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The Case for Trading Trout

There’s an important caveat to this exercise: The Angels are not going to trade Mike Trout. They haven’t been rumored to nor will they ever will be rumored to.  Trout has four straight top-two MVP finishes[1] and he’s the favorite to win this year’s award, per Odds Shark. More than that, he’s hands-down the best player in baseball, a generational talent whom the Angels are privileged to have in their organization. The rationale for keeping him makes perfect sense. But that doesn’t mean it’s correct.

The last time a hitter that led the league in Fangraphs’ WAR was traded in the middle of a season was Rickey Henderson in 1989 (Trout is currently tied with Josh Donaldson for the lead). Although the returns were, in hindsight, sparse for the Yankees[2] who traded him to Oakland, there was a litany of reasons for that. The Yankees were wavering on giving Henderson a new contract; in part because they thought he was in decline[3], and, per the New York Times[4], the team was in desperate need to pitching. Henderson also had a no-trade clause so he needed to approve any potential trades (which killed a deal with the Giants).

With that in mind, let’s consider what the Angels might get in return for Mike Trout. He’s on the second year of a 6-year, $144 million contract, per Spotrac, that looks great on paper. His salary rockets up to $33.25 million in 2018, but that’s right at his peak, when he’s 26, with the contract ending when Trout is 29 in 2020. Like Henderson, Trout has a full no-trade clause which could hold up talks with some teams though it’s tough to believe Trout wouldn’t want to play for a contender over the Angels. But even when you consider that, Trout would bring an unprecedented package back to the Angels, a team that desperately needs it. Keith Law had them dead last in his preseason farm system rankings with zero players in his top-100. They’re also dead last in the AL West with the well of talent beyond Trout having gone dry. Trout’s 6.0 Baseball-Reference WAR is practically triple any other Angels player (Kole Calhoun has 2.1 rWAR).

Think of what teams like the Cubs or Astros, both with stacked farm systems and in the heat of a pennant race, would give up for Mike Trout. Trout would hand the Cubs their first title in 108 years and solve a problem in centerfield for the Astros that goes by the name of Carlos Gomez. A team like the Mets would give up pitching galore and a team like the Yankees would gut their farm system so the franchise could have a superstar face attached to it again. Trout would vault a team like the Red Sox, Indians or Giants from contenders to odds-on favorites even at a gargantuan price tag that could potentially see young stars like Mookie Betts or Tyler Naquin go to Anaheim.

The Angels aren’t going to have a contender by the time Trout’s contract is up unless GM Billy Eppler works a miracle. There simply isn’t enough talent in the organization for it to be there by the time Trout hits free agency and leaves. This is the absolute peak of his value too, Trout is young and teams trading for him don’t have to think about whether or not they want to give him an inflated contract when he’s approaching 30 for another four years.  

The Angels can get themselves on the fast track to contention if they trade Trout. Whoever gets him gets the best player in baseball for his prime and likely becomes title favorites for all of those years and Trout himself gets to play meaningful baseball and truly be considered among the greats should he add a championship to his resume. This is a win for everybody. It’s a shame we’ll never see it happen.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

 

[1] That sentence probably should read “three of the last four MVPs” because that’s what he was deserving of and that’s what he would have had if the Angels were a playoff team in 2012 and 2015.

[2] They got back Greg Cadaret, Eric Plunk and Luis Polonia

[3] Henderson won the 1990 MVP and was in the league until 2003.

[4] This article is at least a seven on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.

Tim Duncan leaves behind an unparalleled legacy of winning

In addition to leading the 1996 Wake Forest Demon Deacons to the Elite Eight, tying their best finish since 1962, inspiring the most successful tank job of all-time, winning the 1997 Wooden Award and making the All-American first team twice, Tim Duncan spent his time in college co-writing a paper that would be published in a clinical psychology book called "Aversive Interpersonal Behaviors". It was titled "Blowhards, Snobs, and Narcissists: Interpersonal Reactions to Excessive Egotism" and discusses human ego and why we dislike it.

Has there ever been anything more fitting in human history? A Google search gives no evidence of Tim Duncan getting into trouble, having his work done for him or skipping out on classes at Wake Forest. Instead, it turns up a paper on the perils of a bloated ego. And for 19 seasons, nobody adhered to that paper better than its author.

