Post by Andrei Kirilenko on Jul 7, 2017 17:01:48 GMT
Year in Review - Brooklyn Nets - 2016/2017
The 2016/2017 season was a year of direction for our team. We started the 2016 off-season with Blake Griffin on the roster, signed Reggie Jackson to a max contract, and looked ready to compete in a weak Eastern Conference. Things changed quickly, however, as Walt and I negotiated for what seemed like weeks, while I was backpacking around Southeast Asia no less, about a trade sending Blake Griffin to the Timberwolves for a handful of his young pieces. I think we both wavered on this trade probably 10 times, with negotiations dying down and then picking back up- but we eventually got the deal done.
DEAL 1 - July 20, 2016 - Minnesota
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Blake Griffin
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
Devin Booker
Jahlil Okafor
Willie Cauley-Stein
Domantas Sabonis
This trade finally gave some direction to our roster. We had been hovering in no-mans-land for quite some time, not good enough to compete but not bad enough to get a good draft pick. By moving Blake Griffin, we chose our path and would continue down it for the next year.
In retrospect, I love this trade. Devin Booker has been a great addition and looks like a future star in this league. Willie Cauley-Stein is probably the second-best asset in the trade, which is ironic as he was a late addition. The main hiccup Walt and I had in negotiations was whether or not he would include Skal Labissiere in the deal. He wouldn't budge, but I felt like I needed some more value. When he mentioned I could have WCS instead, I figured it was enough and the trade got posted. The jury is still out on whether Skal or WCS is better, but I think we are both probably happy with the one that we ended up with.
After trading Blake Griffin away, we had a problem. We had just promised Reggie Jackson a spot on a playoff roster, playing alongside Blake Griffin. He was now stuck on a rebuilding team with no real hopes to compete for a number of years. As such, I began shopping him once he was trade-eligible and probably offered him to every single team in the league at one point (that will be a theme further along if you continue to read this). Jackson had been struggling in real-life on the Pistons, and his value was quickly deteriorating. Luckily, Danny Longley had an injured Rudy Gay sitting on his roster, and we were able to come to a sorta weird agreement that shipped Reggie Jackson to Dallas for an injured Gay and a future 1st.
DEAL 2 - January 20, 2017 - Dallas
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Reggie Jackson
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
DAL 2020 1st
DAL 2020 2nd
Rudy Gay
Shane Larkin
Brandan Wright
I must say I am extremely happy with how this trade turned out, mainly because of the value I was able to later get for Rudy Gay (see below). The DAL 2020 1st is still a question mark, but it does look like Danny might be shifting towards more of a rebuild in a very competitive Western Conference.
With Reggie Jackson gone, we were in full rebuild mode and had no 80+ rated players on the roster (besides an injured Gay). Right around the real-life trade deadline, Jahlil Okafor's name popped up in the news... a lot. Like every hour. One thing I have learned over the years is that you can get significantly more or less value in trades based solely on timing. There were rumors that Jahlil was going to the Bulls or Celtics, and I heard rumblings on Reddit about how his career isn't dead, he just needs the right situation, etc. So, I figured it was now or never, and decided to pull the trigger. I was looking for any 1st rounder I could get, and somehow Kareem and I were able to work out a trade that netted me the Wizards' 2019 1st rounder for Jahlil.
DEAL 3 - February 20, 2017 - Washington
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Jahlil Okafor
John Jenkins
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
WAS 2019 1st
Maybe Jahlil will get better one day, but I don't see it. His play-style just isn't made for today's NBA. I don't want to talk too badly about Kareem here, as Jahlil may very well be better than the WAS 2019 1st, but I don't see the Wizards competing by 2019 and I am thrilled to own his pick. I was also thrilled when he selected Jonathon Isaac in the draft. So much of a rookie's development is about the situation he was drafted into... and you should never pick a player who was drafted by the real-life Orlando Magic.
The rest of this write-up is mainly about accumulating assets. Instead of trading for some specific purpose, I spent the rest of the season just trying to win trades, no matter what it did to my roster. This is one of the luxuries of tanking. If someone offered me a trade that I thought gained me the slightest more value in my roster, I took it. I will skip a few meaningless trades that I made, but just highlight some of the ones I believe are "value-add" trades below:
DEAL 4 - March 28, 2017 - Denver
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Ish Smith
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
Alex Len
I hated to send Ish away as he is my favorite player, but Len is a young center who still has potential to develop. It made sense for our team so I took it.
