The Lazy Statistician: In which the statistician does no analyses and writes an article about potential trades and tries to justify it as a stats article because he used a RAND() function
Not everybody likes stats, not even the Lazy Statistician, so sometimes everyone needs to stretch the bounds of what statistics IS, and as a Media Entry of the Year award winning PBSL contributor, I think I've earned the right to expand the definition (sorry, Todd) so that it includes things that are fun...like trade speculation! After all, day 60 has passed so all of the teams who screwed up bigly in the offseason will be looking to salvage their plans for glory while tanking teams with space lick their chops and clutch their forks and knives, ready to feast on points and picks aplenty.
METHODOLOGY:
Using MySQL, a highly sophisticated database management system used by only the most numerical of statisticians, I assigned each PBSL team a random value and then ordered the teams from lowest to highest value. It's what we in the statistics community call an ascending order, like the time I ascended to the throne of Media Entry of the Year winner. I paired off the first two teams, then the second two, and all of the teams after that up until the last two. Then, I looked at their roster, and using my statistical instincts that have been finely honed over time, calculated an optimal trade between the two randomly conjoined teams.
THE RESULTS:
Trade 1: New York Knicks and Houston Rockets
This is an interesting pairing because both teams are competing and both teams have rosters that look like a few big stars drowning in a yellow sea. The Knicks are fairly dominant with Jokic and Gary Harris, although they're in a division that's incredibly competitive whereas the Rockets are able to maintain their stronghold on the sad Southwest with Al Horford's still-blue corpse leading the charge. It's a contract year for Horford, and while a division win is possible for Houston, an early playoff exit is probable. I'd start rebuilding now. The Knicks, burnt a few times now by Jokic's utter lack of durability, could use some big depth. Houston should cash in what they can for the future.
TRADE: Knicks send 2022 1st rounder, maybe a few goodwill points, dumpable salary. Rockets send Russell Gomez.
Trade 2: Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans
The Timberwolves fit right into the mold of the Knicks and Rockets. They have three great stars in Gobert, Pfeffer, and Wiggins...okay, 2 great stars and 1 incredible star. The Pelicans just attained Damion McNary who will lead a young core to playoff contention hopefully next season (and then for a bit after that. Now, I don't think the trade I'm going to propose will ever happen because Nate isn't loose with his picks and Nick isn't loose with his talent, but I'd propose sending Pearsall to the team that signed him in RFA. It's Raby's offered contract, and considering that Pearsall is too much of a fouler to stay on the floor, it's not the best contract. It's also an irrelevant contract at that position. I think Nick believes he can do better for Pearsall, but if it were just these two teams...
These two teams couldn't be more opposite in terms of where they are and what they want. The defending champion Bulls want to repeat. The Magic want to kill time tanking by stockpiling points and picks, all while trading any assets they snagged to the Bulls' central division competitors. The Magic have just about cleaned out their closet and have nobody that can really help the Bulls. The Bulls have points.
TRADE: Orlando Magic send a promise to stop bolstering the Bulls division rivals. The Bulls send a promise not to spite trade Westbrook to the Bobcats for KD.
Trade 4: Golden State Warriors and Portland Trailblazers
When Todd gets back, he's going to be furious at the state of disarray that his team is in thanks to a couple of stewards who are more vested in trying to win in the East. The Blazers are bad, and they have assets that they're going to have to move to get anything fruitful out of this season. For the Warriors, they're mired in the middle of an extremely tough division. Marcus Smart maybe be b/b, but he is not the right man to run this Warriors offense. Even with his defensive prowess, the Warriors are 27th in the league at defending the 3 point shot. Even though he's g/g, a PG like Derrick Rose could really jump start this Warriors team, helping to better utilize offensive weapons like Tatum and Enes by moving the ball around.
TRADE: Warriors send Smart, Fairley. Trailblazers send Derrick Rose and 8 points.
Trade 5: Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings
The Bucks have made their third major move this season in an effort to become a third monolith in a stacked division. After maneuvering for Paul George, a bad training camp had them reeling until they sent McNary to the Pels for Rubio, Pulley, and a future 1st. Finally, they flipped that 1st to complete their lineup with Boris Hailey. The Kings, on the other hand, have been strong from the get-go. The only team with a better record than them at the time of this writing are the division leading Phoenix Suns. The Kings do have kind of a logjam at the SG position, but if they really want to split it up, then they're going to really need to convince the Bucks to go even further in, which may not be that hard to do.
TRADE: Bucks send Arciniega, Salary, a 1st of their choosing. Kings send Lamb, 5 points.
Trade 6: Brooklyn Nets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder
Aside from Jabari Parker, the Thunder don't have any players that could really help the Nets right now, and the Nets are better off with Warren's cheaper contract and comparable production. The Nets are under the tax, but they could always make more room to maximize cap space to get themselves a player that will put them over the edge in a later trade. Thunder should really start storing their acorns, because they're going to be bad forever as long as make_it_rain continues to show up for the draft and then disappear before UFA.
I swear on a stack of Bulls championship rings that this list was random. It'll be hard to engineer a trade between two teams in a fierce battle in a fierce division, especially when those teams have no-trade-listed each other. But let's say they have to make a deal. It's hard to know where to start because the two teams are pretty evenly constructed. They both have a lot of young star power. The 76ers have a better record, although the Celtics have more team leadership. The Celtics also have cap space. I say they keep the trade small. If the Celtics lose their footing again, though, a bigger trade could be in order for the trade deadline edition.
