The Athletic: If Memphis trades Mike Conley, it can learn from how these teams retooled

If Memphis trades Mike Conley, it can learn from how these teams retooled



By Peter Edmiston May 1, 2019 9
There are still so many questions yet to be answered about the Memphis Grizzlies — where will they draft, who will they take, will they draft at all, who will coach them, how will the revamped front office work — but one question will define, more than any other, the next few seasons in Memphis:

What will the team do with Mike Conley?

Choose to keep him — even though he’s strongly intimated to The Athletic that he’d prefer to leave — and that sets into motion one set of scenarios, likely coinciding with a strong attempt to immediately get back into playoff contention. Choose to trade him, and that sets into motion an entirely different set of scenarios, with outcomes ranging from mere re-tooling to a full-blown rebuild, all depending on the type of package the Grizzlies receive from whichever team ends up trading for Conley.

As this is something of a theoretical exercise, let’s assume for the purposes of these pieces that the Grizzlies will, in fact, trade Conley. What sort of value should the Grizzlies be searching for, and what sort of value does history tell us that they should expect?

During the season, the Grizzlies took offers on Conley from multiple teams right up until the end of the trade deadline, but none reached the level the Grizzlies wanted to receive for Conley’s services. Part of that was their self-imposed price tag, which was very high. Part of it was that the Grizzlies didn’t feel any overwhelming urge to trade Conley at the deadline. They felt better offers would come during the summer.

A reminder about Conley’s contract before we delve into the trade possibilities: Conley has two years left on his contract, which will pay him $32.5 million next season and $34.5 million in 2020-21. However, and this is an important distinction, Conley has what is termed an Early Termination Option (ETO) for the final year of the deal. That ETO means Conley can choose to opt-out of the final year of the deal and become an unrestricted free agent as soon as next summer. That could play a role in a trade, as teams might be a little wary of Conley’s ability to leave a year early. But even taking that minor caveat into account, after tremendous play over the final few weeks of the season and a full season of good health, Conley will be strongly pursued on the trade market.

In Part 1 of this series, we’ll explore the idea of trading Conley in a retooling deal. Part 2 will deal with a trade involving a full rebuild and/or potentially significant cap relief.

 

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If the Grizzlies think they can get a quality player or multiple rotation-level players in return for Conley, they could elect to go the retooling route. This would be the most challenging approach because the Grizzlies would be sending out the best player in a blockbuster deal, and you rarely get better (or even stay the same) the season after you trade a player of Conley’s caliber. That said, it’s not impossible, and there are multiple examples over the past few seasons that show how it can be done.


Clippers: (Chris Paul, Blake Griffin trades)

Chris Paul Trade:


Rockets received: G Chris Paul (opted in to final year of his existing deal then signed a 4-year, $160 million deal with Houston in offseason)


Clippers received: Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell, Darrun Hilliard, Kyle Wiltjer, 2018 first-round pick (traded to Atlanta, pick was Omari Spellman)


Blake Griffin Trade:


Pistons received: Blake Griffin


Clippers received: Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, Boban Marjanović, 2018 first-round pick (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), 2019 second-round pick.


Looking back to the blockbuster trades that sent Chris Paul to the Rockets in the summer of 2017 and Blake Griffin to the Pistons in January of 2018 can illustrate how to pull off retooling trades. In order to acquire Paul, the Rockets pulled some incredible salary gymnastics to squeeze in under the NBA’s limitations. It worked, and Paul helped transform the Rockets into a potential title-winner. Griffin has been less effective in changing the culture in Detroit, but the Pistons did make the playoffs this season, and Griffin has been healthy and productive, if a bit overpaid.


But for our purposes, we’re more interested in the Clippers, a team that not only remained competitive after trading Paul and Griffin, they actually made the playoffs this past season and are poised to be big players in free agency this summer. None of that would have been possible with Paul or Griffin still on their books. After several seasons of a solid core not quite getting to the promised land in the postseason (sound familiar?), Lawrence Frank, Jerry West, Michael Winger and the rest of the Clippers front office elected to retool their roster, and have thus far hit a home run in doing so.


In the Paul trade, the Clippers were sending out a talented 32-year-old player in the final year of his deal — and in fact, Paul only opted into his deal to make the trade with Houston work, otherwise he would have been a free agent. The Clippers did not have a lot of leverage and yet managed to get a very good deal. Beverley, Williams and Harrell have been key pieces of the revamped team. All three played huge roles in the Clippers taking two games from the Warriors on the road in their eventual first-round playoff defeat. Williams and Harrell will only make $14 million combined next season.


As for the Griffin deal, the Clippers managed to get an excellent player asset in Tobias Harris and an excellent draft asset in a pick that became Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Avery Bradley showed what he could do after being traded to the Grizzlies in February. Harris and Boban Marjanovic would end up getting traded to the Sixers and helping the Clippers get even more assets out of this trade. Again, conventional wisdom was that Griffin’s huge salary would be an impediment to a good deal, but the Clippers proved that wrong.