Over 1,392 regular season games, more than all but six players[1], and 251 playoff games, more than all but one player, Tim Duncan was the basketball equivalent of a robot. He was the most “boring” superstar in the league with the most “boring” nickname whose teams won the most “boring” championships in the most “boring” fashion playing for the most “boring” city.

In a 2012 feature for Sports Illustrated, Sean Elliot, Duncan’s former teammate and current Spurs broadcaster, told Chris Ballard that “In 15 years, he hasn’t changed”, and was absolutely right. Duncan’s signature turnaround bank shot, his cradling of the basketball before every game and his wide-eyed hands-up pleading with referees stayed exactly the same throughout his entire career. As the entire league shifted, including San Antonio’s playing style and the team Gregg Popovich built around Duncan, the man himself stayed exactly the same.

Watch the game that is widely considered Duncan’s best Finals performance—Game 6 of the 2003 Finals against the Nets—and you’ll gain an appreciation for two things. The first is for Duncan himself, who finishes with 21 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists and 8 blocks, who moves himself into the lane for runners with sheer will, rebounds as easily as Mozart plays the violin and passes from the post like no other big man, dumping the ball into cutters at the perfect moment and consistently beating double teams with easy flicks of the wrist that find open shooters.

The second is for why the 2003 Finals were one of the lowest rated since before Magic and Bird popularized basketball; two small markets, a new rights holder that failed to properly advertise the product and didn’t have the right broadcasting tandem[2], and generally unentertaining basketball. Only once in the entire series did a team break 100 points and only one other time did a team break 90. Most of the game is broken down into 1-on-1 isolation basketball, the type that caused the U.S. to lose in the 2004 Olympics to Argentina[3].

That contrast between Duncan playing incredible basketball and the game around him being so drab is why it took so long for the collective NBA fanbase to appreciate him. His three Finals MVPs came in a terrible lockout shortened season (’99) and during a stretch where basketball had a dip in popularity because the play was so bad (’03 and ’05). Ditto for his two regular season MVPs, where he averaged a combined 24.4 points, 12.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.7 blocks over two straight seasons (’02 and ’03). Even the 2007 Finals, a series where he arguably should have won MVP over Tony Parker, was one of the least compelling Finals ever and had lower ratings than 2003 to show for it.

The collective We, the basketball watching public that is, found the things Duncan was good at to be boring for most of his career. He was consistent as hell, making the All-Star team every year from 2000 to 2011 and either the 1^st or 2^nd Team All-NBA every year from 1998 to 2009. His 15 All-NBA selections are tied for first all-time with Kobe and Kareem and his 10 1^st Team All-NBA selections are tied for second all-time with six other players[4]. He’s 6^th all-time in rebounding, probably the least fun to watch activity that can be done on a basketball court and 5^th all-time in blocks, only instead of emphatic blocks into the third row that make SportsCenter, Duncan’s blocks are often in the direction of a teammate, meant to start a fast break, much like the way people describe Bill Russell’s blocks. He’s not an incredible scorer despite being 14^th all-time in the category and when he does score; he does it in a way that the collective We does not find compelling, with a turnaround bank shot or something else of the like. He’s not flashy or egotistical—remember that paper he wrote in college?—and he’s never once shown concern for his brand, even after losing $20 million to a crooked financial advisor, doing some commercials but none of them memorable. I had to do a Google search to see if Duncan has any signature shoes and if so what brand are they. Turns out, Duncan had two signature Nike releases in the early 2000s[5] that didn’t make much noise and then signed with Adidas, where he remained, quietly, for the rest of his career.

When you take all of that into account, it makes a lot of sense as to why it took most of the collective We until pretty recently to properly appreciate Duncan. Because we now get our basketball analysis from a million different places from a ton of really good, smart writers and podcasters and TV personalities as oppose to SportsCenter and one really good, smart writer from a local paper, there’s enough room for the nuance it takes to appreciate Duncan fully.  The 2014 Spurs were the most appreciated championship team Duncan was a part of for a lot of reasons, including that they were simply the most entertaining by any standard, but the biggest was that they were simply more room for them to be appreciated than their counterparts from 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007.