TRADE: 76ers send Charles Blow. Celtics send 3 points.
Trade 8: Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat
Without their pick, the Mavericks have put together an expensive roster to try to ensure that the Phoenix Suns don't handsomely profit off of a previous GMs all-in push. The Heat are in rebuild mode still, and they're waiting for World B. Free to come into his own. Aside from that, there's not much of a team around him. Time to stockpile some assets! Here, a nice opportunity exists for the Mavs to get cheaper, using the Heat's cap space, while the Heat can stockpile assets and probably not lose out on wins.
Trade 9: Washington Wizards and Vancouver Grizzlies
Even though the Wiz upgraded Carlsen to West, they can probably even go bigger. They've got some cap space still, which isn't ideal for the Grizzlies in a trade partner. But the Grizz do need more points to turn their tax hole into a point-patched non-hole. And they have Thomas Bedard. I'd call that the best we can do with these two teams!
TRADE: Wizards send salary and 8 points. Grizzlies send Thomas Bedard.
Trade 10: Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz
Following a Finals appearance, teh Utah Jazz are looking to shake things up after a 12-10 start. They traded Alton Towers to the Magic for more decent guards, and now they have a ton of decent guards, one really incredible guard playing SF, and no depth in their frontcourt. LaVine seems like the odd man out on the Raptors and their young core, but the Jazz don't really have anything to give for him that they should give. The Raptors have a couple big contracts on their roster that'll fall off before the team can truly be good in Kawhi and Valanciunas. Might as well dump that salary to someone who could use it..
TRADE: Raptors send Jonas Valanciunas. Jazz send Robert Neeley, salary.
Trade 11: San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers
We've got two teams tanking here and only one that doesn't want to be. Luckily, neither team is over the cap and the Clippers have their own pick. It'd be too expensive for the Clippers to have to sell off one of their two, great veteran point guards. That's something that maybe clipsrback can save for another team and try tog et value. What the Spurs DO have is James Webster, who could help the Clippers right now.
TRADE: Spurs send James Webster. Clippers send 10 points.
Trade 12: Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets
Tray comes back to PBSL and walks into a situation where some fine stewards have left him with assets aplenty. Ryan, one season after getting Giannis from the briefly tenured Brian Lakers, finds himself in a situation where his sign and trades are looking more like sign and keeps. Can the Lakers cobble together 24 million in salary that's worth getting Giannis back? They'd almost certainly have to lose Tristan Bosworth, and at that point, it becomes a matter of whether or not they have anyone else who can play PG. Perhaps they can trade for one since it's not like they're making much noise in such a tough division this year. Let's do this:
When I called up both of these teams rosters, they looked the same on paper. Both look fairly stacked in the frontcourt. Neither has a really good starting point guard. The Suns, however, have Kevin Love and Kevin Love has Al Horford's syrum to ward off father time. That gives the Suns the best record in the league while the Pacers are off to a poor start at 7-14. The Pacers also don't have their pick, and while the pickless heart desires to compete, sometimes the winless mind must decide that it is time to sell.
Now that the <expletive deleted>' Magic sent over Spencer Hawes for 4 points, the Pistons look as complete as they ever have. Great. Just what I needed.
TRADE: Pistons send AD. Bobcats send KD. Josh sends the double bird and a stone cold stunner to Andy.
Trade 15: Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks
And last but not least, the Cavs have given the Hawks trouble over the years, especially in the playoffs, but this year, the Cavs aren't exactly playoff bound, and it's a good time for a retool. The Hawks are holding on at the top spot in the Southeast Division. The Cavs really only have one asset, and the Hawks are stocked with a mixture of short, high-mid contracts and promising talent. Not sure if Wig likes that max on Dirk, but I have a feeling that Wig finds the most economically logical way to train Dirk into a b/b for like 6 total points as the rest of the league groans.
TRADE: Cavs send Dirk Hardpeck. Hawks send Blake Griffin, Aaron Donald, Aaron Pastor, rights to any future Hawks draft pick named Aaron
ballsohard wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:47 pm
Celtics have more team leadership ? What? I’m a sim game ?!? What does this mean??? *Throws drink at garbageman*
Oh, I meant veteran leadership...like having some good players that are old enough to be from the real draft file, but in the grand scheme of things, 5 points is not worth a careful edit.
ballsohard wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:47 pm
Celtics have more team leadership ? What? I’m a sim game ?!? What does this mean??? *Throws drink at garbageman*
Oh, I meant veteran leadership...like having some good players that are old enough to be from the real draft file, but in the grand scheme of things, 5 points is not worth a careful edit.
You haven’t gotten those 5 points year , I can descend those points.
ballsohard wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:47 pm
Celtics have more team leadership ? What? I’m a sim game ?!? What does this mean??? *Throws drink at garbageman*
Oh, I meant veteran leadership...like having some good players that are old enough to be from the real draft file, but in the grand scheme of things, 5 points is not worth a careful edit.
You haven’t gotten those 5 points year , I can descend those points.
garbageman wrote:
Oh, I meant veteran leadership...like having some good players that are old enough to be from the real draft file, but in the grand scheme of things, 5 points is not worth a careful edit.
You haven’t gotten those 5 points year , I can descend those points.
