Kings trade Dedmon for Parker and Len (merged)

[Capt. Factorial]

When Dedmon was playing in the last month, his length and defense were clearly having a positive effect on this team. So what does Divac do? He trades him. Sure, Dedmon had said he wanted out. Just like Webber told Petrie he wanted out. Petrie basically told Webber he didn't care, he was a King. IMO, Divac should have done the same damned thing: Dedmon, grow up, play, earn your money as a King, and like it.

Outside of wanting to be traded, there are about zero similarities between Webber and Dedmon. For his pre-injury years in Sac, Webber was a top-20 player in the league by WS and a top-10 player in the league by BPM/VORP. Dedmon did not crack the top 280 players (with at least 500 minutes, no less) in any of those stats during his stay in Sac. One of these players is worth doubling down on, even if they are unhappy where they are. One of them is not.

 

[Kingster]

Outside of wanting to be traded, there are about zero similarities between Webber and Dedmon. For his pre-injury years in Sac, Webber was a top-20 player in the league by WS and a top-10 player in the league by BPM/VORP. Dedmon did not crack the top 280 players (with at least 500 minutes, no less) in any of those stats during his stay in Sac. One of these players is worth doubling down on, even if they are unhappy where they are. One of them is not.

One could argue there is even more reason to appease an uppity All Star who wants out than an ok center. What kind of adverse publicity are you going to get with a disgruntled Dedmon? None. Everybody is going to be rolling their eyes at a guy like Dedmon trying to bully Kings' management. The response: Maybe you should get your 3 point percentage over 20% before complaining about Kings' management, who just signed you to a multi-million dollar contract. On the other hand, it can become a full fledged disaster with a high profile player. Look at AD in New Orleans. It was a huge league-wide and nationwide stink, with the media chiming in about the incompetent NO management that couldn't put good players around AD. Nobody cares about Dedmon's feelings around the league. Why the heck should Divac? If every player who was temporarily disgruntled with the Kings and wanted out was granted their wish, this team would be devoid of players. It's always greener on the other side, especially when your team is losing and you're not playing as much as you would like.

 

[Cojc]

Dedmon took the money and for whatever his reason didn’t perform up to what we expected. We wasted a season on him and whoever’s Fault it was we turned his contract into more manageable contracts.

Hey who knows maybe Parker will turn out great for us and Len is a serviceable center in some capacity for us. I like to look on the bright side and hopefully it turns out for us and the new guys.

 

[SLAB]

^^^. I take Jabari Parker over Dedmon ten times out of ten for the hypothetical upside that Dedmon doesn’t have. Even with the seconds thrown in, I really give Vlade props on that one. Jabari is the type of talent teams like the Kings need to take a risk on. Will it work out? Eh... honestly probably not. Can it work out? Just maybe there’s a chance.

 

[hrdboild]

One could argue there is even more reason to appease an uppity All Star who wants out than an ok center. What kind of adverse publicity are you going to get with a disgruntled Dedmon? None. Everybody is going to be rolling their eyes at a guy like Dedmon trying to bully Kings' management. The response: Maybe you should get your 3 point percentage over 20% before complaining about Kings' management, who just signed you to a multi-million dollar contract. On the other hand, it can become a full fledged disaster with a high profile player. Look at AD in New Orleans. It was a huge league-wide and nationwide stink, with the media chiming in about the incompetent NO management that couldn't put good players around AD. Nobody cares about Dedmon's feelings around the league. Why the heck should Divac? If every player who was temporarily disgruntled with the Kings and wanted out was granted their wish, this team would be devoid of players. It's always greener on the other side, especially when your team is losing and you're not playing as much as you would like.

Dedmon didn't try to bully King's management. He basically said "I came here to play, if you're not going to play me, it's probably better if I'm somewhere else". He lost his starting spot after 4 games this season. 4 games! Are you really going to argue that he was so bad in those 4 games that he deserved to be benched for the rest of the season? That's the smallest of small sample sizes. Something wasn't working obviously because the team looked terrible in those 4 games but usually if you sign a guy for 3 years at $13 million a season you don't give up on him after 4 games. Just because he got a nice contract doesn't mean he needs to suck it up and spend the next 3 years on the bench. He's 30 years old. For a lot of NBA players, those age 30-33 seasons are the tail end of their productive career. Here's his exact quote:

"I appreciate [the Kings' investment in me]. I definitely appreciate it, but I want to be somewhere where I get to play. That's my biggest thing. I'm trying to play and I've been told I'm no longer in the rotation here, so there's really nothing to wait on." (link)

What's remarkable about this situation is how quickly it progressed from Dedmon signing a 3 year deal with the team in July, getting benched in October, and then the report coming out that he has formally requested a trade in December. That's got to be some kind of record. I would say it's almost without precedent except the George Hill situation 2 years ago happened almost as fast (but without the benching or formal trade request). I guarantee this goes beyond Dedmon's three point percentage and there's probably a lot going on that we will never know about.

