Offseason Beat: Ty Lawson: Toxic Asset
Hello friends. We are officially in the dog days of summer but we had a piece of big news last night and Summer League is winding up. Check out Mike’s work as he was out in Vegas, and we also have Ryan and Doc checking in over the past few days.
It’ll be slow for the next couple of weeks but before you know it’s going to be go time. We’ve already started production on our award-winning draft guide, another reminder that there is no such thing as the offseason anymore. That said, this is a great time to think of bigger picture items with how you rate guys and plan for your fantasy season.
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TY LAWSON TRADED
It’s hard to talk about Ty Lawson without some context in regards to the personal problems he is facing off the court. We’re also a basketball website and my hope is that you guys already come equipped with common sense so here we go.
This is a great trade for the Rockets, who acquired Lawson for a pu pu platter of players and assets that won’t make anybody blush.
Rockets get: Ty Lawson ($25.6M over two years remaining), 2017 protected second round pick
Nuggets get: Kostas Papanikolaou, Pablo Prigioni, Joey Dorsey, Nick Johnson, lottery-protected 2016 first round draft pick
The Nuggets would be happy if either Papanikolaou or Johnson were role players on a good team, and they’ll probably get a fair chance at some point during the season to prove they can be exactly that.
In Lawson the Rockets get the point guard they’ve been hunting for despite Patrick Beverley’s ascension, as Beverley may or may not have the durability to be the elite defensive presence he was two seasons ago. Last year’s injury-riddled campaign was a cut below what he is capable of on that end, which negates some of his value as the perfect complement to James Harden – a defensive stud that stands in the corner and hits threes without needing touches.
Daryl Morey has seen enough up close that he probably knows how to gauge the durability issue, and luckily for him his squad needed to make a move to even sniff the realm of ‘contender’ status. Aside from a trio of big men they’re relying on with some injury risk in Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas and Dwight Howard, they don’t have the talent of teams like San Antonio, Golden State, the Clippers, Thunder or Grizzlies – and in the case of Cleveland they don’t have LeBron.
Morey loves the risk-reward play and now he can double-up at the position he has wanted to strengthen for a while now, all because Lawson’s value went inverse to his contract over a relatively short amount of time. It was just a few months ago that the Nuggets wanted a first round pick for the guy.
Same guy, same problems, just at an even greater discount.
The Rockets just inked Beverley to a four-year, $25 million deal and it’s going to be extremely interesting to see how they handle the question of who starts. Harden and Lawson are both going to take hits in usage whenever they share the floor, so the obvious way to limit this would be to stagger their minutes. There’s also Lawson’s primary issue of getting his mind right off the court and the necessary distractions that will arise from any successful pursuit of that.
Maybe he can navigate them and maybe he can’t. Would the Rockets take the starting job away from Beverley for the new guy that just nosedived off the court? Do they have a training camp and preseason competition? Would Lawson be ready in time for that? How would Beverley’s teammates feel about him losing his job if Lawson isn’t all the way up to speed or he’s not doing the right things off the floor?
It seems like Lawson has some decent degree of difficulty on his dive back into the NBA right now, so as of tonight I’m just not certain he’ll walk into a starting job. Especially when you can play Beverley for 20-25 mpg as the starting guard to stagger his minutes in an easy coaching decision, assuming that Lawson, Morey and all involved aren’t hung up on the stigma of coming off the bench.
Fantasy-wise I think the minute distributions and production for Lawson and Harden aren’t going to change much based on whether Beverley or Lawson start, and Lawson is going to take a definitive hit as Harden is one of the highest usage players in the game. Staggering the minutes can only mitigate that. Given all of his risks he’s a guy you hope slides until the later rounds so you can get proper ROI, but somebody you draft against is going to overvalue him.
As for Harden, I do think this moves the needle a bit. How much? There are a lot of variables, including Lawson’s injury history and off the court issues, but he’s too good on the ball to not use him there. On the other hand, the Rockets could improve on their No. 2 overall pace from last season. When I make my Bruski 150 predictions I’ll know the real extent of the damage here, and while I’m on the topic I have yet to figure out when I’ll be publishing the B150 review. Now that Summer League has come and gone this is usually when I break out the protractor and abacus, so I’m thinking you’ll see that in the next few weeks.
In Denver we’ll see quite a bit of hype about Emmanuel Mudiay and rightfully so – he’s going to play big minutes. It’s going to be quite an art to project his numbers with only 12 games in China to go off of after his high school career. Shooting, and in particular from the stripe, are going to be immediate concerns. I have a gut feeling that he’ll be overdrafted somewhere in the middle rounds, but he’ll be on my list of guys to really dive into this summer. Preseason action will carry more weight as we try to get a feel for how he will be deployed and how much he has been able to improve this summer.
NEWS AND NOTES
Marcus Smart looked like a guy that shouldn’t be playing in Summer League during his first Summer League game in Utah. Then on Thursday night he showed the downside in getting extra reps when he dislocated two fingers in a freak collision. It sounds like he’ll be alright for the opener but it’s certainly bad timing as he was rolling along in terms of development. It might also help his ADP and that’s not the worst thing from a drafting perspective.
Kyle Anderson took Summer League MVP and he was very productive and he will be very forgotten in about four weeks.
Speaking of the Rockets, they inked K.J. McDaniels to a three-year, $10 million deal. He’ll be an interesting player to watch from afar in standard formats.
The Aaron Gordon fractured jaw injury while horsing around is just odd and there hasn’t been much out there on it. Like Smart, you just don’t want young players getting sidelined during crucial months for their development.
On my podcast we’ve been doing power rankings and free agency stuff, horsing around (which is also just odd), etc if you want to check it out.
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