Spot on piece. As I’ve mentioned previously here, I’m as big a C’s fan as there is - have been going back to the late Cousy days. JB is a fine player, but he should never, ever be mentioned among the league’s elite. The Celtics will move him eventually because it will be extremely hard for them to win with him and JT in max slots, particularly with JT coming off the Achilles, which if nothing else will result in fewer minutes. As for Milwaukee, easy for me to say, but after giving the title team a year to defend, they should have pivoted by moving Jrue and Middleton or Lopez, restocking the assets account. Giannis would have been pissed, but they could have explained that they wanted him to have a title shot for the entirety of his career, not one or two years.
Remains to be seen. Depends on how much burst he gets back. He really struggled, understandably, getting to the rim when he came back. But he does so many things well. I’m cautiously optimistic he’ll still be a top 10 player this season and good enough to be the lead guy on a title contender. But no doubt the Celtics will need to be really efficient with their dollars in building a roster around him.
Other than the collective bargaining agreement paragraph—which is clear and useful—I found this a frustrating post that can't decide if the glass is half-full or half-empty.
The headline claim, that the Bucks failed to sell high, is immediately undercut by the post's own caveats: the "prices" here are strategically leaked quotes, not fills. The asset is enormous and indivisible, the market is thin, and most of those rumored packages were floated by teams and agents with a reason to move the market—the author even flags the Luka offer as possible ass-covering for Harrison, then turns around and marks Giannis to exactly that kind of rumor. You can't sell high into a bid you were never going to be able to hit. Scoring the Bucks against a quote nobody could transact on is hindsight dressed as portfolio discipline.
Then, a few sections later, the opposite error: Jaylen Brown is "about as clean a sell-high window as you'll find"—immediately contradicted by the claim that his trade value can exceed his impact metrics because shot creation is scarce. Those can't both carry weight. The sell-high call needs the box score to be a mirage the market will overpay for; the scarcity hedge needs it not to be. The author commits to both answers in adjacent paragraphs.
The LaMelo Ball section is backwards—Minnesota is short vol in the deal, not long. They sold a put on their own performance to Charlotte via the swaps and the unprotected 2033 pick. They may well increase their expected wins, but the protection they gave away pays off worst in exactly the state where they'd most want their own picks back: the swaps convey precisely when Edwards bolts or LaMelo breaks down or the season otherwise craters. That's not diversifying variance, it's stacking it. The "long volatility" position here belongs to Charlotte.
Finally, the Garnett section is outcome-based analysis in an otherwise process-oriented column. It's a sample of one—selected on the fact that it won, which is the very reasoning the author flags as suspect one sentence later—and it highlights that fact. Where's the analysis of the aging-star-for-depth deals that cratered?
Nate left himself open to criticism such as yours by including the Luka rumor and alluding to others. But there is zero question - zero - that the package would have been heftier two years ago - before he turned 30, before the contract extension became a big issue, before the games missed became a pattern. I wouldn’t say it’s hindsight. There was no shortage of people calling for the Bucks to do exactly that two years ago.
I don't disagree (although it was written by Joseph George, not Nate Silver), but my complaint is the column took both sides. I don't mind stuff I disagree with, I just want there to be enough clarity to agree or disagree.
And there is some hindsight. Trading Giannis after a 58-win season due to a first-round playoff loss might have thrown away a championship or two. Yes, there would have been vastly more value received, but perhaps a net loss of championship opportunity.
Fair point on the writing of the Bucks portion. I think Joseph (and thanks for pointing out my error) got stuck because he had no factual support for the idea that the Bucks would have gotten more a couple of years ago. Rather than taking the path he did, he could have just stated it as a given. There is no reason why it wouldn’t be. I’m probably being dense, but I’m not getting what you see as a contradiction between the Giannis section and the JB section. They seem to me to involve different issues.
As a Bucks fan, I am still processing this. Putting Portis in the trade is what I don't get, unless there was a technical contract issue. Personally, I would find a way to drop Turner, who seems to not be able to do much without Giannis next to him.
This is hard to swallow though. It seems to me that all of the rules related to contracts and salary caps created an environment where, for the Bucks to deliver a complimentary team around Giannis, they had to completely mortgage their future. In a way, this is just as disturbing as tanking. You have a team that did everything to satisfy their star and to bring a title to Milwaukee again and it's still doesn't seem to have worked out.
The Celtics issue is a coaching issue: an all-3s offense falls apart under pressure unless the 3 point shooters are generational (eg Steph). Brown and Tatum both don’t quite shoot and playmake under pressure well enough to overperform
It’s a high mean high variance strategy per possession. It works out well over a long season, but when you’re trying to protect a lead down the stretch you should be trying to lower the variance by getting something each time you have the ball. I love the Celtics — as I have since the ‘60s — but I’ve seen too many blown leads.