 

[Kingster]

Dedmon didn't try to bully King's management. He basically said "I came here to play, if you're not going to play me, it's probably better if I'm somewhere else". He lost his starting spot after 4 games this season. 4 games! Are you really going to argue that he was so bad in those 4 games that he deserved to be benched for the rest of the season? That's the smallest of small sample sizes. Something wasn't working obviously because the team looked terrible in those 4 games but usually if you sign a guy for 3 years at $13 million a season you don't give up on him after 4 games. Just because he got a nice contract doesn't mean he needs to suck it up and spend the next 3 years on the bench. He's 30 years old. For a lot of NBA players, those age 30-33 seasons are the tail end of their productive career. Here's his exact quote:



What's remarkable about this situation is how quickly it progressed from Dedmon signing a 3 year deal with the team in July, getting benched in October, and then the report coming out that he has formally requested a trade in December. That's got to be some kind of record. I would say it's almost without precedent except the George Hill situation 2 years ago happened almost as fast (but without the benching or formal trade request). I guarantee this goes beyond Dedmon's three point percentage and there's probably a lot going on that we will never know about.

Nonsense. If he were that sanguine about the issue, it wouldn't have led to him to issue public trade demands with the end result of being traded to Atlanta. The lesson: Make a public stink and you can get out of Sacto, no problem.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

The lesson: Make a public stink and you can get out of Sacto, no problem.

I know you disagree, but I still think front office resistance to trade demands should be directly proportional (not inversely) to player quality.

But here's one other difference between the Webber situation (or, lest we forget, the Cousins situation with Westphal) and the Dedmon situation. Webber and Cousins were not here by choice. Webber was traded here, Cousins was drafted here. There's a certain extent to which a front office has to put their foot down to protect their CBA-established "rights" to a player they trade for, or a player they draft. If you trade for players *that you want*, or if you draft players, and those players are on your team without their explicit consent, you can't just let them go because they complain. That would establish a precedent and severely hamper the team when trading for/drafting players.

Dedmon, on the other hand, *freely signed* his contract to be here. Unlike Webber and Cousins, he was responsible for his own mistake. Now, we don't anticipate this happening all that often, but when a player signs a contract, and then regrets it (and you feel you aren't going to be getting full value out of that player, due to attitude or whatever) then it's probably best to let them go. It sends the message to future free agents that if they think they want to be in Sac, but then they decide they hate it, they've got a decent chance of being accommodated in a move somewhere else. That would make free agents *more* likely to sign here because they can see there's at least some insurance for regret. If we refuse to move Dedmon when he's unhappy, why does the next MLE-level player sign with us if he's not 100% sure?

TL;DR - Offer "second chances" on FA contracts, particularly mid-level ones, to increase the probability of FAs signing of their own volition. Do not offer "second chances" on draft picks and trades, particularly high-value players, to prevent wastage of draft picks and trade assets.

 

[hrdboild]

Nonsense. If he were that sanguine about the issue, it wouldn't have led to him to issue public trade demands with the end result of being traded to Atlanta. The lesson: Make a public stink and you can get out of Sacto, no problem.

He didn't make a public stink. A reporter asked him what he thought about not playing and he said how he felt. At the time (mid December) he wasn't logging any minutes at all. Sure he could have asked to keep it off the record, he could have gone to see Luke and asked if there was a way to earn more minutes instead. This wasn't the best way to express his frustration and the league fined him $50,000 because of that and now he's on a different team. It was a crapty situation but if your takeaway from this is "he didn't want to be here" then I think you're really missing the point. He didn't want to sit on the end of a bench all season. Maybe as a 30 year old in his 8th season in the league he expected the coach to give him some kind of indication of how he could go from not playing at all to back in the rotation?

It's not like he was sulking that whole time either:

Ariza said he isn’t concerned about Dedmon becoming a distraction to the team.

“Not at all,” Ariza said. “He’s been extremely professional through not playing. He just signed here as a free agent and they signed him to a pretty good deal, and he’s been at the end of the bench, cheering. He’s been focused. He’s been teaching. He’s been helping, so I think he’s been extremely professional.”

Fox agreed with that assessment.

“Obviously, as a player in this league, you want to play, but he’s been great,” Fox said. “He still brings energy. He’s still a professional. He comes to practice and does what he needs to do. He gets along with everybody and he’s been great. Obviously everybody wants to play, but he hasn’t been a problem for us at all, not even a little.” (link)

I wasn't really following this story at the time but reading it now, Luke's comments in that article are a little worrying...

