12 Quick Takes: Big NBA Trades, the Draft & Free Agency
NBA Substack on what's happened and what to expect now
We asked 12 leading NBA voices on Substack:
Your take on NBA trade season, the draft, and/or free agency?
Check out their answers and subscribe!
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Change is hard sometimes, especially for resistant curmudgeons like me, but I'm really glad the draft is a two-day affair now and look forward to Round 2 tonight. The first round drags out so damn long. I'm quite curious to see how the second round lands, but interest is sure to be high this time no matter what with Bronny James' fate still to be decided.
As for trade action … I still think we will see plenty. But I knew what the reaction would be to a draft night that, in terms of veterans, only put Deni Avdija and Malcolm Brogdon in new cities: Profound disappointment. I definitely expected more action, too, after the Nets' two trades Tuesday night. Still think there will be lots going on in coming days.
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I’m not saying the New York Knicks are going to take Bronny James at No. 51. But if I’m being honest, that’s the first thing I thought of when the Knicks traded back and quietly acquired the Wizards’ 51st pick, four spots ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers’ slot at No. 55.
Put it this way: if the Knicks take Bronny, I think there’s a high likelihood that LeBron decides to take his talents to MSG. I don’t see the King passing up the chance to play with his son, especially if it’s in New York. Now, will the Knicks comply?
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This feels like a summer where the NBA resets a bit. The Boston Celtics are the champs, but they don’t feel inevitable like the dynastic Golden State Warriors teams did. The rest of the league is gunning for them, and some are going to load up to make their own title runs.
Five teams that are trying to contend, or at least improve, have cap space this summer. That includes two contenders in the Philadelphia 76ers and Oklahoma City Thunder as well as the up-and-coming Orlando Magic. There will be movement galore. This should be a crazy and fun offseason.
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I'm fascinated by Mikal Bridges' move to the Knicks. First, I love the further intensification of New York's Villanova connection, which is a wild experiment in a team benefiting from preexisting chemistry built in college.
But Bridges himself is also incredibly interesting. For most of his time in Phoenix, he was a low-usage jack-of-all-trades type who was secretly very valuable, impacting the game with his efficiency and wing defense. (He had a higher Estimated RAPTOR for the 2021 Suns Finals team than either Devin Booker or Deandre Ayton, for instance.) Then he went to Brooklyn and made a remarkable mid-career transformation to a high-usage player, a change we have seldom seen before from a player who was in the middle of his prime.
Of course, that was arguably a drag on what made him so good before; his efficiency fell and his defensive impact was reduced. But now, Bridges is back in a situation where he can be more of a supporting player next to the Knicks' other scorers. He'll probably retain some of the added usage he picked up in Brooklyn, just because the Knicks don't have any high-usage guys outside of Jalen Brunson and (when healthy) Julius Randle. But I'm really interested to see what might be the best version of Bridges — a blend of the little-things guy from early in Phoenix with a player who now has also been a 30% usage guy on an NBA team as well. That's basically the full range of roles an NBA player can experience, and he can now call upon any of those modes when necessary going forward.
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I will die on this hill: Stockpiling picks is not the best way to rebuild a team. Let’s highlight two draft trades — first, Washington shipping Deni Avdija to Portland. The Blazers sacrificed two firsts and Malcolm Brogdon for Avdija, yet I adore the move for Portland, which picked up someone we already know is an NBA-caliber wing for two question marks.
The Spurs, meanwhile, traded Rob Dillingham (a great fit) for 2030 and 2031 first-round picks. Sure, they got an extra pick … in seven years! Those aren’t even real years in my brain. If you can get good players, get good players. This outrageous overvaluing of picks must end.
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After losing in the conference finals to a Dallas Mavericks team that got an enormous contribution from a rookie in Dereck Lively II, the Timberwolves apparently think that their path to making it to the next round lies through the draft.
Their move all the way up the board for Rob Dillingham was a fascinating one. He can really score, but he does it by subsisting on a diet of really tough shots and is almost always looking for his own offense. That's a big contrast with Mike Conley. The Wolves also added Terrence Shannon Jr. late in Round 1, and he's certainly the archetype of player they needed to add off the bench (i.e., a wing who isn't tiny and can pressure the rim).
