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Knicks Sell Low, Hawks Hope to Buy High on THJ

On June 25th, the New York Knicks traded Tim Hardaway Jr. for the draft rights to Jerian Grant, taken by the Atlanta Hawks at pick #19. Atlanta, which had traded back from #15 – part of Brooklyn’s trade for Joe Johnson – eventually also acquired two future second-round picks from Washington in addition to Hardaway, the former Wolverine who is now entering his third season in the NBA.

The trade, from Atlanta’s point of view, was considered a mistake, earning a “D” grade from ESPN’s Kevin Pelton:

After a solid rookie season, Hardaway regressed badly in Year 2, making just 34.3 percent of his 3-pointers and posting a below-average true shooting percentage. Hardaway needs to be a knockdown shooter because he's such a liability at the other end of the floor… Perhaps the Hawks believe that in their system they can develop Hardaway into a capable defender… Consider me skeptical…

During the draft, #NBATwitter was shocked at the move:

Even if Atlanta “lost” the trade, the clear short- and long-term winner in this deal is Hardaway – regardless of how the 19th pick (Notre Dame superstar senior point guard Jerian Grant, who also has NBA bloodlines, was taken, but Delon Wright, Justin Anderson, Bobby Portis, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Tyus Jones were also available) turns out, the Knicks parlayed an expendable asset (which was evidently overvalued with that pick) into Grant’s potential as a starting NBA point guard and Hardaway moves from the 17-win Knicks to the 60-win Hawks at a critical juncture in his career.

New York was the worst NBA team in several advanced metrics last season and, because of trades and injuries, the only players to play in at least half of their games (with a minimum of 1,000 total minutes) were Shane Larkin, Jason Smith, Hardaway, Langston Galloway, Quincy Acy, and Jose Calderon. Of those guys, Calderon and Smith had the highest career PER numbers; theoretically, Hardaway was the third-best player on the most abysmal team in the league. That might actually be overstating things, because it’s hard to accurately measure defensive impact and Hardaway was frequently criticized for a lack of ability and / or effort on that end of the floor.

In hindsight, getting drafted by the Knicks was clearly poor for Timmy’s career development. After declaring for the draft in the weeks following Michigan’s Final Four run, Hardaway parlayed a strong set of workouts and what was perceived to be a weak draft class into a first round contract with New York. Tim was pretty solid as a rookie – he tallied 20 or more points ten times and shot 130-358 (36%) from three, a solid clip and substantial volume. He finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting and wound up on the first-team All-Rookie team alongside Michael Carter-Williams, Victor Oladipo, Trey Burke, and Mason Plumlee. Although the ‘13 draft class has seemed as mediocre as predicted, Hardaway did have a better rookie season than two players with potential star power – the Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Rudy Gobert (a French center who plays with Trey in Utah).
 

[After THE JUMP: there is no sauce affiliated with Philly.]

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Tim Hardaway is essentially the same player now as he was during at Michigan – a hot-and-cold shooter who took a lot of shots either way; a defender who was middling at best, even at the college level; a guy who rarely passed and didn’t do as well on the glass as many would have hoped. Sometimes that erratic shooting worked out in Michigan’s favor:

ESPN Game Recap Headline

From UMHoops's coverage of a critical 30-point game and road OT win over Iowa

and sometimes, it didn’t work out:

It’s worth noting that he did distribute the ball well in these games – against very high-level opponents – but his efficiency numbers were extremely poor as well. Timmy also shot just 3 for 25 on career three-point attempts against Michigan State (but won four of six career games against the Spartans.

Hardaway never quite blossomed after the glimpses of potential in the second half of his freshman year (surely a cautionary tale for Aubrey Dawkins hype) as he never developed the ability to create with the ball in his hands and couldn’t pass or defend reliably, but he did parlay a 3-year career in Ann Arbor into a contract that will, in all likelihood, pay out at least six million dollars – if he sticks in the league, he could get in on the insane salary hikes for young players around the league in coming years. For a former three-star without interest from Florida, FSU, or the U, it looks great for Tim.

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I was at this game – NYK won in 2OT. They were even bad at tanking!

