With the trade deadline coming up and tons of recent development, I think it's a good time to make another thread re: evaluating our truckload of assets.
I've excluded Thomas and Horford for this because I don't think there's any sort of trade that makes sense for either of them. I decided not to bother with anything that's worth less than Demetrius Jackson or Abdel Nader (apologies to James Young). I also did not include Johnson, Zeller, or Jerebko, who will probably just be burned on the deadline/in the offseason for salary matching purposes.
Finally, I added in parentheses what I think our player assets would net in terms of a 2017 draft pick:
2017 Brooklyn
2018 Brooklyn
Brown (worth roughly the #10 pick)
Zizic (only a tiny bit lower)
Crowder (would probably get you something similar to Brown-Zizic, but it would have to be a contender that has a higher pick for some reason so much less liquidity.)
Bradley (less valuable than Crowder due to only 1 year left on bargain contract. Probably still worth a pick in the early teens)
2019 Memphis
Smart (probably nets a pick similar to Bradley under normal circumstances, but teams will be wary dealing for him when he has a big RFA payday coming up, aka Nerlens Noel syndrome.)
2018 Celtics
2019 Celtics
Rozier (very late first-rounder/early second-rounder)
2019 Clippers
2017 Twolves 2nd
Yab (would be worth some sort of middling 2nd rounder if we chose to move him, but we shouldn't)
Olynyk (maybe some team gives up a 2nd rounder for his restricted rights? Would probably be worth a late 1st if not an RFA)
2017 Clippers 2nd
Jackson, Nader, Mickey (some sort of mid-late second round pick)
2017 Cleveland 2nd
Some notes:
- I suspect Brown and Zizic are actually worth roughly the same (#10-ish pick in this year's draft) at this point. Fairly or unfairly, Brown has been shoehorned into a narrative of only being the #3 pick because the 2016 draft was terrible, and he hasn't done anything to really boost his value in the small minutes he's been given (thankfully, he hasn't done anything to tank it either.)
Zizic hasn't actually played in the NBA yet so he still has the mystique-factor going for him, and the Adriatic League and Euroleague stats he's posted are pretty staggering for a 20-year old. If he came out this year instead of last year, I suspect he'd go as high as #11 given how thin the big-man crop is. He could be second big off the board if Giles slides.
- People undersell the Memphis 2019 pick a lot. It is only 1-8 protected that year and 1-6 protected the next. With Gasol at 35 and Conley at 32, there's a decent chance that Memphis is a lottery team by 2019 and we net a pick in the #9-14 range. This is not some random bullEdited. Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline. first-rounder like the 2019 Clippers pick. It's either a valuable trade chip or could give us a chance to reload with a legit prospect after we're already contenders.
- Our own picks in 2018 and 2019 are also low-key important assets. There are a lot of good players in bad situations where the selling team may be willing to settle for multiple middling picks stapled together. (See, e.g., Anthony, Ibaka, Nurkic). Not necessarily saying we should trade for these players, but if we want to, our own future picks are good hard currency to do so with.
- Rozier is really difficult to gauge because he's shown a lot raw skills-wise but has had objectively poor NBA production. Given his age, I would guess that not a lot of teams would be willing to give up a first rounder for him.
- Yabusele has very little value at this point. He was originally rated as a second-rounder and with him spending a year playing glorified exhibition games in China, there's no information that helps us guess whether he's an actual NBA player or not. He has an intriguing skillset, but his value will only materialize (if it ever does) after he's spent a year playing in a real league that gives us projectable data like Zizic has.
Topic: The Great Celtics Asset Rank (Read 3269 times)