It is possible for the Grizzlies to find deals of this nature for Conley, but note what happened after the trades — the players acquired showed improvement and development, Harris in particular. Taking a chance that your team can improve a player from good to very good can help in generating long-term value from trades like this. All of a sudden, Harris went from being a pretty good piece on a bad Detroit team to being a near-star on a surging Clippers one, and now a big piece of a potential Eastern Conference finalist in Philadelphia. You’re trading away the best player in the deal, so if you want to remain competitive, improving the players you acquire has to be part of the calculus, as we’ll see in our next example.​

 

Paul George and Victor Oladipo (Brian Spurlock / USA Today)



Pacers: (Paul George trade, 2017)

Thunder received: Paul George


Pacers received: Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo


George’s scenario was different than Paul’s or Griffin’s — George let the Pacers know that he wasn’t going to sign with them in the next offseason, and gave them a chance to trade him while they could. Again, not the best situation regarding leverage, but the Pacers ended up doing very well for themselves. At the time, this trade was roundly criticized for the Pacers, because Victor Oladipo was, to that point in his career, an overpaid, under-performing guard. But that’s where the aforementioned improvement comes into play, as Oladipo turned into a fantastic performer in Indiana, increasing his numbers across the board and making two All-Star teams in Indiana.


Oladipo suffered a knee injury in January and missed the remainder of this season. Sabonis has played well for Indiana and has been mentioned as a potential part of a Conley trade to Indiana. The Pacers have managed to remain competitive in spite of losing an All-NBA caliber player in George, largely because they developed the players they received to make them better.


In any retooling Conley trade, this will be pivotal for the Grizzlies. The template for a deal like this typically involves some level of salary relief, a pick of some kind and at least two good players. There are certainly teams out there who could give the Grizzlies a deal like that for Conley. But can the Grizzlies turn those players into better performers? Can they identify them? Can they get the best out of them?


Nuggets: (Carmelo Anthony trade, 2011)

Knicks received: Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups


Nuggets received: Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, 2014 first-round pick (traded for Andre Iguodala), 2016 first-round pick swap (Jamal Murray)


This deal was a monster, totaling 12 players and three teams (Minnesota was the third team). I have summarized it a bit above, excising some of the less-important details. What remains is the crux, and it was — and remains — hugely impactful.


The Grizzlies are unlikely to get a haul of this size for Conley, who won’t carry the same value as Anthony did at this time. However, the framework of the deal can be similar, if a bit smaller. The Nuggets took on some intriguing pieces in this deal, with Gallinari the centerpiece. He was often hurt, but undeniably talented. Chandler was an impending free agent at the time and a highly-regarded rotation player. The picks were well-used, with the 2014 Knicks pick acquired by Denver used in a trade to get Iguodala, and the 2016 pick swap netting Murray with the seventh overall pick for Denver. Murray is on the verge of stardom and still on his rookie deal. Overall, it was a tremendous deal for Denver, even if it stung to trade their then-franchise player.


From this deal, the Grizzlies can learn the art of leverage and the value of finding the right young players and picks. The Knicks were desperate to get Anthony, and Denver was able to extract a good price as a result. Gallinari was 22 and the Grizzlies would love to find a trade partner with a similarly-aged intriguing player. Making a move like this allowed Denver to remain competitive for years after trading Anthony, with multiple 50-plus win seasons and playoff appearances throughout the early-to-mid 2010s.


What does it mean for the Grizzlies?

This trade, should it happen, will represent an incredible introductory exam for the revamped Grizzlies front office, led by team president Jason Wexler and head of basketball operations Zach Kleiman. They’re new to being so strongly in the spotlight, but there is no escaping how vital getting a Conley trade right is for the team’s future. In exploring these deals, the Grizzlies should take note of what they all have in common.


All of the deals involved acquiring young players who got better. The Grizzlies will have to identify players with legitimate upside and make sure the coaching staff they put in place is capable of getting those players to maximize their potential. Had Oladipo not improved, had Harris or Harrell not improved, those deals above would look quite different. Sabonis, too — thought of as a potential bust after his rookie season in Oklahoma City — came to life in Indiana. Player development, an area that has not historically been strong in Memphis, must improve immediately.


Those deals also involved draft picks, and in each case, the team made a shrewd selection with their acquired pick. Getting Gilgeous-Alexander gave the Clippers a massive boost this year, while Murray is one of Denver’s best players. If you can find a player in the draft who can make a quick impact, you can retool your team more quickly. It’s better to get the pick right in the long-term, of course, but finding a player who can positively affect your team early in his career is a nice bonus.


The Grizzlies have been averse to fully rebuilding. They worry that what happened to Sacramento and Minnesota — fellow small-market teams that spent more than a decade out of the playoffs amid full rebuilding plans — will happen to them, too. A retool is far more appealing to them than a rebuild. But a retooling trade demands that they get it immediately right. They rebuffed retooling deals at the trade deadline, thinking they would get more attractive pieces if they retooled in the summer.


Well, summer’s almost here.

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