The Charlotte Bobcats Outlook
Folks if this was GM 101, we’d flunk the Bobcats for breaking so many rules.
There’s one part of this deal in particular that terrifies me for Bobcats fans and that is that Larry Brown’s fingertips are all over this move. Everybody knows about Larry’s neurotic episodes and his daily barks about trading half of the roster and falling in love with players on other teams, and everyone knows you need a strong general manager to stand up to him and run the squad. It appears that Charlotte do not have that strong GM and that Larry Brown is wielding a huge hand in trade discussions. His short term temperamental thinking could destroy the Bobcats …. well what’s left of them.
Every trade has three time frames of judgement – a short term, a medium term and a long term. The short term is most important for squads who are contending for a Championship. It also has a importance for non-contenders, squads who need to reach a smaller goal like home court in the playoffs, or a playoff spot or something along those lines. In this secondary level it gets judged more harshly against what future it has given up.
For a a team like Charlotte who have no hope of contending for a Championship, for winning homecourt in the playoffs, for winning a playoff series, and who have an awful foundation player wise, and who are unlikely to make the playoffs …. they are judged primarily against the medium term and long term because that time frame is more important to their squad.
In that light, this trade isn’t merely bad or very poor, it’s catastrophic.
The Bobcats roster – Raymond Felton, DJ Augustin, Matt Carroll, Raja Bell, Gerald Wallace, Adam Morrison, Boris Diaw, Emeka Okafor, Nazr Mohammed, Sean May and some hanger’s-on.
Does that roster strike fear into anyone? If I added an a top 12-20 talent in this league to that roster does that strike fear into anyone? Is that a contender? What does it take to turn that roster into a contender? Perhaps two of those players? Think about that for a moment before moving on and looking at the next stage.
Well, if they need these additions, how can they acquire them?
The Bobcats Options For Improving Their Roster
The Bobcats have seven contracts over $5mil per annum – Emeka Okafor, Gerald Wallace, Boris Diaw, Matt Carroll, Nazr Mohammed, Adam Morrison, Raja Bell. Six of those contracts are either poor or awful and lower the trade value of those respective players hugely. The lone other contract is Raja Bell and that’s a solid contract. They have no good contract amongst their better players on their books.
Most of these players are not bringing a big fish home regardless of their contract, but their negative long term overpaid deals make it impossible.
Therefore, the Bobcats have limited options in the trade market.
Charlotte now have no cap space for the next year and a half. In 2010 if they stand still they’ll have $7-8mil of cap space but that will likely get eaten up between then and now. Even if they manage to hold onto that cap space they will not be able to acquire a top tier player. In 2011 they have $40 mil of cap space eaten up by Gerald Wallace, Emeka Okafor, Boris Diaw and loose change. It’ll be even more by the time 2011 rolls around but they should be able to add a top level player that summer.
This summer Raymond Felton’s contract expires and he’s likely to make somewhere between the MLE and Devin Harris’ contract. It’s unknown yet whether the Bobcats will sign him. If he does re-sign it wipes out their 2010 cap space and takes a significant chunk of 2011’s. If he doesn’t re-sign they lose one of their better players and likely get nothing in return for him.
Therefore, the Bobcats have limited options in free agency.
Short Term
Now it’s time to cut back to the short term picture because this will further define both their needs and their draft opportunities.
Are they a worse team in the present tense from this Jason Richardson trade? No, it does not.
I can’t emphasize enough how badly the Bobcats are suffering from not having a second big men to play alongside Emeka Okafor and to spell him in the second unit. It’s causing a massive loss for the Bobcats on a nightly basis. Boris Diaw can fill that hole and do a solid job.
Raja Bell will then replace Jason Richardson in the starting lineup as their two guard. Raja is a good two way player who will be a solid addition to their lineup.
These two players are intelligent hard working veterans who can contribute on both ends of the court and fill holes on this roster. They will replace Jason Richardson’s contributions and the Bobcats will remain a comparable squad to their previous unit. They have not gotten worse.
This is going to be a scrappy hard working team orientated roster which competes night in a night out. This is a type of roster which most years could threaten an 8th seed playoff spot, and this squad will have that opportunity. This is not a bad team, this is a decent team and comparable overall to the team that we expected to see at the start of this season.
There’s also a further caveat here that the Bobcats could improve and that is Boris Diaw. He’s shown his incredible talents in the past in Phoenix when he averaged 13.5ppg, 7rpg and 6apg which he upped to 18ppg, 6rpg and 5apg in the playoffs. He is a very talented basketball player. He’s also a player who has suffered through highs and lows, and hasn’t achieved a constant level of production/contributions. He is a player who relies on a system and the capabilities of his head coach. It’s an unknown how he’ll do under Larry Brown. If Larry can get the best out of Boris, Charlotte improve in the short term, if not they hold ground.
Sean Singletary is a nice pickup also, he gives them a third point guard which they badly needed because they were overly vulnerable to an injury to one of their two young point guards.
Alright, let’s get back to our previous question of what options do the Bobcats have to improve their squad?
The Bobcats Options For Improving Their Roster
We’ve already covered the Bobcats limited options for improving their roster through either free agency or the trade market. That leaves one way to acquire high level talent and that’s the NBA draft.
They previous section needed to be covered first because it tells the story of how likely the Bobcats are to get a high lottery pick and the answer to that is unlikely. They’re most likely to have a middle of the pack lottery pick, or a low lottery pick if things go well.
Since both their best players are under contract and their young players (Augustin/the 7 footers/Morrison/2009 draft pick) are likely to improve, this situation is likely to either hold or improve – meaning a similar or lower lottery pick.
