WAS/DET Trade

[fauxcreative]

Man, you take a break for a few days and miss a contentious discussion. Just in the interests of having more takes/opinions.

1. Stats from last year ... as I always find this is more helpful than Oubre is awesome and KPJ sucks analysis. 

KPJ (Per-36):  15 PTS - 1.6 3PT - 5 REB - 3 AST - 1.4 STL on 44/73 splits with 34 from distance.
KO (Per-36):  19.5 PTS - 2.0 3PT - 6.7 REB - 1.6 AST - 1.3 STL on on 45/78 splits with 35 from distance.

Small sample sizes of course, as we're looking at 50-games from a single season, but if KPJ gets playing time, there's a solid-ish fantasy player, or at least someone who's on a similar-level to Oubre. I own a handful of KPJ shares in other leagues, and his film is solid. I mean, watch the link below and tell me it doesn't look a lot like a shorter Oubre with a better handle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQDdcRc6BY (KPJ)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30JCKqnWaqI (Oubre)

They both have a workable/decent enough handle for their position, though I think KPJ's is more functional/usable, which makes sense given he's a SG not a SF. KPJ has already shown more playmaking ability in 50-games (3 AST per-36) than Oubre has in his entire career (1.1-1.7 AST per-36 in 5 of 6 relevant years). They've both shown good ability to generate STL from their position by using their wingspan's to their advantage, and are respectable rebounders for their positions. 

KPJ is 6'4", 203 lbs with a 6'9" wingspan (+5" on height)
Oubre is 6'7, 203 lbs with a 7'3" wingspan (+8" on height)

So ... look, looooots of extrapolation from small sample sizes, but there's certainly an argument to be made, with game film to back it up, that KPJ profiles as a good player for a SG if he can keep his head together off the court. Comparatively, the "Phoenix" version of Kelly Oubre is likely his ceiling as a player at this point given his 22-24% usage rate he got there, and if it drops to the 19-20% he got in WAS when he was surrounded by better players like Wall and Beal, we'll likely see someone closer to 15-16 per-game, 2+ 3PT, both of which are in KPJ's range assuming he's playing 25-30 minutes for Cleveland. That's certainly possible given it's only Sexton, Garland and KPJ to split the guard minutes/shots (as who knows what Exum and Delly do this year). 

So, statistically, you can very very much quibble with sample size, and I wouldn't fight you on that, but saying there's "nothing redeemable" about this trade goes way too far in my opinion. But as Goldie mentioned, that comment was mostly about the money, so let's look at that. 

2. Money / Effective Salaries

KPJ:  7.2-7.3-8.6-RFA+5M

If Oubre had been eligible for an extension this year, his stats would've ranked him #25 on FanTrax's "Score" metric, which would've meant an extension of $21M. On Basketball Monster (stats-based, as who the heck knows how FanTrax does that "Score" metric) Oubre's per-game stat ranking was good enough for #57 for 9-CAT/30-teams. We've already mentioned that KPJ isn't that far off from Oubre assuming he gets 30+ minutes, so let's find a similarly statted guy that's like 80% of Oubre.

Alec Burks put up a 15 PTS - 1.8 3PT - 4.3 REB - 2.9 AST - 0.9 STL line on 42/89 shooting. That was good for #59 on FanTrax and #86 on Basketball Monster. If Burks did a UFA extension, he would've been paid $14M. 

Marcus Morris put up similar stats to that, and came in #66 on FanTrax and #100 on Basketball Monster. He would've gotten a $12M UFA Extension. 

There are a few others, but you get the point. 

If KPJ puts up a line in the range of 15 PTS - 1.5 3PT - 5 REB - 2.5 AST - 1+ STL on 43/77 splits (FT% jump not unreasonable given his improvement from 52>72 in one year College vs NBA) ... then he'd be in line for a salary in the 9-15M range on the open market. Additionally, given that FanTrax's score is suuuuuper weird with how they determine value (and don't release their formula b/c it's "proprietary"), there's likely an "age value" component to it, so if Burks gets a #59 ranking at Age 28, maybe KPJ gets an extra boost if he does that stat line at Age 21? Who knows. 

Overall, I think if you assume KPJ gets 30+ minute a game, he's probably a statistical bargain even at 7.2-7.3-8.6-RFA+5M. The RFA extension value could certainly net out against him in the first year, but again, there's a case to be made that the contract "could" be a value even with the money paid on Oubre. 

3. Miscellaneous

The legal stuff ... yeah, it's not great, but Malik Beasley just signed a 60M extension after pot/weapons charges, so there's likely not a lot to worry about there. Sports teams across all genres have a long, terribly annoying history of giving players every chance possible. 

The risk of WAS getting "stuck" with Oubre's bad contract is mitigated by the deal going from $17M >> $12M per-year. I certainly think if WAS had posted he was willing to eat $5M on every year of Oubre's deal, he would've gotten more/better offers. 

4. Overall

I certainly put my foot in my mouth last year on a few trades that ended up looking really, really stupid in hindsight (my apologies to the owner(s), you know who you are), so I'm making every effort to break down things that look controversial to see what "redeemable" value there might be in a trade. I think there's enough to like on KPJ that it's probably fine. As I mentioned above, if WAS posts Oubre at $12M instead of $17M, there are likely maaaany more offers than what he ended up with, but I don't think that's something that should factor in to a veto decision. It was just a poor strategic marketing choice. Given all of the above, the deal is fine to me on it's face and I don't even think the financial adjustments are necessary. However, if you do factor them in, the deal should sail through without any issue at all. 

Thus concludes a wholly unnecessary, but hopefully fairly informative, random dissertation I just felt like writing today b/c it's 2020 and I'm stuck at home with little else to do.

Cheers.

[Jbcoffey]

^^^WTF, is this guy getting paid