It goes without saying that New York’s impressive dysfunction played a role in Timmy’s regression as a second-year player. Between an owner known for torpedoing every hint of continuity and progress in the organization, Phil Jackson – who believes that three-point shooting is overrated (and is wedded to an archaic offensive strategy reliant on superstars) – running personnel, and a rookie head coach, it was a tough environment in which to thrive. Add in an ill-advised godfather offer to retain Carmelo Anthony in free agency last summer, the loss of Tyson Chandler to Dallas, and the eventual asset dump with the J.R. Smith / Iman Shumpert trade, and it was chaotic. Once Anthony was injured, it became even worse – to the point where the Knicks were putting the worst product of any team in the league on the floor.

In all fairness, Hardaway was a part of the disaster. As a microcosm, there was the game against Orlando – the third-last of the year – when Timmy shot 4-16 from the field (for just thirteen points) but hit a stone-cold dagger to win the game, a game that helped push New York’s lottery odds down significantly. From SB Nation’s NYK affiliate:

The Knicks blew a 14-point lead with a wretched fourth quarter, and looked on their way to a miraculous come-from-ahead loss, when the tank fell off the rails thanks to the one man playing tonight with a guaranteed spot on next year's roster. Tim Hardaway Jr. emerged from a yawning void of incompetence at the worst possible time, scoring the team's final seven points as the Knicks held off Orlando for a 80-79 win.

A little later:

How bad was Hardaway prior to the final two minutes? Try 2-14 from the field with two turnovers, one of which he turned into an and-one layup for Orlando by fouling Tobias Harris on the other end. Fans of the tank, myself included, were begging Tim to take those final shots. Well take them -- and make them -- he did.

My one hope is that Phil Jackson can use these last two minutes of tape as a highlight film to sell Tim to some incompetent GM. Timmy is clutch. He's a killer. He'll get you the buckets you need in the fourth quarter. So pleeeease give us a couple second-rounders.

Turns out that a) Hardaway didn’t have a guaranteed spot on this upcoming year’s roster and b) Phil seemingly convinced a smart franchise to give up a precious first-round pick instead of assorted flotsam. With rumors of a feud between he and Carmelo Anthony – which makes sense, given how much they both love to shoot – (though they both deny it), and the generally abject state of the Knicks’ roster, it’s a good time for a fresh start. Here’s his introductory presser in Atlanta, with his new head coach praising John Beilein’s tutelage in the first minute.

And so now, he has a shot to step in and play rotation minutes for the team that won the East by seven games last season. Former San Antonio center Thiago Splitter is in via trade and energy 3-and-D wing Demarre Carroll bit on a big offer deal from the Toronto Raptors, so he’s gone. Timmy joins a nucleus of 4 All-Stars (in a depleted Eastern Conference) – Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap, and Al Horford – and enters one of the league’s most savvy offenses, a callback to the spread-out volume-shooting attack he was part of under John Beilein. The biggest knock on the Hawks, in my opinion, is their hideous uniform rebrand. Going from the most generic to the worst jerseys isn’t an upgrade, but hey, that’s adidas. They had several good throwbacks too.

So now, Tim Hardaway has a much more manageable role: he – as well as an aging Korver, the bouncy Kent Bazemore, and Thabo Sefolosha (who most recently had his leg broken by the NYPD) – will compete for minutes at the two and three spots. Timmy’s been granted NBA relevance – the Hawks are almost definitely worse than the Cavs will be, but they’re a strong contender to make it back to the ECF – with a healthier blueprint for success; he’ll likely be counted on to provide microwave binge-scoring off the bench and, if his three-point percentage recovers, he’ll be valuable in that role. Like Smith and Shumpert after moving to Cleveland, Timmy will have an opportunity to shed some bad habits and hopefully grow into being a key part of a highly-seeded playoff team. Here’s to looking forward to the first game in May when he drops six threes in a half, or something.

[Hardaway – along with McGary – will be the first of this generation of Wolverines to play meaningful playoff minutes. As much of a curse getting drafted by New York or Sacramento (in Stauskas’s case) is, getting drafted by OKC is a blessing. They’re a true contender if everyone’s healthy. Can’t wait to watch Big Mitch team up with Kev and Russ.]

