Muscala to C’s per Shams

[kraidstar]

Right now Houston and San Antonio are tied for wins. There's a decent chance the Houston pick conveys at #33.

In which case the Thunder get our Portland 2nd rounder this off-season as part of the Muscala trade. The Blazers were in line for #42 at the time of the trade, but they have been tanking, raising the pick to #35.

That would be a steep price for a guy who has barely seen the court.

I'd wait until after the playoffs to make that assessment. He's also a cost effective backup big for next season. A second round pick is not a steep price regardless of where in the second round it lands.

Dunno man. IMO picks will be more valuable than ever with the new CBA potentially eliminating the MLE for many contenders. If we had both the Houston and Portland picks, that's a nice package to land a rotation player. Gallo should be back next year (and his salary is very tradeable), and Grant's mediocre performance has hurt his market, making him easier to resign.

So where does that leave Muscala? On his own he is worth little - in mid-February the pick we sent was, at best, slotted for #42. And Dallas and Miami still had a shot at a much better record. If the Houston pick didn't convey, OKC could have gotten stuck with a pick in the 50's. Maybe I'm being greedy, but I wish Brad had put some protections into that pick. This really has worked out perfectly for OKC.

[Celtics2021]

Right now Houston and San Antonio are tied for wins. There's a decent chance the Houston pick conveys at #33.

In which case the Thunder get our Portland 2nd rounder this off-season as part of the Muscala trade. The Blazers were in line for #42 at the time of the trade, but they have been tanking, raising the pick to #35.

That would be a steep price for a guy who has barely seen the court.

I'd wait until after the playoffs to make that assessment. He's also a cost effective backup big for next season. A second round pick is not a steep price regardless of where in the second round it lands.

Dunno man. IMO picks will be more valuable than ever with the new CBA potentially eliminating the MLE for many contenders. If we had both the Houston and Portland picks, that's a nice package to land a rotation player. Gallo should be back next year (and his salary is very tradeable), and Grant's mediocre performance has hurt his market, making him easier to resign.

So where does that leave Muscala? On his own he is worth little - in mid-February the pick we sent was, at best, slotted for #42. And Dallas and Miami still had a shot at a much better record. If the Houston pick didn't convey, OKC could have gotten stuck with a pick in the 50's. Maybe I'm being greedy, but I wish Brad had put some protections into that pick. This really has worked out perfectly for OKC.

He did put protections on that pick — OKC gets the lesser of two picks, and one of those picks was the lesser of two other picks.  There weren’t many other protections to put on it — after this draft I think we have one 2nd in the next 6 drafts.

If Houston picks 33, then yeah, we give up something in the 35-38 range, but we still get the 33rd pick.  If you want to win the trade, I guess you hope we get 35 and OKC gets the Miami pick.  But if you want the C’s to get the best outcome, it’s us picking at 33, which really works out for both us and OKC.

[Vermont Green]

Here is the description of this pick that we sent to OKC for Muscala (at least I think) per RealGM:

Oklahoma City will receive the most favorable of (i) its 2023 2nd round pick, (ii) Washington's 2023 2nd round pick and (iii) the more favorable of Dallas' 2023 2nd round pick and Miami's 2023 2nd round pick and Denver will receive the second most favorable and Charlotte will receive the least favorable of the three (via Washington to New Orleans to Oklahoma City; via Miami to Dallas to Oklahoma City; via Boston to New York to Charlotte; via Oklahoma City to Denver) [Dallas-Miami, 7/7/2017; New Orleans-Washington, 2/7/2019; Dallas-Memphis, 7/8/2019; Houston-Memphis, 2/6/2020; Boston-Memphis-Portland, 11/20/2020; Denver-Milwaukee-New Orleans-Oklahoma City, 11/23/2020; Dallas-Detroit-Oklahoma City, 11/27/2020; Brooklyn-Cleveland-Houston-Indiana, 1/16/2021; Boston-Oklahoma City, 6/18/2021; Boston-New York, 8/17/2021; Charlotte-New York, 6/23/2022; Denver-Oklahoma City, 6/23/2022]

If you can follow that, god bless you.  Someone said that this pick came from our infamous Bane trade with Memphis, one of the 2 seconds we received in that trade.

But as to Muscala or that pick, I am happy with Muscala over the pick.  Muscala is a reliable depth big on a very fair contract, not much more than you would pay a second round pick.  But Muscala is and should continue to be more useful to the team than a second round rookie.  If you get someone with the potential of Davison with an early second round pick, you are happy.  Davison is a solid prospect, but you aren't asking him to help the team at all in his rookie season, maybe not even next season very much.  We certainly don't want 2 more second round rookies on the roster next season.

And if the team is not happy with Muscala, you could trade him for a second round pick anytime you want.  But we won't.  He will be useful next season.  I think you will see him improve and get more comfortable next season.