Mbah a Moute-Williams trade? (merged)

#32
I think you guys are being awfully close-minded about this Jason Thompson situation. We have to be realistic about what does and does not have value. Thornton is getting paid a lot of money to do nothing right now so you have to convince somebody he can at least come close to getting them 15-18 points per game. I believe Minnesota might be interested in Hayes (or Landry) only because of the Adelman situation, but otherwise Thompson and IT are basically the only positive value vets we have. The rest are valuable only as expiring contracts in the near future.

Here's the thing with Thompson -- and I understand that most disagree with me on this and see him as a productive player -- but we don't need him. He's not helping us win anything. At PF right now we have Thompson, Patterson, Hayes, and Landry. Landry and Thompson's contracts are almost identical and neither of them is a starter.

This is what we're losing in Thompson (Last 4 years):
8.8pts, 6.3rebs, 1.1ast, 0.4stl, 0.6blk (24.4mpg)

This is what we'd be getting in Williams:
10.2pts, 5rebs, 0.6ast, 0.6stl, 0.5blk (22mpg)

The overall drop in production is negligible. Now i could have used Thompson's career numbers, but he's 27 years old and his production has already been declining. Derrick Williams is 22years old and has never had a chance to be a starter in the NBA. You can compare their per36 numbers as well if you like. Williams is a better scorer, Thompson grabs 1.5 more boards per game, but he should. He's played all of his minutes at PF/C.

The comparison in terms of raw production isn't as big as people make it out to be. If Thompson is so valuable, and Williams flat out sucks than how come Williams is averaging very similar stats as Thompson? Where is this untapped value that Thompson is somehow providing us? I think it simply boils down to the perception that 6'11" means he's valuable as a backup to Cousins which we already know is a tenuous position at best.

But look at our roster, take Thompson out and we get Patterson/Hayes at PF for two or three months until Landry comes back. You don't think Landry can put up 8.8 and 6 in 24mpg? Every NBA bench in the league has a guy who can give you those numbers. Heck, we have three of them. Wouldn't you rather have a 22 year old SF with some potential to get better alongside Cousins and McLemore than the John Salmons and Travis Outlaw flying circus? Mbah A Moute can split minutes at SF and PF anyway. What about a lineup of Vasquez/McLemore/Williams/Mbah A Moute/Cousins for now and we see what happens in the draft and off-season to bolster those forward positions?

For anyone who thinks this team needs a shot in the arm right now to improve the attitude of the team, swapping Thompson's minutes for Derrick Williams if nothing else constitutes a significant change to the personality of the team in the short-term future. And I think Williams is going to be so happy to be playing again, he might surprise some people (see also, the Marcus Thornton post-trade effect).

You have to take into account the natural growth arc of the player. If I had told you at the beginning of last season that Evan Turner would be a 20ppg scorer in the league before his rookie contract is up I would have been laughed out of the room. Look at the big step forward Cousins has taken in his fourth season. Williams is just 22 years old now, Thompson was 22 years old his rookie season and now he's a 6th year NBA vet. Think about that.
There's a reason Williams has never started in the NBA. He's not very good. Not to mention there are different forms of being productive and replacing JT with Williams would be a huge dropoff in talent and production from the PF spot.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#33
He's not long enough to start at 4. Again we would be forcing someone to play against guys with more size and length, which is not a productive idea, unless the player has a very good multiple skill set. Even then, for the heart of our lineup at the 2, 3, 4, it should be avoided if at all possible
Tristan Thompson: PF - 6'8.75" in shoes, 227 Pounds, 7'1.50" wingspan, 35" vertical.

Derrick Williams: PF/SF - 6'8.75" in shoes, 243 pounds, 7'1.25" wingspan, 34" vertical

So how is it that Thompson is long enough to play PF, but Williams isn't? I might add that there are many more PF's around the same height and length as Williams. Having said that, I have always felt that SF is Williams best position, and that has nothing to do with his height, but with his skill level.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#34
I kind of like Derrick Williams, but reminds me of a similar player which we just traded, Thomas Robinson. Although Williams can shoot the 3 and is more athletic.

Any chance Kings can get these players? Rondo, Jeff Green and Omer Asik without trading away Cousins and McLemore?

I think this would be a pretty good starting line-up

Rondo
McLemore
J.Green
Cousins
Asik

Plenty of scoring and for sure Coach Malone can make this line-up play better defense with better personnel.

