Pelton mail: Which rookies are most ready to contribute?
This week's mailbag featuresyour questions on which top-10 picks are most ready to contribute as rookies, the returns on blockbuster trades involving star players and more.
You can tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.
"Your rating of the Jimmy Butler trade made me think of the following question: can you rank the best and worst returns for a player with All-Star credentials traded in their "prime" (second contract)? Of active players, I can only think of: Butler, Carmelo Anthony, DeMarcus Cousins, Pau Gasol, Kevin Love, Deron Williams and perhaps Goran Dragic. How does Butler's return rank in that list? I understand that context matters (The Chicago Bulls are not trying to be competitive, whereas the Denver Nuggets wanted players who could play now). My initial guess is that it seems pretty average, but would love to hear your thoughts."
-- Alejandro Yegros
It's tricky, and obviously subjective, but here's how I'd rank those returns at the time of the trade, adding Dwight Howard and Chris Paul to the list and taking out Dragic (who was never an All-Star and had less than a season remaining on his contract):
1. Deron Williams, Utah Jazz, to New Jersey Nets, February 2011
Return:Derrick Favors, Devin Harris, 2011 first-round pick (No. 3, used on Enes Kanter) and a 2013 first-round pick (No. 21, used on Gorgui Dieng)
- Favors had been the third pick of the 2010 draft, so the Jazz essentially got a pair of No. 3 picks for Williams. I'd argue that both were more valuable than anything the Bulls got for Butler. Harris was also a league-average player on a reasonable contract. As if that wasn't enough, Utah also got an extra first-rounder. What a haul.
2. Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets, to New York Knicks, February 2011
Return: Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Kosta Koufos, Timofey Mozgov, 2014 first-round pick (No. 12, used on Dario Saric), 2016 pick swap (from No. 9 to No. 7), two second-round picks
- The Nuggets basically got a whole lineup out of the Anthony trade, which set them up to go 18-7 the remainder of the season, 38-28 the following year and 57-25 in 2012-13 after adding Andre Iguodala. It's worth noting Denver also benefited from moving Chauncey Billups' salary in the trade. The Knicks used their amnesty provision on Billups months later to clear cap room to sign Tyson Chandler as a free agent.
3. Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves, to Cleveland Cavaliers, August 2014
Return: Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins and Thaddeus Young
- While this was billed as a pair of No. 1 picks for Love, Bennett clearly didn't have that kind of trade value after a dismal rookie season. I'd say he was closer to a late-first-round pick at that point. Still, the Timberwolves got the No. 1 pick (Wiggins) in what was considered a loaded draft, and they could have had another first-round pick had they not shortsightedly sent it to the Philadelphia 76ers for Young as a replacement for Love. Minnesota ended up trading Young to the Brooklyn Nets at the trade deadline to bring Kevin Garnett back home.
4. Chris Paul, New Orleans Hornets, to LA Clippers, December 2011
Return:Al-Farouq Aminu, Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman and 2012 Minnesota first-round pick (No. 10, used on Austin Rivers)
- Hindsight hasn't been kind to this trade, largely because knee injuries kept Gordon from making good on his potential in New Orleans. He was unquestionably a far better prospect at the time than Zach LaVine is now, Aminu is comparable to Kris Dunn, and while the Timberwolves' first-round pick ended up lower than expected, the 10th pick was still more valuable than the trade up from No. 16 to No. 7.
5. Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic, to Los Angeles Lakers in four-team deal, August 2012
Return: Arron Afflalo, Christian Eyenga, Al Harrington, Maurice Harkless, Josh McRoberts, Nikola Vucevic, 2014 New York first-round pick (No. 12, used on Dario Saric), protected 2016 Philadelphia first-round pick (later traded back to the 76ers)
- This package didn't have any standout, since Harkless and Vucevic were midround picks. But there was plenty of depth. The Magic were able to trade Afflalo back to the Denver Nuggets for Evan Fournier a year later, and Fournier, Harkless and Vucevic are all NBA starters. Orlando ended up using the two first-round picks to move up from No. 12 to No. 10 to get Elfrid Payton. The Magic also got off Jason Richardson's salary, though they took some back in Harrington and McRoberts.
6. Jimmy Butler, Chicago Bulls, to Minnesota Timberwolves, June
Return: Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine, No. 7 pick (used on Lauri Markkanen)
7. DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento Kings, to New Orleans Pelicans, February
Return:Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway, Buddy Hield, top-three protected first-round pick (No. 10, traded to Portland for No. 15 and No. 20), second-round pick (No. 34, used on Frank Mason III)
- I think these returns were closer than conventional wisdom might suggest. While the Bulls got the better pick, they also had to give up No. 16 and didn't get the extra second-rounder. Dunn and Hield were fairly comparable in value at the time of the trade, so LaVine is the only advantage for Chicago despite the fact that Cousins' trade value was complicated by his reputation and desire to squash a deal.
