Suns 2015 Trade Deadline Aftermath

[ShelC]

He's 20. Let's give it some time maybe?

[Shabazz]

I just also hope that he will work on becoming a better outside shooter

He likely is. Most reports have him as the hardest working guy on the team.

[JCSunsfan]

For all the kvetching about Goodwin's shot, he's 9-14 in the past two games.
At least he makes the shots he does take; shot selection is important, also.

Archie has stepped up his game with the extra minutes.
He's not the problem.

Improved maturity, improved shot selection. Again. I am not ragging on Green, but he is going to have to move over for Archie really soon.

[SDC]

For all the kvetching about Goodwin's shot, he's 9-14 in the past two games.
At least he makes the shots he does take; shot selection is important, also.

Archie has stepped up his game with the extra minutes.
He's not the problem.

Improved maturity, improved shot selection. Again. I am not ragging on Green, but he is going to have to move over for Archie really soon.

so wrong. you want green (or knight as starter) on the floor because he is a great outside/spot up shooter. you may want archie to be the ball carrier but there is no fucking way that will happen with bledsoe and knight around.

[Shabazz]

McDonough explains giving up the Lakers pick:

With a pick like that our analysis was that we probably weren't going to receive the pick this year. That pushes the pick into next year, the protection drops to three, but I think analyzing the Lakers situation there's pretty high variance there as to what the pick could be. If you ask me how the Lakers are going to be a year from now i have no idea. Obviously, they've struggled some recently, but they're going to have a lot of salary cap space this summer and they're in a market that's traditionally been one of the top draws for free agents.

We know the risks. The pick next year could be the fourth pick in the draft, it could be the 14th pick in the draft, it could be the 30th pick in the draft. We felt it was the right time to cash it in.

We knew we needed to give something good to Philadelphia in a three-team trade in order for them to part with Michael Carter-Williams. That's what they wanted so that's how the deal got done.

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2015/ ... gic-thomas

[virtual9mm]

Just watched the CHI game. Agree that there's a lot to like here:

- Ball movement is much better, less 1 on 1 hero ball

- Defense looked much better, although as mentioned, the reluctance to go over the pick rather than under killed the Suns in the 4th. Len played solid position defense on Gasol, but too tough to stop. Also the lack of a secondary rebounder killed the Suns when Len got a stop.

- Speaking of Len, he's not as aggressive with the blocks as he used to be. Perhaps he's being coached to stay in the game and play bigger minutes? We've seen this since the all-star break.

- I am loving Knight at SG with Bledsoe, and at PG/SG with Archie. Speaking of which, they seem to play well together, and I think that we all underrated Archie's passing. That being said, the scouting report on Archie will get attention as he gets more PT and success, so that he will be forced to shoot from the outside more often as the season continues.

- Even with the poor outside shooting, Archie looks much more effective than Green.

Overall, we can blame Markieff, but the unwillingness to guard the 3pt line in the 4th killed the Suns. Also very curious how Hornacek will look after a few games, perhaps he's happier now that some of the players who didn't buy into his system (i.e. IT) have left?

Still cautiously optimistic about the trades, let's see how Knight handles playing 2-guard most of the time through the end of the season. But so far, so good. And I like getting Archie more time, he's more or less ready although that jumper still needs work.

[virtual9mm]

McDonough explains giving up the Lakers pick:

With a pick like that our analysis was that we probably weren't going to receive the pick this year. That pushes the pick into next year, the protection drops to three, but I think analyzing the Lakers situation there's pretty high variance there as to what the pick could be. If you ask me how the Lakers are going to be a year from now i have no idea. Obviously, they've struggled some recently, but they're going to have a lot of salary cap space this summer and they're in a market that's traditionally been one of the top draws for free agents.

http://hoopshype.com/agents/bill_duffy.htm

Regarding the LAL pick, I am starting to think that Duffy has a deal with the Kupchek at LAL to steer his clients to them. We know that Duffy and LAL have a relationship based on Nash going there. Jordan Hill is also there -- and next year, Noah is in the last year of his deal. Perhaps the Suns know this, and this might be a reason to bail on the pick early.

This also means that the Suns and Green are saying bye bye, if we didn't know this already. Green's a Duffy client. I wouldn't be surprised to see him on LAL next year.