I could dream or just make it happen in NBA 2K14 :)
Have to correct one thing. Williams is not more athletic than Robinson. The one thing Robinson had going for him was that he was an elite athlete, a freak athlete if you will. Williams is a good athlete, but he's no where near the athlete that Robinson is.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#35
I watched a ton of Arizona the year that Williams broke out and rocketed up the draft boards. I was targeting potential SFs that the Kings could draft and the was watching pretty much all of the players who could have NBA talent such as Harrison Barnes, PJIII, Chris Singleton, Kawaii Leanoard, Jordan Hamilton, Jeff Taylor, ect. Because Arizona is in the Pac-10/12 I got to watch most of their games, so I saw him play a lot.
Arizona didn't play him at SF and in many cases he was their biggest player on the floor. I remember the games against USC where he was matched up against Nicola Vucevic (F/C who is tearing it up in Orlando).
The big question with him was whether or not he'd actually be able to play the SF position.
By the end of the season he had convinced me that he could play the SF position. He was very accurate from long range when he shot with his feet set and he had great athleticism.
I would absolutely be in favor of bringing him in, but only if the plan was to make him a dedicated SF. He isn't a PF and if you're going to play half of his minutes at the PF position then I don't think you do him or yourself any favors.
I would not in any way be in favor of trading him for JT because JT is a better big man than Williams will ever be, and with-out JT we don't have any true big-man depth behind Cousins.
So if the plan was to trade Hayes or Thornton or one of our SFs in order to bring in Williams to be our new starting SF, you can sign me up in a heartbeat. If the idea is to make the trade and try him out at PF (which wouldn't make sense with Landry waiting in the wings) then that's probably a losing proposition.
My name is Bajaden, and I approve this post...
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
#36
There's a reason Williams has never started in the NBA. He's not very good. Not to mention there are different forms of being productive and replacing JT with Williams would be a huge dropoff in talent and production from the PF spot.
If by "huge dropoff in production" you mean half an assist and 1.5 rebs per game, sure. Obviously that would cripple our roster. But as I've said over and over again already, I don't want to get Williams to start him at PF, I want him to start at SF -- a position at which we are currently getting almost no production. It's not really that complicated -- we get a short-term rental on a talented 22 year old who has a chance to grow alongside our centerpieces Cousins (23) and McLemore (20) and we get him at a position where we're desperate for anyone who can hit an open jumpshot consistently. Williams was one of the best in college basketball at doing exactly that his Sophomore season. If Williams isn't that guy, we've saved ourselves 6.4 million off our cap space in 2015 and 6.8 million in 2016. That's more than enough to sign a veteran PF who can replace JT's production -- or it would be anyway, if we weren't already paying Landry approximately that much already to replace JT's production.
 
#37
If by "huge dropoff in production" you mean half an assist and 1.5 rebs per game, sure. Obviously that would cripple our roster. But as I've said over and over again already, I don't want to get Williams to start him at PF, I want him to start at SF -- a position at which we are currently getting almost no production. It's not really that complicated -- we get a short-term rental on a talented 22 year old who has a chance to grow alongside our centerpieces Cousins (23) and McLemore (20) and we get him at a position where we're desperate for anyone who can hit an open jumpshot consistently. Williams was one of the best in college basketball at doing exactly that his Sophomore season. If Williams isn't that guy, we've saved ourselves 6.4 million off our cap space in 2015 and 6.8 million in 2016. That's more than enough to sign a veteran PF who can replace JT's production -- or it would be anyway, if we weren't already paying Landry approximately that much already to replace JT's production.

Like I had said above, the production I am talking about aren't just related to the stats you are posting. It would be like putting Grant Hill (in his prime) at PF just because he can average 10 rebounds a game and saying since your starting PF only pulls down 8 or so then Hill would have been better suited to play PF then the actual PF they had. Williams is not a PF and the intangibles that JT brings to the PF spot (over what Williams would bring) would correlate to the huge dropoff I am speaking about.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#38
its a bit like saying that since Wilson Chandler is back the Nuggets don't need Timofey Mozgov.

Derrick Williams is barely a PF. He certainly has no business as a center. Meanwhile JT is not only our best PF, he's our only other size/C than Cousins. With our roster as constructed, he's actually borderline irreplaceable, even though I don't get the feeling Malone likes him very much and his time in Sacto may eventually be drawing to a close. But Cousins and a bunch of 6'8" guys isn't even an NBA basketball team. They'd demote us if we were a Euro soccer team.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#39
First, Thompson has more value than Williams at this point, and is certainly more valuable to us than Williams would be. Secondly, the original rumor had us trading Hayes, who Adelman likes, for Williams. Hayes has no future with us, and Thompson probably does, so that trade makes more sense for us and for them, and that's a trade I would do. I would not trade Thompson for Williams, and I certainly wouldn't add anyone else to Thompson, if I wouldn't trade him.
Trading Hayes for Williams is a no-brainer. I liked Williams a lot in college. He may be a late bloomer. This is the "kind" of player the Kings should be looking for - talented young players who might start to "get it" after being a few years in the league.
 
