Evaluating Recent Major NBA Trades
Three teams that recently reached the NBA Finals made major trades as each team attempts to obtain the final piece to the championship puzzle. The Phoenix Suns, who lost 4-2 to the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2021 NBA Finals, acquired Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards in exchange for Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, and multiple draft picks/draft pick swaps. The Wizards then traded Paul to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Jordan Poole; the Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics 4-2 in the 2022 NBA Finals, and are tweaking their roster after losing to the L.A. Lakers in the second round of the 2023 playoffs. The Celtics acquired Kristaps Porzingis and two draft picks in a three way trade in which they sent Marcus Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies while the Wizards received Tyus Jones from the Grizzlies and Danilo Gallinari, Mike Muscala, and one draft pick from the Celtics.
Draft picks can be a very important component of an NBA trade, but it is impossible to know now the impact that those draft picks will have, so this article will focus on the active players involved in each of the above transactions. It should also be emphasized that draft picks are only as good as the executives deciding who to choose, and the coaches determining how to best develop the talents of each player on a team's roster.
The Suns are going all-in with a top heavy roster featuring Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and Deandre Ayton. The Suns do not have much depth or size. Durant will be 35 when the 2023-24 season begins, Booker will be 27, Beal will be 30, and Ayton will be 25. Durant is past his prime; he can still be effective, but he has already had one serious injury (Achilles, 2019) and he has not played more than 55 games in a season since suffering that injury. Booker is just entering his prime, but he has not played more than 70 games in a season since 2016-17. Beal averaged 23.2 ppg in each of the last two seasons after posting back to back 30 ppg seasons, and he has played 60 games or less in each of the last four seasons. Ayton is a talented player who should be just entering his prime, but his game has not developed much since his rookie season: he averaged 16.3 ppg and 10.3 rpg in 2018-19 as a rookie, and he averaged 18.0 ppg and 10.0 rpg last season. He has played more than 70 games just once in five NBA seasons.
In short, the Suns are relying heavily on players who have not stayed healthy in recent seasons. Two of those players (Durant and Beal) are past their primes, one of them is in his prime but may be as good as he is going to get (Booker), and the fourth player is a bit of an enigma whose apparent disenchantment with the Phoenix organization is matched by the Phoenix organization's apparent disenchantment with him. When healthy, the Suns should be able to score prolifically and efficiently, but they will have trouble defensively and they will almost certainly be worn down by the time the playoffs begin. Chris Paul is older, more injury-prone, and less effective at this stage of his career than Beal, so the trade is a short term upgrade for the Suns but not nearly enough to put the Suns over the top.
The Warriors have clearly abandoned their two timeline strategy of keeping their veteran championship core (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green) while also developing young players. The veteran championship core is still intact, but Poole--who received a huge contract from the Warriors a year ago with the expectation that he would be the centerpiece of the youth movement--is out of the picture in exchange for Paul, whose body is breaking down (he has not played more than 70 games in a season since 2015-16 and he regularly is injured during the playoffs) and who has presided over more blown 2-0 playoff series leads than any player in NBA history. The pattern throughout Paul's career is that he is the floor general for talented teams that fall apart during the playoffs amid internal dissension; it is puzzling that a player with his resume is often touted as the best leader in the league, because the evidence proves that is simply not the case--unless one believes that playoff failures accompanied by internal dissension are indicators that a team has great leadership.
The Warriors' youth movement failed to impress and failed to deliver during the 2023 playoffs, so it is understandable why the organization chose to go all-in with the veteran championship core plus a veteran like Paul, but it is difficult to picture the Warriors winning another title relying so much on Thompson (who has never returned to his pre-injury form), Green (whose antics are increasingly overshadowing the value he provides), and Paul (whose resume of playoff failure speaks for itself).
The Celtics were forced to pivot in a different direction after the scandal involving Ime Udoka resulted in Joe Mazzulla taking over as coach just before the start of last season. Mazzulla did well as a young rookie coach, but he emphasized offense more than Udoka did, and he had a different rotation of players that he trusted. Smart, the 2022 NBA Defensive Player of the year, started 360 of the 581 regular season games that he played in for the Celtics during his nine years with the team, and he started 73 of 108 playoff games during that tenure. The Celtics reached the Eastern Conference Finals five times (2017-18, 2020, 2022-23) and they played in the NBA Finals once (2022), so Smart was a key contributor to a team that sustained high level playoff success for an extended period. However, his departure will not only open up more minutes for Malcolm Brogdon and Derrick White, but Porzingis will add size, three level scoring, rebounding, and rim protection. There is no doubt that Smart was a productive player for some very successful Boston teams, but Porzingis is younger, bigger, more physically gifted, and more versatile than Smart. Therefore, on paper this trade is a win for the Celtics.
As for the Grizzlies and Wizards, it is not clear why the Grizzlies exchanged Jones for Smart. Jones is younger, and is widely considered to be the best backup point guard in the league. Even though starting point guard Ja Morant will miss at least the first 25 games of next season after being suspended by the NBA, it seems odd to bring in Smart to start a couple dozen games and then take over Jones' backup role. Perhaps the Grizzlies place a high value on Smart's leadership, but it is unlikely that Smart alone can set Morant on a better path or cure the team's overall immaturity.
The Wizards have been irrelevant--at least in terms of being a legitimate championship contender--since the late 1970s when the franchise was known as the Bullets. Getting rid of Beal and Porzingis in exchange for the erratic Poole and a bunch of draft picks signals that the "Wheeze-hards" will once again be gasping for air and grasping at straws. Tanking does not work in general, and in this specific instance there is no reason to trust that the Wizards will use those draft choices wisely or that they will fully develop any talented players that they are fortunate enough to draft.
Injuries, additional trades, and unexpected greatness from future draft picks may change the long term evaluation of the above deals, but for now it is reasonable to suggest that the Celtics improved their team, the Suns went all-in with a top heavy/offense reliant strategy that is not likely to yield a title, and the Warriors are crossing their fingers that Paul and Thompson stay healthy, that Curry does not decline soon, and that Green does not punch out any other teammates (or stomp on opponents). Meanwhile, the Grizzlies are praying that Morant does not mess up again and that Smart will provide veteran leadership, while the Wizards continue to be the Wizards.
Labels: Boston Celtics, Bradley Beal, Chris Paul, Kristaps Porzingis, Marcus Smart, Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 3:02 PM
