The news that absolutely consumed my twitter feed today was the news that Chris Paul was going to be traded to Los Angeles for Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Apparently the NBA owners did not think this was a good idea, because rumours have it that the decision was made to veto such a deal (the NBA owns the Hornets). Wages of Wins analyst Devin Dignam made the point that, instead of helping out the other NBA owners, vetoing the trade would actually help the Lakers.
The Lakers dodge a bullet
| Player | Age | Minutes | WP48 | Wins Produced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Paul | 25 | 2865 | 0.358 | 21.4 |
| Pau Gasol | 30 | 3037 | 0.258 | 16.3 |
| Lamar Odom | 31 | 2639 | 0.260 | 14.3 |
While Chris Paul is undoubtedly the best player involved, this trade has some problems with it. Gasol and Odom were responsible for 30 of the Laker’s wins last season, so despite Paul’s individual greatness, the proposed trade would still leave LA at a deficit. A bigger problem is that Pau and Odom are great bigs. These players are rare in the NBA. Letting go of both of these players for Chris Paul means that the Lakers would have to replace their bigs.
While it’s possible the Lakers might be able to make more moves to get some replacement bigs, the simple fact is they are trading two great players for one great player. Sure he’s younger and more talented, but the trade actually harms the Lakers. As Chris Paul’s contract expires in a year, a better idea might be to amnesty Kobe, sign Paul and enjoy several years of Paul, Gasol and Odom.
The league shoots itself in the foot
The move was just as confusing from the NBA’s perspective. The NBA has been worried about placating small market teams. Ironically, in this case, placating the small market owners actually hurts small market teams! If the trade had gone through, the Lakers would have ended up winning fewer games, and that would have given the other teams in the league a better chance of winning a championship. If the other owners wanted to screw over the Lakers, the best thing to do would have been to let the Lakers do it to themselves.
But there are more confusing aspects to this blocked trade. The lockout was allegedly a result of losing money. If the NBA wants to make more money, one of the best ways is to get a star in a big market. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson are credited with revitalizing the league in the 80s. Putting two stars in two big markets helped revitalize the league? Shocking! Some of the NBA’s best years were with Michael Jordan. Guess what that was? Are we really convinced that having Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett (sorry E.J and Patrick!) in small markets during the 2000s was good for the league? Getting Chris Paul in LA would’ve been great for the NBA.
And even if we buy the competitive balance argument, the NBA blocking this move is bad. If every team wants a chance at being a competitor, then every team needs chances to get players. If player movement is restricted, then so are the odds that any given team can compete. The NBA owners are all upset they didn’t get Chris Paul. They would rather have him in New Orleans — which gives them a chance to trade or sign for him — than in Los Angeles, where he’ll flourish. This kind of thinking doesn’t help competitive balance, it doesn’t help the players, and it doesn’t help the fans. In fact, all it does is prove that the owners have no idea what they’re doing. I guess it’s a good thing they’re not in charge of the league’s major decisions.
-Dre
My twitter feed was also ablaze with rumors that the “real reason” this was blocked was that the Lakers next move was to trade Bynum and some filler for Dwight Howard. We’ll never know if this is true.
Although I tend to agree with you that good bigs are rare, I will say that Paul is a Jordan/Wade-like talent that’s worth it, considering that a) he’s 26 and b) the Lakers always manage to get good bigs to sign with them anyway.
This is especially true if the trade had given them Okafor, who is basically a wash for Odom. That would have been 2 good bigs for a good big and the best guard in the game, which given the age of the players involved would have been a great deal for the Lakers (long-term at least).
In a vacuum, yes. But this deal brought 2 star players who aren’t bigs into a major market, while still having to pieces to acquire dwight howard. Chris paul + dwight howard is better than lamar odim + pau gasol.
Do you have the specific trade that was nixed? Based on the above, I still think the Hornets are getting the worse of it by far.
If their return was Scola, Odom and Martin – they are taking a great deal of salary, all of it for older players than Chris Paul. Not one of those guys is young enough to build around, and there aren’t even any picks in the deal.
It may make the Hornets better THIS year, but I fail to see how it makes them better in the long run in any way.
Xavier,
I actually was debating this with Devin. My point was Chris Paul was young and in his prime and you kill for that sort of player. The issue is you now have to trust the Lakers to make other good moves. How good this move is should not depend on future trades. They should each be treated on their own. For instance the Memphis trade for Pau Gasol was a terrible trade for Memphis. You can claim later that because Marc Gasol played well and because they picked up Zach Randolph, who changed his playing habits, it wasn’t so bad. That doesn’t work. The Zach Randolph signing can be rated as good (or lucky) but the Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown + Marc Gasol was terrible. The same will be true with the Lakers. This is a bad trade as all it is gaining them is one year of Chris Paul in exchange for their two best player right now.
Khylek,
The league has cited “basketball reasons” and been pretty closed lip otherwise. The thing about this trade is I actually think Houston is fleecing New Orleans not Los Angeles. LA upgrades David West (who is leaving) and gives them a premier C in exchange for a premier PG. The Rockets give an old PF and good SG for a premier PF/C. The real winners in this would have been the Rockets.
Patrick,
If the trade also nets them Okafor I’m for it. That said Paul for Gasol and Odom is not good. A lot of this by the way is based on the fact that if the Lakers just wait a year they can amnesty Kobe (per your suggestion) and essentially trade a 34 year old Kobe for a 27 year old Paul and still have a few years left with Gasol and Odom. If Bynum gets healthy or they do land Howard they’re good for a long time.
