Love/Wiggins Trade Revisited

[gourimoko]

@gourimoko Gouri I'm just kind of confused why you wouldn't be in support of this trade considering you said in another thread that you don't even think Lebron will be in the NBA even five years from now and that you see it as a downward slope for him (regarding how good he is) from here on out, so if it takes Wiggins 3+ years to become a really great player like you said (All Star maybe?), then our chances of winning a championship would decrease drastically by the time Wiggins is good enough to be a 2nd/3rd option on a championship team due to the fact that from what you've said, Lebron will have exited his prime.

If Love stays, is relatively healthy, and can return to his former self, then this makes considerable sense, but jking is right on the money. Wiggins has superstar potential. If he develops that potential, and we don't win a title, then it would be a hard pill to swallow.

So then wouldn't it make sense to have a player who can help you win now like Kevin Love while Lebron is still at the top of the game instead of waiting for Wiggins to develop and risking Lebron's downfall (because as you said, longetivity will be more of a problem for him since he relies so much on his athleticism)?

It all depends on Kevin Love's continued impact on the Cavaliers moving forward. But to answer your question, yes, it is sound to want to maximize the present if you are assured that you aren't sabotaging the future.

 

[All4One1ForAll]

The thing, though, is I think you are assuming if we don't make the Love trade no other moves are made. Which is why this dichotomy of winning a championship "with prime-Lebron" or "prime-Wiggins" is a false dichotomy. It's too counterfactual.

With all of that said, I support the Love trade and would do it again in a heartbeat. But, to fully evaluate its impact we will need to wait 3-4 seasons to see what happens in Cleveland and how Wiggins develops.

It's not that I'm not assuming we wouldn't make any moves. I just don't see any realistic moves we could have made that would have made it worth going down the alternative path and keeping Wiggins instead of trading for Love. Which guys are you talking about as other trade targets when you say this? And are you assuming we also still would have made the midseason trades we made this year?

 

[Jordan]

It's not that I'm not assuming we wouldn't make any moves. I just don't see any realistic moves we could have made that would have made it worth going down the alternative path and keeping Wiggins instead of trading for Love. Which guys are you talking about as other trade targets when you say this? And are you assuming we also still would have made the midseason trades we made this year?

This is the point, though. It is impossible to predict who would be available. What if Golden State ends up trading Klay to Minny for Love? What if Love does not get traded? Etc. All of the possible outcomes that could have occurred due to Love not being traded to Cleveland result in an infinite number of hypotheticals. So you asking who we would have traded for or what we could have traded for is at best a dense counterfactual and, more likely, completely irrelevant because it is impossible to know who would be available.

EDIT: Additionally, nobody is saying we should not have made the trade. But that it is still too early to tell and that, regardless of the likelihood, it may end up being a bad move.

 

[ajz20]

With one championship this talk goes away for most people. The fact is LeBron is on the down side the window realistically is 3-5 years. There is a solid argument that it wasn't worth the time to wait on Wiggins to develop. Honestly I never thought the Cavs would win this year and I am still fairly confident they won't. ( that's not saying I don't want them to) Chemistry and being battle tested in the play-offs means a lot.

I honestly think (including this year it was always a 2-4 year window)
Some of us have already chose to forgot how different Lebron looked at the start with his lack of explosion, that (thank god returned after he took 2 weeks off) He has played and logged a ton of minutes, and we probably did not have time to wait for Wiggins. Do I wish we would have kept the Heat pick? Sure/ Would Mini have done the trade without the pick later in the summer before camp? We will never know.

 

[Green Lantern]

Uh..I was the greedy one, I wanted both players..

 

[All4One1ForAll]

This is the point, though. It is impossible to predict who would be available. What if Golden State ends up trading Klay to Minny for Love? What if Love does not get traded? Etc. All of the possible outcomes that could have occurred due to Love not being traded to Cleveland result in an infinite number of hypotheticals. So you asking who we would have traded for or what we could have traded for is at best a dense counterfactual and, more likely, completely irrelevant because it is impossible to know who would be available.

EDIT: Additionally, nobody is saying we should not have made the trade. But that it is still too early to tell and that, regardless of the likelihood, it may end up being a bad move.

Eh…I just think you can't really use "we could have traded for guys" as an excuse unless you can point to certain players we reasonable could have/should have traded for, and even them it's all hypothetical, like you said. Additionally, if we kept Wiggins and didn't trade for Love, the only added assets we would have would have been Bennett (at number one pick money, is he even an asset?) and the Miami pick (will be a middling first round pick this year). I just don't think it's a fair reason to bring up.

