Why did we make the Kemba / Horford deal?

[Roy H.]

From what I've seen, a first round pick usually buys you about 5 million in savings.

I think you may be a bit outdated here.  Look at the Philly / OKC trade:

December 8, 2020: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers with Théo Maledon, Vasilije Micić and a 2025 1st round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Terrance Ferguson, Danny Green and Vincent Poirier. 2025 1st-rd pick (PHI own) is top-6 protected Philadelphia also received a trade exception from Oklahoma City.

A second rounder, the rights to a second rounder drafted back in 2014 who may never join the NBA, and what is likely to be a non-lottery pick in 2025 for a useful starter, a deep bench player, and a small expiring contract.  In that deal, Philly cleared at least $70,000,000 in guaranteed salaries from its books.

[droopdog7]

From what I've seen, a first round pick usually buys you about 5 million in savings.

I think you may be a bit outdated here.  Look at the Philly / OKC trade:

December 8, 2020: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers with Théo Maledon, Vasilije Micić and a 2025 1st round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Terrance Ferguson, Danny Green and Vincent Poirier. 2025 1st-rd pick (PHI own) is top-6 protected Philadelphia also received a trade exception from Oklahoma City.

A second rounder, the rights to a second rounder drafted back in 2014 who may never join the NBA, and what is likely to be a non-lottery pick in 2025 for a useful starter, a deep bench player, and a small expiring contract.  In that deal, Philly cleared at least $70,000,000 in guaranteed salaries from its books.

This may be the outlier; never seen another one like it, making me think that there may have been another motivation we're not factoring in.

[Moranis]

As I've said elsewhere if Tatum, Horford, and Brown were shooting more typically from 3, then Boston would have won at least 5 games that they've lost this year, and none of these type of threads would exist.  There are clearly roster issues, talent issues, etc., but the fundamental problem with the team is that 3 guys that should be among the team leaders from 3, are just not carrying the proper shooting load.  That isn't to say Boston would be a real contender, it would not be, but it also wouldn't in the play-in and would firmly be in the playoffs.  And given shooting is down across the league, I can't say it a coaching problem, a roster construction problem, or something that can easily be fixed with anything other than time.

It's a league wide problem. Last year, the league wide three point average was 36.7%. This year it 34.8%.

So it's not just a Boston issue, it's happening across the league and to some usually excellent shooters. Could the rule changes on defense be part of this? If so, the issue is endemic, so if we assume Boston's big three point shooters would shoot differently, you should probably make the case every team's three point shooters return to normal, which probably erases those 5 wins you are talking about.

Maybe, maybe not.  Boston has lost a lot of close games this year and the vast majority of those the other team shot significantly better.  That isn't to say they wouldn't have still shot better, but even just game 1 against the Knicks, the Knicks were 1% better from 3.  That 1 shot in regulation or the 1st OT and Boston wins that game.  The double OT loss to Washington, Boston was 2 of 26 from 3, the starters were 0-16 (and Brown, Tatum, Al were 0-11).  Washington also shot poorly at 10 of 36, but obviously that is still significantly better. 

So yeah it evens out over the course of a season, but the shear volume of close games Boston has had, I think ultimately Boston would come out ahead.  There is a reason Boston has the 4th best SRS in the East and 9th best overall, despite having the 8th best record in the East and 14th best record overall.  A shot or two in key games, and Boston's record improves dramatically. 

[Moranis]

From what I've seen, a first round pick usually buys you about 5 million in savings.

I think you may be a bit outdated here.  Look at the Philly / OKC trade:

December 8, 2020: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers with Théo Maledon, Vasilije Micić and a 2025 1st round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Terrance Ferguson, Danny Green and Vincent Poirier. 2025 1st-rd pick (PHI own) is top-6 protected Philadelphia also received a trade exception from Oklahoma City.

A second rounder, the rights to a second rounder drafted back in 2014 who may never join the NBA, and what is likely to be a non-lottery pick in 2025 for a useful starter, a deep bench player, and a small expiring contract.  In that deal, Philly cleared at least $70,000,000 in guaranteed salaries from its books.

This may be the outlier; never seen another one like it, making me think that there may have been another motivation we're not factoring in.