I’m not so sure the the NBA (the other 29 owners) were worried about Gasol and Odom for CP3. If they were worried about the Lakers at all it was that LA still had Bynum available for a trade with Orlando for Howard. That would have arguably put 2 of the 3 best players in the league in LA while still in their prime. Also, since the owners caved on some of the most restricting system changes they wanted (and that’s what every beat writer, blogger and fan wanted to get a season) LA would have been able to build around that core faster using small exceptions.
That may all be moot and not the core reason for the block.
The core reason is probably that the NBA has a 300m dollar investment in the Hornets that the 29 owners (or at least a majority of them) felt was worth less after that trade. Gasol was being traded to Houston for quality players, but not real stars. If Gasol had stayed with the Hornets, there may not have been much resistance, from a “value of the Hornets” point of view. But absorbing Gasol’s long extremely expensive contract before a sale was probably also not viable.
No matter how you slice it this doesn’t pass the smell test. But it only happened because the other 29 owners each had a piece of the Hornets and a star player wanted out. There was a conflict of interest even assuming they were acting properly as owners of the team. It will probably never happen again.
Andres,
I don’t think you can always view trades in a vacuum. Sometimes teams trade away more “current value” for prospects or picks they think will create equal or greater value over the long term. There are also economic and positioning issues. Sometimes bad basketball moves are good economic moves or position the team better for the long term.
LoveKnicks,
I’m not buying the investment in NOLA rationale. It’s just $10 million per owner. No Chris Paul after this season no matter what. It’s hard to imagine that the franchise value is affected too much by whether NOLA gets 7 cents on the dollar or 6. Precedent-smashing intervention in hopes that the $10 million becomes $10.5? No. James Dolan spends $500k just on his hair.
Dre, good post, and agreed that Houston was a winner.
Don’t agree with your setup, though, on evaluating trade on “its own.” There are a few subtleties.
You’re unwilling to include the future player the Lakers get. But the cap room they get exists in evaluating the trade “on its own.” What if you pencil in the average wins produced for that amount of cap room? Or better yet, the Lakers-adjusted figure, instead of the league wide figure, because Mitch K is not Isiah, and based on his track record will generate more wins produced per $14 million contract than the other GMs?
How do you calculate Wins produced?
(FYI, There are still multiple rumbles that the deal’s not dead)
PG Marcus Banks
SG Martin
SF Odom
PF West
C Scola
I’m sorry, this isn’t a well composed team.
The Rockets would have made out like bandits had the deal gone through.
I think that one underappreciated aspect of this deal is that the Lakers would be sending out like $11M in salary more than they would be taking in. I don’t think that there are any expert capologists anymore (for the time being), so that might be a big component in making a play for Dwight Howard. Though even if they Amnesty Kobe’s contract their still like $8M over the cap, but who would have ever thought that the Lakers would be that close to coming in under the cap, right?
Also, I think that the personnell possibilities that are opened up by Chris Paul being on the Lakers increases the value of the trade for the Lakers above what a pure summation of WP might suggest. There haven’t been too many times in history that the Lakers haven’t been able to put quality talent around a star, so I think that making up the difference won’t be an issue at all.
Also, there’s an outside chance, that if Kobe isn’t Amnesty’d immediately, that he will be more productive with Paul there keeping him from forcing bone-headed plays. Paul can limit Kobe’s usage in a way that Gasol and Odom never could, and it turns out that Kobe’s pretty good when he’s not forcing dumb plays.
Oops, seems I forgot Okafor in the above. The team would look less awful with Okafor in the mix, but IDK what they were planning on doing about the West/Odom/Scola/Ariza situation that would be created. I don’t know that they would even get value on any of those names in trades. Maybe West, but if they traded anyone else, it would probably be at another net talent loss.
Andres, I get what you’re saying. But as everyone suspected, it’s come out that there was already a tenative deal in place to get Dwight Howard. What lends credence is that in the Net’s tampering story, Howard’s agent Dan Fegan was given permission to talk to the Nets, Mavs….and Lakers. None of those teams are offering a borderline franchise player for Howard, except the Lakers.
I think these trades have to be taken together because it’s hard to believe the Lakers clear out their frontcourt for a PG, even if he is the best in the game.
starting an ed school,
Good point about the amounts we are talking about.
That means blocking the deal was almost certainly about LA still being in a position to acquire Howard after getting CP3 and the owners and league didn’t want that much concentration of talent in LA right after they just fought over a new CBA.
The NBA is in a bit of bad spot on the competitive balance issue. They talked and talked about competitive balance, but in the end the league caved on most of the hard line system issues in order to get a deal with the players and save the season. So in the end, both sides fought mostly over BRI. The owners won big on that issue and the small markets are still screwed.
I still don’t think we could evaluate this trade together with any Dwight Howard rumours. Why? Because the Howard rumours are simply that: rumours. In fact, we have never even heard any specifics about what would be involved in a LAL-ORL trade. I’d also find it hard to believe that the Magic would go for a package that could only include Bynum (as Gasol and Odom would have been traded) and the Walton/Artest/Blake pu pu platter.
If, when all is said and done, we find out that the cancelled Paul trade would have allowed the Lakers to obtain Howard, then we should certainly take that into consideration. But not until then.
I don’t like entering cap room into the equation either. As many teams have shown time and time again, cap room is only as good as the players you fill it with. Sure, the Lakers have had historically good players, but how many of those were obtained through signings? I can only think of Shaq, Barnes (discount), Malone (discount), and Payton (discount), and many more bad signings (Walton, Fisher, Blake, Smush Parker…).
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