The issue here is that rookies usually aren't good, and Lively was an exception, not the rule. Dillingham and Shannon might not be good enough, soon enough to help in the way Minnesota wants.
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The Knicks are the new Rockets.
At the peak of Golden State’s dynasty, only one Western team was willing to step up and duke it out with the seemingly unbeatable Warriors: the Houston Rockets. H-town never quite vanquished its foe, but I’ve always admired the Rockets’ courage in a conference full of cowards.
This isn’t quite the same situation, as nobody fears the Celtics as they did those Warriors (although they should). But I got distinct whiffs of Houston with the Knicks' massive swing for Mikal Bridges and subsequent re-signing of OG Anunoby for a bazillion dollars. The 'Nova Knicks have been designed with one goal in mind: beating the Boston machine. Good for you, New York, and may you have better luck than your predecessors.
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Get ready to learn the CBA, folks. All the new CBA rules are now in place, and playing amateur GM was never more difficult. The two aprons, the different ways you get hard-capped, the frozen pick, the teams that can’t aggregate contracts … making trades is an even bigger challenge now.
We’re still going to have our doses of player movement and trades, like the one the Knicks just did, but the new rules may have more boring offseasons as a consequence.
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Let's run through some Matthew Berry-style Love/Hate items, shall we?
I love Mikal Bridges’ fit in New York. I kinda hate sending FIVE picks out for him. But hey, go 'Nova.
I love Stephon Castle in San Antonio. Focus, intensity — those aren’t intangibles when you can see them. He’ll be great with Wemby, even if he's still not the PG they need. What I hate is Castle's UConn teammate, Donovan Clingan, getting stuck in Portland next to Deandre Ayton and Robert Williams. No!
I love Reed Sheppard, and I love the state of Houston’s rebuild. I hate the rumor that the Rockets want to trade for … KD? Don't, guys. Just don't.
As I wrote this week, I love the French invasion, but I have relatively little faith in either Zaccharie Risacher or Alex Sarr. The guys I love are Tidjane Salaun and Pacome Dadiet. I’m not sure any of the four ever turns into a truly impactful playoff rotation guy, but I'd sooner bet on those last two as capable roleplayers than the first two as stars.
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Outside of the first round being largely entertaining and unpredictable (who could’ve seen Dillingham being traded to Minnesota?), the main thing I had my eye on was OKC’s potential strategy with their selection: Nikola Topić.
At one point, Topić was being considered as a top-3 pick, but he fell due to both jumpshot concerns and his injury history, culminating in a torn ACL with an unknown timeline for recovery. OKC could go the Chet Holmgren route with Topić — that is, sitting him for a year before giving him the reins in 2025-26. Regardless, grabbing a top-3 talent at No. 12 feels like a classic Sam Presti coup.
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Feel however you’d like about this era of player movement, but it’s undeniable that it has fostered an annual offseason that runneth over with intrigue. In the last decade, the combination of shorter contracts, deeper rosters, and bolder players has turned the NBA into a league that now holds year-round interest.
The mystery of free agency, and the trade market riding sidecar with it, has made this one of my favorite parts of the NBA’s annual cycle. Rather than suffer the depression that once struck at the end of the season, I now sit in anticipatory joy of the next seismic move.
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France had three players in this draft's top seven — after having two players in last year's top seven, one of whom is deemed one of the greatest talents of all time.
In 2-3 years, is France going to yield a superteam that could be too much to handle for the U.S. men's team, even in Olympic competition?
Now, all these players are 6'9” or taller, so we'll have to wait and see if the team can also be good offensively without an NBA-level guard. But the above five plus Rudy Gobert should easily sport the best defense in any international tournament.
Everts is spot on here. Any look at the Draft over the past 15 years or so demonstrates what a crapshoot it is and how quickly it dilutes after the first handful of picks even in a good year. So, I guess we shouldn't be surprised after spending an entire evening where I wished I started out with a drinking game where every time someone at ESPN said "length" or "rim protector" you had to take a shot of your favorite alcohol. I wouldn't have made it through the first 10 picks.