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“Sauce” Gets Lifeline from Philly, Escapes Sacto Quagmire

Stauskas? Stauskas.

Quite possibly the funniest subplot of the NBA offseason has been the random flailing and impressive incompetence in Sacramento. Let’s run it down:

• Last year, under a new owner – Vivek Ranadive – the Kings take Stauskas with the #8 pick after having taken a SG (Ben McLemore) the year previously.
• Sacramento essentially tells Isaiah Thomas (no, not that Isiah Thomas) to hit the road, and instead spends the money for a starting PG on a considerable downgrade – UCLA product Darren Collison (WHAT’S GOOD, DARREN).
• The Kings get out to a hot start, their star player DeMarcus Cousins gets injured and, in response, Vivek fires Mike Malone, the head coach to best cooperate with Cousins during his tenure in Sacramento.
• They hire Ty Corbin to be an interim for more than half of a season, but he was so much of a retread that they fire him and hire former Nuggets coach George Karl to run things.
• Sacramento’s GM flees to Denver and hires Malone.
• Before the ‘15 Draft, rumors fly that Karl is trying to force Cousins out, and that Cousins in his Lakers would want a trade to the LA Lakers. Lots of chatter about potential trades before the draft, but LA takes D’Angelo Russell (WHAT’S GOOD, D’ANGELO) and SAC takes Willie Cauley-Stein, a prospect who doesn’t fit well (but one that I like a lot).
• Vivek seemingly demands a splashy free agent signing – the temperamental (and probably washed) Rajon Rondo, last seen getting effectively cut by Dallas for insubordination, is a top target, as are Monta Ellis and Wes Matthews. None of these guys are actually splashy.
• To make room for those free agents, the Kings dump the salary of two veterans in a trade to Philadelphia, who demand Stauskas and a first-round pick in response (with the right to swap first round picks in two other drafts as well).
• It’s ongoing, but Sacramento has almost definitely pried the unenviable “most self-destructive” franchise label from New York or Los Angeles. At least the team didn’t get sold to Seattle.

To put it bluntly, Vivek is much more well-liked than Dave Brandon was, but he’s no less harmful to the Kings than Brandon was to Michigan football. Nik picked up a snazzy nickname in Sacramento (we have a t-shirt!), but otherwise, his rookie year was essentially a waste.

I’ll write more on Philadelphia’s grand macro plan to exploit every market inefficiency in the modern NBA a little bit later, but for them, this is a good move. They had room to take on dead salary (and still have more!), get future assets in the form of draft picks, and get a young, unproven former lottery pick who just had an awful season after being thrown into the fray of a toxic situation on a bad team. Stauskas is a high-upside acquisition with virtually no cost and – if Philadelphia really did like Nik before the draft last summer – the Sixers could afford to develop him with an unparalleled access to significant playing time.

Stauskas shot 21-40 from the left corner three in his standout sophomore season; he shot 2-13 from that corner last year in Sacramento. It almost goes without saying that his defense made him essentially unplayable, especially because he wasn’t good enough to make up for it on the other end with his scoring. It was an eventful year for the deep NBA obsessives – look at this hilarious-in-hindsight all-access piece from Grantland or the genesis of the Sauce Castillo phenomenon – but Stauskas failed to make a positive impact on the floor his rookie year.

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But now he’s in Philly – the NBA’s land of misfit toys, the type of place where a fanatical commodification of players will (theoretically) spawn a legitimate contender from the ashes of a perpetually – and insistently – downtrodden franchise hell-bent on maximizing the boom-or-bust nature of the NBA Draft for the foreseeable future. It’s a high-stakes gamble, and one that’s been executed so stubbornly that it’s almost become a referendum on the rules and agreements that hold the NBA in place. For a team stuck in the late lottery purgatory of “franchises without discernible advantages in luring free agents,” it wasn’t a bad gamble. But it’s been ridiculous.

