Trade deadline approaching for Kings

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
If we trade Afflalo (or Tolliver) on draft day, would that team still have the option to waive them and only have the $1.5 mil (or $2 mil in Tolliver's case) count against the cap? Basically, when do Afflalo & Tolliver's 2017-18 contracts become guaranteed? I'm curious for trade proposal purposes. ;)
Tolliver no, Afflalo yes. Tolliver's team option comes up on June 1st, so that decision has to be made well before the draft. Afflalo's team option is the day after the NBA draft, so any team that traded for him in order to waive him would have to do so within a day. But I think that the timing of that team option is pretty enlightening as to its intention. It was designed to be trade bait.
 
Tolliver no, Afflalo yes. Tolliver's team option comes up on June 1st, so that decision has to be made well before the draft. Afflalo's team option is the day after the NBA draft, so any team that traded for him in order to waive him would have to do so within a day. But I think that the timing of that team option is pretty enlightening as to its intention. It was designed to be trade bait.
So basically any team that trades for Tolliver in the offseason will have his contract on their books for the 2017-18 season.

If a team trades for Afflalo on draft day (or before), they still have the option to waive him, and if a team trades for Afflalo after the draft, his contract will be on the books for the 2017-18 season.

Are those correct statements?
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
So basically any team that trades for Tolliver in the offseason will have his contract on their books for the 2017-18 season.

If a team trades for Afflalo on draft day (or before), they still have the option to waive him, and if a team trades for Afflalo after the draft, his contract will be on the books for the 2017-18 season.

Are those correct statements?
Yes, those are correct statements with a few caveats.

Obviously one caveat is that if the Kings decline the option on either player, at that point they become untradeable. I don't think you were unclear on this, just being thorough.

For Tolliver, it turns out it is still possible for a team to trade for him and NOT have his contract on the books for 2017-18, but only if they trade for him on or before 6/1. Since teams are free to make trades as soon as their season is over, that would leave a month-plus window during which Tolliver could be traded and then waived by the receiving team. However, very few trades actually get consummated during that window, historically.

For Afflalo, extend the statement one day - he can still be waived one day after draft day. But yeah, basically draft day is when it would likely happen.
 
So basically any team that trades for Tolliver in the offseason will have his contract on their books for the 2017-18 season.

If a team trades for Afflalo on draft day (or before), they still have the option to waive him, and if a team trades for Afflalo after the draft, his contract will be on the books for the 2017-18 season.

Are those correct statements?
So basically any team that trades for Tolliver in the offseason will have his contract on their books for the 2017-18 season.

If a team trades for Afflalo on draft day (or before), they still have the option to waive him, and if a team trades for Afflalo after the draft, his contract will be on the books for the 2017-18 season.

Are those correct statements?
Tolliver and Temple are vet's that I don't mind holding onto for next season. I think we will need a few positive role models to hold down the locker room, and those guys seem like a great fit for that role.

Afflalo on the other hand has seemed unhappy since he got here, so I'm really hoping we can get rid of him on draft day, and am pretty mad that we didn't at least get a 2nd rounder for him today.
 
Tolliver and Temple are vet's that I don't mind holding onto for next season. I think we will need a few positive role models to hold down the locker room, and those guys seem like a great fit for that role.
I'm aligned with this thinking as well, but let's not pretend that we wouldn't be willing to ship these guys off or waive them (more in Tolliver's case) if the right deal came along.
 
Before we have our collective hissy fit about not trading guys we had offers on, we need to keep in mind that we don't have any idea what those offers were. As we have seen with both the Cousins trade (one pick and a second rounder) and the Noel trade (basically two second rounders), as well as the fact that Boston somehow didn't plunk down their Brooklyn pick(s) for Paul George or Jimmy Butler, teams appear to be very highly valuing picks right now. I doubt we had any offers of first-round picks, either this year or in future years, for any of the Afflalo/Collison/McLemore trio. Even if we did, they may have come with long-term bad contracts attached. What if the Lakers said, "Sure, we'll give you our 2021 protected pick for Afflalo, but you have to take Luol Deng off our hands"? We just don't know what deals we rejected.

