On buying draft picks and the like

Also, while salaries for first round picks are guaranteed, they still won’t tie the team’s hands too much. If EG can keep his hands to himself and not just automatically offer contract extensions (hi, Pech), the Wizards will have options as to whether to keep the player(s) or use the freed up space to go after free agents, at a point when they might be in a better position to make some noise in the playoffs.

in.

I think a combination of these moves makes the most sense. Hopefully, we could just buy, say, the #25 from Memphis using cash (with no salary tax implications). We could then offer the #25 to Miami in exchange for their #18 with the cost being that we have to absorb Dequan Cook’s $2.1M contract.

So for a total of $5.1M in Ted’s money, and cap hit of a mere $2.1M, we’d end up with the #18 pick plus a 1-year rental of Dequan Cook.

Where it gets complicated is if we continue to compound the process. Maybe we could take the #18 pick and move up to #11 by buying Mo Pete’s $6.2M contract off of New Orleans. It sounds great in a fantasy draft but I don’t know how feasible it is to pull off multiple consecutive trades like this in the NBA.

Although #10 or 11 draft picks obviously pan out more frequently than those in the late first round, they are by no means a sure bet. If we have a lot of picks, we have a higher chance of grabbing one of those late round surprises (rajon rondo, gilbert arenas, jonas jerebko, etc).

I emailed him about his awareness of sports blogs, specifically this one. He responded saying he is aware and that he likes to be up to date on what his fans are thinking. Although, I’m sure he already knows his options regarding the draft, not like he needs us to tell him. I also don’t know if it was really him that responded, but whoever he’s working with reads bulletsforever, so that’s a plus.

I was thinking of it the other way Mike, that there wasn’t a team that could truly compensate us for taking one of those big salaries off their payroll. Kurt Thomas/8M cost 2 first rounders IIRC. We’re talking about more than that. None of those teams have the right mix of prospects and picks to make it worth our while unless we lowered the cost to a single late lottery pick. i see no reason to do that because we will be able to get a mid-first pick for 5M or so in salary.

I want another pick in the middle of the first round. Miami at 18 is about as far down as I want to be. Yes there is a mass of talent and I want to pick from the top of that group and not the bottom. I want to be in position to take advantage when someone mysteriously slides. The goal being to get out of this draft with two rotation players and some developmental prospects.

As far as the value of late 1’s over early 2’s, I tend think that the late 1’s are perfect for the Wizards. While some GMs see guaranteed contracts I see the least expensive longer-term contracts available for developmental players. The team gets them for 3 years and roughly 2.65M. If they pan out we have the chance to extend it two more years before they hit the open market. Team also can choose not to tender them in their 4th year. Compare that to the second round where 2-year contracts are the norm with only Houston and San Antonio giving multi-year guarantees. The ones who hit can get away quicker.

I think Mike is right that early 2nds will be worth more than late 1sts, so our #35 pick is now relatively high in value.

I also like the idea of compounding moves. I think the reason this is hard in reality is that picks are not purchased until that night, and we will then have very little time from when say we purchase #25, to then turn around and peddle #25 to Miami. If we had days to work this out, then sure, but at from an outsider perspective, it appears that all of the action really stops and starts on draft night, so there is a tight window to pull all of this off.

We’ve largely focused on deals that would be A to B and B back to A in nature. I think there is more to be had as a 3rd party who can take on salary to facilitate bigger deals.

Example: Darren Collison may be available if someone takes on Mo Pete or Posey. We don’t have much need for Collison but if we take on some $, Collison gets shipped out and the receiving team compensates us with a #1? Just an idea but with so many sign and trades coming this summer it makes sense to dos ome of these smaller deals and stock up.

We take back twelve million in salary next year in exchange for a decent young center who can guard the post and stick around the basket a la Haywood and a good locker room guy who can play some small forward for us. I don’t know if Indiana would be willing to do it, but it’d be worth trying. Hibbert obviously fouls too much, but it’s not a big deal if we’re splitting the minutes in the middle evenly between him and Javale with Dray in spot duty.