That was the Al Horford trade, so the 70 million was basically just in one player and the Thunder were below the salary floor and obviously really liked Maledon who was the 34th pick.  They obviously then turned Horford into 2 more 1st round picks.

[Celtics2021]

From what I've seen, a first round pick usually buys you about 5 million in savings.

I think you may be a bit outdated here.  Look at the Philly / OKC trade:

December 8, 2020: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers with Théo Maledon, Vasilije Micić and a 2025 1st round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Terrance Ferguson, Danny Green and Vincent Poirier. 2025 1st-rd pick (PHI own) is top-6 protected Philadelphia also received a trade exception from Oklahoma City.

A second rounder, the rights to a second rounder drafted back in 2014 who may never join the NBA, and what is likely to be a non-lottery pick in 2025 for a useful starter, a deep bench player, and a small expiring contract.  In that deal, Philly cleared at least $70,000,000 in guaranteed salaries from its books.

Micić is a very tough player to evaluate in terms of his value.  He's the best player in Europe, and for 2-3 years he has sounded like it's his last year in Europe, only for him to stay there.  I'm not sure what OKC's valuation of him is, but I don't think the C's could get his rights simply by sending the Thunder cash.

Also, Philly cleared less than $70 million.  They cleared closer to $50 million when you take into account the incoming salaries.  Anyway, the $30 million in savings the C's got for mid-teens pick they gave up is in line with what Philly gave up for their own savings.

People think $5 million for a 1st because they remember we gave up pick #30 to clear $5 million, but that was pick 30, and we received two seconds in return as well.

[Roy H.]

From what I've seen, a first round pick usually buys you about 5 million in savings.

I think you may be a bit outdated here.  Look at the Philly / OKC trade:

December 8, 2020: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers with Théo Maledon, Vasilije Micić and a 2025 1st round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Terrance Ferguson, Danny Green and Vincent Poirier. 2025 1st-rd pick (PHI own) is top-6 protected Philadelphia also received a trade exception from Oklahoma City.

A second rounder, the rights to a second rounder drafted back in 2014 who may never join the NBA, and what is likely to be a non-lottery pick in 2025 for a useful starter, a deep bench player, and a small expiring contract.  In that deal, Philly cleared at least $70,000,000 in guaranteed salaries from its books.

Micić is a very tough player to evaluate in terms of his value.  He's the best player in Europe, and for 2-3 years he has sounded like it's his last year in Europe, only for him to stay there.  I'm not sure what OKC's valuation of him is, but I don't think the C's could get his rights simply by sending the Thunder cash.

Also, Philly cleared less than $70 million.  They cleared closer to $50 million when you take into account the incoming salaries.  Anyway, the $30 million in savings the C's got for mid-teens pick they gave up is in line with what Philly gave up for their own savings.

I don't think so.  You're ignoring the difference in value between the #16 pick and the lesser picks that Philly gave up, while also ignoring Danny Green.   That's also without considering any cost sayings from buying out Kemba.

Perhaps Philly just got an exceptionally good deal from Presti, but that begs the question:  why did Brad pay more value to the same GM for less savings? 

Did he make the move too soon?  Probably.  With the benefit of hindsight, it's fair to assume that even if Brad desperately wanted Horford, he could have acquired him on draft night.   Drafting Sengun and trading his rights to Houston would have given us two draft picks, one of which we could have kept and the other which we could deal to OKC along with Kemba.

[Celtics2021]

From what I've seen, a first round pick usually buys you about 5 million in savings.

I think you may be a bit outdated here.  Look at the Philly / OKC trade:

December 8, 2020: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers with Théo Maledon, Vasilije Micić and a 2025 1st round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Terrance Ferguson, Danny Green and Vincent Poirier. 2025 1st-rd pick (PHI own) is top-6 protected Philadelphia also received a trade exception from Oklahoma City.

A second rounder, the rights to a second rounder drafted back in 2014 who may never join the NBA, and what is likely to be a non-lottery pick in 2025 for a useful starter, a deep bench player, and a small expiring contract.  In that deal, Philly cleared at least $70,000,000 in guaranteed salaries from its books.

Micić is a very tough player to evaluate in terms of his value.  He's the best player in Europe, and for 2-3 years he has sounded like it's his last year in Europe, only for him to stay there.  I'm not sure what OKC's valuation of him is, but I don't think the C's could get his rights simply by sending the Thunder cash.