Incidentally, I've been collecting data on NBA team-agent relationships to see how much it matters. Would love to share and collect some thoughts as the analysis proceeds.

[Mori Chu]

Incidentally, I've been collecting data on NBA team-agent relationships to see how much it matters. Would love to share and collect some thoughts as the analysis proceeds.

I think the players' agents have a huge amount of sway over which players go to which teams. It's the seedy underbelly of trades and free agency that we don't always hear about. You hear about a guy like Ben Gordon getting a huge FA contract and you think, that makes no sense. Then you look into who his agent is, who are the other players represented by that agent, and you start to say, ohhhh, hmm....

[INFORMER]

McDonough explains giving up the Lakers pick:

With a pick like that our analysis was that we probably weren't going to receive the pick this year. That pushes the pick into next year, the protection drops to three, but I think analyzing the Lakers situation there's pretty high variance there as to what the pick could be. If you ask me how the Lakers are going to be a year from now i have no idea. Obviously, they've struggled some recently, but they're going to have a lot of salary cap space this summer and they're in a market that's traditionally been one of the top draws for free agents.

We know the risks. The pick next year could be the fourth pick in the draft, it could be the 14th pick in the draft, it could be the 30th pick in the draft. We felt it was the right time to cash it in.

We knew we needed to give something good to Philadelphia in a three-team trade in order for them to part with Michael Carter-Williams. That's what they wanted so that's how the deal got done.

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2015/ ... gic-thomas

Fail.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

Fail.

Agreed. At the very least they still had until early summer to cash in the pick for a better return.

But if MCD was really thinking like this, why not atach it to Bledsoe to get Love, or with Tucker/Thomas to get Greg Monroe, or some like this. I mean, if you think your premier asset is close to it's expiration date, then go all in and swing for the fences.

I had dreams about Bledsoe going to Cleveland to join Lebron's quest with Love coming to the desert. I felt that he deal would required a pick, but the LA pick seemed to much to give up, even for Love. It turns out our think tank was feeling that it was barely whorty as a sweeter.

Mind blowing.

[Mori Chu]

That quote is pretty bad. Philly is hoarding 1st round picks and "assets", and they didn't want to pay or keep MCW. You can't tell me they wouldn't have taken some other 1st rounder(s) or other assets for him.

[Furlanfufi]

McDonough explains giving up the Lakers pick:

With a pick like that our analysis was that we probably weren't going to receive the pick this year. That pushes the pick into next year, the protection drops to three, but I think analyzing the Lakers situation there's pretty high variance there as to what the pick could be. If you ask me how the Lakers are going to be a year from now i have no idea. Obviously, they've struggled some recently, but they're going to have a lot of salary cap space this summer and they're in a market that's traditionally been one of the top draws for free agents.

http://hoopshype.com/agents/bill_duffy.htm

Regarding the LAL pick, I am starting to think that Duffy has a deal with the Kupchek at LAL to steer his clients to them. We know that Duffy and LAL have a relationship based on Nash going there. Jordan Hill is also there -- and next year, Noah is in the last year of his deal. Perhaps the Suns know this, and this might be a reason to bail on the pick early.

This also means that the Suns and Green are saying bye bye, if we didn't know this already. Green's a Duffy client. I wouldn't be surprised to see him on LAL next year.

Incidentally, I've been collecting data on NBA team-agent relationships to see how much it matters. Would love to share and collect some thoughts as the analysis proceeds.

V9, share what you have with us!!

I love the tales about Isiah not being on the Dream Team not because of Jordan, but because of David Falk.

[INFORMER]

The more Ryan talks the more I think he doesn't know how to build a team, manage a roster, prioritize and evaluate needs and resources, and understand the league landscape. He's got an eye for talent and understands the game. But he just seems like a guy who has been tucked away in a closet, watching film to scout individual players. And he seems to share Blabby's lack of perspective, which is absolutely debilitating.

[OE32]

The more Ryan talks the more I think he doesn't know how to build a team, manage a roster, prioritize and evaluate needs and resources, and understand the league landscape. He's got an eye for talent and understands the game. But he just seems like a guy who has been tucked away in a closet, watching film to scout individual players. And he seems to share Blabby's lack of perspective, which is absolutely debilitating.

