Much like Bill Simmons used to do, as we count down the minutes to the trade deadline, I’d like to go through the top 30 players in the league in terms of trade value. The rules and methodology are outlined below (most by Mr. Simmons himself, with a couple of my own):
1. Salaries matter. Would you rather pay Isiah Thomas $26.6 million a year or Chris Paul $36.8 million?
2. Age matters. Would you rather have Love for the next three seasons or Pedraza for the next 8?
3. Contract length matters — a newish wrinkle in an era defined by shorter guarantees, swollen caps and forward-thinking GMs who hoard cap space like it’s Walter White’s crystal meth recipe.
4. Defense matters. It’s hard to value, especially for total one-way players like Gobert or Drummond, but I did my best in those cases. In cases between similar players defense was often the differentiator.
5. Pretend the league passed the following rule: For 24 hours, any player can be traded without cap ramifications, but with luxury-tax and next-day-cap ramifications. If Team A tells Team B, “We’ll trade you Player X for Player Y,” would Team B make the deal?
6. Concentrate on degrees. For instance, an Otto Porter-Derek Rose swap ain’t happening, but Portland would at least say, “Wow, Otto's available?” while Raby would say, “We can’t trade Otto for someone who’s five years older.” That counts in the big scheme of things.
7. This list runs in reverse order.
8. One SLOE-dditional rule, is that for the purposes of this article, RFAs are fair game, so forget that HASHTAG.
Honorable Mentions:
First we start with the handful of players that did NOT crack the top 20. All of these guys are very capable and productive players, and anyone would be happy to have them on their team, but they all have flaws or contracts that prevent them from moving higher up the list.
The Older Expirings
27. Nikola Vucevic – Thunder – 28yo – 1 year $15.6m remaining
25. Isaiah Thomas – Thunder – 30yo – 1 year $26.5m remaining
24. Kenneth Faried – Blazers – 29yo – 1 year $18m remaining
These guys are all between 28-30, expiring, and will be expensive come next UFA. There's nothing wrong with these guys, they all score and have at least one other skill. But you're going to be paying a lot for a declining asset, and they don't have other-worldly ratings that would prevent them from becoming negative assets at the back end of a 3 or 4 year contract.
I Thought He Was Better Than That?
26. Jabari Parker – Thunder – 23yo – 4 years $104m remaining
23. Jeremy Lamb – Blazers – 26yo – 3 years $45m remaining
Parker has the standard RFA max contract, and while he can score relatively efficiently he doesn't give you a whole lot outside of that. He has C's in all the rebounding and defense categories, he turns the ball over, and for that max contract I want more for my money. "Wow, look at that nice contract Jeremy Lamb is on," has been said for what seems like 10 seasons, but what you get for that nice contract is a pretty 'meh' player. He's the classic jack of all trades, master of none, and while he certainly belongs amongst the honorable mentions, his lack of even one special skill prevents him from moving on up.
Productive Veteran PGs on Reasonable 2-Year Deals
22. Ish Smith – Timberwolves – 30yo – 2 years $45m remaining
21. Brandon Jennings – Pelicans – 29yo – 2 years $42m remaining (player option)
To be honest, I was surprised to see Jennings on this list at all, but he has quietly been a more efficient, productive player on the 31-21 Pelicans. Ish is having his standard 15-10 ho-hum season for the dominant T-Wolves and isn't being asked to do a whole lot more than that. The fact that these guys are in the honorable mentions means the rest of this list is pretty impressive...