Last ditch trade idea with Ok. City

[wiley]

Like 100 percent of all Blog ideas, it "ain't happening'"
But just let yourself fantasize away...

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=obu5s9u

Bradley, Sully, Young and Turner and some pick for
Ibaka, Roberson and Huestis

Lets the Perry Jones experiment live on!

The Thunder give up the best, most impactful player in the deal, but they add an awful lot of needed glue...If Payne were ready to step in at PG they could just move Westbrook to the 2 and call it a day.  But let's say he's not close to ready....

Westbrook, Augustin, Payne
Bradley, Waiters, Morrow, Young
Durant, Turner, Singler, Young
Sully, McGary, Collison
Adams, Kanter, Collison

Rozier, IT
Smart, Hunter, Roberson
Crowder, PJ, JJ, Huestis
Amir, Lee, KO, JJ, Crowder, Mickey
Ibaka, Zeller, KO

Edit:  KO interchangeable with Sully...

[max215]

I'd love to have Ibaka, and I think AB is the perfect 2 for OKC, but I highly doubt that OKC trades one of the best two-way players in the league for these guys. We can dream at least...

[Endless Paradise]

Westbrook is a point guard; the sooner people get over this silly idea that he's "really" a shooting guard, the better. That said, an awful lot of "needed glue"? They already have a ton of unspectacular wings: why would they want Bradley, Young, AND Turner? What are those three going to add to a wing rotation of Waiters, Morrow, and Singler? Roberson is the best defender by far of those seven guys, so they're giving up their best wing defender for a bunch of meh depth at the wing. Turner is useless when the Thunder already have all of Westbrook, Durant, Augustin, Waiters, and Payne for ball handling. Sullinger doesn't bring anything new to the table that Kanter isn't already providing off the bench. Sure, Bradley gives them a potential two-way shooting guard -- but Roberson plays far better defense and has superior size and athleticism.

This is the sort of trade that would absolutely ruin OKC. They're giving up their two best defenders for redundant players who aren't adding any sort of new dimension to the team. The only arguable upgrade is Bradley's two-way play, but they're giving up so much elsewhere that it's a serious net loss.

Edit: this trade isn't even possible as is because the Thunder already have a full roster. They'd have to send someone else out.

[MJohnnyboy]

Roberson's a better defender than Bradley "by far"? Is he like Gary Payton 2.0 on defense or something?

[Endless Paradise]

Advanced metrics put his defense on par with MKG. Lineups with him are consistently net positive despite being a dreadful offensive player.

[MJohnnyboy]

Advanced metrics put his defense on par with MKG. Lineups with him are consistently net positive despite being a dreadful offensive player.

I can see he's a definitely a great defender but to say he's better than Bradley, one of the best defensive guards in the league, "by far" to me sounds kinda ludicrous.

[Endless Paradise]

Bradley's reputation as an elite defender is dated. He's still good and capable of periodic showings of tenacious hawking, but his defense has slipped quite a bit as he's become more of an offensive player. Check the numbers yourself: defensive RPM, opponent field goal percentage, opponent PER, on/off numbers, etc. Roberson has him beat as a defender and it's not even close.

At this point, Smart's probably a better defender than Bradley.

[MJohnnyboy]

I think what's influenced the advanced metrics has been Avery's increased role on offense when that really isn't his forte. He's not an offensive focal point. He's a role player. They even brought up this season that Bradley is going to go back to what made him thrive earlier in his career. I think his defensive numbers in metrics are going to change with Smart's improvement and having IT for a whole season. Before the Celtics were relying on Bradley more on offense because they didn't have anyone else really to turn to before (Remember the Jordan Crawford days?). Now that they have better options on offense, they won't ask as much from Bradley on that end, and hence, he'll be able to recover some of his defensive prowess.

Roberson doesn't have to worry about his role on offense much because, well, he plays next to two of the 5 best offensive players in the league. Not to mention he gets to play with one of the best defensive bigs in the game with Ibaka and a not too shabby defensive big in Adams. Up until Amir Johnson was added to the team, the last rim protector Avery Bradley played with was KG. And before IT was added to the team last season, the last pure scorer Avery played with was Paul Pierce.

If Roberson had been thrust in Avery's role the past two seasons, his defensive numbers would slip too.

[Endless Paradise]

The numbers I'm referring to isolate Roberson's defensive performance from the team, so the idea that his defense is being skewed by whom he's playing with doesn't really apply here. Either way, if Bradley is able to return to his defensive prowess, then great -- but the simple fact of the matter is that Roberson has been a superior defender over the past two years and both the numbers and eye test back that up.