Usually, this sort of lingo is used to justify a high pick who has zero offensive upside along the lines of "yeah, this guy can't shoot at all or distribute the ball, but he's athletic with great length and is only 20, as well as a good rim protector"...and that somehow merits a high pick. That is of course, unless you are even moderately observant of history.
The double shot moment came when Stephen A. Smith checkmated Bob Myers after he raised a concern about a pick having limited offensive skills - "well don't use them on offense then - just defense." As if the offensive side of the equation is overrated and having to go 5 on 4 on offense because a guy can't score is somehow irrelevant to the whole winning thing. Maybe he was thinking of the NFL, but I digress.
In any event, as I watched the proceedings move forward completely sober, I noted 5 repeated and overused fallacies/corollaries associated with the NBA Draft. They are:
(1) "The Redemption by Brand" Fallacy"- where fans get excited when a trade is made for a "haul" of late first round picks (that will amount to nothing) just because they carry the label "first round pick." Usually expressed as "dude we just got 3 late first round picks for [fill in the blank of very good and improving player on a team friendly contract]. I'm so stoked."
(2) "The Panning for Gold Corollary" to the above Fallacy - where fans get excited when a team trades a valuable asset to a winning team in exchange for very low future first round picks - that will likely be lower in the future - after the addition of your very solid player. Usually expressed as "dude we just got Cleveland's first round pick in 2027. Yeah, we gave up [emerging all star player] but he was due an expensive extension in two years anyway. Let's go!!"
(3) "The Velvet Rope Fallacy" - where fans get excited solely by a player's birth date as if the front office is only checking IDs at a club. Usually expressed as "yeah, I read all the negatives about his offense, defense and work ethic, but come on man, the dude is only 19. What were you doing at 19? He's got so much time to develop."
(4) "The Coaching Up Corollary" to the above Fallacy - where fans expect a player to improve from the coaching at a higher level of competition despite that not happening anywhere else in the world. How often do you hear a neighbor tell you, "My son is going to try physics at Stanford. Yes, he got a C- in physics in high school, but I hear the professors there are really good." Or "Jennie is now trying out for the Boston Pops violin section after not making the cut at the community orchestra in town, because the Maestro there is supposedly a super good teacher." Life rule - the higher up you go, the more the ecosystem presumes you are closer to a finished product - not less. Picking players with more collegiate and developmental league experience reduces risk, even if they are a year or two older.
(5) "The We Have to Destroy the Village to Save it Fallacy" - this one will be familiar to those who recall the Vietnam War. It didn't work there, and it's still doesn't today but used repeatedly. This is where a new front office steams into town and publicly announces (in the purported interest of "transparency") that the team is in full rebuild mode. This takes the pressure off and provides the front office with space to make confounding and irresponsible moves for 2-3 years before their seats - and paychecks - grow warm. Usually expressed as, "dude the front office has said we are rebuilding this thing from the studs up for the future, so don't worry about all their boneheaded trades now because we got a ton of picks that we won't know if they work out for three years."
The team that most epitomizes these fallacies is the Washington Wizards. The new front office shrewdly and immediately announced that they were rebuilding, so now we are told we should ignore the obvious bad judgment in trading Deni Avdija to Portland for picks and an old declining and expensive player. Patience people. Avdija represents the rare double double for a front office - a young players who makes a sizeable performance leap right after signing a team friendly extension. Just ask the Trailblazers.
But Avdija is just the latest. Consider that Washington has dealt in the name of rebuilding, Bradley Beal (for nothing), Rui Hachimura, Kristaps Porzingis, and Daniel Gafford. That's not a bad young team to build around when you include Deni Avdija and some high Draft picks. Instead, the Wizards are left with Kyle Kuzma on a bad contract, Jordan Poole on a worse contract and Bilal Coulibaly coming off an unimpressive rookie campaign where the Wizards applauded him finishing 14th in All Rookie voting - while ignoring that they selected him 7th overall. Can't wait for the redraft in a few years.
But hey, they've got a ton of picks that we'll just have to wait to see if the front office is really any good. Surprisingly, the Wizards' fans see this whole thing as super exciting and encouraging because Will and Michael are "making lots of moves." Oh, I just realized I left one fallacy out...
...never confuse movement with progress.
Rob Rob Dillingham. Who is paying the second apron fees? The cheap old owner or the broke new owners?