23 February 2011

This trade makes more sense

Deron Williams for Derrek Favors and Devon Harris.

Deron is +4.1 / 11.1

Harris + 1.0 / 7.0
Favors is a rookie but is a solid one on a bad team -1.8 / 2.7

Utah probably got back enough talent wise and skill wise (assuming Favors develops, and assuming they draft well with the two picks they received), and New Jersey got rid of a bad point guard to get an excellent one. There's some question regarding Utah's crowded power forward-center setup, but it seems Okur's injuries have added up, Kirilenko's out of favor (but still productive), and they haven't figured out how to mix Millsap and Jefferson together very well, but really their biggest problem was the persistence of playing Raja Bell instead of CJ Miles. Just swapping those two out takes the team's projected win % from a 40 win team to a 60 win team. Dropping Williams probably makes them a non-playoff team this year, especially with Memphis, Houston, Phoenix, or even the Clippers playing pretty well. They were already 11th in SRS in the Western Conference as it was, so staying in the 8th spot was rather unlikely.

But they should be reasonably good after that, and they weren't likely to be able to retain him in 2012 when his contract ran out. So, like the Melo deal, they got a reasonable price for a superstar.

I'm assuming this will revive Brook Lopez a bit (not much), and the New Jersey offense should flow a lot better than under Harris, who was basically a combo guard and/or playmaker rather than a distributor/playmaker. Williams is also not bad in the clutch, or at least he's far more efficient than Harris has been.

The next "big" trade was Mo Williams and Jamario Moon for Baron Davis and a draft pick. In this, I'd say the Clippers got fleeced, mostly because they also threw in a pick. But also because Mo and Baron were about equally average players and Moon is just about useless. Maybe the age and injury factors for Baron made it important to get something else, and certainly his contract didn't help, but unless they're cutting him at the end of the year for free agent purposes (because Baron's a notorious front-runner and won't play well on this terrible team), this one is just strange.

I actually really like the Hinrich trade for Atlanta. Giving up Crawford (Jordan, not Jamal) is probably worth it, since he wasn't playing anyway for them for quite a while. What they lacked was a decent point guard who could actually guard someone and Hinrich versus Bibby is about a wash on shooting threes.

I also like the Perkins-Green trade, probably for both teams in the long run. I'm a little less sure of it as far as this season, but Perkins hasn't played much and the Celtics still had the best record in the East without him. He would be useful against the Lakers and Magic, but not so much against the Heat, Spurs, or Bulls, where having an extra wing player who can spell Pierce/Garnett/Allen and giving them some lineup options (by moving Pierce over and playing big, or moving Garnett over and playing small) might be a better idea.

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