If you’re an NBA fan not living under a rock you’ve probably heard talk a LeBron trade to the Rockets this summer. While I have said that if you are predicting, or hoping, that LeBron gets to Houston, well, good luck. The Ryan Anderson contract isn’t tradable and you are going to be hard pressed to find a team that is interested enough in Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, and whatever else to send something to Cleveland that the Cavs would find valuable. (No, the Cavs are not taking the Gordon/Tucker/+ package to help the Rockets get LeBron. Cleveland is going to either want a young guy and/or draft picks, or to bottom out and shed salary.)
Naturally, of course, I decided to spend hours attempting to prove myself wrong and find three team trade scenarios that can get LeBron to the Rockets because I’m a loser that has no life.
So, let’s revisit once again what the salary constraints are for a trade. To match salaries if LeBron opts in to $35.4 million player option, we need to get to 80% of that salary, which is $28.48 million. Eric Gordon plus P.J. Tucker gets us to $21.47 million. The Rockets need to add in $7.1 million, and perhaps the third team would be interested in acquiring Trevor Ariza or Luc Richard Mbah a Moute via sign and trade. If not, Nene is making $3.65 million next season, so that’s more than halfway there. I’ll leave the rest of the math up to Mr. Morey, since this is more about the idea of what these LeBron trades can be than figuring out the perfect way to execute them (I’ll still try my best on that front though).
Turns out, the Rockets only need to contact teams in a single division to potentially facilitate this trade. The Northwest Division provides the best possibilities for Houston.
Utah Jazz
Jazz Receive: Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, +
Cavaliers Receive: Derrick Favors, 21st pick in 2018 NBA Draft, Houston 2019 first round pick
The math doesn’t work on this because Utah isn’t shipping out enough salary. I know this is cheating, again, to say, “ok, well just assume they figure it out,” but I’m going to cheat to present you with the idea as to why this trade makes sense in theory (at least to me).
The Jazz risk losing Favors for nothing this offseason if he signs a contract in restricted free agency that the team does not want to match. Utah may be interested in keeping it’s books clean to try to get into the free agent market in 2019, but they shouldn’t consider themselves a free agent destination.
Neither Tucker nor Gordon are long term commitments, however, as the team can move on from both in the summer of 2020. Also, both players can help this team. Bringing in two players that just played in a switch everything defense, especially Tucker, is going to make for a lot of versatile defensive lineups when these two are added to switch defenders such as Crowders, Rubio, and Ingles, all while being anchored by Gobert.
Plus, the duo can give Utah the injection of offensive juice that it needs. Ingles performs well in his role of secondary shot creator, but it is still a position the team can upgrade and the entire point of Eric Gordon’s existence is to create shots. Gordon can give them the off the dribble playmaking the team needs so it is not so dependent on only Donovan Mitchell. In addition the team gets Tucker’s spot up shooting from distance to space the floor.
Since the Jazz may view getting Tucker and Gordon as getting them for free since they’re “losing Favors anyway,” it may be possible to coerce Utah into sending the 21st pick in the 2018 NBA Draft to Cleveland as a part of this deal.
As for the Cavs, I think Favors is actually a good fit for the team. Apparently the Cavs want to keep Love for next year regardless of whether LeBron leaves or not. Such a desire would signal the team doesn’t want to completely tear it down and start from scratch.
Favors has the potential to fit decently with Thompson and Nance, and very well with Love. Favors is actually one of the most overlooked rim protectors, ranking 7th in the league in defended field goal percentage within 6 feet of the basket, among players who played 41 games this past season and defended at least 4 such shots per game. Pairing Favors with Love should be similar to Love and Thompson defensively, while Favors gives the team an upgrade offensively from Thompson.
Cleveland also walks away with two first round picks, and while the Houston pick in 2019 will most likely be somewhere from 28-30, they get a pick in the high 20’s from Utah.
Minnesota Timberwolves
Wolves Receive: Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, +
Cavs Receive: Andrew Wiggins, Cole Aldrich, Minnesota 2019 first round pick, Houston 2019 first round pick
In one of the biggest plot twists in NBA history, the guy LeBron intentionally left out of his “I’m Coming Home” letter because he knew the guy was as good as gone, Wiggins is now the youngster the Cavs bring to town to transition into the second post-LeBron era.
So why would Minnesota want to do this? Well, they should look to get off this contract while Wiggins still has the allure of being a young guy with untapped potential.
2018-2019 will be Wiggins’ age 23 season, and he is owed $146.45 million over the next five seasons. I would not want to be on the hook for that money.
Wiggins has posted decent scoring averages through his first four seasons, but has always been one of the least efficient players in the league, especially when you consider his usage. Wiggins has posted a usage rate of at least 22.6% in each of his four professional seasons. So far, Wiggins’ career eFG% is 47.6%, while his career true shooting percentage is 52.6%.
