NBA Draft/Trade Rumors, Hearsay, Hints, Allegations, And Things Left Unsaid, Part II: The Thickening

The Best Name On The Trade Market No One's Talking About

Photo by Evelyn Verdín on Unsplash

As we get closer to the draft, things are starting to thicken in the free agency and draft markets. KD’s the big headliner, but I’m way more interested in the other dominoes. Plus, a name that I think teams looking to make a leap need to consider taking a big gamble on, and why I’m a little skeptical about the Detroit noise about stretch fives.

TWO, NOT THREE

I’ve written extensively about the new CBA’s impact on team building and the devastating effect it’s had on teams that built their cores under the old CBA.

But the thing I keep coming back to: You can have two max guys. Not three. Never three.

The question is how much you can pay your third and fourth guys, which translates to “How good can your third and fourth guys be?”

This is the follow-up to the Memphis-Orlando Desmond Bane trade.

Orlando’s big three after Paolo Banchero’s max extension will make as much in 2027 as Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon will that season. If the Grizzlies had been able to figure out how to extend Jaren Jackson Jr. and kept Bane, they’d be making $8 million less.

What I’m trying to say is that I think the Magic are breaking up the other three big-name guys by then. Whether it’s moving Franz to become a Paolo team, moving Suggs, or moving Bane again if the fit isn’t right, this is a temporary set up.

Even with the cap increasing, this structure just isn’t sustainable for keeping a deep enough roster to contend for small markets who can’t won’t afford the double-apron tax and the second-apron constraints justify it.

In the short term, the move is justified as I wrote yesterday, and I think it will work. But long-term, Orlando will likely have to do exactly what Memphis did here: turn one large contract into two or more.

Keep this in mind as teams seek various constructs. Even with the increasing cap, the new CBA says “two stars and a good third, not three.”

THE BEST NAME ON THE TRADE MARKET

RJ Barrett.

This is your next sneaky trade target who could make that leap, and all of a sudden, you have a bona fide star.

Barrett was a gunner in New York early in his career, and I was pretty bored overall with his game. He could have had a good career and made some money; scorers like that, with his athleticism, get paid.

And then in his last season in New York before he was dealt to Toronto, he made a leap. His per-36’s went up. His advanced numbers went up. And his feel for the game on an eye test level jumped.

Barrett’s shooting dipped last season. He dropped to 35 percent from three, a 52% eFG, and his turnovers jumped to 3.2 per 36. But when you look at what happened with Toronto and how they managed last season, this isn’t a surprise. I’m not saying Barrett needs great talent around him, but he does perform better when the team is trying to win.

Barrett was 79th percentile in offensive EPM last season. He’s a three-level scorer and was 72nd percentile in pick-and-roll per-possession efficiency, including passes per Synergy Sports.

The problem?

He’s a Raptor.

No one in the league is confident in what Toronto is doing. Reports came from Brian Windhorst that they are big-name shoppers. Rumors continue to swirl about the new majority stakeholder in MLSE, Toronto’s ownership group, and their impatience with returning to contending.