DEAL 5 - July 1, 2017 - San Antonio
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Rudy Gay
KJ McDaniels
Joe Harris
Tyler Ennis
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
Jrue Holiday
Anthony Bennett
I don't necessarily plan on keeping Jrue, but I think he has more value than Rudy Gay. This turns our Reggie Jackson trade into Jackson for Jrue + DAL 2020 1st, which I think is pretty damn good considering Jrue alone is probably worth more than Jackson.
DEAL 6 - July 3, 2017 - Sacramento
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Alex Len
MEM 2019 2nd
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
Bam Adebayo
Jordan Hill
This turns the Ish Smith trade into Ish for Bam Adebayo... more on this below.
Another trade I want to talk about in more detail is the Zach LaVine trade with Memphis and Utah. As I mentioned earlier, timing is everything in this league when you are making trade. One of my main tips to new GMs would be to never trade your draft picks until the actual draft- everyone wants to gamble on some random player, and your picks will double in value. I do not necessarily think I got the better of Billy or Jeremiah as they are both savvy, veteran GMs, with their own reasons for making this trade, but I do think Zach LaVine is worth tremendously more than the 10th and 18th picks that I gave up. He is going to be the main guy I am watching in the real NBA this year, as I think he has a perfect situation in Chicago to become a superstar.
DEAL 7 - June 27, 2017 - Memphis and Utah
Brooklyn Nets Send:
Pick 10
Pick 18
Shane Larkin
Brooklyn Nets Receive:
Zach LaVine
Zhou Qi
MEM 2019 2nd
MEM 2020 2nd
Some closing thoughts I have about my year-in-review are around our current roster makeup. As I mentioned in the text above, I am very excited about both Devin Booker and Zach LaVine and think they both have the potential for 85+ ratings in this league. I am recently very excited about Rodney Hood, which is ironic as I have probably offered him to everyone in the league twice, and usually for very cheap. Just last week I was offering to move him for picks in the late 20s, and no one would take him. Now, the Jazz are looking to make him their #1 scoring option, which should do wonders for his value in D5. I'm glad no one took my offers and plan to hold onto him for a while. I think Hood could also make it to an 85 rating as he combines both defense and offense.
Another guy I haven't talked about yet is Bam Adebayo. The hardest part of the Zach LaVine trade for me was removing myself from the draft. This was the first year in perhaps the history of D5 that I was actually excited for the draft and spent a good bit of time scouting players. I really wanted a point guard not named Frank Ntikilina to fall to me at 10, and once he was the only one left on the board I knew I should move the pick (One of my rules of drafting is to never pick an guard who has never played in the US, they simply do not face the rigorous competition that US guards have to go through and are more than likely busts). As such, I pulled the trigger on the trade and ended up with Zach LaVine. I didn't want all my scouting to go to waste though, and as I mentioned above was desperately trying to trade Rodney Hood to get back in the first round. Once I had no takers, I started looking at other movable assets, and discovered that Alex Len had enough value to get a 1st round pick. Chauncey and I had actually been discussing the trade as soon as he joined the league, which was about 4-5 before the summer league started. When I logged onto Reddit and saw Bam highlights from the summer league, I knew his value would quadruple in D5 and the trade would likely get rejected. However, Ian broke his own rules and traded with Sacramento before the 1 week probationary period, so I decided to do the same. Lucky for me, the Trade Committee apparently doesn't put too much stock into summer league, and it ended up passing.
Bam was the #1 big man on my board (yes, in front of both Zach Collins and Markannen), followed by John Collins at #2. Only time will tell who came out ahead in the Len/Bam trade, but I am happy to have a rookie on my roster who I spent a good bit of time scouting.
This is super long now, so I am going to end it at that. We have an exciting, youthful roster moving forward with a ton of assets that I will eventually need to consolidate in order to compete. I think this task can wait another year though as I let these guys gain value. I'll probably move Jrue Holiday just to help my tanking, but as I've mentioned a few times, timing is everything, and I am happy to wait until the trade deadline for his value to increase. I'm happy to answer any questions about our franchise, and go Nets!