Celtics trade grades?

[sgrogan]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

I guess I don't understand?
Are you saying the upside must be higher for a "lateral" move?

[Vermont Green]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

You are not accounting for the fact that it is a swap.  Say we end up 15 and SAS 20.  It would be a swap so the "value" of the transaction is the difference in value of the two picks, not the value of the 15th pick that we give up.  This is why the most likely outcome is that the value is inconsequential, meaning the swap doesn't happen at all or the swap doesn't make a discernable difference.

For the value to be a solid starter, I don't even know how that could be the result.  How likely is it that a top 10 pick on its own would be a solid starter?  And how do you subtract from that the value of say pick 20-30 that in the worst case we would end up with (even this is extremely unlikely).  So even in the worst case, the net value isn't a solid starter.

I’m not sure how you come to your final conclusion.  Worst case is trading the draft rights to Jayson Tatum for the #27 pick in the draft, which we’ve seen happen.  Is that net value a solid starter?

It is top 4 protected so you think a 5-10 is going to be Jason Tatum?  I was trying to construct a hypothetical that was at least remotely possible to happen.  Are you suggesting we don't do this trade because there is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that we could lose a pick that could turn out to be Jason Tatum?

What the original post was suggesting was that the average outcome of this was a value of a solid starter.  That it could be anything form an all star to a bench player and that the mid point of that range was the expected value.  That is what I disagreed with.  The average or mean outcome is inconsequential value. 

I don't know how to figure the odds for something like this but to me it is about 90% likely that the swap doesn't even happen or that it is a swap of middle range picks and the difference is not anything that matters.  Then say 9% chance that we are much worse than SAS and they get a starter and we get a bench player.  Then 0.9% chance they end up with a top 3 type starter and us a bench player.  And so on until you get to 0.0001% chance they get Jason Tatum and we get Fab Melo.

I suppose you can decide for yourself where on that curve you want choose to pick as the likely or average outcome.  For me though, I am not worried about this pick swap.  I expect the Celtics to be better than the Spurs and the swap to not even happen.  To me, that is the most likely outcome.  At worst, the chance of this is 50%  If you had to predict which team is going to be better in 2028, you may as well flip a coin.

[Who]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

I guess I don't understand?
Are you saying the upside must be higher for a "lateral" move?

I am not sure I understand either.

I say this 2027 pick is an unknown value -- that there is no expected value because the draft pick is too far off to predict with any reasonable level of accuracy -- and therefore cannot be held relative to another value.

And that the only way I give up this pick of unknown value is if the value coming back to me is so high (superstar, maybe All-Star) that it over-rides the risk involved.

If I understand, you use the average of all these unknown values (all possible outcomes) and use that as a stand-in as the expected value of that 2027 pick. And say that the average first round pick is equal to (or inferior) to a solid starter and is therefore a good trade.

[pokeKingCurtis]

How about this. Logic might be faulty here but just my perspective

An extreme best case for the pick would be that there's a surefire superstar you can't pass on (Anthony Davis, Lebron, Zion, maybe KAT). But that might come once every 5 or so years, and even Zion is looking a bit iffy now.

A more realistic optimistic case scenario, is a toss up between a Jayson Tatum level player; a Jaylen Brown/Brad Beal/Don Mitchell level player; or a Lonzo Ball/Dante Exum/Markelle Fultz.

The odds of the pick becoming Tatum, of course, is far lower than the two other possible outcomes. Realistically cant you basically sign someone with similar upside to the pick swap, like the Knicks did with Julius Randle?

By doing a pick swap several years down the line (aside from the Spurs having no incentive to do one in the short run due to them being worse than us), you maintain maximum flexibility in the short run. You could trade all your picks for a disgruntled Don Mitchell, but not if you hamstring yourself by trading/swapping picks in the short run.

[colincb]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

I guess I don't understand?
Are you saying the upside must be higher for a "lateral" move?

I am not sure I understand either.

I say this 2027 pick is an unknown value -- that there is no expected value because the draft pick is too far off to predict with any reasonable level of accuracy -- and therefore cannot be held relative to another value.

And that the only way I give up this pick of unknown value is if the value coming back to me is so high (superstar, maybe All-Star) that it over-rides the risk involved.

If I understand, you use the average of all these unknown values (all possible outcomes) and use that as a stand-in as the expected value of that 2027 pick. And say that the average first round pick is equal to (or inferior) to a solid starter and is therefore a good trade.

