The Lakers always get their (big) man
Editor Dre Here! I’m a fan of spoilers so I’m gonna put my favorite chart of the post here and then let you enjoy the brilliant work of Arturo:
On to Arturo!
There is a theory in economics known as the Coase Theorem attributed to Nobel Prize laureate Ronald Coase, which describes how economic resources over the long term are efficiently allocated regardless of any initial constraints (externalities) , like say an amateur draft, placed on their allocation. The theorem states that if trades are possible, bargaining will lead to the most efficient outcome regardless of the initial condition.
What this means is that the most valuable assets will tend to end up were they have most value.
This is why, more than a year ago, I knew that Dwight Howard, like Wilt, Kareem, Shaq and Gasol would end up as a Laker.
- Dwight Howard to LA
- Andrew Bynum, Jason Richardson to 76ers
- Andre Iguodala to Denver
- Aaron Affalo, Al Harrington, Nikola Vucevic, Moe Harkless plus protected #1 picks from Lakers,Nuggets and Sixers to Orlando
The Lakers get our concensus MVP for 2011 (see below) for the cost of Andrew Bynum ans a protected #1 pick.
Sometimes rooting against the Lakers feels like a lost cause. Let’s break out the trade tables, shall we?
I threw that together from all the tools I’ve been working on during the summer (the age model, the euro model, the rookie model as well as the free agent tracker) and doing some quick adjustments for minutes. What is the end result?
Denver is the big winner of the trade as reported getting a star in Iggy while offloading negative win producer Al Harrington for the cheap price of Aaron Affalo and a Pick. This bumps them to contender range (52+ wins) with a very young team. The Lakers manage to bump back up to contender status as well and do get the franchise center for the next decade in Dwight. Philadelphia manages to change a great small forward for a great center, they can’t however counteract the self inflicted Nick Young and Kwame Brown wounds.
Orlando apparently decide to roll out the Andrew Wiggins welcome mat and fly the white flag for the next couple of years.
One final table before we go (with a critical point of course):
The Lakers roster did get younger post trade but they’re still ancient in NBA terms. They will contend but they will not dominate. OKC and San Antonio are still clearly better and Denver and the re-loaded Twolves will be heard from as well. They also have a very short window to win with this roster.
Throw in the age factor and Denver looks even more like the winner.
This might be Denver’s year
-Arturo
P.S I wanted to add some corrections based on reader feedback.
I updated the table to account for the Ron Artest-Metta world Peace error and I also adjusted the minutes separately for PG,SG,SF in one group and Bigs in another.
I also added all the trade pieces as per CBS sports. To quote:
“- Orlando sends Howard, Earl Clark and Chris Duhon to the Lakers and Jason Richardson to the 76ers.
— L.A. sends Andrew Bynum to Philly, and Christian Eyenga, Josh McRoberts, a conditional 2017 first-round pick and a conditional 2015 second-round pick to Orlando.
— Denver sends Al Harrington and Arron Afflalo to Orlando with a 2013 second-round pick and a 2014 first-round pick (least favorable between Nuggets’ and Knicks’).
— Philadelphia sends Andre Iguodala to Denver and Nikola Vucevic, Moe Harkless and a conditional first-round pick to Orlando. The Philly pick is lottery-protected in 2015 and ’16, top-11 protected in ’17 and top-8 protected in ’18. If the Magic don’t get the pick by ’18, they get two second-round picks in ’18 and ’19 from the Sixers.”
The result is then:
The summary is now:
| Team | Wins Before | Wins After | Delta |
| Philadelphia 76ers | 37.3 | 39.8 | 2.5 |
| Denver Nuggets | 41.4 | 55.2 | 13.9 |
| Los Angeles Lakers | 45.2 | 48.2 | 3.0 |
| Orlando Magic | 45.5 | 29.1 | -16.4 |
| Totals | 169.4 | 172.4 | 3.0 |
| Team | Age Before | Age After | Delta |
| Philadelphia 76ers | 25.0 | 25.9 | 0.9 |
| Denver Nuggets | 24.5 | 26.1 | 1.6 |
| Los Angeles Lakers | 34.5 | 32.0 | -2.5 |
| Orlando Magic | 29.1 | 28.3 | -0.8 |
With Denver doing even better than before because of increased minutes for their remaining productive bigs. The minutes and WP48 projections are based on the average performance for the last three seasons combined with the age model referenced earlier. Age alone means that the Lakers should drop 5.5 wins from what that roster was worth last year.
As a final gift, here’s the data in an excel file for you to play with.
-Arturo