And frankly, right now I don't think that a second-round pick is much of an asset for us. Let's look at what we have coming in this draft. Assuming that we flounder around where we are now and keep our pick, we are looking at something like #7ish (our pick), #15ish (Pelicans' pick) and #35ish (Philly 2nd rounder). Even if we fool around and lose our pick to Chicago, we will have #15ish (Pelicans' pick), #35ish (Philly 2nd rounder), and #40+ (our own second rounder). Either way you look at it, we have three picks in the range where (in a draft like this year's) we ought to get three players we want to hold on to.

So let's look at our young assets for next year:
Third-year: Cauley-Stein
Second-year: Hield, Richardson, Papagiannis, Labissiere
First-year: Three picks, Bogdanovic, (Isaiah Cousins)

That's NINE players (and ten if we actually follow through with iCuz) with three years or less NBA experience.

On top of that, we'll have Koufos, Temple, Galloway (not opting out), and Gay (probably not opting out). This is before asking the question of whether we bring Tolliver back or not. So that means we've got at least thirteen roster spots accounted for, with two rotational vets, one good starting player who is an injury question mark, and a ton of young guys trying to figure out where they fit. Should we REALLY add three more second-round picks to this mix? What good does that do us?

Afflalo is certainly gone. We can trade him up to draft day with next year's team option intact, so he's definitely super salary bait. Don't worry about it, we'll almost certainly find a deal for him before it's all over.

Collison is good to keep in our hip pocket. We retain the ability to sign-and-trade him now. Or heck, we could just re-sign him. He's a decent stop-gap at PG, and while he's not what you would want as a starter if we were a playoff team, we aren't going to be a playoff team, and he'll come relatively cheap and probably cheaper than a resurrected Lawson. I don't think we needed to burn an asset like that if we couldn't get anything decent back.

McLemore seems to have no real future with this team, but he's an RFA, and if he stays hot maybe we hold on to him. Maybe we try a sign-and-trade there.

Again, we don't know what offers we got on these guys, but maybe, just maybe, they weren't really any good. And maybe rather than play the 76ers' game of stocking up second-round picks we can't use, we decided to let things play out. Because of team options, RFA, and sign-and-trade rights (as well as the chance we keep Collison/McLemore), all of these guys have potential value over the summer that could very well exceed what we were offered now.
Well why not take bad contracts back? We aren't going anywhere over the next years and we won't be able to sign FAs after we just pissed off one of the most influential agents. Cap space doesn't seem very important right now.
Why once again the "we don't know what was offered" excuse? Obviously we started a youth movement. And obviously we shouldn't care about the Playoffs anymore, if we don't want to lose our pick.
Holding onto Afflalo, Tyreke and Collison just doesn't make sense.
We are already short on picks for our rebuild.
Vlade not getting anything back for these guys is just another sign for his incompetence and another sign, that the Kings aren't even able to execute a rebuild properly.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
I'd imagine the reason Vlade didn't trade one of those three players rumored to be on the block is because they couldn't receive any draft picks in return,which is understandable because no one is giving you anything of worth for a expiring.
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
Before we have our collective hissy fit about not trading guys we had offers on, we need to keep in mind that we don't have any idea what those offers were. As we have seen with both the Cousins trade (one pick and a second rounder) and the Noel trade (basically two second rounders), as well as the fact that Boston somehow didn't plunk down their Brooklyn pick(s) for Paul George or Jimmy Butler, teams appear to be very highly valuing picks right now. I doubt we had any offers of first-round picks, either this year or in future years, for any of the Afflalo/Collison/McLemore trio. Even if we did, they may have come with long-term bad contracts attached. What if the Lakers said, "Sure, we'll give you our 2021 protected pick for Afflalo, but you have to take Luol Deng off our hands"? We just don't know what deals we rejected.

And frankly, right now I don't think that a second-round pick is much of an asset for us. Let's look at what we have coming in this draft. Assuming that we flounder around where we are now and keep our pick, we are looking at something like #7ish (our pick), #15ish (Pelicans' pick) and #35ish (Philly 2nd rounder). Even if we fool around and lose our pick to Chicago, we will have #15ish (Pelicans' pick), #35ish (Philly 2nd rounder), and #40+ (our own second rounder). Either way you look at it, we have three picks in the range where (in a draft like this year's) we ought to get three players we want to hold on to.