Spot on piece. As I’ve mentioned previously here, I’m as big a C’s fan as there is - have been going back to the late Cousy days. JB is a fine player, but he should never, ever be mentioned among the league’s elite. The Celtics will move him eventually because it will be extremely hard for them to win with him and JT in max slots, particularly with JT coming off the Achilles, which if nothing else will result in fewer minutes. As for Milwaukee, easy for me to say, but after giving the title team a year to defend, they should have pivoted by moving Jrue and Middleton or Lopez, restocking the assets account. Giannis would have been pissed, but they could have explained that they wanted him to have a title shot for the entirety of his career, not one or two years.
The problem is I’m not sure JT should be mentioned in that category either.
Remains to be seen. Depends on how much burst he gets back. He really struggled, understandably, getting to the rim when he came back. But he does so many things well. I’m cautiously optimistic he’ll still be a top 10 player this season and good enough to be the lead guy on a title contender. But no doubt the Celtics will need to be really efficient with their dollars in building a roster around him.
Other than the collective bargaining agreement paragraph—which is clear and useful—I found this a frustrating post that can't decide if the glass is half-full or half-empty.
The headline claim, that the Bucks failed to sell high, is immediately undercut by the post's own caveats: the "prices" here are strategically leaked quotes, not fills. The asset is enormous and indivisible, the market is thin, and most of those rumored packages were floated by teams and agents with a reason to move the market—the author even flags the Luka offer as possible ass-covering for Harrison, then turns around and marks Giannis to exactly that kind of rumor. You can't sell high into a bid you were never going to be able to hit. Scoring the Bucks against a quote nobody could transact on is hindsight dressed as portfolio discipline.
Then, a few sections later, the opposite error: Jaylen Brown is "about as clean a sell-high window as you'll find"—immediately contradicted by the claim that his trade value can exceed his impact metrics because shot creation is scarce. Those can't both carry weight. The sell-high call needs the box score to be a mirage the market will overpay for; the scarcity hedge needs it not to be. The author commits to both answers in adjacent paragraphs.
The LaMelo Ball section is backwards—Minnesota is short vol in the deal, not long. They sold a put on their own performance to Charlotte via the swaps and the unprotected 2033 pick. They may well increase their expected wins, but the protection they gave away pays off worst in exactly the state where they'd most want their own picks back: the swaps convey precisely when Edwards bolts or LaMelo breaks down or the season otherwise craters. That's not diversifying variance, it's stacking it. The "long volatility" position here belongs to Charlotte.
Finally, the Garnett section is outcome-based analysis in an otherwise process-oriented column. It's a sample of one—selected on the fact that it won, which is the very reasoning the author flags as suspect one sentence later—and it highlights that fact. Where's the analysis of the aging-star-for-depth deals that cratered?
Nate left himself open to criticism such as yours by including the Luka rumor and alluding to others. But there is zero question - zero - that the package would have been heftier two years ago - before he turned 30, before the contract extension became a big issue, before the games missed became a pattern. I wouldn’t say it’s hindsight. There was no shortage of people calling for the Bucks to do exactly that two years ago.
I don't disagree (although it was written by Joseph George, not Nate Silver), but my complaint is the column took both sides. I don't mind stuff I disagree with, I just want there to be enough clarity to agree or disagree.
And there is some hindsight. Trading Giannis after a 58-win season due to a first-round playoff loss might have thrown away a championship or two. Yes, there would have been vastly more value received, but perhaps a net loss of championship opportunity.
Fair point on the writing of the Bucks portion. I think Joseph (and thanks for pointing out my error) got stuck because he had no factual support for the idea that the Bucks would have gotten more a couple of years ago. Rather than taking the path he did, he could have just stated it as a given. There is no reason why it wouldn’t be. I’m probably being dense, but I’m not getting what you see as a contradiction between the Giannis section and the JB section. They seem to me to involve different issues.
lol Nate didnt write this
As a Bucks fan, I am still processing this. Putting Portis in the trade is what I don't get, unless there was a technical contract issue. Personally, I would find a way to drop Turner, who seems to not be able to do much without Giannis next to him.
This is hard to swallow though. It seems to me that all of the rules related to contracts and salary caps created an environment where, for the Bucks to deliver a complimentary team around Giannis, they had to completely mortgage their future. In a way, this is just as disturbing as tanking. You have a team that did everything to satisfy their star and to bring a title to Milwaukee again and it's still doesn't seem to have worked out.
The Celtics issue is a coaching issue: an all-3s offense falls apart under pressure unless the 3 point shooters are generational (eg Steph). Brown and Tatum both don’t quite shoot and playmake under pressure well enough to overperform
It’s a high mean high variance strategy per possession. It works out well over a long season, but when you’re trying to protect a lead down the stretch you should be trying to lower the variance by getting something each time you have the ball. I love the Celtics — as I have since the ‘60s — but I’ve seen too many blown leads.