Bonn1997 wrote:Do NBA teams other than us trade unprotected picks? Serious question. It doesn't seem common for teams to do this (if even done at all).

Nets, must be a new york thing

Bonn1997 wrote:Do NBA teams other than us trade unprotected picks? Serious question. It doesn't seem common for teams to do this (if even done at all).

Many picks are traded with conversion options built within them.

I.E. Pick A is traded and is protected for Top X selections for Year 1. In Year 2, it's protected for Top X selection minus 5 draft slots ( i.e. protected up to 10 in Y1 and then 15 in Y2) If not sent to the other team by Year 3, it converts to two 2nd round picks.

The CBA is designed to guard against phantom trades and phantom players. I.E. to acquire Jason Kidd, the Mavericks ended up signing a retired but not officially listed as retired player, then using him as part of the trade. The current CBA has started to remove these kind of loopholes. Same with the "Over 36 Rule" where a players contract, if it crosses his age 36 year, can only be stretched out for so long. You can't have a trade where the asset dissolves into nothing. It has to, at some point, be a moved asset to another team or has to convert if it doesn't vest by some timeline.

There are pragmatic reasons to make a trade look more asset friendly than it is in reality. GM X and GM Y make a trade. The value of the picks going to one side is about two 2nd round picks. Instead they list it as a first round pick but both sides accept the odds of it vesting are close to zero. It's not much different than NFL contracts where the total money is huge, but the player can be cut after Year 1 with no further penalty and that 5 year deal is really a cost controlled 1 year prove it deal with team friendly option years. In so much as GMs have to sell the trade to each other , they have to try to sell the perception of the trade to their ownership, their fanbase, to the media and to their biggest critics. Saying you got a 1st round pick, when you likely won't vest it, the perception matters more than the truth of the matter.

Teams on a contender timeline could care less about protections. Usually they are basically selling picks because they are often so close to the cap ceiling. 1st round picks mean 2 years of guaranteed vested money for the rookie. Josh Huestis and the OKC Thunder is a pretty strong example of how teams manipulate around this ( He wasn't a 1st round graded player but was taken in the 1st round because of the handshake agreement that he wouldn't impact their cap by playing elsewhere but the OKC Thunder having his NBA rights.

Bonn1997 wrote:Good info. Technically though the examples you and Fish are giving involve trading protected picks not unprotected ones. Granted, the protection isn't permanent but there is protection. I actually didn't think you could indefinitely protect picks - then it would be possible the pick is never traded.

The NBA CBA and pretty much all CBAs of the major sports define how trades are processed. You must have some kind of tangible asset moving in one direction or the other. I.E. if a team wanted to send an expiring salary to the Knicks in a trade along with a pick to dump said contract, the Knicks just can't absorb the player and pick and send nothing back. This is why drafting foreign players is so appealing in the 2nd round to a lot of teams. If the player stays over seas, he develops on another leagues and teams dime, and his contract status in the NBA "tolls" ( i.e. Dario Saric did not earn service time after he was drafted but spent years overseas) and have no current impact on the team's cap. If the player fails to pan out, he can be traded as the bare minimum to process a "legal trade"

Because of this, you just can't trade a pick that dissolves into nothing after X amount of time. It has to convert or vest at some point.

Where a team is forced to move unprotected picks is the case of the Heat when they got Bosh and LBJ. Technically, those ended up sign and trades, so the Heat had to pay out picks to both the Raptors and Cavs, in order to comply with the Stepien Rule, the picks had to be staggered a certain way and clear a certain way ( i.e. a protection might defer the pick the next year, but if the Heat owe the Raptors said pick next year, then what happens to the Cavs right to a pick or compensation?)

Something, a player, a piece of the 3 million in cash each team is allotted each year, or a draft pick, has to move in a trade. A trade cannot exist and be legal to have a pick protection dissolve said pick into nothing.