Therefore their options in the NBA draft are not up to much. It remains their best hand though, and vastly superior to their trade options and/or free agency options.
Conclusion
Let’s go back, near to the start of this post when we briefly discussed their roster and what level of talent they’d need to acquire to move forward. Can they acquire that talent? How do they acquire it? What odds would you give them?
The answers to each one of those questions are very negative. The truth is that unless they’re extremely lucky they’re not going to get this done. Even if their GM does a very good job between now and three years time they’re very unlikely to succeed. Think about if this team got the next Paul Pierce with the #10th pick in the draft, would that be enough? Their roster needs more than just good management, it needs extreme luck. I’m not sure even a Portland-Greg Oden (once in a generation type player) or a Chicago-Derrick Rose (9th worst team, win the lottery and move up to top spot, and get a perennial All-NBA point guard with the first pick) style piece of good luck is enough.
This trade handcuffs the Bobcats future and will destroy their franchise for the next few years. Trading Jason Richardson for expiring contracts would have been a lot more valuable for this franchise.
This is a catastrophic deal for Charlotte.
One final note: I’m amazed that they didn’t even get Barbosa in this trade.
The Phoenix Suns Outlook
This is a home run for Phoenix. This is an excellent trade for them.
J-Rich
Jason Richardson is a very good scorer, here’s something I wrote about his scoring in the past
He’s one of the best jump shooters in the league. He’s one of the most versatile scorers in the league – stand still jump shooter, jumpers off the dribble, high post, mid post, low post game, midrange game, can beat his defender off the dribble, can get to the rim and finish, can get to the line (although doesn’t do it enough), and can score on the fastbreak, can run off screens off the ball, good cutter, work the pick and roll off the dribble.
Richardson is able to get his baskets no matter what offense a team runs. He’s a low usage player who doesn’t need many touches to score, and he can play off of (alongside) any type of player. Richardson is a clutch shooter at the end of the games and plays well in big games (put the Warriors on his back in the final month of that season to get them to the playoffs). His versatility and athleticism makes him a very tough scorer to limit/contain.
His consistency, his reliability, his versatility and his prolificness are all welcome additions to the Suns offense. An offense which badly needs another high level scorer in order to help the changes Terry Porter has made.
Jason Richardson is also a high quality rebounder at the two guard, but his numbers seem to have slipped in recent years in Charlotte. I’m not sure if that’s a blip or a downturn that will remain for the rest of his career, if it is a downturn then he’s a solid rebounder instead of a special one.
Richardson is also a good defensive player and can play very good defense when he doesn’t have to shoulder the offense. His defense in recent seasons is comparable to Pierce and Kobe when they had no help, it was lacking and it’s an inaccurate picture on his true abilities on that end of the floor. Richardson is a good defensive player and can be a very good defender.
Jason Richardson’s ability to both finish on the break and hit the three ball will be very valuable commodites for the Suns. In particular, the Suns wings this year have done a very poor job of running the floor.
Two Other Assets
Phoenix also got two other assets in this deal – Jared Dudley and a 2nd round pick.
- The draft pick is more valuable than most 2nd rounders because the Bobcats are a lottery squad so that pick will be in 36-42 range and should be valuable for the Suns.
- Jared Dudley is also a capable player, an intelligent hard working combo forward who gives them a solid rotation worthy player.
Suns Players that left + Defense
Now what about what the Suns gave up?
Unfortunately the Suns lost their best defensive player (Boris Diaw) and their second best defensive player (Raja Bell) in this deal. The Suns are a mediocre defensive team at the best of times so losing their two best defenders could prove hurtful right? I don’t think so.
Jason Richardson will replace Raja Bell’s defense comfortably enough. The team will miss Boris Diaw. They’ll try to replace Diaw with Robin Lopez and Jared Dudley but neither are the defensive players that Diaw is.
This is a very good opportunity for Robin Lopez. He’s gone from a 5-10 minutes player to someone who should be earning 20+mpg, possibly 25mpg+ considering Shaq’s age their plans to sit him out on occassion. While he’s not the overall defender that Boris Diaw is, he is a capable defensive player and a very different one at that. Lopez brings great length and size to the paint, an extra shot blocker and improved rebounding presence.
Lopez’s defense is also a work in progress, so while he may not be as good today as Diaw, he could match him given time and possibly surpass him. What type of timeline that would take I do not know, but he does have legitimate potential on that end of the floor.
Dudley is more of a specialist than Diaw was, he can cover mobile big men or play smart defense on small forwards. Diaw on the other hand could guard every position on the court effectively …. but if Porter uses Dudley well he can replace a good chunk of the defensive conrtibutions Diaw made with Dudley.
It’s also worth noting that I haven’t seen Terry Porter use Diaw as well defensively as Mike D’Antoni did last year, so the difference we’ve seen this year pre and post trade between Diaw and Dudley will be very small if anything at all.
Conclusion
Does the addition of Jason Richardson help them? Yes
Is it enough to make them a frontrunner? No
Are they more of a title threat than before? Not really, improved but didn’t make up enough ground in the areas they needed to.
Does it help them in 2010 when they need to rebuild? Yes. Richardson is young enough to figure into that picture, and a quality player for that future team. He’s also a better trade asset than either Diaw or Bell. Lot of upside for 2010 as well as the present.
Is Steve Kerr doing a good job? No, he’s not focusing enough on the opportunities at hand. He’s trying to serve two purposes at the same time and he’s blowing both of them. Although this is a positive step in the right direction, but likely too little too late. The mistakes he’s made during the summer look like they’ve cost Phoenix a title window.
This is a home run for Phoenix. It’s all upside for them.
However it’s worth noting a lot more moves need to be done to get them where they’re trying to go too.
