The 2nd apron will make it very difficult to significantly tweak the roster in meaningful ways. If we trade Naz we can’t take back more salary than Naz’s salary and Naz can’t be aggregated with other outgoing players. That really limits our flexibility. What player or players at the same salary or lower could we expect to get in return and make the Wolves a significantly better team?Q-is-here wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2024 12:04 pmMy guess is that the Wolves are going into this offseason with the assumption of (mostly) running it back. That means the starting 5 will most likely be back, including KAT and Rudy.Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2024 11:21 amThis is great stuff, Q. It’s always good to look at the numbers to get a better sense of what different players are contributing. I’ll note that there isn’t a front office in the NBA that won’t be looking at these same stats and others. As we debate which (if any) of our three bigs the Wolves should consider trading, we tend to use these numbers to sort out who we’re rather keep. But we should keep in mind that these numbers will also inform what other teams are willing to give up for each of our three bigs.Q-is-here wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2024 9:20 am If you ONLY go by the stats and forget a minute about context, sample size, opponent, matchups, eye test, etc., there are some interesting takeaways:
- Holy shit was Rudy valuable! Despite the clumsy post touches and fumble fingers, the guy had a positive impact on both ends of the court.
- KAT was neutral to slightly positive. But...we need to think about who would take his minutes if he was not here. Naz was much worse!
- The bench let us down. If you combine the +/- stuff and the box score stuff it doesn't paint a good picture. Our bench was outperformed by other team's benches. And we have the regular season 6th man of the year and arguably a contender for 7th man of the year in NAW if there was such an award.
- If you looked at Ant's stats earlier in the playoffs - say midway through the Denver series - you would see him right up there with Jokic as the best playoff performer. But he fell off starting late in the Denver series and through most of the Dallas games. He still had an outstanding playoffs given his age, but he ended up in that second tier of playoff performers below the likes of Doncic, Jokic, and even SGA.
- Jaden absolutely leveled up his game in the playoffs versus the regular season. He still isn't good enough offensively to be a 2nd or 3rd option, but there was definitely progress and his 3-point shooting really came around. Very encouraging.
So let’s put aside for a moment who we would prefer to keep and think about which of our three bigs would bring the best return value. These numbers alone suggest that Rudy would bring the best return in a trade and Naz the least with KAT in between. If you look at solely at their contracts, Rudy and Naz are more attractive than KAT because their terms are shorter - overall much smaller and shorter financial commitment. But KAT is a multi-year allstar in his prime who consistently draws double teams. The same can’t be said for either Rudy or Naz. Moreover, KAT can no longer be considered a defensively liability. So when you look beyond the numbers, KAT seems like the more valuable trade asset among the three.
The trade value of these three depends significantly on what teams will be looking to add a big this offseason. I suspect the Knicks would put a premium on KAT over the other two because they need offense and are in a win-now mode would likely elevate KAT over Naz in their valuation. Re-building teams would likely prefer Naz unless they’re looking for a vet leadership in which case they might be more interested in Rudy for a short two-season stint.
It will be interesting to see how all this plays out this summer.
But I also think Connelly will be picking up the phone when or if suitors call. So I wouldn't rule out a trade for KAT or Rudy, but I don't think he'll proactively seek one out if you know what I mean.
The bench is a different story....For all their value during the regular season, I feel like they let us down in the playoffs. I could definitely see some changes where may be just one or two out of the top 10 in the rotation are back with us. I expect NAW to be one of those folks despite his less-than-stellar playoffs. Naz....not so sure about him.
My point is this. If you trade Rudy, KAT or Naz, you should not expect the trade to make us better next season. You trade one of those guys to get below the second apron and better position the organization to re-tool for the next season and beyond around Ant and Jaden. And if you don’t trade one of those three what bench players could we swap to significantly improve the team? We could trade NAW for a better offensive player, but then our bench would take a step back defensively. Bottom line in my view is that we can’t have it both ways. If we run it back, our championship aspirations depend entirely on improvement from within by our current rotation players, especially Ant and Jaden. Trading any of our three bigs, in my view, means looking beyond next season, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