Also, Philly cleared less than $70 million.  They cleared closer to $50 million when you take into account the incoming salaries.  Anyway, the $30 million in savings the C's got for mid-teens pick they gave up is in line with what Philly gave up for their own savings.

I don't think so.  You're ignoring the difference in value between the #16 pick and the lesser picks that Philly gave up, while also ignoring Danny Green.   That's also without considering any cost sayings from buying out Kemba.

I'm not ignoring Danny Green.  He was a player the Sixers put into their rotation, same as the Celtics put Horford in their rotation.  Both are/were overpaid relative to their production (Green made $15 million last year, and signed for $10 million this year), but still useful, so they aren't dead salary.  Neither the Celtics nor the Sixers only cleared salary, they also received a player in return they found useful.

As for Kemba being willing to give back some salary to OKC -- that wasn't ever a viable option for the Celtics.  Yes, Kemba cost OKC lless than he cost the Celtics, but that doesn't change what the Celtics saved.  The C's couldn't carry $26 million in unmovable salary this year and next any more than they could carry $36 million in salary that no one was going to want without compensation, unless they wanted to blow everything up.

WRT to the draft pick, I'm not privy to front office decisions to know how Presti values a Top 6 protected pick five drafts in the future relative to #16 immediately.  I think they're closer in value than you might suspect, because the chance that you get a top 10 pick matters a lot.

[bogg]

Yea, for better or for worse the C's dumped about $30 million in unproductive guaranteed money in that deal, and a first-round pick is the going rate for a salary dump of that magnitude.

OKC bought out Kemba for ~$53.5M. Even if we waive Al this offseason, we are still on the hook for $41.5M. I get that we got to actually have Al play for us this season, rather than totally buying him out like OKC did with Kemba, but is $12M and Sengun (or two 1sts) really worth one mediocre season with Al? And if we decide to get two mediocre seasons out of Al, it comes out to the same amount that Kemba was bought out for.

As far as moving forward goes, I can't see this being seen as anything but a negative if Al is still here past the deadline. With the updates from Roy and C21 on the previous page, Al's contract is no longer seen as a positive since his 'new' team can't waive him and save any money if they acquire him this offseason.

Letting that amount of money sit on the cap sheet, dead and untradable, was never going to happen for a team shooting for a solid playoff seed. They definitely got, at absolute worst, standard value for the amount of money they dumped, and likely a bit better than that.

[bogg]

Perhaps Philly just got an exceptionally good deal from Presti, but that begs the question:  why did Brad pay more value to the same GM for less savings? 

Because Horford is a playable supporting-cast starter that OKC actually shut down to avoid hurting their tank, and were able to flip down the line, while Kemba's knees are shot to the point that they paid him to leave and let the money sit dead on their books. I like Kemba a lot and hate that his knees are cooked, but his contract situation was much worse than Horford's.

[Roy H.]

Perhaps Philly just got an exceptionally good deal from Presti, but that begs the question:  why did Brad pay more value to the same GM for less savings? 

Because Horford is a playable supporting-cast starter that OKC actually shut down to avoid hurting their tank, and were able to flip down the line, while Kemba's knees are shot to the point that they paid him to leave and let the money sit dead on their books. I like Kemba a lot and hate that his knees are cooked, but his contract situation was much worse than Horford's.

What does the contract matter?  We were a non-contender with Kemba.  We're a non-contender with Horford.  The value of the cost savings haven't done a thing for our short-term future, while costing us a very good young player in Sengun.

And, again, Philly cleared significantly more money by giving up a lesser package.  They also got Danny Green, who is a better player than Horford on a significantly lower contract.

And hell, Kemba hasn't even been all that much less productive than Horford.  The gap certainly isn't worth a #1:

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=horfoal01&p1yrfrom=2022&player_id2=walkeke02&p2yrfrom=2022

We could probably use Kemba's shooting and ability to run an offense this season.

[Big333223]

Isn't the answer to this question that Horford - because he's better than Kemba and the particulars of his contract are more amenable - is a more desirable piece in a trade both at the deadline and this summer?

Is it?

The team sucks this year, so that’s not worth the cost of Sengun.

We won’t be below the salary cap, so that’s not worth Sengun.