8. Pau Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies, to Lakers, February 2008
Return: Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Marc Gasol, Aaron McKie, 2008 first-round pick (No. 28, used on Donte Greene) and 2010 first-round pick (No. 28, used on Greivis Vasquez)
- It's important to remember here I'm evaluating these packages as they looked at the time of the trade. While Marc Gasol was playing well in Spain and looked more valuable than where he was drafted, I'd still assess his value close to a late-first-round pick rather than the All-Star center he's become. Crittenton was a 19th pick who had barely played, and both of the future picks were at the back end of the first round, so perhaps the biggest thing the Grizzlies seemed to get out of this trade was cap relief. Memphis ended up turning that flexibility into Zach Randolph, and he and Marc Gasol made the Grizzlies contenders.
As you listen to Van Hagar, I'd say:
1. Lonzo Ball
Fultz is certainly ready to play minutes. I'm not sure he's ready to help the 76ers win. He'll have to be very good offensively to do so, given poor defensive habits, and Fultz's projected true shooting percentage is actually the worst of any top-10 pick. Particularly in transition, I expect Ball to have a more immediate impact.
Smith's numbers at North Carolina State were similar to Fultz's at Washington, and I think he's probably in a slightly better position to succeed right away playing in the Dallas Mavericks' spread pick-and-roll offense. Depending on what Dallas does in free agency, Smith is a Rookie of the Year contender.
4. Josh Jackson
Both of these forwards should be capable defenders next season. We'll see whether either can stretch the defense enough to fill a 3-and-D role right away.
6. Zach Collins
Collins should be a contributor off the bench right away. Markkanen's floor spacing should translate, though it may take some time for him to get settled in defensively.
8. Jayson Tatum
Yes, Tatum's midrange-based game is similar to that of many NBA combo forwards. However, making those plays against NBA-caliber defenders is entirely different, and Tatum may not have much opportunity in Boston.
9. De'Aaron Fox
10. Frank Ntilikina
Ntilikina may be able to contribute defensively immediately, but he's got a long way to go offensively. Given Fox's shooting concerns, expect defenses to go under pick-and-rolls against him and make it difficult to get to the paint. He can get there, but it may take a while.
A little. There's certainly a similarity between a Ricky Rubio-Butler-Wiggins perimeter trio and the Rajon Rondo-Butler-Dwyane Wade combo we saw last season in Chicago.
But Wiggins is a much better catch-and-shoot option than Wade, having made 35.6 percent of his 3-pointers last season, and either Wiggins or Butler will be attacking the weaker of each team's wing defenders. I'm also not sure that cutting down Wiggins' isolation plays is the worst idea in the world. So I think it will work fine, if not ideally.
Perhaps the team will feel Rondo is worth keeping around as a veteran mentor for its young players, given how well he seemed to connect with the Baby Bulls last season. More likely, Chicago will look to trade Rondo before his contract guarantees on June 30. He could make sense for a team looking to add a starting point guard with limited cap room, or to a team that wants to shed salary by trading equal money back for Rondo and then waiving him.
Failing that, I'd expect the Bulls to waive Rondo and pay him the $3 million guaranteed of his 2017-18 salary.
Well, some of them did, of course -- just not as high picks or at as high a cost as the $3.5 million Golden State spent on the No. 38 pick. Beyond that, teams don't buy picks for the same reasons the Bulls were willing to sell that pick. As Amin Elhassan noted on the post-draft NBA Lockdown podcast, nothing makes an owner happier than adding so much money in a single transaction.
Beyond that, teams may not think they've got a good use for the pick and would end up cutting the player in training camp anyway. I don't think that's a good explanation now that teams have the right to sign their second-rounders to two-way contracts even if they don't make the roster, but that's the explanation.
For the most part, this looks a lot like a list of the best and worst draft picks in that span. Going by consensus projections -- projecting WARP (wins above replacement player) -- and excluding players with one or two years of experience, here are the players who have most exceeded their projections:
Anthony Davis actually has the best consensus projection for any player in my database, which is complete since 2005 and dates back to 2003. Yet he still scores as one of the biggest overachievers because there's so much uncertainty about players before they're actually drafted.
On the other end, these players have fallen most short of their projections:
Oden and Beasley are the two players who rated exceptionally well by my stats-only projections who were unable to find success in the NBA. (Due to injuries in Oden's case, of course.) With the exceptions of Henry and Vonleh, the other players mostly had such lofty consensus projections because of where they were drafted.