Walton was asked before Friday’s game against the Phoenix Suns how he would handle a player who has made it clear he wants to be traded.

“He hasn’t made that clear to me,” Walton said. “It’s like I always say, ‘If it’s noise on the outside, leave it on the outside.’ If you have something and you want to bring it to me, I’ve got an open-door policy. We can talk about that, but as far as I know that’s outside news still. We’re focused on our group and what we need to do.”

I get what Luke is saying, you prefer to keep these things in house but there's a rather startling lack of awareness there as well. If you make the decision to yank a guy out of the rotation completely I would hope that you've also given him exact guidelines for how he can earn those minutes back. Buddy Hield had almost the exact same reaction when he was taken out of the starting lineup. Your job as the coach is to find ways to win but this isn't a video game, you're still dealing with people. I don't think a veteran player being upset that he's not getting any playing time is "outside news", however you hear about it. Luke being so willing to switch up his rotation while simultaneously expressing no concern for how his players may feel about that is a worrying combination.

 

[HebrewHammer]

^^^. I take Jabari Parker over Dedmon ten times out of ten for the hypothetical upside that Dedmon doesn’t have. Even with the seconds thrown in, I really give Vlade props on that one. Jabari is the type of talent teams like the Kings need to take a risk on. Will it work out? Eh... honestly probably not. Can it work out? Just maybe there’s a chance.

Have you seen the numbers Dedmon has put up in Atlanta since he got back?
Those are exactly the numbers of the rim-protecting and floor stretching big that you need to put next to Bagley.
Small sample size, perhaps? But then why did Dedmon got kicked to the curb so soon, after 4 games starting, one might ask?
I can't get excited about Parker, personally. Gives me a vibe of being a likely blueprint for Bagley's career.

 

[Kingster]

He didn't make a public stink. A reporter asked him what he thought about not playing and he said how he felt. At the time (mid December) he wasn't logging any minutes at all. Sure he could have asked to keep it off the record, he could have gone to see Luke and asked if there was a way to earn more minutes instead. This wasn't the best way to express his frustration and the league fined him $50,000 because of that and now he's on a different team. It was a crapty situation but if your takeaway from this is "he didn't want to be here" then I think you're really missing the point. He didn't want to sit on the end of a bench all season. Maybe as a 30 year old in his 8th season in the league he expected the coach to give him some kind of indication of how he could go from not playing at all to back in the rotation?

It's not like he was sulking that whole time either:



I wasn't really following this story at the time but reading it now, Luke's comments in that article are a little worrying...



I get what Luke is saying, you prefer to keep these things in house but there's a rather startling lack of awareness there as well. If you make the decision to yank a guy out of the rotation completely I would hope that you've also given him exact guidelines for how he can earn those minutes back. Buddy Hield had almost the exact same reaction when he was taken out of the starting lineup. Your job as the coach is to find ways to win but this isn't a video game, you're still dealing with people. I don't think a veteran player being upset that he's not getting any playing time is "outside news", however you hear about it. Luke being so willing to switch up his rotation while simultaneously expressing no concern for how his players may feel about that is a worrying combination.

LOL!

 

[Kingster]

I know you disagree, but I still think front office resistance to trade demands should be directly proportional (not inversely) to player quality.

But here's one other difference between the Webber situation (or, lest we forget, the Cousins situation with Westphal) and the Dedmon situation. Webber and Cousins were not here by choice. Webber was traded here, Cousins was drafted here. There's a certain extent to which a front office has to put their foot down to protect their CBA-established "rights" to a player they trade for, or a player they draft. If you trade for players *that you want*, or if you draft players, and those players are on your team without their explicit consent, you can't just let them go because they complain. That would establish a precedent and severely hamper the team when trading for/drafting players.

Dedmon, on the other hand, *freely signed* his contract to be here. Unlike Webber and Cousins, he was responsible for his own mistake. Now, we don't anticipate this happening all that often, but when a player signs a contract, and then regrets it (and you feel you aren't going to be getting full value out of that player, due to attitude or whatever) then it's probably best to let them go. It sends the message to future free agents that if they think they want to be in Sac, but then they decide they hate it, they've got a decent chance of being accommodated in a move somewhere else. That would make free agents *more* likely to sign here because they can see there's at least some insurance for regret. If we refuse to move Dedmon when he's unhappy, why does the next MLE-level player sign with us if he's not 100% sure?

TL;DR - Offer "second chances" on FA contracts, particularly mid-level ones, to increase the probability of FAs signing of their own volition. Do not offer "second chances" on draft picks and trades, particularly high-value players, to prevent wastage of draft picks and trade assets.