So let's look at our young assets for next year:
Third-year: Cauley-Stein
Second-year: Hield, Richardson, Papagiannis, Labissiere
First-year: Three picks, Bogdanovic, (Isaiah Cousins)

That's NINE players (and ten if we actually follow through with iCuz) with three years or less NBA experience.

On top of that, we'll have Koufos, Temple, Galloway (not opting out), and Gay (probably not opting out). This is before asking the question of whether we bring Tolliver back or not. So that means we've got at least thirteen roster spots accounted for, with two rotational vets, one good starting player who is an injury question mark, and a ton of young guys trying to figure out where they fit. Should we REALLY add three more second-round picks to this mix? What good does that do us?

Afflalo is certainly gone. We can trade him up to draft day with next year's team option intact, so he's definitely super salary bait. Don't worry about it, we'll almost certainly find a deal for him before it's all over.

Collison is good to keep in our hip pocket. We retain the ability to sign-and-trade him now. Or heck, we could just re-sign him. He's a decent stop-gap at PG, and while he's not what you would want as a starter if we were a playoff team, we aren't going to be a playoff team, and he'll come relatively cheap and probably cheaper than a resurrected Lawson. I don't think we needed to burn an asset like that if we couldn't get anything decent back.

McLemore seems to have no real future with this team, but he's an RFA, and if he stays hot maybe we hold on to him. Maybe we try a sign-and-trade there.

Again, we don't know what offers we got on these guys, but maybe, just maybe, they weren't really any good. And maybe rather than play the 76ers' game of stocking up second-round picks we can't use, we decided to let things play out. Because of team options, RFA, and sign-and-trade rights (as well as the chance we keep Collison/McLemore), all of these guys have potential value over the summer that could very well exceed what we were offered now.
I agree with all of this, we weren't going to get useful picks for any of these guys with so many more desirable players on the market. However, hanging onto all of them long enough to watch them expire is still an indictment of all the front office dysfunction which got us to this position in the first place. We've been arguing about this all season, but I really wish we had a front office who would take a look at their situation and get aggressive about improving things within the first two months of the season rather than waiting until we have two frantic days to negotiate and end up with nothing good. We may have made the playoffs with Cousins but it would have been because we squeaked in with a losing record. That is not an all-in situation because it's not a situation that leads to any long-term success. We're patient when we should be aggressive and then when we do decide to deal it's from a position of desperation and there's nothing out there.

I suppose you could make the argument that we had nothing to trade that teams would actually want in November and December either, but who's fault is that? Same people. Your summary of the players on rookie contracts we currently have on the roster does bring up an interesting point though that hasn't been discussed yet. If we have nine players on rookie deals, many of them of the 1-2 million per year type, how are we going to actually reach the salary floor next season? They may have to bring back Tolliver and Afflalo. Don't be suprised if we bring back Darren at $18 million per just because the money has to go somewhere.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Why once again the "we don't know what was offered" excuse?
Well, because we don't know what was offered.

Well why not take bad contracts back?
Because taking bad contracts for the sake of taking bad contracts is not smart. If you're so desperate for a trade at any cost that you'll take on bad contracts, how about this for a trade? I'll give you a $10 bill, and you can give me a $20 bill. Why not?

Of course, normally one would assume that if bad contracts were offered in return that there would also be some sort of sweetener. But the value of the sweetener has to be compared with the cost of the bad contract. Luol Deng, who is not a good basketball player anymore, has three years and $64M left on his deal. Arron Afflalo has no years and a $1.5M buyout. Luol Deng will cost $62.5M more than Afflalo over the life of the contract (technically a bit more because of a prorated difference this year as well, but you get the point). Now, what kind of draft pick smorgasbord would I need to eat $62.5M? Well, barring a #1 overall pick or something...it's not possible. I don't care how many second round picks you could get, they're not going to entice me to eat $62.5M of Deng, one because NBA teams have limited roster spots so the cumulative value of more and more second round picks becomes smaller and smaller, and two because whenever you REALLY need a second round pick you can usually buy one for about $1M.

So there you go. Luol Deng is a bad contract, and one that you literally could not give me enough sweetener to take back. Why not take back bad contracts? Because sometimes taking back bad contracts is worse than NOT making a trade.

