believe trades

 

The difference is that there are people who think Joe should have gone back to Miami to see if they could beat the Bucks offer. I think I demonstrated that Miami could not.

 

and I know that I argued for years about Olshey with a couple of the main folks making that claim, and they always staunchly defended just about everything Olshey did; month after month to the bitter end. So, maybe it's not a surprise it's so hard for them to admit that Cronin might have his shit together enough to have done a good job...a better job than Olshey could have

 

Let’s remember, Joe could not go back to Miami. His deal with Milwaukee was hush hush. Just saying Miami had no chance to beat it.

 

Good point.

 

Because what the best Miami could offer was discussed all off-season. There were wide-ranging opinions on that hypothetical package so it's interesting to compare what actually happened to that hypothetical. That's why.

 

Who are you talking about?