-1

Only because I wouldn't subject the eyeroll doctor to his own medicine.

[INFORMER]

The more Ryan talks the more I think he doesn't know how to build a team, manage a roster, prioritize and evaluate needs and resources, and understand the league landscape. He's got an eye for talent and understands the game. But he just seems like a guy who has been tucked away in a closet, watching film to scout individual players. And he seems to share Blabby's lack of perspective, which is absolutely debilitating.

-1

Only because I wouldn't subject the eyeroll doctor to his own medicine.

Feel free to use it against me.

[virtual9mm]

Hi all, the basic approach I am using is to calculate fair market value for a free agent based on his prior stats, age, the year of the contract and other such factors, and to calculate how much above or below this fair market value the free agent receives. The basic idea is that agents dangle their max players to teams and build relationships so that their lesser players receive big contracts. Perhaps the best example I can think of is when Denver stole McDyess from us and Nick Van Exel got a contract he did not deserve.

Haven't done the analysis yet but I suspect that the effect would be quite large. Done collecting data from 2007-2013.

[Cap]

How are you going to analyze it? What kind of patterns are you going to look for in the data?

[Ring_Wanted]

McD sold high on the Lakers pick, or at least that's his message. Two problems, though.

First, to me it looks too soon to sell. The Suns are probably not getting the pick this year, but that's ok.

Building a playoff team in the west is no easy task, as we certainly know, and the Lakers are not exactly one piece away. It's not hard to see them improved in 15-16, but the pick is yours if there are just three teams worse than them, which seems a safe bet.

McD is gambling on the Lakers doing enough to remove the luster of a pick that we were getting, one way or another, and honestly it is a risk I am not comfortable taking, for Brandon Knight at least.

But above all my issue is the specific player they targeted, and his surroundings. Again, Knight is good, but unless he makes another leap, he is a number of tiers below real NBA relevance so giving up our supposed best asset (plus Ennis-Plumlee) for him is underwhelming, strictly from a quality standpoint.

I would have been much more on board with the move if instead of another guard it would have been similar talent at a different position.

Then you get to his contract situation. Impending RFA, whose current team clearly didn't want to pay, at least what he demands. This had 'won't match/sign and trade at best' written all over him. If McD loved him so much, after clearing salary with the deadline moves, he could have gone after him in the summer.



The upside here is that acquiring him at the deadline is useful (beyond the playoffs push) because with a little juggling (say dumping PJ, no Green-Wright back) his cap hold will grant the team max space to make a second big FA move.

This seems the strategy the FO will follow, which sounds nice but let's also remember it would be the second crack they take at it after last summer, so we will see what happens.

In the meanwhile I can't avoid thinking that the franchise has been stripped from its best player and its best asset. A hefty price for a summer of miscalculation, such is the unforgiving nature of the NBA, isn't it?

[SDC]

In the meanwhile I can't avoid thinking that the franchise has been stripped from its best player and its best asset. A hefty price for a summer of miscalculation, such is the unforgiving nature of the NBA, isn't it?

boom!

[virtual9mm]

How are you going to analyze it? What kind of patterns are you going to look for in the data?

(1) Find evidence that the social networks formed between teams and agents, measured by the contracts signed between teams and the players represented by an agent, remain largely stable. Successful contract negotiations beget future successes. In contrast, an unsuccessful contract extension (e.g. Dragic) weakens the tie between a team and an agent, making it less likely that an agent will steer players to that team.

(2) Try to look for evidence that agents use social skills to generate and maximize their social capital. In other words, agents match players with teams in the way that generates the highest average contracts. Because the max players are capped in terms of salary, agents try to steer such players towards certain teams in return for overpaying mediocre players represented by the agent.

The overall proposition is that an agent is neither an "agent" in the game theoretical sense (that tries to increase its own benefit at the cost of the principal's) nor a "broker" in a social network sense (that tries to play the two sides off of one another), but plays a socially skilled matching game where he tries to match specific players to specific teams in a way that benefits his own paycheck, while helping teams obtain specific players and helping players increase the size of their contracts. Still have to do the analysis so the outcome is in doubt, although I'm sure that I'll find at least (1). Academics would find (2) more interesting, though.