Once again, I will offer the "oh so tired excuse" that we don't know what was offered. One would guess that none of the offers were particularly compelling. Do you really think we turned down a first round pick for any of these guys?
 
I'd imagine the reason Vlade didn't trade one of those three players rumored to be on the block is because they couldn't receive any draft picks in return,which is understandable because no one is giving you anything of worth for a expiring.
Uhm Serge Ibaka?
After all DC is a very good backup PG.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
Uhm Serge Ibaka?
After all DC is a very good backup PG.
Fair point. I think Wizards would of been a nice landing spot for him, they did give up their 1st and Nicholson for Bogdanovic but that was probably the incentive to take Nicholson off their hands for that pick. Similar situations might of arose for the Kings and they decided to not pursue it. Besides, what other team out there would of gave their 1st for a DC rental? Cleveland?
 
Well, because we don't know what was offered.



Because taking bad contracts for the sake of taking bad contracts is not smart. If you're so desperate for a trade at any cost that you'll take on bad contracts, how about this for a trade? I'll give you a $10 bill, and you can give me a $20 bill. Why not?

Of course, normally one would assume that if bad contracts were offered in return that there would also be some sort of sweetener. But the value of the sweetener has to be compared with the cost of the bad contract. Luol Deng, who is not a good basketball player anymore, has three years and $64M left on his deal. Arron Afflalo has no years and a $1.5M buyout. Luol Deng will cost $62.5M more than Afflalo over the life of the contract (technically a bit more because of a prorated difference this year as well, but you get the point). Now, what kind of draft pick smorgasbord would I need to eat $62.5M? Well, barring a #1 overall pick or something...it's not possible. I don't care how many second round picks you could get, they're not going to entice me to eat $62.5M of Deng, one because NBA teams have limited roster spots so the cumulative value of more and more second round picks becomes smaller and smaller, and two because whenever you REALLY need a second round pick you can usually buy one for about $1M.

So there you go. Luol Deng is a bad contract, and one that you literally could not give me enough sweetener to take back. Why not take back bad contracts? Because sometimes taking back bad contracts is worse than NOT making a trade.

Once again, I will offer the "oh so tired excuse" that we don't know what was offered. One would guess that none of the offers were particularly compelling. Do you really think we turned down a first round pick for any of these guys?
And what to do with our cap space next year, when we don't take bad contracts back? I mean this is the usual rebuild through the draft stuff - get some sweetener for bad contracts you can eat, because your roster is mainly on rookie deals and pile up assets until you score a homerun in the draft.
I don't know if we turned down a first round pick, but even a solid young player, we could develop would be a valuable asset as a sweetener.
I mean Kj MCDaniels go traded for cash considerations. Just saying...
 
Your summary of the players on rookie contracts we currently have on the roster does bring up an interesting point though that hasn't been discussed yet. If we have nine players on rookie deals, many of them of the 1-2 million per year type, how are we going to actually reach the salary floor next season? They may have to bring back Tolliver and Afflalo. Don't be suprised if we bring back Darren at $18 million per just because the money has to go somewhere.
We really don't "need" to hit the salary floor. The difference will just be divided among the players we do have under contract. The onus should be collecting as much young talent as possible right now.
 
Before we have our collective hissy fit about not trading guys we had offers on, we need to keep in mind that we don't have any idea what those offers were. As we have seen with both the Cousins trade (one pick and a second rounder) and the Noel trade (basically two second rounders), as well as the fact that Boston somehow didn't plunk down their Brooklyn pick(s) for Paul George or Jimmy Butler, teams appear to be very highly valuing picks right now. I doubt we had any offers of first-round picks, either this year or in future years, for any of the Afflalo/Collison/McLemore trio. Even if we did, they may have come with long-term bad contracts attached. What if the Lakers said, "Sure, we'll give you our 2021 protected pick for Afflalo, but you have to take Luol Deng off our hands"? We just don't know what deals we rejected.

And frankly, right now I don't think that a second-round pick is much of an asset for us. Let's look at what we have coming in this draft. Assuming that we flounder around where we are now and keep our pick, we are looking at something like #7ish (our pick), #15ish (Pelicans' pick) and #35ish (Philly 2nd rounder). Even if we fool around and lose our pick to Chicago, we will have #15ish (Pelicans' pick), #35ish (Philly 2nd rounder), and #40+ (our own second rounder). Either way you look at it, we have three picks in the range where (in a draft like this year's) we ought to get three players we want to hold on to.