#40
Trading Hayes for Williams is a no-brainer. I liked Williams a lot in college. He may be a late bloomer. This is the "kind" of player the Kings should be looking for - talented young players who might start to "get it" after being a few years in the league.
I don't mind trading junk for junk just to give him a tryout. But I would only want to see him playing SF at first to see how it works out. I believe though that Outlaw is most likely better at SF than Williams so I don't see where he would get time unless they tried playing him at PF which I don't want to see.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#41
I don't mind trading junk for junk just to give him a tryout. But I would only want to see him playing SF at first to see how it works out. I believe though that Outlaw is most likely better at SF than Williams so I don't see where he would get time unless they tried playing him at PF which I don't want to see.
I, like you would want him to play SF. However I suspect that Malone would use him at both PF and SF. Simply because of our lack of front court players. Especially if Hayes is gone. Hell, he's playing Outlaw at PF at times, and Williams has more bulk on him than Outlaw does. Not my preference, but my suspicion! Look, one has to believe that Williams has some talent, and that he just hasn't been used efficiently. I think he's been looked at as a PF, or at best, a stretch four. Even in college, he wasn't a low post banger, and seemed to be most efficient when on the perimeter. He's certainly athletic enough for the SF position. As I said, Hayes for Williams is pretty much a no risk move.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#42
I think we are dreaming if we expect to get Williams for Hayes, the dude has potential but he's stuck on a stacked team, he has zero risk since it's a two year deal and I have seen him defend the SF really well when he had to. I certainly think he can become a SF in the long run.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#45
I think we are dreaming if we expect to get Williams for Hayes, the dude has potential but he's stuck on a stacked team, he has zero risk since it's a two year deal and I have seen him defend the SF really well when he had to. I certainly think he can become a SF in the long run.
Apparently, according to rumors, the T Wolves have inquired about Hayes. They need some front court help, and your forgetting that they were the team that tried to sign Hayes when we were originally going after him. Adelman likes Hayes because he fits the kind of offensive scheme he likes to play. Hayes is a good player on the right team. Were not it.
 
#46
The Kings would need to add a little something to get Williams for Hayes. He's a number 2 pick and they exercised his option, so he must hold some worth.
If the Twolves value Jimmer's shooting and expiring deal more than Shved, maybe that would work.
As mentioned in the other thread, Kings turn a small big into a big small forward, and get another big guard who can handle (important with Ben). If Ray is IT insurance, Shved does the same for GV. And he keeps some heat on MT's feet at the 2.
Twovles get a little cap relief and better fitting pieces.

The Twolves get shorted, but if they need vets and shooting, it works.
 

CruzDude

Senior Member sharing a brew with bajaden
#47
Apparently, according to rumors, the T Wolves have inquired about Hayes. They need some front court help, and your forgetting that they were the team that tried to sign Hayes when we were originally going after him. Adelman likes Hayes because he fits the kind of offensive scheme he likes to play. Hayes is a good player on the right team. Were not it.
I'm CruzDude and I approve this post. Kings are rebuilding and will take a year and a half at least to settle down. A young SF/PF with Williams size and perimeter skills would very likely be a better fit than Hayes as bajaden states above. Would seem to benefit both sides.
 

Entity

Hall of Famer
#48
I'm CruzDude and I approve this post. Kings are rebuilding and will take a year and a half at least to settle down. A young SF/PF with Williams size and perimeter skills would very likely be a better fit than Hayes as bajaden states above. Would seem to benefit both sides.
I don't see Williams much different than Ppat unless he plays SF. Question is will he be a SF here?
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#49
I'm CruzDude and I approve this post. Kings are rebuilding and will take a year and a half at least to settle down. A young SF/PF with Williams size and perimeter skills would very likely be a better fit than Hayes as bajaden states above. Would seem to benefit both sides.
They may well have inquired about Hayes, in fact we've been suggesting trying to dump him on them ever since they got Adelman, but the leap of faith has to be that they would therefore be willing to swap a former #2 pick in the draft for a 30yr old Chuck Hayes. That would require a ballsiness rarely encountered in NBA circles. They'd surely want more. And the more is where it gets tricky.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#50
They may well have inquired about Hayes, in fact we've been suggesting trying to dump him on them ever since they got Adelman, but the leap of faith has to be that they would therefore be willing to swap a former #2 pick in the draft for a 30yr old Chuck Hayes. That would require a ballsiness rarely encountered in NBA circles. They'd surely want more. And the more is where it gets tricky.
Good question, to which I don't have the answer. However, there's perception, and then there's reality. Thabeet was the second pick in the draft, and you could have him for a soda and a bag of chips now. Fact is, all second picks aren't created equal. Bottom line is, Hayes is more skilled than Williams, so with Williams, your betting on age. What you have, are two players that aren't getting much playing time with their current teams. So if both teams think this trade might improve their team, then forget age and where anyone was drafted, and do the deal. This is Williams third year, and so far, he's proven nothing. That may not be totally his fault, but anyway you cut it, he's a gamble.
 