But forget about the public perception of Duncan for a minute and take a step back. The guy averaged 19 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3 assists and 2.2 blocks for his career. When you consider that, while effective for the last five years of his career, Duncan had to save himself during the regular season and his averages went down, that’s more than impressive, it’s incredible. Take out those five seasons and Duncan averages 20.6 points, 11.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.3 blocks. Over his best five seasons (2000-2004), he averaged 23.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.5 blocks and in the playoffs he averaged 20.6 points, 11.4 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.3 blocks. There’s remarkable consistency there that stays when you look at advanced stats as well. No matter where you look in his career, saving for the last year or two, Duncan was a double-double machine, consistently putting up 20 and 10 or 21 and 13, shooting about 50 percent from the field with a PER near 24 or 25.

Defensively, Duncan was an absolute force his entire career, making more All-Defense teams than anyone[6]. He’s also 7^th all-time in Defensive Box Plus-Minus to boot. When you take the span of his career into account, there probably hasn’t been a better, more consistent big man on defense in NBA history. Hell, there probably hasn’t been a better big man in NBA history period.

You can make the argument for Bill Russell, but Russell played in a less athletic era when the league was made up of just eight teams with most of them adhering to an unwritten rule that you couldn’t play more than four black players at a time. Duncan has succeeded in an era where every player knows and takes advantage of the benefits of nutrition and exercise and more of them use steroids than anybody will care to admit and he did it for longer. If you were to switch the years that Duncan and Russell were born, it’s likely that they would have each other’s careers but ultimately, it’s tougher to do it in this era.

Russell has by far the strongest argument against Duncan, but let’s look at some of the others just for the hell of it[7]. Duncan epitomized unselfishness more than maybe anyone else. That, along with the rest of his previously established resume should put him ahead of Wilt, who was benched in the last five minutes of Game 7 of the 1969 Finals for milking an injury and because his coach couldn’t stand him (neither could his teammates). Shaq has better individual seasons than Duncan but Duncan’s longevity puts him ahead of O’Neal who had 17 years before becoming washed up and “only” 14 years at or near the top of the league. Ditto for Olajuwon. Kareem was bad enough at defense that he got made fun of for it in Airplane and I don’t think anyone would argue for Moses Malone, Karl Malone, Bob Pettit Barkley or Bill Walton.

If you had to pick a big man to play with, to win you a title, you’d pick either Duncan or Russell and I’d go with Duncan. In 2007, Jazz assistant Phil Johnson told Sports Illustrated “I’ve never seen [Duncan] get on one of his teammates…I see only complimentary things.” Not only did Duncan make his teammates better for every one of his 19 seasons, he didn’t rag on them or blame them either. That philosophy won the Spurs five titles, including at least two where they beat the better team if all you did was look at the roster (2003 and 2014).

More than anything, that’s how we’ll remember Duncan. Not as the boring guy with the boring nickname on the boring team but as one of the guys you’d want on your team if your life depended on it. A guy who made everyone around him better for 19 seasons, creating a juggernaut in San Antonio that persevered as over 300 teammates came through the doors, most of them exiting with a ring on their fingers courtesy of number 21.  

All stats are from basketball-reference.com or NBA.com unless otherwise noted.

 

[1] Not including ABA games.

[2] Brad Nessler was the play by play guy. I like Brad Nessler, but it’s no wonder ABC decided to make Al Michaels call the Finals for the next two seasons when you realize that Nessler was their best option for the NBA Finals.

[3] Ironically, the 2004 Olympics were the only Olympics Duncan played in.

[4] Cousy, LeBron, West, Jordan, Pettit, Elgin

[5] One of these shoes, the Air Max Duncan II, had Velcro straps and a zipper. It’s like the pre-internet version of the Chef Curry’s only way worse.

[6] He has 15; Kobe and Garnett are tied for second with 12 each.

[7] The argument of where Duncan ranks all-time is pretty abbreviated here simply because I don’t want this article to be too long (even if it already is too long).

