While Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough said more often than not that he would prefer a young star player to help build around than a draft pick, by trading Eric Bledsoe to the Milwaukee Bucks, Phoenix got…a first round draft pick. (And a second, but who cares.)
Much to the chagrin of Suns fans, it’s not like the Suns will automatically get the Bucks’ 2018 pick this coming summer and that’s that. The days of trading picks with no protections are looooooong gone.
On the contrary, the pick has some very particular (and strange, on the surface) protections on it.
According to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7, the pick will only be transferred to the Suns in 2018 if it falls between a small window of 11-16. If it doesn’t, then it rolls into 2019 where it’s protections allows Phoenix to acquire it if it’s 4-16. If it still doesn’t transfer, then in 2020 it is protected 1-7, then finally in 2021 it is fully unprotected.
Suns could potentially have three of the top 16 picks in the 2018 draft.
— John Gambadoro (@Gambo987) November 7, 2017
Let’s first look at the protections: One might first see those and think,“what the? Why such a small window for the next two years?” But when you think about it you can see a legitimate strategy here from both teams.
Phoenix Suns
Of course the Bucks do not want to trade the pick if their season ends up going to hell and it somehow ends up really high. But the Suns – who already have their own pick this year plus very likely the Miami Heat pick – don’t really need a low pick if Milwaukee ends up being a very good Eastern Conference team. They added the late protections this year simply because if it’s in the back end of the lottery it loses a lot of it’s value as a trade commodity.
NBA2K fans think of it this way: Whenever you have a late first round pick, come time to draft you receive multiple trade offers for those picks, but what are the offers? They are usually multiple second rounders or just another first round pick sometime else down the line. I know that comparing reality to an NBA simulation is silly, but the logic is sound. A late first round pick for a player that was arguably an All-Star last season is terrible value. So, prevent that from being the case by adding the back end protections.
That being said, the pick has to be transferred at some point, so the teams agreed to a sliding scale where both it’s high and low protections eventually disappear, although the sweet spot initially would at least fall at the end of the lottery.
So what are the chances that the Suns get the pick this season, potentially giving them three lottery picks, more than enough to make some really serious trades to move higher in the draft, or acquire a star player?
To figure this out, I averaged the last five season’s records of those teams who finished with the 11-16 worst records in the league (I did not include the playoff seedings as this is too difficult to predict, although playoff appearances does drop a team back in the draft slotting) to see approximately what the Bucks’ record would need to be to allow that pick to transfer this summer, with the off-chance assumption that they too do not make the playoffs.
The records for the teams over the past five seasons at each individual pick averages out to with the high win total/low win total is as follows:
11 = 35.4-46.6 – 38/33
12 = 36.2-45.8 – 38/34
13 = 38.8-43.2 – 40/38
14 = 40.4-41.6 – 41/39
15 = 41.2-40.8 – 43/41
16 = 42.2-39.8 – 41/44
As of press time on the morning of 11/8/2017, the Milwaukee Bucks are 4-5, even with Giannis Antetokounmpo averaging numbers that would rival that of God if he came down and entered the league (well, maybe that’s a slight over-exaggeration, but he is killing it). Last season the Bucks finished 42-40, though in the Eastern Conference, that record actually placed them as a 6-seed. They lost in the First Round, but because they were a playoff participant they ended up with the 17th overall pick in the draft, which this season would place them one outside of the 2018 range to transfer the pick to Phoenix.
One would presume that adding Eric Bledsoe – and eventually Jabari Parker – would make the Bucks not only a playoff team, but selecting well out of the range needed to transfer the pick.
One can hope, though. Milwaukee has started out slowly, and while Eric Bledsoe is a marked improvement at point guard for them, he himself does not make a team a playoff team – at least in the Western Conference – and thus should not be assumed to suddenly make the Bucks championship contenders, let alone a lock for the playoffs.
Yet, Milwaukee is in the East and therefore seems to be all but a lock to at least slip into the playoff picture. So, if they do, what are the chances that the pick transfers to Phoenix in 2019?
Because the pick is protected after 16 once again, the odds remain exactly the same, only the Bucks should be expected to improve over even what they are this year. Therefore if the pick isn’t transferred this season, one shouldn’t expect to be transferred in 2019 either.
Thus, Suns fans can assume to have an extra first round pick from the Milwaukee Bucks in the summer of 2020 as that year it is only protected up to number 7 overall, and if the Bucks happen to be selecting that high with Antetokounmpo still on the roster, then something has gone extremely wrong in Milwaukee – which is highly unlikely.
Next: The Top-10 BEST Trades in Phoenix Suns History
In my opinion, there is still a chance that the pick can transfer this season as at the moment there is no guarantee that the Bucks, even with Eric Bledsoe, are that much better. Of course I presume that that they will be improved, but I will be interested to see how they do over the next two weeks to see how they all gel, and then again when Parker returns from his ACL injury around the All-Star break.
If it doesn’t transfer this summer though, then I do not see a scenario where it does in 2019 as Milwaukee will likely continue to improve, and they will presumably have a full season with Bledsoe and Parker meaning that the pick will transfer officially in 2020.