That's the best argument for the Divac decision, but not good enough. Maybe if one signs a FA contract one should believe that it is like any other contract - you abide by it even if you have buyer's remorse after the fact. Maybe if a FA signs in Sacto he should not believe that he can get out of the deal, no problem, that Sacto is not a push over, that Sacto deserves to be treated like any other contractual partner. The Kings (and their fans!) need certainty on FA acquisitions. I'd rather not get the occasional wishy-washy FA because of your aforementioned reason and be more certain that the players we get are fully buying-in. This is not a backwater bus stop until they finally figure out what they want to do and where they want to go.

 

[bajaden]

Have you seen the numbers Dedmon has put up in Atlanta since he got back?
Those are exactly the numbers of the rim-protecting and floor stretching big that you need to put next to Bagley.
Small sample size, perhaps? But then why did Dedmon got kicked to the curb so soon, after 4 games starting, one might ask?
I can't get excited about Parker, personally. Gives me a vibe of being a likely blueprint for Bagley's career.

I guess losing your starting position after five games could be considered being kicked to the curb, but he was god awful in those five games, and even after losing his starting job, he still played and got minutes through October and November. 18 games in total in those two months in which he averaged just a tick under 15 minutes a game while averaging, 5.3 ppg, 4.0 rpg, and 0.4 blks per game. All while shooting 22.7% from the three.

During that same 18 games, Holmes, was a backup for the first five, and didn't get as minutes during them, averaged 11.0 ppg, 8.2 rpg, and 1.5 blocks per game. Who would you have started. Look, I have no idea why Dedmon played so badly, but if were being honest, he was terrible. Why he's suddenly playing the way we expected him to in Atlanta, I have no idea. But I don't fault Walton for benching him. There were some games where he was hard to watch. At times it appeared he had no idea where he was on the floor.

There's plenty to blame Walton for, but to my mind, that's not one of them. Dedmon is an experienced player who was being paid 13.3 million a year to produce. Walton shouldn't have to babysit him.

 

[NME]

There's no accounting for how bad Dedmon looked here, but I still wish we'd hung onto him until he had a chance to play a run of games next to Bagley as intended, even if that was next season. I don't know where else we're going to find a center who, at least in theory, can cover Bagley's biggest weaknesses. It's even more pressure on Bagley now to improve dramatically in multiple areas.

 

[fansinceday1]

Dedmon didn't try to bully King's management. He basically said "I came here to play, if you're not going to play me, it's probably better if I'm somewhere else". He lost his starting spot after 4 games this season. 4 games! Are you really going to argue that he was so bad in those 4 games that he deserved to be benched for the rest of the season? That's the smallest of small sample sizes. Something wasn't working obviously because the team looked terrible in those 4 games but usually if you sign a guy for 3 years at $13 million a season you don't give up on him after 4 games. Just because he got a nice contract doesn't mean he needs to suck it up and spend the next 3 years on the bench. He's 30 years old. For a lot of NBA players, those age 30-33 seasons are the tail end of their productive career. Here's his exact quote:



What's remarkable about this situation is how quickly it progressed from Dedmon signing a 3 year deal with the team in July, getting benched in October, and then the report coming out that he has formally requested a trade in December. That's got to be some kind of record. I would say it's almost without precedent except the George Hill situation 2 years ago happened almost as fast (but without the benching or formal trade request). I guarantee this goes beyond Dedmon's three point percentage and there's probably a lot going on that we will never know about.

Grant and Doug were talking about this before the all star break. They said that the FO knew in training camp that they had made a mistake. So yeah, its not a surprise that he was benched after 4 games.

 

[jellyfish]

Grant and Doug were talking about this before the all star break. They said that the FO knew in training camp that they had made a mistake. So yeah, its not a surprise that he was benched after 4 games.

Which is still later than some of us when we saw how much he was making.

 

[Turgenev]

The Kings get a cheap, quick look at Len and Parker. Dedmond didn't look good when he was here but the front office made a defensive rotation of sorts and flipped him for some value.

 

[KainLear]

Which is still later than some of us when we saw how much he was making.

Unlike the FO, you were only making that assumption from how much he was making, whereas FO saw what he did in training camp. That's hardly at all the same.

 

[jiimbob]

The Kings get a cheap, quick look at Len and Parker. Dedmond didn't look good when he was here but the front office made a defensive rotation of sorts and flipped him for some value.

Yep, a two and a five pick. Both very young, play them and let’s see what we have.

 

[joemama]

Kevin Chouinard @KLChouinard
Interesting wrinkle here: Dedmon as a spacing 5 with Hunter at the 4 and Hunter being used as a roll man.

Jason Jackson @TheJaxShow
15-0 run for the Hawks …they are up 11 with 5:38 remaining in the half #HEATLive #HEATTwitter