Want to win a trade in the 2020 draft? Be like water
With a lot of potential movement in this draft, the best approach is to take what comes to you
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
-Bruce Lee
Should the Bulls trade up or down on draft day next month? This is one of the most frequently asked questions that I get, and it’s honestly a bad framework for looking at what to do in this draft.
If I were in charge of the Bulls, I wouldn’t go into the draft with a particular mindset of what I’d want to do. Instead, I’d look at what other teams are willing to do. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, I would be like water.
Being like water means being adaptable to the circumstances that you find yourself in. Smart GMs read the market and figure out if there’s more value in buying or selling. Bad GMs go in with a set plan and pay whatever it takes to make a deal work. The old Bulls regime had been victim to this type of mentality before, and they came out a loser on a ton of their draft day trades as a result.
Fortunately, it looks like this new management team will have a completely new philosophy on draft day trades. They are a lot more flexible, and that should be particularly advantageous this year where it looks like there is going to be a ton of interest across the board in trades moving in both directions.
If the Bulls (or any other team) want to win draft night, they should be open to everything and plot out what it would take to move up or down. Here is how I would be approaching draft day trades if I were them.
The scenario where trading up makes sense
Historically, trading up is a very dicey proposition. A few years ago, I looked at the draft day trades from 1998 to 2017. Teams trading down won 18 of those trades as compared to only 10 for the team trading up.
There has to be some compelling reason then for trading up, and this draft happens to present one: The price may not be nearly as steep as in previous years.
This is not a top-heavy draft, and the top two teams (Minnesota and Golden State) don’t really have great use for a point guard like LaMelo Ball, who is projected to go top two on most boards. Both teams could very easily feel like they could get their guy at four, and there has been a lot of smoke about them looking to shop their picks to move down.
The idea of moving down for either team sounds nice, but it’s easier said than done. There’s no natural trade partner for either team to pull that maneuver off, as Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman has pointed out.
If one of those teams is dead set on moving down and is willing to dramatically lower the price from what it would normally take, then it would make sense for the Bulls to jump on that type of offer. Minnesota was on the other side of the coin last year when all it took for them to move up from 11 to six was Dario Saric.
It would also make sense for the Bulls to move up because they badly need a primary ballhandler to upgrade their playmaking and passing. Killian Hayes would be tempting in this role and a fine choice if he very likely falls to four, but I like Ball’s upside more than the other guys projected to be available when the Bulls select (obligatory disclaimer: I am not a draft expert).
The Warriors are in need of veteran help to win now and can take in one contract of $17 million or less without having to match salary. They would also love to get rid of the roughly $95 million owed to Andrew Wiggins over the course of the next three seasons. What could a trade up framework look like?
Various pick models suggest that the price for moving from no. 4 to no. 2 is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a late 1st or early 2nd-round pick. A swap of Thad Young or Tomas Satoransky (the Warriors could choose either one), the Bulls’ own no. 4 pick, and a second-round pick in exchange for the Warriors’ no. 2 pick would make sense for both sides. A second rounder may seem like too low a price to pay, but it could easily land in the upcoming double draft, which would bring it closer to a late first round value.
Taking on Wiggins’ money is more complicated, and the Bulls would probably have to trade Otto Porter Jr. to make it happen. The Warriors would have to add more to their side for me to take that deal, but there is something there that could work with enough negotiation.
The scenario where trading down makes sense
A lot of teams are rumored to be looking to trade down in this draft because, as mentioned before, the talent up top is pretty meh.
Trading down would make a lot of sense for the Bulls, but they face the same problem as the Warriors and Timberwolves. With every team thinking that they could get their guy a few picks down the ladder, it is going to be a lot easier said than done.
There also aren’t a lot of natural partners for the Bulls to work with. The Celtics are probably the only viable one without having to look at complicated three-way or multi-year deals. They have picks 14, 26, and 30 in the first round of this draft and badly need to consolidate to move up because they are too competitive now to add three rookies onto their roster.
Getting all three Celtics picks would technically be a win for the Bulls according to the trade models, and the middle of this draft does look pretty good. There are some nice wing candidates that could fill a position of need. But the Bulls badly need some high upside players. Would it be worth installing marble floors for this roster build without addressing the five-foot-high ceiling? It probably depends on who is still on the board, and I’d do it if it looks like one of Devin Vassell (wonky jump shot aside) or Isaac Okoro will slip down to 14.
The only other team that even makes a tiny bit of sense to trade with is the Knicks. They have picks 8 and 27, but that isn’t close to enough value to match the no. 4 pick. I would not pull the trigger on that type of deal unless the Knicks added a good young prospect to the mix. Unfortunately, none of their guys that they’d be willing to move stand out to me.
What I think Arturas Karnisovas will do
The “be like water” philosophy is already functionally similar to what Karnisovas was doing in Denver. The Nuggets have been very good at adapting to rapidly changing circumstances, and they’ve had some of their best picks as a result. Most notably, they swiped Michael Porter Jr. at 14 in 2018 despite not being able to conduct any interviews with him. Porter definitely was not in their plans, but they saw value and acted decisively.
More recently, the Nuggets created their own luck by trading for Bol Bol in the middle of the second round in 2019. Like Porter, they saw a player with a high grade falling rapidly down the draft and seized their chance.
The Nuggets have been extremely active in the trade market on draft day, generally favoring trading down. They traded down with the Bulls to select Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic, traded down to take Trey Lyles, and traded out of the first round in 2013. That hasn’t always worked out superbly-- Those last two picks turned into Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. But they overall have had very strong drafts, and part of their success can be attributed to their willingness to make decisions on the fly.
It’s worth contrasting the Nuggets’ approach with that of executive vice president John Paxson during the same time frame. Paxson’s Bulls were also fairly active in draft day trades, but they went in knowing exactly what they wanted to do. This resulted in losing a ton of value in the negotiating process. The McDermott trade has been a well-documented and disastrous example of this. The Bulls also went into the 2017 draft knowing that they were going to trade Jimmy Butler as soon as they got their first decent offer.
"This is the first opportunity where we felt a deal presented itself that made sense," executive vice president John Paxson explained back then.
Going into draft day with a rigid approach limits your options, and it takes away the flexibility that is necessary to win trades.
This new management team should take off the blinders and look for value first and foremost. Karnisovas, a mixed martial artist hobbyist, should take a lesson from one of the influencers of the movement. Listen to Bruce Lee, and be like water.
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