Brian Windhorst
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- NBA writer for ESPN.com since 2010
- He spent seven years with the Cleveland Cavs
- Author of two books
Multiple authors
In 2001, when Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant were successful, four high school players were taken in the top eight picks of the draft. Kwame Brown became the first star preparing for a professional career and ranked No. 1. Within four years, the NBA banned 18-year-olds from being drafted.
The NBA is constantly changing and teams are constantly copying each other until saturation inevitably occurs. Today’s trend often becomes tomorrow’s nonsense.
“Even 20 years ago, everyone was obsessed with the international prospects,” said one longtime NBA executive. “Then Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Darko Milicic came into the top 5 and slowed things down significantly.”
There was talk this week that the league was going too far again, as executives and coaches seized on the Jaylen Brown deal. They knew why it was happening and were also afraid of what it meant. Here’s what they said about the deal and other trends after a wild first week of free agency:
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Shams: 76ers acquire Jaylen Brown from Celtics for Paul George, 4 picks
The league-wide discussion was stimulated by the Jaylen Brown trade
The Brown deal immediately sparked feelings among people about the Celtics’ decision to trade one of their cornerstones, and the old-school versus new-school debate became more heated with each attempt. When ESPN’s Shams Charania broke the news of the deal, league officials were on the phone trying to figure out what happened. Social media erupted. Everyone was waiting for Brown’s next Twitch stream.
The conversation began six weeks ago after Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said while his team was down 3-0 in the Eastern Conference finals against the eventual champion New York Knicks that the Cavaliers should have led the series 2-1 based on analytics.
It was one of the defining lines of this past offseason, if for no other reason than that the league struggled to explain how the New York Knicks emerged as an unbeatable force that defied predictive analysis.
And now this trade, Brown for Paul George and draft assets, could become the defining moment of the offseason.
“Here we go again,” said an experienced assistant coach. “It was the 3-pointers and then the rest and now the analysis. We always go too far.”
Andscape columnist Marc Spears, who was inducted into the media wing of the Naismith Hall of Fame, compared trading a Finals MVP in his prime to the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
Yahoo columnist Tom Haberstroh, one of the best analytical writers of the last 15 years, pointed out that the Celtics were 36-6 in games in which Brown played over the last three seasons not play.
It’s the most basic statistic among a host of more advanced statistics that supports the Celtics’ decision to move on from Brown — not because Brown isn’t a good player, but because he isn’t valuable one at his $57 million salary, especially in contrast to teammate Payton Pritchard’s $7 million salary, for example.
Still, some league insiders remain puzzled.
“The league is full of strategy,” said one Eastern Conference scout. “Honestly, I’m not sure how many people who work in the league actually watch the games.”
“Yes, there are more college degrees in front offices now, but that’s only part of the picture,” said one Western Conference general manager. “The aprons force you to analyze all your expenses more closely and pay more attention to details to get the most out of each salary slot. The owners have put that in the rules and the players have accepted it. It’s all a choice.”
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As with any trend, there is often a first mover advantage. The Celtics used math to win the 2024 NBA title by setting all sorts of 3-point shooting records, with coach Joe Mazzulla, a stalwart advocate of a process over results strategy, becoming the NBA’s newest mastermind.
But the Brown deal, in which the Celtics appear to have relied at least in part on advanced metrics to make their decision, has some who view them as pioneers questioning how far they’re pushing it.
“We’re going to become baseball if we’re not careful,” said one Western Conference executive. “Where you have every defender between second base and right field and no one can get a hit and it gets boring.”
After winning the title, the Celtics were purchased by Bill Chisholm, who went to Dartmouth and Wharton and financed the deal with a complex group of private equity firms that used institutional money to make his record $6 billion purchase. There are several NBA teams with private equity investors and owners who made their money in high finance, but the Celtics are at the top of that pyramid and their methodology is certainly consistent.
“Let me tell you, they didn’t become fewer “We will respond analytically afterward,” said an Eastern Conference executive. “Private equity wants the answers to the test.”
Another interesting aspect of this trade is that the 76ers recently released Daryl Morey, the godfather of the NBA’s analytics movement. This deal is the first big move for new president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, a former college basketball star who worked his way up as a scout in Cleveland’s front office.
This deal has tremendous potential value for the 76ers as they give up George’s contract that will pay him $115 million over the next two seasons. Had they wanted to get it off their books in another deal, they might have had to use the same draft capital to do so.
As some league sources suggested, you could argue that the Sixers are getting Brown “for free” or close to free. Under these circumstances, Morey might have agreed to it.
What are people saying about all these centers being paid?
Speaking of trends, being tall is back in style, and the league is spending money on it.
League officials were amazed at how much money was spent on the centers this summer. The Lakers traded two first-rounders, two second-rounders and two trade players to Utah in a sign-and-trade for Walker Kessler, who they hope will be their franchise center for Luka Doncic’s best years, and then Los Angeles signed him to a four-year, $130 million contract.
“There are several teams that have wanted Kessler for a few years, and if it had been a truly open market, other teams might have been willing to do something similar.” [trade] Offer,” said an NBA personnel director. “But I would be afraid to make a big deal with the Ainges.” [Jazz front office leaders Danny and Austin] just on principle.”
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Another example of the demand for big men in the nascent age of Victor Wembanyama is Kristaps Porzingis, who has played just 74 games over the past two seasons. He received two years and $40 million from the Warriors.
Robert Williams III, who has a lengthy injury history, got three years and $44 million from Portland.
Mitchell Robinson, who averaged less than 20 minutes per game last season, got three years and $47 million from Boston.
Jock Landale, a career backup, received a one-year, $14 million contract from Atlanta. Moritz Wagner, who suffered a season-ending torn left cruciate ligament, received a two-year, $19 million contract as a backup in Brooklyn. And this list goes on. (Not all are fully guaranteed).
“I haven’t seen it even being talked about, but what the thunder has [Isaiah] “Hartenstein could be one of the deals of the summer,” said an East executive.
Hartenstein signed a three-year, $75 million extension with OKC, a slight annual salary reduction compared to his previous contract.
1:59
Windy: Mitchell Robinson is a “quality addition” for the Celtics
What is being said about the lower than expected salary cap?
Two years ago this month, the NBA signed its new 11-year media rights deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon for more than $77 billion, tripling the total value of the previous deal.
To avoid a sharp increase in the salary cap, as was the case with the last rights deal in 2016, when it rose 35% in one year and the Warriors were able to sign Kevin Durant, the players’ union and the league agreed to smooth the inflow of money and limit the salary cap to a maximum of 10% increases per year over three years.
Because so much new money was flowing in, it was assumed that the cap would reach 10 percent in the first year of the new money.
But when the league released its numbers last week, the cap increase was “only” 6.7%. The NBA had warned teams that it would be lower than expected, but that was even less than previously forecast.
The reason for the reduction was a shorter-than-expected postseason as the Knicks’ dominance shortened the Eastern Conference Finals and Finals, sources said. However, the overall decline is due to reduced revenue from local television.
The new national money has made the local TV problem less significant, but it is definitely having an impact on revenue.
This was evident last year when even the big Knicks agreed to a 28% cut in annual payments from MSG, a sister company. They took a $41 million pay cut last season.
This is repeated across the league and will likely continue to be a problem next season. The NBA is aiming for a resolution in 2027, when most local rights deals are finalized, and hopes to bundle them with a partner.
“It’s one of the most significant financial events in the league right now,” a team president said. “It played at least some role in driving expansion.”
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49254909/what-nba-execs-buzzing-jaylen-brown-celtics-sixers-walker-kessler-los-angeles-lakers-big-money-bigs-salary-cap