WakeupWithoutTheKing

We have our first blockbuster trade of the UPL Basketball season.

Lebron James going to the Milwaukee Bricks
Joakim Noah and Eric Gordon to Stephan, who will also have to rename his fantasy team. I've suggested WakeupWithoutTheKing as an option.

This will either be the most brilliant or the most idiotic trade in the history of the UPL.

Let's break it down.

LeBron, typical: 29.5 PTS, 1.5 3PM, 49.5% FG, 76% FT, 1.1 OREB, 7.1 REB, 7.5 AST, 1.7 STL, 1 BLK, 2.1A/TO.
LeBron, this year: 22.2 PTS, 0.9 3PM, 44% FG, 79% FT, 0.2 OREB, 6 REB, 8.7 AST, 1.8 STL, 1 BLK, 2.0 A/TO

The major difference? His FG% has dipped, especially from 3. And he's taking about 4 fewer shots (including 2 fewer 3-pointers) per game. Also, his OREB's have gone down quite a bit, as well. Why is this happening? The Heat are playing at a tempo at about 102 points per game, virtually the same as what the Cavs did last year. The problem is that there are more players who actually want to score (and are actually good at it).

So why might you want to hang on to LBJ? His peripheral stats are still darned good. You're picking up an extra AST, though you're giving away an OREB in doing so. Everything else is basically the same. LBJ has likely peaked statistically (since it's really hard to do more than he has done the last few years). But if you believe that the Heat are going to keep playing at 102 points per game (and not 110 PPG), then you may need to temper your scoring expectations. So in that sense, now may be the perfect "sell high" opportunity. And he's not quite as untouchable as he would have been being a 1-man show in Cleveland or wherever else.

Which leads to the 2nd part of the equation. Joakim Noah and EJ Gordon

Gordon, this season: 21.1 PTS, 0.9 3PM, 47.7% FG, 76.6% FT, 0.6 OREB, 3.7 REB, 4.7 AST, 1.3 STL, 0.7 BLK, 1.375 A/TO.
Noah, this season: 15.9 PTS, 0 3PM, 52.6% FG, 77.5% FT, 4.1 OREB, 13.9 REB, 2.6 AST, 1.0, STL, 2.1 BLK, 1.286 A/TO.

Now, these numbers may improve a little bit for Gordon, as he develops (and by all accounts, he's getting better). He's largely limited to being a scorer, for fantasy purposes. And 21.1 PTS is good by any evaluation. However, I'd argue that if you are only going to get about 4 REB and 4 AST, (both below average for a UPL championship-caliber team), then you need to get a little more than 21.1 points (unless he's a real 3PM guy). This is sort of my argument against guys like Rip Hamilton, Jamal Crawford or Jason Terry.

On the other hand Noah has been tearing it up, scoring reasonably well, and leading the league in OREB and REB, and being a definite asset in BLK. He's scoring about 5-6 more points per game than last season, and this is coming from 3 more FG attempts and 2 more FT attempts. The major reason? 9 more minutes per game. Personally, I'd be a little suspect that this will stay the case throughout the season. Why? There's some dude named Boozer that the Bulls paid a lot of money for last season that will be coming back in a few weeks. In addition to scaling back to something like 32 minutes, there may be some other things decreasing. Given Noah's team-oriented nature (and Boozer's black-hole-ish game), he may be deferring on those extra shots on offense, and may give up a few of those REB. We shall see.

Of course, the comparison to similar trades should be made. Last season, there were only minor rumblings when the O.N. Thugs and SuckMyDribblingBalls swung a major trade. The Thugs acquired Kobe Bryant, and send Monta Ellis and David West over to SMDB. At the time, West was ranked somewhere in the high 20's, low 30's, Ellis was ranked in the 40's (coming off injury), and Kobe was ranked 5th, I believe. And Ellis was trending upward at the time. So, the idea is that it would take roughly two 3rd round picks to get a clear first round pick. And since then both parties have been pretty happy with the results. Kobe's done his thing (despite gimping around the last half of the season in 2009-10), Ellis has gone nuts for a bad GS team, and David West keeps churning out games of 19 and 8 with high efficiency.

Now, given that LBJ is much younger than Kobe, in a keeper league, you'd expect a premium to what was paid for Kobe. I'm not sure if Gordon and Noah would be better than Ellis and West. Ellis is clearly better than Gordon (about 5 PTS , 1 more REB, about 2 more STL per game, and 51.1% FG). West is a little older, and has been unselfish (and let Okafor get more established), so his numbers of dropped off a bit this year as he's gone from 36 to 30 minutes per game. Noah is getting about 6 more REB than West right now (scoring slightly favors West). But I'm not sure that the margin between Noah and West will be as high as it is now, once Boozer gets into the mix. Maybe you're getting a slight premium to Ellis/West. But I'd argue that LBJ should be getting a heavier premium to Kobe than that. That isn't to say that this trade doesn't help Stephan's team. Noah is the sort of player that definitely helps you win - single-handedly keeps you competitive in 3 categories, about neutral in PTS, and is a plus FG% guy.

Would an open market for LBJ have fetched more? Jeff - make sure that you're reading this next section, because I have a suspicion that you could get yourself 2 or 3 keeper pieces, which probably makes sense for your franchise. But I think that it would have. So in that sense (and I don't say this often), Jeff made a great trade. I don't know how many times those words show up in the same sentence here on the UPL Blog. So savor it :-)

I'd bet that C-Lauff would have at least thought about Carmelo and David Lee. Reasonable chance he bites on Carmelo and Horford. And he'd definitely move Carmelo and Collison. If you offer LBJ to OD, you can probably get D12 and Raymond Felton. Or Monta Ellis and Tim Duncan. Probably not D12 and Monta Ellis, though. From the O.N. Thugs, you 2 pieces out of Roy, Aldridge, Boozer, and maybe even Westbrook/Lopez. I'd guess that Robby would move 2 pieces out of Rondo, Z-Bo, Bosh, and Gay.

My prediction? Jeff plays this one savvy and moves LBJ again (maybe with another marginal keeper) and locks down 3 legit keepers that he can really build a team around.

Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated topic... Jeff, are you a Trail Blazers fan? They play basketball the right way, and two guys that really do it well are Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge.... and a guy with huge upside is DeMarcus Cousins. I really think that these guys would be a nice set of players to build a strong UPL franchise around...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)