Wiggins career PER is 15.0, and the PER formula is designed to make 15.0 constitute a league average player. Part of why Wiggins can’t push his PER higher is because he doesn’t really add much on offense besides volume scoring. His career rebound percentage is 6.6%, a troubling number for someone that has played 83% of his career minutes at one of the forward spots. Wiggins also has a career assist percentage of 9.7%, meaning he isn’t creating for others.
Through four seasons Wiggins has shown to be a 33% three point shooter and a 74% free throw shooter. Neither of those numbers is terrible, they’re both OK. But it’s part of why Wiggins isn’t very efficient, and while players do have the ability to improve as shooters, Wiggins actually decreased in accuracy in both categories last season from the year prior.
Wiggins is a good finisher at the rim. In his career he has shot 66.2% within three feet of the basket. The problem is, Wiggins keeps decreasing the amount of shots he takes at the rim. In each of the past two seasons Wiggins has decreased the percentage of his shots that he has taken within three feet of the basket, bottoming out last season at only 22.9%
Part of this is because he started taking more threes, and also scrapped long twos from his shot selection as well. That’s good. He did, however, increase his shots taken between three and ten feet, so he spent more time posting up or taking floaters than in years past. Not good. The rate at which he has gotten to the line has also decreased each of the past two seasons, which makes sense since he is attacking the rim less often.
His defense is also not good. In each of his four seasons he has posted a negative defensive box plus minus, with marks of -1.8, -2.5, -2.9, and -1.4. His career defensive rating is 114, with marks of 114, 113, 115, 113 in each individual season.
Add all this together and you won’t be surprised when I tell you that Wiggins career Value Over Replacement Player is a -1.2 and he has posted a negative mark in each season of his career; -0.2, -0.1, 0-.6, -0.4. In other words, in each season Wiggins has played, he has rated below a replacement level player.
Also, there’s this:
Report: Jimmy Butler 'uncertain about playing with Andrew Wiggins.' https://t.co/3JKoHbQlLE #Twolves pic.twitter.com/v9M7SMUOyX
— Star Tribune Sports (@StribSports) June 15, 2018
Who knows if that report is true. But if the Wolves want to keep Butler in town it’s possible they’d be willing to move on from Wiggins. Butler can opt out of his deal next summer, and although the Wolves will be able to offer him more money than any other team, at age 29, and with more teams having cap space in the summer of 2019, Butler may be attracted to the situation he views as the best odds of winning a ring.
So I just outlined why the Wolves shouldn’t want Wiggins, so why would the Cavs want him? I’m guessing there are teams out there that still view Wiggins as a potential franchise cornerstone, and while I’m not saying Cleveland is one of those teams, I’m just saying it’s possible. Once you get the
“upside” tag placed on you it takes an eternity for everyone to agree the label was just wrong. Especially for someone with Wiggins athletic abilities, there will be a front office out there for years and years to come that will be willing to see if they can get the best out of Wiggins.
Not that this should be a factor into the decision, but he is also a young face to sell from a PR perspective to the fan base to lead this new era. Wiggins, Love (the guy he was traded for in the first place) and the 8th pick of the draft is the new Big Three in town, flanked by playoff tested veterans George Hill and Tristan Thompson. You can get people to buy into that narrative.
Cole Aldrich also has an Al Jefferson Unicorn contract where this upcoming season is not fully guaranteed but since the deal was inked prior to the new CBA his entire salary counts as outgoing salary in a trade. Aldrich has only $2.056 million of his $6.956 million salary guaranteed for next season, so the Cavs can waive him for little consequence should they want to.
As for the Wolves, we know they can score. Minnesota was 4th in the league last year with a 110.8 offensive rating. Gordon and Tucker will both help on offense, due to Gordon’s shot making ability and Tucker as a three point threat. Playing Tucker at the 4 will also open up space for Towns to work in the post, something Thibs is loath to embrace however.
But the Wolves’ issue is their defense. The team ranked 22nd in defensive rating last season. Gordon and Tucker spent all of last season switching every single ball screen, so if Thibs has any interest in being a little more modern he can use Gordon, Tucker, and Butler as switch everything guys. Moving on from Wiggins may result in better team defense due to “addition by subtraction.”
Jimmy Butler can leave in free agency next summer should he so desire. If Butler really does not like playing with Wiggins, and wants to get back to a larger market, the Wolves better make sure they make Minnesota appear to be Butler’s best chance of winning if they want to convince him to stay. Pulling the trigger on this deal not only alleviates the concerns over Butler not enjoying his partnership with Wiggins, gets off Wiggins’ contract, but also makes the team better.
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