Expected value is the probability-weighted average of all possible values and is commonly used in Finance. If every pick 1-30 has the same probability of occurring, then the expected value of the pick to be swapped is the median (IOW, pick 15.5 or a mid-first round pick).  The expected value of the swap would be even less based on the probability that the Spurs finish higher than the Celtics x years out. Furthermore, you'd have to compare the present value of the future swap to the present value of the asset you received.

However, for those not mathematically inclined, there is this article:

A Future First-Rounder Isn’t As Full of Hope As You May Think

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/2/5/18211132/trade-future-first-round-pick-value-kristaps-porzingis-new-york-knicks

[Roy H.]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

You are not accounting for the fact that it is a swap.  Say we end up 15 and SAS 20.  It would be a swap so the "value" of the transaction is the difference in value of the two picks, not the value of the 15th pick that we give up.  This is why the most likely outcome is that the value is inconsequential, meaning the swap doesn't happen at all or the swap doesn't make a discernable difference.

For the value to be a solid starter, I don't even know how that could be the result.  How likely is it that a top 10 pick on its own would be a solid starter?  And how do you subtract from that the value of say pick 20-30 that in the worst case we would end up with (even this is extremely unlikely).  So even in the worst case, the net value isn't a solid starter.

I’m not sure how you come to your final conclusion.  Worst case is trading the draft rights to Jayson Tatum for the #27 pick in the draft, which we’ve seen happen.  Is that net value a solid starter?

It is top 4 protected so you think a 5-10 is going to be Jason Tatum?  I was trying to construct a hypothetical that was at least remotely possible to happen.  Are you suggesting we don't do this trade because there is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that we could lose a pick that could turn out to be Jason Tatum?

What the original post was suggesting was that the average outcome of this was a value of a solid starter.  That it could be anything form an all star to a bench player and that the mid point of that range was the expected value.  That is what I disagreed with.  The average or mean outcome is inconsequential value. 

I don't know how to figure the odds for something like this but to me it is about 90% likely that the swap doesn't even happen or that it is a swap of middle range picks and the difference is not anything that matters.  Then say 9% chance that we are much worse than SAS and they get a starter and we get a bench player.  Then 0.9% chance they end up with a top 3 type starter and us a bench player.  And so on until you get to 0.0001% chance they get Jason Tatum and we get Fab Melo.

I suppose you can decide for yourself where on that curve you want choose to pick as the likely or average outcome.  For me though, I am not worried about this pick swap.  I expect the Celtics to be better than the Spurs and the swap to not even happen.  To me, that is the most likely outcome.  At worst, the chance of this is 50%  If you had to predict which team is going to be better in 2028, you may as well flip a coin.

It’s top-1 protected.

People are using some wonky math to justify their opinions.  Think of it like this:

There’s no way to predict 6 years in the future.  So, it’s 50/50 that the swap occurs.  Slightly less than that, as there’s a 3.3% chance we get #1.  So, there’s a 47% chance the pick conveys.

There’s a 1/3 chance our pick is 1-10: 1/3 that it’s 11-20; 1/3 that it’s 21-30.

So, 1/9 of the time we’ll both be in the top 10; 1/9 both in the mid-10; 1/9 we’ll both be in the bottom 10.

1/9 of the time SA will be in the bottom 10 and we’ll be in the mid-10; another 1/9 that they’ll be bottom 10 and we’re top 10.

A better mathematician can determine the odds of us moving back 10+ slots, etc.  But, the important thing is that we fall from a top-10 pick to a bottom 10 pick roughly 11% of the time.

Those aren’t great odds, but they’re also not infinitesimal.

[sgrogan]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

I guess I don't understand?
Are you saying the upside must be higher for a "lateral" move?

I am not sure I understand either.

I say this 2027 pick is an unknown value -- that there is no expected value because the draft pick is too far off to predict with any reasonable level of accuracy -- and therefore cannot be held relative to another value.

And that the only way I give up this pick of unknown value is if the value coming back to me is so high (superstar, maybe All-Star) that it over-rides the risk involved.

If I understand, you use the average of all these unknown values (all possible outcomes) and use that as a stand-in as the expected value of that 2027 pick. And say that the average first round pick is equal to (or inferior) to a solid starter and is therefore a good trade.

I think we are arguing the same point.
We don't know what the future swap is worth.
If it was what the trade needed to make it happen, then so be it.
I think this is a trade Danny doesn't make. We didn't fleece them. I like the trade. Others say the swap is too much.