#51
Adelman is one of the select few coaches in the league at this point though that has the clout to pull off the overpay for a guy who is a known god fit in his system. Couple that with Saunders being an ex coach who will understand what adelman is going for and isn't the Morey moneyball type, and the owner who has long made decisions based on players personalities more than typical. With any other front office I'd say this had no chance but it may be ossicle if adelman really things Hayes would help.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#52
Good question, to which I don't have the answer. However, there's perception, and then there's reality. Thabeet was the second pick in the draft, and you could have him for a soda and a bag of chips now. Fact is, all second picks aren't created equal. Bottom line is, Hayes is more skilled than Williams, so with Williams, your betting on age. What you have, are two players that aren't getting much playing time with their current teams. So if both teams think this trade might improve their team, then forget age and where anyone was drafted, and do the deal. This is Williams third year, and so far, he's proven nothing. That may not be totally his fault, but anyway you cut it, he's a gamble.
Sure.

But so is trading anything of any potential value for a undersized guy averaging 1.0pts 1.8rebs and 0.4ast on .278 shooting. If they had cap room I could maybe see them try to shuffle us a 2nd round pick for him. But with his contract he's probably a net negative value player at this point. Its hard to imagine that's the best offer you could come up with for Williams, degraded as his own value is at this point.
 
#53
JT by the numbers is the second tallest player, but you would never know it from the way he plays or the impact he has on the game. He is not strong enough to guard most centers. If there are any questions why maybe Malone is sketchy on JT a lot of the time, all one needs to do is look at what he does a lot of the time on both ends of the floor when not involved. In particular his pick and roll defense, just not a strong suit. PPat is far beyond JT on the defensive end. He is just much better at rotating and dealing with screens. Individually he's also held his own much better in the post. JT's unique combination are his quick feet relative to his size. That hasn't helped him at C from what I've seen thusfar in his career. I think JT is underutilized offensively myself, especially his jump shot.
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
#54
Like I had said above, the production I am talking about aren't just related to the stats you are posting. It would be like putting Grant Hill (in his prime) at PF just because he can average 10 rebounds a game and saying since your starting PF only pulls down 8 or so then Hill would have been better suited to play PF then the actual PF they had. Williams is not a PF and the intangibles that JT brings to the PF spot (over what Williams would bring) would correlate to the huge dropoff I am speaking about.
I don't know why you insist on replying to my posts with parallel arguments which have nothing to do with what I'm saying. Grant Hill at PF? What? How many times do I have to put "Derrick Williams" and "SF" in the same sentence before you stop telling me how bad it would make us if we played Derrick Williams at PF instead of Jason Thompson? That's not even remotely what I'm saying here. I'm saying we currently have a ton of redundant depth at the PF position and none at SF. Maybe the John Salmons vacuum has blinded you to the fact that Outlaw is merely passable at best as a starting SF. I mean yes, pretty much anything is better than a crap sandwich (it's nothing personal John) so he's got that going for him. But realistically we have no NBA caliber starting SFs on our roster. I'm not even sure you want Outlaw as your backup on a playoff team, he's too inconsistent. Trading for Derrick Williams is a chance to maybe acquire a starting SF cheap.

I believe in Derrick Williams' talent still, obviously, or there's no point in trading for him at all. He's 22 years old and has only had a shot with one NBA team and coach so far. Maybe he just doesn't fit that one system? You seem awfully sure that he's terrible, but I'm not ready to call him washed up yet. It's not a sure thing of course, it's a bit of a gamble but you know what? For a team going nowhere fast, shaving two years off of a mid-level deal is a bonus as well. So we'd be accomplishing two things here -- taking a shot at developing young talent at a position of need, and clearing cap space for the future.