Philadelphia GM and Daryl Morey (the NBA’s most vociferous moneyball guy) acolyte Sam Hinkie started by trading Jrue Holiday and a pick for the rights to an injured Nerlens Noel – in subsequent drafts, he doubled down by selecting the talented-but-injury-prone center Joel Embiid and Duke star Jahlil Okafor. All are mutually exclusive in the long run, but chances are that Hinkie will sell one or more at an opportune time to make a profit on the transaction. They took a Croatian wing (Dario Saric) a few years ago in the lottery and he’s still in Europe – fine by the Sixers, who don’t need him for wins, but don’t mind the free professional development elsewhere.

They sold reasonably promising players – Michael Carter-Williams and K.J. McDaniels – for future assets (more draft picks) at the last trade deadline and definitely got a steal in the three-way deal for MCW. The Sixers have no starting-quality guards. They tap the most low-cost avenues of any team to scrounge up some dirt-cheap contributors who could theoretically parlay their athleticism into basketball skills. That’s why they picked up GRIII off waivers, and that’s why he’s no longer in Philly. In theory, high roster turnover will lead to more chances at hitting on one of those rare second-round stars. Hinkie collects second-rounders like pokemon cards and runs his franchise like a 15-year old playing 2K association mode without his ADD medication. It’s fascinating, and possibly revolutionary.

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Congrats on the national title, Jahlil. Have fun losing a LOT these next few years.

Fortunately, Nik is not a centerpiece of this insane experiment. Stauskas will be going from 15 minutes and four shots per game to (potentially) a starting role – as many minutes and shots as he can handle. I feared that Nik would be shoehorned into a 3-and-D archetype – which had no chance of working well, and which is sort of what happened in Sacramento – but now that he’s competing for possessions with the likes of Ish Smith, Tony Wroten, Robert Covington, and Jerami Grant, Nik will get a chance to hone his pick-and-roll game (which was legitimately great at Michigan) with promising young bigs. He’ll shoot plenty and hopefully game experience fast-tracks his development a bit.

The consensus among NBA people on Stauskas seems pretty split – those that really liked him as a prospect hold out hope for a downright good player in a few years are in disagreement with those who can’t get past his horrendous rookie year in Sacramento. Fortunately, Philadelphia gets him away from the mess in Sacramento and gives him a new lease on his career – and most Sixers fans consider this deal to be a robbery. Hinkie bought Stauskas for 25 cents on the dollar and potentially got a few future first round picks for his trouble.

Philly fans seem excited for the trade (mostly because Hinkie got Stauskas for essentially nothing. Here’s what they see as the on-court fit:

Is Stauskas a real game-changer? Maybe not. But with Brett Brown's development staff and the opportunities to succeed and fail this Sixers team will afford him, there does not exist a better situation for Nik to figure it out. This is exactly the kind of thing the Sixers should be doing. As for the rest of the players, Stauskas gives Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel another outside shooter to kick it to, next to Robert Covington and Hollis Thompson. Whether they plug Nik in at the 1 or 2 remains to be seen, but he's a talented young kid (far younger than Delon Wright and Jerian Grant) with tons of ability, who was acquired for nothing.

Philly desperately needs backcourt bodies, but they need shooting more – hopefully Stauskas can space the floor enough to keep the defense honest and generate inherent opportunities from the defense’s gravity towards Noel / Okafor. At the very least, he’ll get an extended audition with a team that wants him there – which is more than Sacto could have provided.

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via BTN

Both former Wolverines are moving into better situations after recently being traded, although the two circumstances couldn’t be different: Timmy Hardaway was acquired to bolster what would ideally be a title contender (though I personally think Atlanta’s too far away) – Sauce Castillo is going to the weirdest place in the NBA to play a lot of minutes while losing a lot of games in the process. Philadelphia’s a sneakily entertaining team, the Hawks are a precise, well-oriented machine, the hypothetical “team ball” answer to the star-dominated landscape of the current NBA. Regardless of what happens from here with those two franchises, let’s hope Timmy and Nik succeed in their new environments.

Obligatory highlights:

Timmy vs. OSU

Nik vs. MSU (2x)