[pokeKingCurtis]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

You are not accounting for the fact that it is a swap.  Say we end up 15 and SAS 20.  It would be a swap so the "value" of the transaction is the difference in value of the two picks, not the value of the 15th pick that we give up.  This is why the most likely outcome is that the value is inconsequential, meaning the swap doesn't happen at all or the swap doesn't make a discernable difference.

For the value to be a solid starter, I don't even know how that could be the result.  How likely is it that a top 10 pick on its own would be a solid starter?  And how do you subtract from that the value of say pick 20-30 that in the worst case we would end up with (even this is extremely unlikely).  So even in the worst case, the net value isn't a solid starter.

I’m not sure how you come to your final conclusion.  Worst case is trading the draft rights to Jayson Tatum for the #27 pick in the draft, which we’ve seen happen.  Is that net value a solid starter?

It is top 4 protected so you think a 5-10 is going to be Jason Tatum?  I was trying to construct a hypothetical that was at least remotely possible to happen.  Are you suggesting we don't do this trade because there is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that we could lose a pick that could turn out to be Jason Tatum?

What the original post was suggesting was that the average outcome of this was a value of a solid starter.  That it could be anything form an all star to a bench player and that the mid point of that range was the expected value.  That is what I disagreed with.  The average or mean outcome is inconsequential value. 

I don't know how to figure the odds for something like this but to me it is about 90% likely that the swap doesn't even happen or that it is a swap of middle range picks and the difference is not anything that matters.  Then say 9% chance that we are much worse than SAS and they get a starter and we get a bench player.  Then 0.9% chance they end up with a top 3 type starter and us a bench player.  And so on until you get to 0.0001% chance they get Jason Tatum and we get Fab Melo.

I suppose you can decide for yourself where on that curve you want choose to pick as the likely or average outcome.  For me though, I am not worried about this pick swap.  I expect the Celtics to be better than the Spurs and the swap to not even happen.  To me, that is the most likely outcome.  At worst, the chance of this is 50%  If you had to predict which team is going to be better in 2028, you may as well flip a coin.

It’s top-1 protected.

People are using some wonky math to justify their opinions.  Think of it like this:

There’s no way to predict 6 years in the future.  So, it’s 50/50 that the swap occurs.  Slightly less than that, as there’s a 3.3% chance we get #1.  So, there’s a 47% chance the pick conveys.

There’s a 1/3 chance our pick is 1-10: 1/3 that it’s 11-20; 1/3 that it’s 21-30.

So, 1/9 of the time we’ll both be in the top 10; 1/9 both in the mid-10; 1/9 we’ll both be in the bottom 10.

1/9 of the time SA will be in the bottom 10 and we’ll be in the mid-10; another 1/9 that they’ll be bottom 10 and we’re top 10.

A better mathematician can determine the odds of us moving back 10+ slots, etc.  But, the important thing is that we fall from a top-10 pick to a bottom 10 pick roughly 11% of the time.

Those aren’t great odds, but they’re also not infinitesimal.

That's a good way to break it down.

But the point is even within the 11%, the worst case scenario, the Spurs scoring big on a top 10 pick is still a crap shoot

And really it should be about the Spurs leapfrogging us to get a top 5 pick for this to really suck, and even when picking in the top 5 I think the odds of getting just a solid player like Harrison Barnes is as good as getting a 2-3 time all star like Robert, and the odds of getting Tatum is even smaller.

This is not to mention Nick's point. It's one single pick, and the Celtics have a lot of room to maneuver around that swap. It's a huge gamble if we traded multiple picks because we'd lose flexibility - like the Bucks with Jrue Holiday or the Nets - but I think less worrying if it's one single pick

[Big333223]

I have some misgivings about the future swap but it's just the worst-case doomsday scenario that has people sweating it a bit.  The reality is that the swap's expected value is actually quite low, and it's probably more likely to have no value at all than it is to seriously hurt us. 

Expected value is a great phrase / description.

That is all I want to talk about here - expected value - nothing else. The idea of expected value.

My position is that a pick that far out has no expected value. You cannot reasonably predict a value upon that draft pick. I am fine with putting a value on this year's pick, next year's pick, two years time ... things start getting dicey 4 years out. 5 years out is complete darkness. You know nothing [edit: not quite nothing, whatever is next to nothing].