So let's look at our young assets for next year:
Third-year: Cauley-Stein
Second-year: Hield, Richardson, Papagiannis, Labissiere
First-year: Three picks, Bogdanovic, (Isaiah Cousins)

That's NINE players (and ten if we actually follow through with iCuz) with three years or less NBA experience.

On top of that, we'll have Koufos, Temple, Galloway (not opting out), and Gay (probably not opting out). This is before asking the question of whether we bring Tolliver back or not. So that means we've got at least thirteen roster spots accounted for, with two rotational vets, one good starting player who is an injury question mark, and a ton of young guys trying to figure out where they fit. Should we REALLY add three more second-round picks to this mix? What good does that do us?

Afflalo is certainly gone. We can trade him up to draft day with next year's team option intact, so he's definitely super salary bait. Don't worry about it, we'll almost certainly find a deal for him before it's all over.

Collison is good to keep in our hip pocket. We retain the ability to sign-and-trade him now. Or heck, we could just re-sign him. He's a decent stop-gap at PG, and while he's not what you would want as a starter if we were a playoff team, we aren't going to be a playoff team, and he'll come relatively cheap and probably cheaper than a resurrected Lawson. I don't think we needed to burn an asset like that if we couldn't get anything decent back.

McLemore seems to have no real future with this team, but he's an RFA, and if he stays hot maybe we hold on to him. Maybe we try a sign-and-trade there.

Again, we don't know what offers we got on these guys, but maybe, just maybe, they weren't really any good. And maybe rather than play the 76ers' game of stocking up second-round picks we can't use, we decided to let things play out. Because of team options, RFA, and sign-and-trade rights (as well as the chance we keep Collison/McLemore), all of these guys have potential value over the summer that could very well exceed what we were offered now.
This is what I was thinking as well. Sounds like most teams were trying to dump aging veterans with too much left on contracts.

You serious? Our best player is Darren Collison. We're winning less than 5 games the rest of the way.
That would be perfect. Of course I had an over bet on the Kings at 33.5 games, so I'm willing to punt my $100 for a top 8 draft pick.
 
Honestly who is surprised we did jack squat as the deadline passed? We trade our allstar and hint at a rebuild. Then instead of unloading our other vets with expiring contracts, we keep them. All we need to do now to complete the trifecta of idiocy is start kk/tolliver/afflalo/Ben/dc the rest of the year and win enough to end up with the 11th pick, (which we lose to the bulls) cuz...kangz
 
Honestly who is surprised we did jack squat as the deadline passed? We trade our allstar and hint at a rebuild. Then instead of unloading our other vets with expiring contracts, we keep them. All we need to do now to complete the trifecta of idiocy is start kk/tolliver/afflalo/Ben/dc the rest of the year and win enough to end up with the 11th pick, (which we lose to the bulls) cuz...kangz
Definitely not surprised. I also believe Vlade is no where near qualified for the job but as I mentioned above I thought the Catanella hiring was to help with such decisions.

I real don't think Sac will be good enough with the remaining vets to lose our pick, however, watching NO carefully the rest of the season. Should we hope they squeak into the playoffs and assure a mid 1st round pick, or hope they are in the lottery which could pay better dividends but also chance losing it if they get a top 3 pick.
 
Definitely not surprised. I also believe Vlade is no where near qualified for the job but as I mentioned above I thought the Catanella hiring was to help with such decisions.

I real don't think Sac will be good enough with the remaining vets to lose our pick, however, watching NO carefully the rest of the season. Should we hope they squeak into the playoffs and assure a mid 1st round pick, or hope they are in the lottery which could pay better dividends but also chance losing it if they get a top 3 pick.
I would expect the Pelicans to struggle a bit early. Not because they made the wrong move...believe that will be laughing at the Kings for YEARS to come. It will be because Boogie is such a massive piece of their offense now so incorporating Boogie, AD and Jrue will take time and there might be some early growing pains just as we had to start off the season. It might very well mean that Kings get the lottery pick this year.

Getting the lottery pick is one thing. Making it count is a completely different ball game that the Kings have not been good at for years now.