Redundant Depth at PF:
Look at who we have right now that can play PF: Thompson, Hayes, Landry, Patterson, Mbah A Moute. And that's not even counting Cousins' potential to play that position if we go for a shot blocking defensive big as his running mate at some point in the future. We could lose two of these guys and still have not enough minutes to split between them. It's not so much that I'd rather have those other guys than Thompson, it's that Thompson has some value to other teams for the same reason he has value to us -- he's a big body with a lot of experience who can perform capably, if not spectacularly, on both ends of the floor. Where I differ from others here is that I think that asset is more valuable to us right now as a trade chip than a rotation player.

Unless you think the next two months is more important to this franchise than the next four years (in which case, there's really nothing more for us to discuss) than you have to include Carl Landry as part of the equation. His contract demands it. Four years is a big commitment. And I don't see the duo of Landry and Thompson holding down the PF position for this team moving forward. Thompson, for all his supposed intangible benefits, at the end of the day is just not producing like a key player and hasn't for four years. He is hardly indispensable, that's all the stats I quoted before were supposed to point out. Does trading him make us undersized as a frontline for the rest of this season? Yes, but that's a problem regardless and clearing his contract allows us to actually address the problem. We don't need another backup PF -- like it or not, that's Landry. We need a backup C and a starting PF and I think it's abundantly clear that Jason Thompson, while a fine player, is neither of those things.

Of course if you could make the trade for Hayes, even better. He's dead weight on this team right now. If you could make the trade for Landry and keep Thompson I'm all for that as well, I just don't know that D'Alessandro and Malone would be for it considering they just signed him to a 4 year deal and he hasn't even been able to play yet.

...

Bottom line for me is that swapping any of our league average PFs for a 22 year old SF is a move that helps this team now (help at a position we need it badly) and in the future (less committed salary to redundant players -- ie Landry/Thompson). And it's a chance (maybe a remote one, but a chance nonetheless) to hit a homerun which is exactly the kind of trades that rebuilding teams need to be making. Remember how Vucevic could barely get off the bench for Philadelphia before Orlando traded for him? Now he's one of the top young centers in the league. How about Tobias Harris in Milwaukee before he too got to Orlando and exploded to the top of everyone's want list with a green light to shoot and 36min per game? If you never take a swing at these kinds of underutilized young players, you're never going to hit a homerun like that.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#55
I don't mind trading junk for junk just to give him a tryout. But I would only want to see him playing SF at first to see how it works out. I believe though that Outlaw is most likely better at SF than Williams so I don't see where he would get time unless they tried playing him at PF which I don't want to see.
There's no 3 on this team that assured any minutes. I don't think there would be an issue finding him time at all. On this team, the 3 has all the time in the world.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#57
Good question, to which I don't have the answer. However, there's perception, and then there's reality. Thabeet was the second pick in the draft, and you could have him for a soda and a bag of chips now. Fact is, all second picks aren't created equal. Bottom line is, Hayes is more skilled than Williams, so with Williams, your betting on age. What you have, are two players that aren't getting much playing time with their current teams. So if both teams think this trade might improve their team, then forget age and where anyone was drafted, and do the deal. This is Williams third year, and so far, he's proven nothing. That may not be totally his fault, but anyway you cut it, he's a gamble.
Corey Brewer took a while to be a valuable player in the NBA. Wesley Johnson looks like he's finding a niche (His D looked very good against the Kings). That's got to be the thinking - bet on the improvement of a young player over the known of an older vet. This is the kind of deal I would like.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#58
Sure.

But so is trading anything of any potential value for a undersized guy averaging 1.0pts 1.8rebs and 0.4ast on .278 shooting. If they had cap room I could maybe see them try to shuffle us a 2nd round pick for him. But with his contract he's probably a net negative value player at this point. Its hard to imagine that's the best offer you could come up with for Williams, degraded as his own value is at this point.
Look, you could be right. But lets not forget that were dealing with a smart coach in Adelman, who is very familiar with Hayes. I'm assuming that's why they inquired about Hayes in the first place. I guess I don't understand why when a team asks about a player like Hayes, we suddenly want to give them more than they asked for. I'd give them Hayes! If they want JT instead, then they can take a hike.
 
#60
considering how much Malone was gushing about him and how he felt so relieved that Luc didn't pick up his 6th during one of the possessions prior to the foulout against the Clips, it just shows how worthless the majority of our pieces are on our team.

Simply no value left aside from Cousins, Mac, Isaiah and maybe Vasquez.