The number of teams in this league that are completely different to whom they were 5 years earlier is massive. Even talented teams, young teams, teams who were considered teams of the future, who within 5 years time end up being completely different to origin. To what fans expected of them; of where they expected their team to be. 

NBA teams change so much in such a short space of time. Average lifespan for a team is about 3-4 years. Giving a pick 5 years away is giving up an unknown value = not an expected value, an unknown value.

I am fine with giving up that unknown value if you are getting back a major bounty - a star talent. You take those risks in order to get those major difference makers. You swing for the fences because the return is so great.

You don't take those risks for a solid starter. For players like that you want to be able to put an expected value on what is going out because what is coming back is not great enough to swing wildly at the fences and hope for the best.

Is the expected value for a random pick a solid starter?

It can be anything.

Superstar, all-star, above average starter, solid starter, borderline starter to high end bench player, average bench player, below average bench player, bust.

So is the question is the average outcome of all these possibilities worth a solid starter? Yes.

Next question, is this a good basis for making & evaluating this decision? Is the average of "anything" a worthwhile marker? How worthwhile?

I say it is too wide a range of values with too little capacity to predict within which range it is likely to fall to offer good predictive value.

You are not accounting for the fact that it is a swap.  Say we end up 15 and SAS 20.  It would be a swap so the "value" of the transaction is the difference in value of the two picks, not the value of the 15th pick that we give up.  This is why the most likely outcome is that the value is inconsequential, meaning the swap doesn't happen at all or the swap doesn't make a discernable difference.

For the value to be a solid starter, I don't even know how that could be the result.  How likely is it that a top 10 pick on its own would be a solid starter?  And how do you subtract from that the value of say pick 20-30 that in the worst case we would end up with (even this is extremely unlikely).  So even in the worst case, the net value isn't a solid starter.

I’m not sure how you come to your final conclusion.  Worst case is trading the draft rights to Jayson Tatum for the #27 pick in the draft, which we’ve seen happen.  Is that net value a solid starter?

It is top 4 protected so you think a 5-10 is going to be Jason Tatum?  I was trying to construct a hypothetical that was at least remotely possible to happen.  Are you suggesting we don't do this trade because there is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that we could lose a pick that could turn out to be Jason Tatum?

What the original post was suggesting was that the average outcome of this was a value of a solid starter.  That it could be anything form an all star to a bench player and that the mid point of that range was the expected value.  That is what I disagreed with.  The average or mean outcome is inconsequential value. 

I don't know how to figure the odds for something like this but to me it is about 90% likely that the swap doesn't even happen or that it is a swap of middle range picks and the difference is not anything that matters.  Then say 9% chance that we are much worse than SAS and they get a starter and we get a bench player.  Then 0.9% chance they end up with a top 3 type starter and us a bench player.  And so on until you get to 0.0001% chance they get Jason Tatum and we get Fab Melo.

I suppose you can decide for yourself where on that curve you want choose to pick as the likely or average outcome.  For me though, I am not worried about this pick swap.  I expect the Celtics to be better than the Spurs and the swap to not even happen.  To me, that is the most likely outcome.  At worst, the chance of this is 50%  If you had to predict which team is going to be better in 2028, you may as well flip a coin.

It’s top-1 protected.

People are using some wonky math to justify their opinions.  Think of it like this:

There’s no way to predict 6 years in the future.  So, it’s 50/50 that the swap occurs.  Slightly less than that, as there’s a 3.3% chance we get #1.  So, there’s a 47% chance the pick conveys.

There’s a 1/3 chance our pick is 1-10: 1/3 that it’s 11-20; 1/3 that it’s 21-30.

So, 1/9 of the time we’ll both be in the top 10; 1/9 both in the mid-10; 1/9 we’ll both be in the bottom 10.

1/9 of the time SA will be in the bottom 10 and we’ll be in the mid-10; another 1/9 that they’ll be bottom 10 and we’re top 10.

A better mathematician can determine the odds of us moving back 10+ slots, etc.  But, the important thing is that we fall from a top-10 pick to a bottom 10 pick roughly 11% of the time.

Those aren’t great odds, but they’re also not infinitesimal.

This is the first math in this thread that's made some sense to me.

[vjcsmoke]

Hindsight being 20/20 those trades were needed to get rid of some deadwood and add a piece who can help that top 8 rotation of players.  Derrick White has been as good as advertised.  This Celtics team has played better than ever post trade deadline.