 

[gourimoko]

Eh…I just think you can't really use "we could have traded for guys" as an excuse unless you can point to certain players we reasonable could have/should have traded for, and even them it's all hypothetical, like you said. Additionally, if we kept Wiggins and didn't trade for Love, the only added assets we would have would have been Bennett (at number one pick money, is he even an asset?) and the Miami pick (will be a middling first round pick this year). I just don't think it's a fair reason to bring up.

If this is your position then you should not base your evaluation on the cavs post trading dion. That would mean we weren't that great of a team because we didn't have moz jr and shump.

 

[LeBro]

How is Wiggins' PER so low? 13.2 is below average. It seems like I hear all about how great of a rookie season he has, but his numbers look rather pedestrian.

Does PER just not do him justice?

 

[Anglefan]

The first part of the season, I think he was like half of that. So he's been playing in the 17-18 PER range after his bad start.

 

[BimboColesHair]

How is Wiggins' PER so low? 13.2 is below average. It seems like I hear all about how great of a rookie season he has, but his numbers look rather pedestrian.

Does PER just not do him justice?

PER factors in basically all of the major basic offensive stats. His basic stats, outside of scoring (which isn't factored into PER, but your shooting %s are) and steals, aren't that impressive. Pretty easy to see why it is low. His abysmal assist numbers really kill his PER to be honest.

 

[Pioneer10]

The first part of the season, I think he was like half of that. So he's been playing in the 17-18 PER range after his bad start.

http://basketball.realgm.com/player.../2015/By_Season/Advanced_Stats/Regular_Season

PER by month
Oct 5.3
Nov 9.8
Dec 10.9
Jan 17.4
Feb 13.6
March 12.5

I think people got excited by his January month where a combination of all the injuries and him improving setup a situation where you could potentially see a glimpse of what he would be like eventually when he was in his prime with a team built around him.

Statistically though he's still had an underwhelming rookie year compared to most projected superstars. If I was a TWolves fans I'd still be excited by his ability to likely be a good shooter who can also get to the FT line. He's got the ability to be a top notch scorer who is also efficient.

 

[All4One1ForAll]

If this is your position then you should not base your evaluation on the cavs post trading dion. That would mean we weren't that great of a team because we didn't have moz jr and shump.

Explain further if you would because I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say. I just want to be sure before I respond.

 

[gourimoko]

Explain further if you would because I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say. I just want to be sure before I respond.

You've made the argument that we are a better team today with Love over Wiggins. But that was not apparent prior to making several trades to shore up our defense.

So the point is that you are using two measurements that are not comparable.

The Cavs prior to the Love trade (with Wiggins, Bennett, Dion Waiters, and the Miami pick) versus a Cavs team that has gone through an additional season of adjustments and numerous trades with the addition of Kevin Love.

This is an example of hindsight bias.

 

[Pioneer10]

You've made the argument that we are a better team today with Love over Wiggins. But that was not apparent prior to making several trades to shore up our defense.

So the point is that you are using two measurements that are not comparable.

The Cavs prior to the Love trade (with Wiggins, Bennett, Dion Waiters, and the Miami pick) versus a Cavs team that has gone through an additional season of adjustments and numerous trades with the addition of Kevin Love.

This is an example of hindsight bias.

Maybe but going into the season I think everyone would agree our frontcourt was far weaker then our wing spots (i.e. between Lebron, Kyrie, and Waiters). While in the frontcourt we had AV and TT who both good players aren't star quality, don't have the shooting range that the league is going (particularly a Lebron James led team), and on top of that was it. We really had no 3rd big and even after getting Mozgov we still only have 3 so the bigs are still a short handed spot despite getting an All-Star PF.

Plus in terms of value: Mozgov came for 2 firsts while we ended up with two quality SG's for essentially a salary dump which seems to vindicate the thought that getting 3 and D guys to fit Lebron and Kyrie is easier then getting bigs.

 

[gourimoko]

Maybe but going into the season I think everyone would agree our frontcourt was far weaker then our wing spots (i.e. between Lebron, Kyrie, and Waiters). While in the frontcourt we had AV and TT who both good players aren't star quality, don't have the shooting range that the league is going (particularly a Lebron James led team), and on top of that was it. We really had no 3rd big and even after getting Mozgov we still only have 3 so the bigs are still a short handed spot despite getting an All-Star PF.

But there are solutions to this problem, and we had plenty of trade assets.

Plus in terms of value: Mozgov came for 2 firsts while we ended up with two quality SG's for essentially a salary dump which seems to vindicate the thought that getting 3 and D guys to fit Lebron and Kyrie is easier then getting bigs.

I think Love's presence as well as Varejao's absence compounded the need for Mozgov, resulting in us overpaying (by many accounts).

It's hard to say what would've happened alternatively, so again, it's not useful, I think, to look at midseason trades as a benchmark for something that happened in the previous offseason.