Mozgov signing cements Lakers as laughingstock

On November 4, 1948, the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets 84-72, winning their first game in the BAA. They went on to win the title that year, beating the Washington Capitols and did the same the next year in the NBA, beating the Syracuse Nationals. Even then, years before their move to Los Angeles, before the 24-second shot clock, before anybody cared about the sport of basketball and before the Los Angeles Lakers were a brand synonymous with success and stardom, they were winning.

Between November 4, 1948 and April 28, 2013, the Lakers missed the playoffs just five times. In those 65 years, they won 16 titles and were led by giants, both literally and figuratively. 23 Hall of Famers played for the team, many of them identified by just one name. Magic, Kareem, Kobe, Shaq, Wilt, Elgin.  Even the guy who became the logo of the NBA, Jerry West, donned purple and gold. Their coaches doubled as a laundry list of the greatest; John Kundla, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, even Rudy Tomjanovich spent a year on the bench, however unsuccessful.

But after that fateful day in April of 2013, the day the Lakers were unceremoniously swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the Spurs, putting the cap on a miserable season of inner turmoil, injuries and failed championship aspirations, the franchise has fallen off the mountaintop and faceplanted  onto the rocks below.

Since then, the Lakers have endured their three worst seasons since moving to Los Angeles, each one worse than the last. Even so, we’ve been assured by the front office that help is coming. The Lakers have gone after Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony and LaMarcus Aldridge in free agency to try and get that help and each time they’ve been denied, the latter in embarrassing fashion. Instead of improving and trying to get back into the playoff race, the Lakers spent the past season parading a broken star through the league and letting him do whatever he wanted as if it was still his prime. Even if they were vindicated by a 60-point final game, keeping their top-3 protected pick and hopefully not damaging the psyche of D’Angelo Russell too much, the assumption was that, at bare minimum, the Lakers would try to improve again this summer. Even if there was no chance at all of signing Kevin Durant or Al Horford, the assumption was that there would at least be a meeting at which the front office would not further embarrass itself and perhaps set the stage for next season’s free agency bonanza.

Instead, as free agency arrived, the Lakers reached out to Timofey Mozgov. Exactly what Mozgov does for the Lakers outside of protect the rim, I have absolutely no idea. He was relegated to the bench during Cleveland’s championship run after failing to provide the same rebounding and defensive production he did the year before, but suddenly the Lakers have decided he’s worth $64 million over 4 years. They could not have come up with a worse deal had they spun a wheel to determine who to sign.

Even in a new cap environment, this deal is nonsensical. It’s not hard to justify previously unthinkable signings such as giving Luol Deng $72 million over 4 years or Jordan Clarkson $50 million over the same time period. Both are good signings at solid price tags. But Timofey Mozgov isn’t a proven veteran or a young kid with good aspirations for the future. He spent last season as the fourth center on a team with four capable centers, riding the bench throughout the postseason.

Perhaps Luke Walton envisions Mozgov as a poor man’s version of Andrew Bogut, that is if Bogut couldn’t finish a pick and roll, make a pass, play good defense or get a rebound. You know, all of the useful things Andrew Bogut does. More likely, Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak are both desperate to save their jobs by fulfilling a mandate to contend and somehow came to the conclusion that Timofey Mozgov would help get the Lakers to contend this season[1].

In any case, the real meaning of the Mozgov signing is that the shine has officially been rubbed off of the logo. Even if we knew this already, the signing makes it official. The Lakers aren’t a destination, they aren’t a franchise recognized globally as champions and they certainly are no longer synonymous with success and stardom. And yes, it’s possible to get it all back but it isn’t easy. Just ask the Knicks, who have spent the bulk of the century trying to get it all back after being contenders at minimum for most of their history.

Their fans, having been battered by years of being a laughingstock, by Isiah, Eddy Curry, Kurt Rambis and every miserable stop in between, will tell you that it isn’t all that easy to get it back. The Lakers are well down the road of incompetence and if they don’t turn around, it could be a while before they can get back to the top of that mountain.

All stats are from basketball-reference.com or NBA.com unless otherwise noted

 

[1] Exactly how Mozgov helps the Lakers contend this year, I still have no idea but I assume they didn’t sign him for the back end of that contract.