Next summer, both are expiring contracts.  I don’t think the difference in trade value of those two contracts is worth Sengun.

It seems weird to me to use the Celtics record now as a reason for why the deal shouldn't have been done last summer. Unless you're using the current record as evidence that the deal didn't work but I don't think that's what you're doing because there's no reason to think the record would be better with Kemba than with Horford.

It sounds almost like you're saying the team knew that they'd be mediocre this season months ago and taken that into consideration even though the Celtics were expected to be quite a bit better than they have been.

Also, I haven't watched a minute of Sengun but is he really worth this kind of talk?

[Roy H.]

Isn't the answer to this question that Horford - because he's better than Kemba and the particulars of his contract are more amenable - is a more desirable piece in a trade both at the deadline and this summer?

Is it?

The team sucks this year, so that’s not worth the cost of Sengun.

We won’t be below the salary cap, so that’s not worth Sengun.

Next summer, both are expiring contracts.  I don’t think the difference in trade value of those two contracts is worth Sengun.

It seems weird to me to use the Celtics record now as a reason for why the deal shouldn't have been done last summer. Unless you're using the current record as evidence that the deal didn't work but I don't think that's what you're doing because there's no reason to think the record would be better with Kemba than with Horford.

It sounds almost like you're saying the team knew that they'd be mediocre this season months ago and taken that into consideration even though the Celtics were expected to be quite a bit better than they have been.

Also, I haven't watched a minute of Sengun but is he really worth this kind of talk?

The buck stops with Brad Stevens.  If he gave up a good draft pick for a very, very modest upgrade that had no effect on winning, he should probably be fired.

[liam]

Isn't the answer to this question that Horford - because he's better than Kemba and the particulars of his contract are more amenable - is a more desirable piece in a trade both at the deadline and this summer?

Is it?

The team sucks this year, so that’s not worth the cost of Sengun.

We won’t be below the salary cap, so that’s not worth Sengun.

Next summer, both are expiring contracts.  I don’t think the difference in trade value of those two contracts is worth Sengun.

It seems weird to me to use the Celtics record now as a reason for why the deal shouldn't have been done last summer. Unless you're using the current record as evidence that the deal didn't work but I don't think that's what you're doing because there's no reason to think the record would be better with Kemba than with Horford.

It sounds almost like you're saying the team knew that they'd be mediocre this season months ago and taken that into consideration even though the Celtics were expected to be quite a bit better than they have been.

Also, I haven't watched a minute of Sengun but is he really worth this kind of talk?

Sengun is playing 18 minutes 8.8 pts 4.6rbs 2.6 assists .8 steals .8 Blk... He's 19.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Isn't the answer to this question that Horford - because he's better than Kemba and the particulars of his contract are more amenable - is a more desirable piece in a trade both at the deadline and this summer?

Is it?

The team sucks this year, so that’s not worth the cost of Sengun.

We won’t be below the salary cap, so that’s not worth Sengun.

Next summer, both are expiring contracts.  I don’t think the difference in trade value of those two contracts is worth Sengun.

It seems weird to me to use the Celtics record now as a reason for why the deal shouldn't have been done last summer. Unless you're using the current record as evidence that the deal didn't work but I don't think that's what you're doing because there's no reason to think the record would be better with Kemba than with Horford.

It sounds almost like you're saying the team knew that they'd be mediocre this season months ago and taken that into consideration even though the Celtics were expected to be quite a bit better than they have been.

Also, I haven't watched a minute of Sengun but is he really worth this kind of talk?

Sengun is playing 18 minutes 8.8 pts 4.6rbs 2.6 assists .8 steals .8 Blk... He's 19.

He will be an effective player in the NBA for a long time. He reminds me a bit of Luis Scola, Leon Powe with slightly worse defense, or a skinnier Enes Kanter.

There's a lot to like about him and the way he plays. He enforces himself on the game. He's the opposite of Jeff Green in that way. You notice when he plays because he's in the action.

But I don't see an All-star or anything like that. He's also a very awkward player to build around (similar to Sabonis or Randle).

[bogg]

What does the contract matter? 

Because you're paying to dump it. That's what the pick is for. The contracts were the entire reason both Boston and Philly wanted off their particular players, and the "badness" of the contract is what determines how much you have to pay to dump it.