Fittingly, the same week Pablo Torre described in ESPN The Magazine how Sam Hinkie is rebuilding the Philadelphia 76ers, the team's general manager and president of basketball operations made perhaps the boldest of his many moves since arriving in Philadelphia two years ago.
Just before Thursday's trade deadline, the Sixers sent their starting point guard and the reigning rookie of the year, Michael Carter-Williams, to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team trade that netted the Sixers only a draft pick. Carter-Williams, one of Hinkie's first two picks in Philadelphia, was the kind of young talent around whom the team was supposedly building, making the deal challenging to explain -- but also revealing to explore.
Swinging for the fences
If I had to interpret Hinkie's philosophy -- something Torre did so eloquently -- I would point to a quote from the news conference introducing him to the local media.
"Just beating the average by a bit, in a pool of 30 competitors," Hinkie told reporters, "will serve only to disappoint us in the long run."
That's a variation on a theme Hinkie and his former boss, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, have repeated over the years. In order to win a championship, they believe, front offices must have a great appetite for risk. And the Carter-Williams trade was certainly a fascinating one. In return for their young point guard, the Sixers got from the Phoenix Suns what was almost certainly the most valuable draft pick to change hands at the trade deadline: the Lakers' protected first-round pick.
Projecting the Lakers' pick
This season, the Lakers will keep their pick if it lands in the top five, a likely scenario. My simulations of the remainder of the season (factoring in lottery odds) have the Lakers keeping it nearly 84 percent of the time, with a small chance of the pick falling to sixth (14 percent) or rarely seventh (2 percent) and going to Philadelphia.
Next year, the protection decreases, and the Lakers only keep their pick if they win one of the top three spots in the lottery. It's difficult to project how the 2015-16 Lakers will fare when half of their roster remains unknown, but using players under contract, the typical production from this year's top-five pick and the expected return on the team's cap space, I estimate they could be expected to win 28 to 32 games.
In that case, simulating the season 1,000 times yields the 76ers getting the pick nearly 80 percent of the time -- sometimes a top-five selection. Combined, factoring in that Philadelphia can't get the Lakers' pick in 2016 if it already came in 2015, here's a guess at the Sixers' chances of getting the pick at various spots in the next two years.
It's worth noting that I estimate a 70 percent chance Philadelphia lands a top-10 pick in that span, better than the 11th pick used to take Carter-Williams. Most commonly, that would be the sixth overall pick. Again, however, Hinkie isn't as concerned with the average as the upside. I estimate better than a one in 10 chance the Sixers turned Carter-Williams into a top-five pick in 2016.
I'd suspect that the 76ers, which ranked No. 1 among front offices in all four major sports in ESPN The Magazine's Great Analytics Rankings, performed a similar -- but surely more rigorous -- analysis before going for the Carter-Williams trade.
Philadelphia's possible upside
Projecting beyond next season is folly, especially with the Lakers having enough cap space to sign multiple max free agents in summer 2016. Still, there's a doomsday scenario here involving the estimated 18 percent chance the pick doesn't transfer either of the next two years.
Imagine the worst possible outcome for the Lakers' next few offseasons. If they somehow have a top-three pick in both 2016 and 2017, come 2018 the Sixers own the Lakers' pick with no protection whatsoever. There's a nonzero possibility that Philadelphia could end up with the No. 1 overall selection thanks to this trade. For the 76ers' front office, that made it worth giving up a promising point guard.
"Those picks do not move around much. It is almost impossibly hard to get your hands on a pick that at least has the chance to be a high-lottery pick," Hinkie said at Friday's news conference. "It's so critical, to get from where we are to where we want to go, for us to be willing to take smart risks."
News and notes
• Even with news that Kevin Durant will miss at least the next week after undergoing a procedure to reduce pain in his right foot, the battle for the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference is looking close to over. Without Durant, the Oklahoma City Thunder won their sixth consecutive game Sunday, blowing out the Denver Nuggets to push their lead to two games over the Suns and 2.5 games over the New Orleans Pelicans.
The rosters of the Suns and Pelicans were weakened in the past week. Phoenix faces the prospect of integrating Brandon Knight on the fly after making three trades before Thursday's deadline, while the Pelicans lost two forwards to injuries in Saturday's win at Miami. Though they are fortunate that Anthony Davis suffered no additional damage to his sprained right shoulder, he's still expected to miss a week or two, and Ryan Anderson will be out two to four weeks with a sprained right MCL. So even with Durant's absence, the Thunder should be able to maintain or even extend their lead. Oklahoma City is 9-4 with a plus-5.8 point differential in the 13 games Westbrook has played without Durant -- far better than either the Suns (plus-1.0) or Pelicans (plus-0.2) during this season.
• Kendrick Perkins revealed Saturday that he will sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers after agreeing to a buyout with the Utah Jazz, who acquired him on Thursday before the trade deadline. I don't expect Perkins to be a regular part of Cleveland's rotation. Aside from injuries and blowouts, coach David Blatt has used a strict three-man rotation in the frontcourt with Kevin Love, Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson -- none of whom deserves to lose playing time. Per NBA.com/Stats, Love, Mozgov and Thompson have played nearly 93 percent of all minutes at power forward and center during the first three quarters of games since Mozgov's arrival.
Behind those three, however, the Cavaliers were perilously thin. Fourth big Brendan Haywood has played barely 100 minutes all season, and when Love missed Cleveland's last game before the All-Star break and Mozgov got in early foul trouble, it led to 6-foot-8, 225-pound James Jones playing 30 minutes at power forward. Perkins gives Blatt another reliable option with size, which could come in handy during the postseason.
• Monday's big game sees the Memphis Grizzlies heading to L.A. to face the Clippers a night after coming from behind to defeat the LaMarcus Aldridge-less Trail Blazers in Portland. The win helped solidify Memphis' grip on the second seed in the West, which had slipped slightly with two losses in the last four games before the break. The Grizzlies now lead the Rockets by 3.5 games, the Clippers and Dallas Mavericks by four, and the Blazers by 4.5 games.
Remarkably, though, it's still the fifth-place Clippers that have the second-best point differential in the West at plus-6.4 points per game. Memphis can boast a plus-7.4 differential since adding Jeff Green last month, so there's a credible argument to be made that tonight's matchup features the next two best teams in the West after the conference-leading Golden State Warriors. The Grizzlies' powerful front line will be an interesting test for Clippers center DeAndre Jordan, who is averaging 20.8 points and 20.0 rebounds in his past four games.
Follow Kevin Pelton on Twitter @kpelton.